Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures

Posted by timothy on Mon May 16, 2005 02:07 PM
from the pokeable-damageable-angular dept.
Handhelds Hardware
evanak writes "For the past four years, I've been studying the history of PDAs. It's all summarized in a 10,000-word article on my web site." This history is also illustrated with some pictures and photographs, which are worth it all by themselves.
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

The History of PDAs in Words and Pictures 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • 1996-2005 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by donnyspi (701349) <junk5&donnyspi,com> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:12PM (#12546203) Homepage
    The whole part between 1996 and 2005 seemed to be a blur in the article. Other than that, it was a good summary with some interesting pics.

    • Re:1996-2005 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Deinhard (644412) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:18PM (#12546283)
      I totally agree. While the page title is "history of PDAs" the document title is actually "The Evolution of PDAs."

      While it could be argued that since the introduction of the Pilot 1000, PDAs haven't "evolved" much (except the merger with cell phones), there has been an explosion of types and functionality. The proliferation of commercial, shareware and freeware applications for the Palm OS led to the explosion of usage. Now, just about everyone can find an industry-specific application that is useful.

      Also, the form factor and specifications have improved dramatically as well. The transition from the Pilot 1000 to the Tungsten T3 is worthy of its own essay.
    • I especially like the movies. Those should last all of 30 seconds after people actually RTFA.

      The thing I noticed was the lack of mention (other than in the bottom) of the TRS-80 [old-computers.com]. It certainly qualifies as a PDA as much as the other early PDAs, as it has a notekeeper, and I believe a Real time clock. Since it was easily programable, you could use it as a simple scheduler.
    • The whole part between 1996 and 2005 seemed to be a blur in the article.

      Maybe that's because the HEADLINE reads "1975-1995".
      • How did the grandparent ever get modded up? What a silly complaint! The author of TFA wanted to present the historical research on the precursors to the PDA. He simply stopped at the beginning of the modern era. Nothing wrong with that.

        Besides, covering PDAs from 1995 to present would take more than 10000 words all by itself. Here's hoping he tries it, though.

  • 10,000 words (Score:5, Funny)

    by RangerRick98 (817838) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:15PM (#12546240) Journal
    Whoa, 10,000 word article! You expect me to read that? Besides, there's like 17 pictures on there. With the conversion rate, that's 27,000 words! Forget that, buddy!

  • Not PDA-friendly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tx (96709) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:15PM (#12546245) Journal
    Nice of the author to use a 950 pixel fixed-width table for his article, you'd think an article on this subject would be written so as to render nicely on a PDA.

    • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lheal (86013) <lheal1999@NospaM.yahoo.com> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:29PM (#12546424) Homepage Journal

      Sometimes web designers fall in love with their own creativity and forget that the content is what matters. It's surprising to me that more HTML coders (or CSS coders or autogenerators) don't do this the "right" way:

      <table border=0 width="99%">
      ....
      </table>
      With a percentage-width tag, the box forms to the width of the window and you avoid a lot of problems.

      Then, of course, is the question of why there has to be a box at all.

      • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:4, Insightful)

        by donnyspi (701349) <junk5&donnyspi,com> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:53PM (#12546659) Homepage
        CSS people know that table tags are only for presenting data, not for formatting a web page. Try DIV instead.
        • CSS takes stuff and splits it across multiple files. It also zooms poorly, as it often seems to make assumptions about the resolution I'm running at.

          Tables are fine for formatting a web page. CSS might be the perfect, but tables are definitely the good. And the good has been working and tested for some time, and the perfect is still a bit away from perfection.

      • Re:Not PDA-friendly (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Saeger (456549) <farrellj@@@gmail...com> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:56PM (#12546701) Homepage
        You know why newspapers are written in multiple columns, instead of flowing to fill the page? It's faster, easier reading when your eyes only have a short distance to dart to get to the next line.

        This is the #1 (valid) reason people still use fixed width designs when they could use a completely liquid layout instead. It's hell to read a 100% width article on a large monitor even after blowing up the fontsize. The preferred solution is to use use min-/max-width CSS.

        • It's hell to read a 100% width article on a large monitor even after blowing up the fontsize.

          By "it's hell", do you mean "I have to shrink my browser window horizontally"? Those of us who like reading 100% of our screen width can't widen fixed-width pages, but a page that respects the reader's browser preferences can be as narrow as you want it to be.
          • Allowing the client to specify formatting and layout was an OK-sounding idea that didn't pan out. Information producers want to control the presentation. In practice, it's not just the formatting that should vary from a full-sized monitor to a 150x150 PDA screen (or a pager), but the content itself.

  • Forgot One (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryants (310088) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:18PM (#12546287)
    Redneck Palmpilot [nlmotel.com].

  • fascinating... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by k4_pacific (736911) <k4_pacific.yahoo@com> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:19PM (#12546298) Homepage Journal
    Quite an interesting article. I never realized that Thomas Edison built the first PDA in 1906. It was called the Edison Automatic Electric Calendar. It weighed close to three tons and could remember up to five appointments at once.

    They've come a long ways since then...

  • Microsoft devices? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by David Horn (772985) <david@NOSPaM.pocketgamer.org> on Monday May 16 2005, @02:19PM (#12546303) Homepage
    You seem to have missed out the whole Microsoft / Palm battle, and the newest evolution of Pocket PCs, with VGA screens, 3D accelators and 624MHz processors.

    You can even get a Playstation emulator to run smoothly on the newest ones.

    • Re:Microsoft devices? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Aphrika (756248) on Monday May 16 2005, @03:14PM (#12546936)
      There is a complete lack of Microsoft stuff in the article which leaves what I'd consider quite a gaping hole in the history of PDAs.

      The reason is simply because when Microsoft entered the market, it was the first time a compatible desktop architecture and design had been ported across to a PDA. To a certain extent, they have also been instrumental in turning a PDA into a fully fledged, compatible and capable platform, adding Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, colour screens etc. Palm would certainly have rested on their laurels more if it wasn't for MS entering the market and we'd probably still be using black and white 2MB Palms.

  • Did anyone else read the news as "Please slashdot my web site" ?

    Sadly, the pictures might not be big enough for that.

  • Last paragraph (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aardwolf64 (160070) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:22PM (#12546331) Homepage
    That's seriously annoying. The guy writes an article on PDAs, then dismisses the past 15-18 years with one paragraph. What about the introduction of color?

    Here is the history of the PDA. I've spent 940 words on calculators, 40 words on actual PDAs, and 20 words on the massive changes that have occurred in the past 15 years.
    • The thing about history you have to remember is... the present becomes the past. We've read about how things in print are outdated before they even leave the printing press, but the author could just as easily have written this in 1995.
  • There are six words missing from this 10,000 word essay; "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

    It featured hypertext, multimedia content objects, a wiki-like browsing interface and of course collaborative document editing (which sounds bad but was mostly harmless).

    Sturdy, rugged, built to take all kinds of knocks, apparently easily recharged despite country (or planet, for that matter) and quite affordable. All pre-1980.

  • PC-6? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FlyByPC (841016) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:23PM (#12546347) Homepage
    The Tandy PC-6 would be IMHO a good addition. I had one in junior high in the mid-80s; it spoke BASIC and assembly. Not too impressive these days, but back then a pocket calculator -- with 16K(!) of memory, and which spoke BASIC was amazing. I even wrote a crude 3D version of "Hunt the Wumpus" for it.

    The On-Hand PC [pconhand.com] is also pretty cool. I bought one a while back. While it goes through CR2025 batteries like they're candy -- and two at a time -- the idea that you can program yourself a new watch when you get tired of the old one is very cool.
    • I still have my PC-6! I don't think it works any more though - I think the connector between the two halves separated.

      The PC-6 was actually made by someone else before it got the Tandy brand name. I think Sharp made it, but I'm really not sure.

      I believe it came standard with 8K, but there was an additional 8K module available for it. I also have the cassette adaptor to allow cassette tape backups.

      Now I want to go play the horse race game on it...I killed a lot of boring class time that way...
  • I have one of those sharp PC-1211 or similar model devices sitting at home. Being programmable in Basic meant that I could mess with it during math class to do my matrix transforms for me...

    And simple graphics capabilities let me make games too.

    Fun little device.

  • Missing Option: Psion 5 Series (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k (686170) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:40PM (#12546525)
    To me, the Psion 5 series [bioeddie.co.uk] is the ultimate PDA. It has a full suite of Office and PIM applications, compact size, a usable keyboard, decent screen size, and stellar battery life (35 hrs on-time with off-the-shelf AAs). Detractors might point to the lack of hand writing recognition, color, and MP3 playing, but I have absolutely no use or interest in those features (apparently, I am in a very small minority).

    Currently, there is absolutely nothing on the market that is remotely as good as the 5 series -- everything these days sucks in battery-life or keyboard or both.

  • Atari Portfolio (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rindeee (530084) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:46PM (#12546578)
    I had an Atari Portfolio back in 1990 (I think it was 1990) and I still like it better than any other I've had. Mind you, it's not that it worked better, or was more capable. It's more an issue of capability for it's day and the fact that it was made by Atari of all companies. It was just an amazing little device that I could use in place of my laptop at the time (a Dell 386/SX-16). I wish I still had it just for fun. What a neat little device.

  • Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2005, @02:46PM (#12546581)
    This article belongs in Wikipedia.

    That is all.

  • this disgusts me... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0110011001110101 (881374) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:50PM (#12546617) Journal
    FTFA - In his early 20s, Pitroda received the patent. "There was no contest at all. I got all the claims in one shot," he said. He shared the idea with colleagues at American Express and with Noyce, but neither pursued it. Lacking other investment resources, Pitroda put the invention aside. "I think it was too far ahead of its time. I didn't have the muscles to do it myself," he said. He moved back to India in 1982 and returned to Chicago in 1991, where he saw PDAs becoming commonplace. In court, he won royalty settlements from Casio, HP, Radio Shack, Sharp, and Texas Instruments.

    So not only did this guy give birth to the idea of PDAs.. but also to the idea of patenting something general and sweepingly broad, and then suing later when somebody who isn't too lazy implements his idea... wonderful!

  • Wikipedia Version (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2005, @02:52PM (#12546634)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assi stant [wikipedia.org]
  • Such as the AT&T "GO". There was a LOT of amazing stuff that came and went between '93 and '96. If you blinked, you missed it, but almost every one introduced some significant step in the evolution.

    And as others have stated, kind of glossed over the Palm/WinCE early days and eventual paths that lead us to now.

    I'd give it a "C+" and say "needs more work"

  • One notable absence... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Aphrika (756248) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:58PM (#12546720)
    The Microwriter Agenda [geoff.org.uk]. While the linked article incorrectly mentions it was the first PDA, it did have one very inetersting feature; built into the right hand side of the device was a 5-key microwriter input system which allowed for 'blind' input. This is a variant of a chorded keyboard [ericlindsay.com] - quite an interesting read.

  • What, no mention of IntelliSync/sync software? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mveloso (325617) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:59PM (#12546728)
    One thing that everyone forgot about is that in the early days of PDAs there wasn't a really good way to move information between your PIM (Personal Information Manager) and your PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

    For those lucky enough, you could get your secretary to do it. For everyone else, well, the process involved a lot of typing. And PDAs weren't really made for data entry, as you can imagine.

    Enter IntelliSync, by IntelliLink. They were the first (I believe) data synchronization software independent of the manufacturer or OS. In fact, they were often rebranded by the manufacturer.

    They made it less painful to synchronize with your PDA. As a bonus, it was possible to move between handhelds by synchronizing to your data from one source to another.

    This, of course, was before the Palm Pilot, which probably had the best information synchronization feature of any PDA to date. Instead of being an add-on, it was "part of the package" and worked really well. That, coupled with the small form factor and massive (for the time) data capacity made the US Robotics Palm Pilot a must-have.

  • Comment from the author... (Score:5, Informative)

    by evanak (796723) on Monday May 16 2005, @03:03PM (#12546800)
    Hey,

    Well, I appreciate all the feedback, kind and otherwise...

    I wish some people would READ it all before commenting. For example:
    - Per the article's headline, it only covers the really evolutionary years, from 75-95. So I didn't "miss" from 96-now as one person said here.
    - A few people said I should've include the Hitchhikers Guide. I did, read more carefully.
    - "You didn't include [x] PDA." That's true. The article only includes devices that truly pioneered some new step forward, that did something others hadn't done before.
    - "The Newton Rulz"... I'm not going to touch that one. Already wearing my anti-Reality Distortion Field vest.

    As for the (many!) of you who sent me kind and insightful personal replies -- thank you, I do appreciate it.
      • I think there is something to this. Certainly the points made about whether the Newton was the "first" of anything are worth discussing. But I think it is disappointing that the bulk of the discussion of the Newton is essentially in just saying that it wasn't the "first" PDA. I think this is fine to say, but why spend so much time debunking this? If this is truly a history, why not spend some more time on the things the Newton did well (more than just saying it had a nice UI)? Certainly things like the
  • Tricorder...
  • ...the "Tandy 100". Portable (but not pocket sized) and widely used as a mobile typewriter by news reporters in the mid 80s.
  • Palm based devices suck. Microsoft Windows Mobile based devices suck. Yeah yeah yeah everyone loves their $500 millions-of-colors-video-camera-phone-wireless bricks. Sorry, but a low cost simple PDA with long battery life would kick ass. If Apple could put out a quality iPod Mini priced Newton that fits into my pocket I'd buy one in a second.
      • You could. Assuming yuou knew them all and had the time to waste tracking them all down. And find photos. This guy did and provides a nice retrospective.

        But then again, this is Slashdot. You have to try and impress us with how smart you are. Has anybody ever told you how assholic that behavior is?
        • Also completely missing from his article - the contributions (largely lost) of General Magic, which was the counterpoint to the Newton team (having been founded by ex-Apple engineers, like Andy Herzfield). They came out with the MagicCap OS, which was lightyears ahead of it's time (with a long-lasting lithium-ion batter, back in 1995!), and still (in my opinion) unmatched in it's ease of use. Surviving units from Sony and Motorola give a glimpse of what might have been. Unlike the Newton, programming for
    • Do you know what PDA stands for? Personal digital assistant. Is a pen and paper "digital?" Well, you can be a wiseass and say "yes," because it involves using your digits. Or you can realize that he probably meant electronic devices.
    • The Newton had a lot of potential, but like speech recognition, handwriting recognition is a long way from becoming truly useful. It will take some amazing AI for it to hit "the sweet spot".

      I had a Sharp Wizard from 1995-1998, a Clio mini-tablet PC running Windows CE from 2000-2002, and ever since then I've used a Treo. Next up is an XDA III running Windows CE since Palm is dropping syncing with OS X.

      I'll never use a PDA with handwriting recognition and no built in keyboard. They all suck.
    • Seems it's more an article about PIMs, not PDAs, maybe he got his acronyms confused.
        • The improved handwriting recognition in Newton OS 2.0 (I believe this was introduced in the MessagePad 130, and really shined with the beefed up horsepower of the MP2000 and MP2100.... I think this is the one that was codenamed Rosetta, and is also the basis for the Inkwell HWR in OS X) is certainly worth noting. It still holds up very well today.

          Either way, there's certainly more to the Newton OS than the handwriting recognition.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.