|
The Palm corporation produces a number of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) which run the Palm operating system. This page describes the range of Palm devices, from the first generation of Palm machines known as the Pilot through to the latest models.
History Pilot was the name given to the first generation of personal digital assistants manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (then a division of U.S. Robotics, later a division of 3Com, and finally a standalone corporation). The first two generations of PDAs from Palm were referred to as PalmPilots. However, due to a trademark infringement lawsuit brought on by the Pilot Pen Corporation, from 1998 * on handheld devices from Palm were known officially as Palm Connected Organizers or more commonly as "Palms" but "PalmPilot" has entered the vernacular as a synonym for PDAs, regardless of the brand. The original inventors of the Pilot were Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, who founded Palm Computing. The original purpose of this company was to create handwriting recognition software for other devices, named Graffiti, but their research convinced them they could create better hardware as well. Before starting development of the Pilot, Hawkins is said to have carried a block of wood, the size of the potential pilot, in his pocket for a week. Palm was widely perceived to have benefited from the notable if ill-fated earlier attempts to created a popular handheld computing platform by Go Corporation and Apple Computer. The first Palms, Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000, had no infrared port, backlight, or flash memory, but they already had a serial port. Their RAM size was 128K and 512K respectively, and they used version 1 of the Palm OS operating system. Later, it became possible to upgrade the Pilot 1000 or 5000's internals to up to 1MB of internal RAM. This was done with the purchase of an upgrade module sold by Palm, and the replacement of some internal hardware components. Originally, it was conceived that all Palm PDAs were to be hardware-upgradeable to an extent, but ultimately, this capability gave way to external memory slots and firmware-upgradeable flash memory after the Palm III series. The next couple of Palms, called PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional, had a backlight, but still no infrared port or flash memory. Their RAM size was 512K and 1024K respectively. They used more advanced version 2 of Palm OS. Palm III, and all the following Palms, did not have the word "Pilot" in their name due to legal disputes. (Pilot was, and still is, a registered trademark for pens.) Palm III had an IR port, backlight, and flash memory. The latter allowed to upgrade Palm OS, or, with some external applications, to store programs or data in flash memory. It was run on a couple of standard AAA batteries. Replacement of batteries did not erase data, because for 10-15 minutes it was able to retain enough energy to prevent data from erasing. It had 2 Megabytes of memory, which was huge for the time, and used Palm OS 3. (Palm also produced an upgrade card for the Pilot series, which made them functionally equivalent to a Palm III.) Meanwhile, because Palm Computing was a subsidiary of 3Com, the group of founders became upset that they did not have enough control over the Palm product. As a result, they left 3Com and founded Handspring in June 1998. When they left Palm, Hawkins wrote a license for the Palm OS for Handspring, and the company became the first Palm OS licensee. Handspring went on to produce the Handspring Visor, a clone of the Palm handhelds that included a hardware expansion slot (early Palm devices also had a hardware expansion slot, however this was for device upgrade purposes, not peripherals) and used slightly modified software. Next versions of Palm used Palm OS 3.1. These included Palm IIIx with 4 Megabytes of memory, Palm IIIe without flash memory or hardware expansion slot (and available for cheaper price), and Palm V with 8 Megabytes of memory. Palm VII had wireless connection to some Internet services, but this connection worked only within USA. It used Palm OS 3.2. Palm IIIc was the first Palm handheld with color screen. It used Palm OS 3.5 which provided extensive tools for writing color applications. Some of these newer handhelds, for example Palm V, used internal rechargeable batteries. Later this feature became standard for all Palms. Palm handhelds initially ran on the popular DragonBall processors, a Motorola 68000 derivate. More recent models are using a variation of the widely popular ARM architecture (usually referred to by the Intel Xscale brand name). This is a class of RISC microprocessors that is widely used in mobile devices and embedded systems, and its design was influenced strongly by a popular 1970s/1980s CPU, the MOS Technology 6502. Palm Computing was spun off into its own company (then called Palm Incorporated) in 2000. Handspring later merged with Palm to form palmOne in 2003 when Palm Inc. split into companies based upon selling hardware (palmOne) and the software (PalmSource). In 2005, palmOne acquired the full rights to the Palm name by purchasing the shared rights PalmSource owned and changed names back to Palm again. PalmSource was acquired by Access Software in 2005. Palm handhelds are beginning to become more and more advanced, including the ability to become hard drives on computers via USB cables, and are beginning to merge with smartphones. The "Treo 700w" is the latest offering that combines a Palm handheld with mobile phone, e-mail, SMS, and instant messaging. It is the first Palm device to use Windows Mobile instead of Palm OS. It is widely expected that Palm handhelds as a PDA-only device will disappear as multi-function Palm handhelds like the Treo 650 decline in price. Some predict that this will be caused in part by PalmSource convincing cellphone manufacturers to use Palm OS-like interfaces and PIM apps in their phones, bringing about cheaper, but less good. Current models Discontinued models The following PDAs are no longer in production. Security When using Palm devices in secure environments there are two primary concerns: See essay by Bruce Schneier. See essay by Hagai Bar-El. See also | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |