10,000 Foot Developer

Check this device out: my old Palm M500. I dug it out of the boxes to see how it would work as a night bed reader, because it uses very little juice, you don’t need an overhead light (it’s backlit) and can do a reverse-color thing to keep the light wash down.  Also, no internet so no temptation to suck my life away reading more Page 6.

Sure enough, the battery was dead.

On Amazon and EBay you can get a new battery kit for about $9 delivered.  Excellent.  So I ordered one up.  You can also buy these Palms still for about $50 delivered.  Some people I had read are using them for LCD interfaces for things like drone flying or Arduino projects.  Maybe I’ll try that later on.

It also uses the Graffiti writing system, a short hand notation for writing in letters. Some of the newer generation probably never heard of it since Xerox held the patent for it and sued to have Palm stop using it and one.   Xerox also produced the first marketable mouse computer in the early 1970’s and couldn’t market it like Apple later on in the 1980’s.  I am guessing a lot of the newer generation never heard of Xerox either.

Here’s the kit, new batter on the left, and my opened Palm.  I also have an aluminum case accessory you can see at the top. The kit graciously came with a new battery and little torx screwdrivers.

The fix is relatively simple.

1. Take the back off.
2. Carefully unhook the wire connector (note the color of the wires, but the connector has an orientation so it should be a no brainer).
3. Remove old battery.  You have to be careful removing the old battery because it has adhesive on the back to hold it in place.  You can heat it a bit or go slow — then it’s out.
4. Put the new battery in, replace the cover and you are done.

Check out the old battery that went bad (left) compared to the new battery (right) below.

The bad battery’s foil protective cover is puffed up.   Lasted about 13 years, no bad.  Cell phone batteries have this cover too, a great safety for your device against corrosion.  Whoever thought of this cover was a usability genius.

I’m not quite finding the device an answer to my reading needs in bed, but it’s easy enough to load books with the SD slot.  It’s just the resolution is too low.  I do prefer it over my phone though.

I also pulled out my GPS unit that attaches onto the Palm.  They thought of these kinds of accessories light years before Apple.  This particular model works well — I used to use it mon my motorcycle in a tank bag and had music on it as well.  Remember, at that time you didn’t have the all-in one phones.  Stand alone GPSs still dominate as the usable way to go anyway (I have a Garmin wrist GPS and a Lowe GPS — both much better than a phone).

But I’m still going to have some fun with this Palm because I can program it.  I will also pick up a GPS “shield” for my Arduino — maybe I’ll get on of those new mini-boards since I know some guys who do HAM/drones — and play around with that.

We’ll see.   Lady Gaga is in the headlines again . . . .