Recently found my original Palm IIIx, so let’s revisit this retro pocket computer

We’ve been doing some cleaning and purging here at Chez Lefebvre and stumbled across a relic. While cleaning, my wife was going through a box of what she thought contained old folders and notebooks, but hidden inside an old Franklin Covey Planner (also a relic and popular in the 90s) was my original Palm IIIx! This particular planner actually had a slot inside to contain the Palm itself, which is why it got lost for so long!

As I recall, I bought this Palm IIIx in September 1999 and I feel like it cost around $300 (about $575 in 2025). Looking it up, it seems the original retail price when it was introduced in early 1999 was $370. I really don’t recall where I purchased it, but Staples or Best Buy are likely candidates.

This particular Palm is so old that it runs on AAA batteries. Thankfully I at least remembered to remove the batteries before it got stored, so there was nothing there to leak and damage it.

I popped in new AAA batteries and it turned back on to its familiar stylus calibration screen. I take good care of my gear so this Palm IIIx is in excellent shape. It even still had the original flip cover with the Graffiti sticker on it!

Speaking of Graffiti, it all came back to my pretty quickly as I played around with it. For those that are unaware, the Palm did have a touch screen, but it really only worked for simple taps. To input data into the palm you drew on the touch area at the bottom, which was not part of the screen.

On the left side of the touch area you draw letters and on the right side you draw numbers. With Graffiti, you draw each character one at a time using single stroke of the stylus. For example, to input the letter “A” you draw an upside down “V”.

It looks a little weird at first, but it super-easy to learn. And apparently hard to forget as I still remembered many of the Graffiti strokes almost immediately. A few tripped me up, but the handy cheat sheet on the cover proved helpful.

This Palm runs at 16Mhz, has 4MB of RAM and a resolution of 160×160 pixels. Those fonts and graphics are chonky! I remember thinking this was a technical wonder for the time. After all, it had very similar specs to my Mega STE from 1992 except that it fit in the palm of your hand!

The included apps are rather simple and not all that useful today. As a test I tried using the Palm IIIx to keep track of some work tasks in the To Do List app, but it was rather painful. It was slow entering the task names with Graffiti, but what made it much more difficult for me was the non-backlit screen.

The screen is monochrome and has poor contrast. Perhaps in my younger days and in offices with bright overhead fluorescent lighting this was not a problem. But my old eyes in my dimly lit home office found it incredibly difficult to read.

A few years later I replaced this Palm with the IIIc, the first color Palm. The color screen was backlit and I remember it was bright and easy to read. It also had a rechargeable battery. I often used it with an keyboard dock to take notes in meetings.

Several years later I picked up a used Palm TX for cheap. I seem to recall that it did have WiFi.

Unfortunately a Palm IIIx is nearly useless today, at least for me. It does not have WiFi or any network connectivity. Back in the day you would plug it into a dock/cradle that connected to your PC via the serial port. You’d press the “HotSync” button on the dock to transfer data to/from the Palm to the PC. This would include calendar events, mail and even apps.

Alas, I didn’t come across this serial cable while cleaning. And even if I did, the only computer I have with a serial port is my Atari Mega STE.

The PalmDB web site has a page describing how to connect a Palm to a PC, but without a cable, I was unable to try any of it:

Windows Palm Desktop & HotSync Setup

Unless I end up with a more capable Palm, I doubt I will bother.

Sharing your Palm stories in the comments!

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Pig for Palm PDA

This week the The Lunduke Journal of Technologyis doing PDA week and I thought I would join in the fun by jumping ahead a few years from my Atari topics to talk about the Palm PDA, a great early PDA (Personal Data Assistant) from the late 90s and early 2000s.

Palm Programming Tools

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, my favorite gadgets were Palm handheld devices. This small computers had a touch screen and you used them with a stylus. They were black and white at first, but color appeared later.

Retro PDAs Aplenty

I was in London at the end of April, presenting in a conference and one of the attendees knows I’m a huge retro fan. Being from Europe, he brought a collection of some of his retro PDAs to share with me (because they are all small and would travel well). Thanks, Dirk!

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