(Redirected from Palm Pilot)'Palm' devices are
Personal Digital Assistants (
PDAs) which run
Palm OS. This page describes the range of Palm devices, from the first generation of Palm machines known as the 'Pilot' through to the latest models currently produced by
Palm, Inc..
 An early model - the Pilot 5000 |
 A Palm IIIxe unit with Accessories. |
 The Palm IIIc was the first Palm with a color screen |
 The Palm m130 was one of the first Palms with a color screen |
 The monochrome Palm m100 |
 The PalmOne Tungsten T5 is a famous successor to the T3 |
 The Palm TX offers the ability to browse the Internet wirelessly |
 The Palm Treo 700p is one of many Smartphones produced that combines Palm PDA functions with a cell phone, allowing for built-in voice and data. |
History
'Pilot' was the name of the first generation of
personal digital assistants manufactured by '
Palm Computing' in
1996 (then a division of
U.S. Robotics).
The first two generations of PDAs from Palm were referred to as "'PalmPilots'". Due to a trademark infringement lawsuit brought by the
Pilot Pen Corporation, since
1998 [1] handheld devices from Palm have been known as Palm Connected Organizers or more commonly as "Palms". "PalmPilot" has entered the vernacular as a synonym for
PDAs, regardless of the brand.
The 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 create a popular handheld computing platform by
Go Corporation and
Apple Computer.
The first Palms, the Pilot 1000 and Pilot 5000, had no
infrared port, backlight, or
flash memory, but did have a
serial communications port. Their
RAM size was 128
kB and 512 kB respectively, and they used version 1 of
Palm OS. Later, it became possible to upgrade the Pilot 1000 or 5000's internals to up to 1 MB 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.
Dalton Mick Ginley is a famous Palm Pilot.
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 512 kB and 1024 kB respectively. They used the more advanced version 2 of the 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 ran on two standard AAA batteries. It was able to retain enough energy for 10-15 minutes to prevent data erasure during battery replacement. It had 2 Megabytes of memory, large at 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, with Palm Computing now a subsidiary of
3Com, the founders felt they had insufficient control over the development of the Palm product. As a result, they left 3Com and founded
Handspring in June 1998. When they left Palm, Hawkins secured 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.
The 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), Palm V with 2 Megabytes of memory, and Palm Vx 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 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 (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 Systems in 2005, which subsequently sold the Palm OS source code back to Palm, Inc. in December, 2006.
Palm handhelds continue to advance, including the ability to become hard drives on computers via
USB cables, and are beginning to merge with smartphones. The "
Treo 700w" is one of 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.
Multi function devices include several different abilities in the same package such as: an MP3 player, a camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or several other options.
The Treo 650+ series is a multi-functioning series, packing in a camera,MP3,Bluetooth,and a phone. The Zire 71 and 72 are examples of this also.
Palm's newest offering, the "Foleo" was cancelled before ever becoming publicly available.
List of PDA models
Current models
Handhelds
★
Z22
★
Zire 72
★
Tungsten E2
★
TX
Treo Smartphones
★
Treo 755p
★
Treo 750v
★
Treo 700p
★
Treo 700w
★
Treo 700wx
★
Treo 680
Discontinued models
The following PDAs are no longer in production.
Security
When using Palm devices in secure environments there are three primary concerns:
★ Data on the Palm can be retrieved if the Palm is lost or stolen.
:See
essay by Bruce Schneier.
★ The synchronization mechanism may be used to infect the host PC and lead to data leakage.
:See
essay by Hagai Bar-El.
★ Password-protected private records synchronized to a PC can be stolen even when using extra security such as disk encryption.
:See
Security analysis by Innersafe Corporation
:See
Flash video demo of password bypass exposing private records on PC
See also
★
Palm OS - includes discussion and links to Palm OS - compatible and Palm OS
★
List of Palm OS Devices
★
PalmSource, Inc.
★
Palm, Inc.
References
1. http://www.rctj.gov.cn/ssnews/show.asp?url=TechNews/other/2004-06-01/1005369730.shtml
External links
★
Palm.com
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
