Palmpilot to Mac

January 5, 2005 9:11 PM

Getting an old Palmpilot to talk to a newish Mac [more inside]

Here's the situation: My wife has finally made the switch from OS 9 to OS X. She has an old Palmpilot IIIe, which talks to her machine via a serial cradle, which goes through a Keyspan serial/USB adapter.

This setup was working OK under OS 9. On OS X, I've installed the Keyspan driver, installed the current Palm Desktop software, configured the Hot Sync software, and sacrificed a virgin. When I hit the Sync button on the cradle (which is apparently what I'm supposed to do) the Palm chugs away for quite a while and eventually complains "the connection between your palm and the desktop could not be established."

I've Googled up other people who have had the same problem, but no solutions. Thanks in advance.

posted by adamrice to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Make sure the baud (bps) rate is set properly on the serial port hosted on the Keyspan adapter. This is done in the HotSync Manager application. I set up a prof with a Palm V with an old serial cradle through this adapter and the adapter does not work unless the baud rate is set properly. Read the documentation on Keyspan's website for your model of serial adapter. There is usually a specific chapter or appendix on configuring the adapter for use with the Palm serial connector. HTH...
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:46 PM on January 5, 2005

If the problem persists, there's always the possiblity of an unrelated, coincidental problem. Try deactivating all but one of the applications, and if that changes things, systematically reactivate them to see which one is the problem.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:12 AM on January 6, 2005

I believe you might be missing a crucial piece of software: iSync PalmConduit 1.2. Look in the third box on the right for the explanation and the download link. You need to install the PalmDesktop and iSync before you install the PalmConduit. My ancient Palm m105 finally learned to played nicely with my Mac once I got all the various apps installed in the right order.
posted by Alylex at 10:12 AM on January 6, 2005

A few responses:

1. Messed around with the connection speed. No effect.

2. This is a nearly-new system install, with nothing else running.

3. I actually have installed iSync Palm Conduit--failed to mention that. My understanding is that this is not required for use with the Palm Desktop software, only to move data to/from Apple's Address Book and iCal.

My guess is that this is a low-level problem, involving device drivers or something like that. The Palm and Mac just aren't seeing each other.

Though frustrating, this has been an interesting process because it is by far the most complicated set-up I've seen under OS X. I remember in the old days needing to hunt through all kinds of obscure configuration settings to make things work--this shows up how far software has advanced (mostly).
posted by adamrice at 11:58 AM on January 6, 2005

<sheepish>After snooping around the keyspan website some more, I discovered the crucial step that you must disable syncing while you change the hotsync configurations, and then re-enable it. Now it seems to work.</sheepish>
posted by adamrice at 12:15 PM on January 6, 2005