Favorite PalmIII applications, tweaks, and hacks?

January 15, 2006 2:42 PM

What are your favorite PalmIII-compatible applications, games and toys? Tips and tricks? Tweaks? Hacks?

I recently recieved a Palm IIIc as a hand-me-down. Yeah, it's old and only 8 megs, but I've had a PalmIIIxe before, and it's pretty handy.

What are your favorite applications, games, and toys? Utilities? Tips and tricks? Tweaks? Hacks? Document readers? Hardware accessories?

I'm running PalmOS 3.5.0 - downgraded from 3.5.1 and the mandatory Palm Desktop 4.x installed 3.5.3 "upgrade". The 3.5.3 upgrade somehow makes the IIIc super slow on screen redraws/refreshes, and I'll more than willingly trade off some system stability for this speed increase.

Also, are there any operating systems/user interfaces available to play with that are not PalmOS? Ages ago, I remember hearing about people "running" Linux on a Palm device, but having no UI available - they'd have to telnet through the com port to actually access it.

posted by loquacious to technology (6 comments total)

See here.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 2:50 PM on January 15, 2006

I used my old Visor mainly as an ebook reader, using Weasel Reader

Avantgo was pretty cool too, if it still exists.
posted by OldMansHands at 3:22 PM on January 15, 2006

Dude. Dopewars.
posted by blag at 5:42 PM on January 15, 2006

Oh god DAMN you blag. I'd forgotten all about Dopewars when I upgraded my Handspring Visor to the Device That Rocks My World. Until now. Greeeaat, there goes all my free time.

Back to topic, DateBk5, hands down. Spend the money and replace the built in DateBkWhatever, you won't regret it.

If you had connectivity I'd also suggest SnapperMail.

Running Linux on it is basically a dead end. Stick with PalmOS and maximize your productivity/fun on that platform.
posted by intermod at 7:09 PM on January 15, 2006

the palm III xe rocks! fabulous battery life. maybe a bit slower than the latest but great for ebooks. I do almost all my reading on a IIIxe.

DateBk5 seconded
Plucker and ReadTheAll (both free) for ebooks -- get your free ebooks from project gutenburg, university of adelaide, and from usenet, as well as all over the web.

BigClock
TideTool (I live on the coast)
YAPS - yet another password safe

There's a neat free backgammon game, the palm usually beats me, but I can't find the link
posted by anadem at 8:47 PM on January 15, 2006

I dig my old PalmIIIxe, but, eh, it's been well loved. I paid something like $200+ for it new when I got it, back when the PalmV and VII was still hot and Visors were still pretty new.

Then about a week later Palm (PalmOne?) came out with with the m-series models, and my same PalmIIIxe at the same store was 1/3rd the frickin' price. To top it off, about a month later a pissy ex-roommate - for some insane, inexplicable reason - threw my backpack, shattering the screen. It is simultaneously the only bad tech purchase I've ever made, and the only gadget I've ever owned that has ever been (accidently) destroyed.

A while later I was gifted an IBM-brand Workpad and a few other broken-screen Palm devices. The screen-backlight-digitizer module from the much older Workpad (surprisingly) fits and works just about perfectly in the IIIxe - and has lasted me a few years.

Except the ribbon cable is just a couple of millimeters too long. The extra stress and tension, or friction from the stylus in the well against the cable, has apparently either caused micro fractures in the ribbon cable, or in the ribbon cable edge connector on the IIIxe's mainboard. It is now and has been supremely unreliable and unusable.

So, I'm digging on the color screen of the IIIc, though old, and the rechargable battery. It works, at least.

And, yeah. Dopewars. It's all about the coke and smack. That game has wasted so many man-hours of my life. Though, lately I'm being consumed by Diamond Mind/Bejeweled clones and chess.
posted by loquacious at 4:07 AM on January 16, 2006