Palm Vx - My 'Girlfriend' Is Back

Since the last get together of my Palm Users Group - PalmX, I felt a real yearning for my Palm PDAs which are all in a comma. My first Palm Pilot that I bought in 1996 is broken badly with a cracked chassis and a totally dead black screen. That needs major replacements. My Palm III was sold to a friend because I was not happy with the weak IR and probably retiring in India. My Palm Vx is totally neglected after I bought the Palm TX. Despite its full multimedia feature Palm TX had a major touchscreen problem. The replacement is costly and need to be specially ordered. The feel is also different. It is flimsy and not as firm as Palm Vx.

Of all the Palm PDA I have I really love the Palm Vx. It is the best engineered Palm physically. Some says it is the most sexiest. It upheld the initial principal of Palm PDA that is to keep things simple. It should not be anything else but just a Personal Digital Assistant with the emphasis on 'personal'. It should not be a phone that intrudes every minute or trying to be a Walkman or a video player or a net browser till we go blind and most of all it must be absolutely Microsoft-Free.


For those reasons I need to bring back the romance that I felt back in November 1996. Since there was nothing really wrong with my Palm Vx except a real flat battery that been lying dead for 4 years or so. I needed to recharge the battery. The charger that connects to the cradle is not working and had been for long. It was designed to supply two voltages. One connects to pin 2 on the cradle that is 4 volts for charging and the other connects to pin 8 which is 5.5 volts to light up the LEDs when the Palm is docked. When I checked recently the voltage at pin 8 read 5.76 volts. That probably caused the Palm screen to go black. But I have a portable charger that uses two AA batteries. It is a reliable device. After docking it for 12 hours it only managed to charge the Palm for only 5%. Though the Palm was resurrected but the power was not enough to make it fully operative. The combined power of the AA batteries of 2.8 volts was probably not enough to supercharge a real flat battery. The Palm Li-ion battery rating is 4 volt. So I need something equal. The only available power I had was from my USB port on my computers.

The USB power output is 5 volt and that is slightly higher than needed. I do not want to take a risk and connect the USB power directly to my Palm. I need to use the charger as a buffer. It might heat up the charger electronics. So I opened up the charger and hooked the USB cable directly to the charger electronic board. With the USB plugged to my laptop I pressed my fingers on the components. I felt no over heating and it was safe to slot in the PDA. Some insulation was needed because the Palm Vx chassis is made of metal and was resting on the charger electronic board. A multimeter is needed in this kind of situation to check for short circuits and voltage reading.

After 2 hours the Palm Vx was fully charged and working. I managed to reinstall all the software and data that I backed up on my laptop. I created a new user profile on the Palm Desktop so that it is not the same as the one that I used for my Palm TX. In that way it will not install Palm TX specific software on my Palm Vx. Some software crashed the Palm and after a reset the touchscreen went out of alignment. If this happens it is better to do a hard reset and delete the 'Backup' and 'Upgrade' folders on your computer Palm folder.

Here is the photo of the portable charger which is also known as 'SyncCharger'. The red LED is ON if the charger batteries are flat or no power connected to it. Once new batteries are inserted or power is connected the red LED will turn off and the green LED will be ON when the Palm is docked and the charging starts.

Here is how the USB cable is connected to the charger by hooking it to the opposite ends of the battery clips finally. During the test it was connected to the PCB's terminal directly. It is not rocket science but polarity and level of voltage need to be monitored. Do not take things for granted. For example the black wire on this USB is positive and the orange wire is negative. For this experiment I only secured it with Scotch tape so that I could detach it quickly if things start smoking. I will solder it permanently and cut the cable shorter so that it can be folded into the the battery compartment. Normal batteries still can be used in times when no other power sources are available. I usually used rechargeables. The SyncCharger is a handy device because it is slim and not as bulky as the original Palm Vx cradle. The primary feature of the SyncCharger is it is cordless. But with the USB cable connected it is not considered as fully cordless anymore but it is still portable.

One of the new found software for my Palm Vx is HiBattery. It displays more detail info about the Palm battery status compared to the Palm built-in battery graphic monitor. For a 10 year old device with an ageing battery I find it useful. According to it my Palm battery is still going on strong. As I had mentioned Palm Vx is the best engineered Palm PDA ever. But every palm PDA will eventually develops its own personality that reflects the owner. My Palm PDA is dear to me because of the things that I put into it. My little notes and thoughts over 13 years since the first Palm Pilot are all there even my collection of recipes and bookmarks of my ebooks. Hundreds of little bit of pieces that may mean nothing to others but are precious to me. That was how I perceived Palm when I first bought it. Something really personal and little parts of me. Though it may not has all the bells and whistles of the present technology but it is still Mi enamorada.

Sometime in life it is possible to reclaim lost moments. New does not mean it is better. The best things in life are usually simple.

Palm X - 'Black Thing Meeting'

Two weekends ago I attended my gadget Yahoo group - PalmX get together that they casually named 'BTM' or the 'Black Thing Meeting'. It is nothing dark about the occasion except the dark gadgets that we all carry around in our pockets like PDAs, handphones and the likes. Though the Palm hipness has faded the friendship still shines. Nobody flashes their Palm nowadays or even carry it anymore. It was just a reason to get together based on a some common interests like gadgets or even art.

I managed to talk about 'Palestine 3000 A.D.' and showed some futuristic gadgets that I designed. I didn't managed to show all because as usual there are excitements and digressions. But there was some focused moments like above when one of our member talked about Petronas. It was about oil and we just got to listen ;). There are many other casual moments but my camera almost flat battery allowed me to capture only that one shot and it became a moment.

I was informed today that Palmx is 9 years old. Hope there will be many more BTM to come. It all started on a window browsing day in Singapore and I felt in love with the first Palm Pilot. Never realized that 13 years later I ended up with a group of guys in a coffee shop in KL. I am not weird after all. Happy Birthday Palmx.