The PDA returns to CES, because everything old is new again | Hacker News Reader

The PDA returns to CES, because everything old is new again

techcrunch.com

16 pointsLearnerHerzog15 comments

> Back before “PDA” was merely shorthand for kissing someone a crowded commuter train, we carried personal digital assistants. It was a dark age, when our mobile devices still sported physical keyboards.

Except for the fact that the most popular PDA of the 90's, the Palm Pilot, most commonly had no keyboard.

A derivative, the Treo had a keyboard.

Bluetooth keyboards and docking station keyboards were available for the palm pilot.

Hp iPaqs also had keyboards available.

Sharp also had a Zaurus device.

Nokia had the N800 communicator device too.

Of course, in the same sense that there have been Android phones that had keyboards, and Blackberry devices with keyboards were still in wide circulation only a few years ago.

I saw more Psion 3s and 5s than Palms in the 90s, though that might have been to do with Psion being a UK company.

It's been well over a decade since I last used a Palm device, and yet my printing still slips into Graffiti, notably the horizontal trail at the end for the letter V.

I'm very happy that devices such as this, and my current favourite - the GPD Pocket - are making a return to the market. Having a full-fledged Linux workstation with multitouch, 'retina'-class display, and still fit in my pocket .. this is truly awesome. And if it weren't for the massive (>$1000) investment in software on my iPads, I'd just ditch iOS completely and move 100% to the GPD Pocket for all my touch-interface needs.

This represents an opportunity - iPad-class devices, without any of the walled garden. I'm far more excited about writing apps for Linux now that those apps can take advantage of hardware features such as the GPD Pocket .. now if only there were more competition with the same physical qualities.

Waiting for this one [1].

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keyboard-mod-a-physical-k...

If there was an honest external keyboard case for a pixel or iPhone... Might not be too far off.

Except for the price point. And the "boot into Linux" part. The latter alone might compel me to purchase this device, if it means that the drivers are all (or at least mostly) upstream.

My prediction is: you get the same driver quality as you get with bottom-of-the barrel Android. Based on the fact that the device is mostly built from those parts.

As far as I know, only the Librem 5 phone [0] has a goal of using upstream. Other new devices (like the Pyra) [1] will have to rely on closed (so Android) drivers unless you don't care about GPU support.

There are a couple of old devices where mainline is possible to run, but not everything works [2].

[0] https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

[1] https://pyra-handheld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hardware

[2] https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=99357

Linux VM's on android are getting better.

The Librem phone looks interesting from running pure linux on the phone. Wish them success.

https://puri.sm/products/

There is for the S8 and at least the S7 before it: https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/...

I've never used it, so I can't testify to the quality.

I should have clarified I meant a horizontal keyboard, not a vertical one line this - it does look interesting though.

In German, PDA also is a common abbreviation for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidural_administration#Epidur... — which with the current state of IT/tech. might also be a good idea ;)

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