Comment by smackeyacky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smackeyacky | Hacker News Reader

The Palm V I had was pretty cool back then. I had a little nokia phone with infra red, and I would load up a little news reader app before I got on the bus for a commute. The app was managed by the vendor, so the news was curated.

As the article says, the web browser was limited but it was good enough for an internet search if you wanted to settle an argument in the pub.

It also coincided with me wandering around with bulging pockets: palm V, Nokia, an MP3 player and a wallet.

Got all of it now in an old Samsung Galaxy S8, but the infra red internet setup was pretty eye opening for people who had seen nothing like that before.

You can't have a proper pub argument any more, the mobile internet kinda killed the fun of being knowledgeable without relying on an ever present search engine.

Haha I still remember the first time I pulled out my G2 in a pub to settle an argument. It was ironically in a pub with poor reception (even by those days standards) so by the time the page loaded, which I think was just Wikipedia, the conversation had already moved on.

Despite the lack of success that afternoon, I still remember that feeling of how significant a game changer these new fangled devices could be.

I had a Palm V for a while, I think it was the age right before smartphones became a thing - poor student and all. I think I paid €10 on ebay or the equivalent thereof.

It was a cute device, I mostly used it to play sudoku on. I still have it somewhere I think, I wonder if I can turn it back on. Don't think I have the charging cradle anymore though.

Hah, I had this setup: Palm V, Nokia 7110, Rio PMP300. Also reading news (and books) on my commute. 1998 - 2000 was a fun era in tech.

I had a couple of Palm devices and then a Handspring Visor, but it was HTC Typhoon which first felt like magic to me. Phone, web, email, MP3s, podcasts, RSS feeds all in a tiny device with what was a pretty big screen for a phone in those days. I had a pretty punishing commute, 2+ hours each way by train, but it became my favourite time of day.

I ported the rather nifty Psion 5 app called PhoneMan to the Palm pilots. It allowed managing address books and sending and reading sms messages. I never quite got around to finishing the picture message functionality. I even had sync working with the Bluetooth module and an Ericsson phone.

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