Refurb weekend: New batteries for the Palm Pilots | Hacker News Reader

Refurb weekend: New batteries for the Palm Pilots

oldvcr.blogspot.com

53 pointszdw14 comments

Still remembering the slight thrill of replacing (non-rechargeable) batteries in my Palm III. There was plenty of time, but what if I'm going to drop a battery and it rolls under the desk? I did do a recent backup, didn't I?

There were mods for turning the cradle into a charging device for rechargeable batteries, but I never managed to try it.

To be honest I don't remember the thrill; I would only replace batteries when close to a computer, and considering HotSync fully transparent backup/restore worked quite well (or even the pilot-link I was using...) the risk was practically negligible. The only problem is that that it was quite slow for a full restore (even with fancy serial cradle, sigh).

Heck, I'd sometimes just willingly let it hard-reset itself just for "cleanliness".

I like that a "repair-hostile" device from back then was one utilizing a label-covered screw.

Agreed, though I'd argue the truly repair-hostile move was the soldered-in batteries

I am surprised these old devices don't slow down due to memory failure. I have had countless Samsung Galaxies sent to the bin after their hardware memory slowly failed (you can easily tell because they were running the original factory versions of Android after a full reset, yet were running at a snail's pace)

Had to do the same with my Palm TX. Small nightmare, they went cheap and just soldered a bare LiPo to the mainboard, so had to be somewhat precise not to short out the pack.

-- met my best friend in high school because they had a Compaq with an IR port - noticed it had auto accept so I sent it sub7 from my Palm IIIe - rest is history --

my first (portable) digital camera was actually from the Zire 71. My entire graduating class got a m515, but I took it to Staples or OfficeMax to return for store credit, which was the price of the Z71. I used it mostly for games and photos, but had really wanted the wifi card - but the screen at some point.

NES emulators ran GREAT on the zire palm pilots.

Man did I love my Zire. Listening to mp3 songs while gaming Warfare Incorporated everyday on the bus home from high school

I still have my Palm V, and I still keep it charged, all these years later, I've never let the battery fully die.

It works fine.

Palm pilot pros were great because they just ran on AAA batteries

Can I change the batteries on my Newton?

In the 1x0 series of Newton, it just takes AA's directly.

The 2x00 series though, you need to crack open the plastic battery pack and rebuild it, which looks like a PITA

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