[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I read many Project Gutenberg books with pleasure on a Palm IIIxe PDA I bought roughly five years ago -- even though the device was not designed as an eReader. As I recall, the cost of this type of scenario, in like new condition, was around US$20.

My first PDA was a Handspring Visor Deluxe. One of the apps available for it was GutenPalm, later renamed to WeaselReader. It was intended for reading plain text Project Gutenberg files on the PDA, and had features like skipping over the lengthy PG boilerplate at the start of each file. WeaselReader still exists, and the developer is working on an Android port.

Word processors are sold for cell phones, just as they were sold for Palm PDA's (see http://danbricklin.com/log/wordsmithreview.htm). I don't have the device at hand to fire up, but my memory is that those early Palm PDA's, like the K3, had a less than instant refresh rate.

They were low res (160x160) mono backlit screens. Refresh rate was instantaneous for practical purposes. They were certainly fast enough to keep up with keyboard input.

And keyboarding on the K3 is probably faster than entering Palm shorthand with a stylus. Not to mention that the K3 screen would be much better for word processing than the tiny low-resolution Palm screen.

I got, and still use, WordSmith for PalmOS. It was the best tool I found for creating text on the PDA. There were programs like Documents to Go and QuickOffice that would let you view and edit Microsoft Word documents, but they assumed the document had been created on a PC, and you just wanted to view it and make minor changes on the PDA. WordSmith had a full range of editing capabilities and a good spell checker. It worked on converted RTF files, and since every word processor could handle those, you weren't stuck with Word on the PC. Use it with a folding keyboard and you had a good portable writing solution. (SF author Robert Sawyer wrote several novels with WordSmith on his Sony Clie Palm OS device.)

Most people would not want to read books on a low-resolution Palm PDA, but somehow I did not mind. Most people would not have need for a word processor on a mobile eInk device, but if someone, some day, can put food on their table with the revenue from selling such software, I say good for them.

I had no problem reading books on the low res screen, and have no problem reading them now on my current PalmOS device with a hi-res color screen.

I wouldn't want to use a word processor on an eInk device, as the refresh rate would make it problematic, but if your needs are moderate I can see it being useful.
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Dennis