I remember buying my first Pilot 5000 (before they were "Palm" anything) in March of '96, the salesman said they had just come out that week. I clearly remember it because it was right after I graduated college and started my first "real" job. I've still got it around here somewhere, cracked screen and all.
'97 sounds about right for a first reading app, I remember something called "PilotDocs" (or something to that effect) that took a text file and chewed it up so that the pieces would fit the size requirements for memo files, but displayed them as a single file. At the time it was eye-opening for me.