Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
I've played Colossal Cave and other IF games on the Palm, but it never really occurred to me to read on it until after I'd discovered dedicated ebook readers. And I'd have to buy a newer PDA with a lot more memory or support for storage cards to keep my full library available. And I really do prefer a larger screen, so rather than buy a new PDA, I bought a half-price used iLiad.  |
I have versions of Adventure, Rogue, Moria, Larn, and Nethack on my PDA. (The latter deeply amused Eric S. Raymond: he's a contributor to Nethack, and wasn't aware anyone had done a Palm port.)
My first PDA came from my then employer, when someone decided all of the IT staffers should have PDAs, and a co-worker called saying "Hey, Dennis? You want a PDA?" "Uh, okay..." A Handspring Visor Deluxe arrived in interoffice mail. It wasn't clear what I was supposed to
do with it, so I went looking for software that would help me in my work as a systems administrator. One of the first things I discovered was that I could take documentation for the systems I worked on and convert them to a form I could keep on the PDA, using an open source offline HTML reader called Plucker. I could carry manuals in my pocket in searchable electronic form, and not have to deal with large heavy books.
The Deluxe was a mono 160x160 screen, but I could read on it comfortably, and with a Springboard adapter and a Compact Flash card, I could store a considerable amount of information. I hadn't seen myself reading fiction on the device, but the same program that handled the systems manuals could do other kinds of books, so I stated branching out.
The current device has a 320x480 color screen, and two SD slots with a 2GB card in each. I have about 3,500 ebooks on it on a wide variety of topics. Most of it is still in Plucker format, but I have eReader and Mobipocket Reader for Palm OS, plus a PDF viewer, and programs than can handle Word documents, RTF files, and plain text files, so I can handle pretty much anything, The main issue is remembering which content is in which format viewed with which program.
Add PIM functions, databases holding data on a variety of topics, the ability to create and edit documents and spreadsheets, the ability to listen to MP3s and view videos, the ability to go online, get email, and surf the web (though I generally don't do that), and oh, yes, to play games, and I have a truly multifunction device. As mentioned, I'd like a larger screen, but I have yet to find a device that has one that can do everything the PDA does. (The usual lack is PIM functions.)
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Dennis