MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Palm handheld celebrates 10-year anniversary

Bob Russell · 03-14-2006, 09:55 AM

It's funny... I had the opposite reaction... I thought "Has it ONLY been 10 yrs!"

But when I think about really neat steps in computing over the last 30yrs or so, it includes some pretty amazing steps like (no particular order):

* The early Palm devices, of course
* Video displays instead of card punches or teletypes. (I'm showing my age!)
* That Altair computer with the toggle switches and leds (I used to love Popular Electronics and then BYTE magazine and couldn't wait for the next issues to arrive!)
* The various CP/M computers that were out there (can't even remember anymore, but that was CP/M wasn't it? And I think there was software like PeachTree acctg software to run a small business on.
* The early spreadsheet software and early games.
* The various Commodore PET, TRS-80s, etc
* The first versions of MS Windows
* The rise of networking
* The first TI & HP programmable calculators
* The appearance of various removable media like big and small floppy discs, optical media, jump drives. Remember how hard it used to be to move data from one computer to another!
* The Apple Macintosh and the first mouse devices
* Early hard drives (I paid hundreds of dollars for a 20meg hard drive!) and inkjet/laser printers
* The introduction of the internet and the web (we sometimes forget that these are separate things!) I still remember visiting CMU's Software Engineering Institute for a CMM software capability model presentation where they were giving demonstrations of this brand new thing called the "World Wide Web!"

My gosh, there's been a lot happening in the last 30 years or so, and the introduction of the Palm was certainly a big deal. But I'd have to give big credit to TI and HP for all those early programmable calculators. Anyone remember how solid those HP devices were? I sure wish someone would make some premium mobile device products that are built as solid as the HP calculators were.

And I think that if you compare the speed of innovation now in mobile devices to what you saw 30yrs or 20yrs or even 10yrs ago, there's no comparison. It's so fast paced these days, and we get to see it all unfold at sites like MobileRead and Palm Addicts and all the other fun sites out there.

What a fun ride we're on!!!

03-14-2006, 09:55 AM	#3
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	It's funny... I had the opposite reaction... I thought "Has it ONLY been 10 yrs!" But when I think about really neat steps in computing over the last 30yrs or so, it includes some pretty amazing steps like (no particular order): * The early Palm devices, of course * Video displays instead of card punches or teletypes. (I'm showing my age!) * That Altair computer with the toggle switches and leds (I used to love Popular Electronics and then BYTE magazine and couldn't wait for the next issues to arrive!) * The various CP/M computers that were out there (can't even remember anymore, but that was CP/M wasn't it? And I think there was software like PeachTree acctg software to run a small business on. * The early spreadsheet software and early games. * The various Commodore PET, TRS-80s, etc * The first versions of MS Windows * The rise of networking * The first TI & HP programmable calculators * The appearance of various removable media like big and small floppy discs, optical media, jump drives. Remember how hard it used to be to move data from one computer to another! * The Apple Macintosh and the first mouse devices * Early hard drives (I paid hundreds of dollars for a 20meg hard drive!) and inkjet/laser printers * The introduction of the internet and the web (we sometimes forget that these are separate things!) I still remember visiting CMU's Software Engineering Institute for a CMM software capability model presentation where they were giving demonstrations of this brand new thing called the "World Wide Web!" My gosh, there's been a lot happening in the last 30 years or so, and the introduction of the Palm was certainly a big deal. But I'd have to give big credit to TI and HP for all those early programmable calculators. Anyone remember how solid those HP devices were? I sure wish someone would make some premium mobile device products that are built as solid as the HP calculators were. And I think that if you compare the speed of innovation now in mobile devices to what you saw 30yrs or 20yrs or even 10yrs ago, there's no comparison. It's so fast paced these days, and we get to see it all unfold at sites like MobileRead and Palm Addicts and all the other fun sites out there. What a fun ride we're on!!!