The amount of venture capital lost on personal digital assistants in the early ’90s could fund an entire light-rail system. But the inventors at Palm Computing learned from the glitches of others. Functionality and size won out over gratuitously glitzy features. And instead of teaching the machine to recognize handwriting, the designers gambled that users would be willing to learn the Pilot’s own special shorthand, a simplified alphabet called Graffiti–no dotting the i’s or crossing the t’s.
When it hit the market in early 1996, the Pilot promised to impose order on lives awash in addresses, phone numbers, e-mail and calendar items. It didn’t disappoint. Before long, this postcard-size hunk of hard plastic had found its place in shirt pockets, briefcases and purses all over Silicon Valley. Now there are hundreds of different applications for the Pilot, and more than 150 Web pages devoted to accessories, applications and games. Need a pocket-size biorhythms program? A tide schedule, perhaps? How about a moon-phase calendar?
The palms that made the Pilot have already been well greased. In 1996 Palm Computing was bought by modem maker U.S. Robotics, which then merged with 3Com. But rather than getting lost in the fold, the Palm Computing subsidiary just keeps innovating. Two-way paging for the Pilot has arrived, and e-mail retrieval is getting easier. Officials at Palm Computing are hinting at a thinner model in the future. Evidently a palm top can never be too rich or too thin.
Do expenses on software compatible with Microsoft Excel
Attach a modem (snaps to the bottom) to access e-mail, connect to an office network and even surf the Web
Play Giraffe to learn the Graffiti alphabet. Many real games are also available.
Commune with your desktop computer with HotSync
Write Graffiti here or call up a miniature keyboard display
