I haven't done fun silly computer things for their own sake in a really long time, and it's nice to be getting back to that.
Trying a thing to see if it's possible. Doing a thing to see what works.
I've especially been enjoying my soujorn in to palm pilot land!
There are a lot of roads not taken in computing, and the palm ecosystem really represents the signpost for the last one of those.
I very much like the idea of computers as tools to accomplish tasks. Sometimes the task is Play.
Sometimes the goal is to learn what's possible.
Hmmm. FOSS project idea.
(No, really. Build a PalmOS-like environment that runs on top of a Linux kernel, then install it on any rooted Android device. Somebody other than me should really do this.)
The original Scratch was written in Squeak Smalltalk, which *will* run as a monolithic app on a mostly bare Linux system, so something like that might be a starting point. There's also EToys and Croquet, both of which ran in the same system.
Definitely a turtles-all-the-way-down thing.
Added to my Computers>Cool bookmark folder.
I have PHEM on my phone and it's an okay emulator.
My take toward this kind of stuff is less "let's go back to the old tech" and more, "let's recover what we lost when the old tech got phased out."
I want the speed and simplicity of the Palm but I also want memory protection and better scripting.
@suetanvil @bhtooefr @kelbot The palm I've been using, for example, just doesn't have several things that I would consider Essential if I was building this device from scratch.
Even discounting the software layer (which has some *concerns*) the lack of bluetooth is a real pain in the ass, and the headphone jack is very nearly a dealbreaker (and might ultimately become one)
I like the thumb keyboard. I like that it'll dock in to a full sized keyboard.
I like that I can use an SD card for storage (and now that I have the right drivers, an SDXC card, that's incredible!) and that it'll play music and movies in modern(ish) formats as long as I plan ahead.
If I could have all this, the existing battery life, 4x as many pixels, and just a smidge of modern software (I don't need chrome, I'd settle for something as feature complete as Dillo or Lynx. A modern email client, maybe a matrix client, and real WPA2 support over Wifi-6) I don't think I'd be looking for anything else.
@ajroach42 @suetanvil @bhtooefr Yeah, my m500 is not perfect. It is still suffering from limitations relating to being 20+ years old tech. But depressingly it is closer to my ideal pocket computer than modern pocket computers.
Basically a minimally modernized Palm Pilot that supported modern file formats and some minor networking and storage upgrades would be perfect to me.
Huh. Thinking about what I liked about my old Palm devices, it mostly boils down to lack of enshittification.
I used to fiddle with LispMe or read Plucker-formatted ebooks but now I have the web and social media instead. And I kind of wish I didn't. The Palms were purely offline devices that synched with a computer so I could only use what I'd downloaded the last time. So there's nothing to push me into long-form activities because the web is always right there.
Also, I guess: the default notepad, calendar and todo were all simple and nice. The interface was really snappy and consistent.
Also also: You could backup and restore the *entire* contents of a Palm with one button. To *your* computer, not someone else's.
@suetanvil @ajroach42 @bhtooefr I wrote this a couple years ago.
Andrew (Television Executive)
neonmoon
kelbot ◖⎚∠⎚◗
AN/CRM-114
Chris [list of emoji]
Matt Gauger
bhtooefr
DJ Sundog