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Nothing made me feel older than going to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA and seeing a Palm Pilot in the display case. It should be illegal to

Nothing made me feel older than going to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA and seeing a Palm Pilot in the display case. It should be illegal to show things which were an integral part of your life, a short 30'ish years ago, as if they were uncovered in the ruins of some pre-civilization. Not fair at all.

codezero 2y ago
I still have my original PalmPilot in a box in the attic. Its existence was a huge life lesson for me. I asked my boss to pay for it (he did) but he said: do you use anything to organize your life and projects right now? If you don't, I don't think a PalmPilot will help you. He was so right.
- astrange 2y ago
  I read a lot of ebooks on mine.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    We used to put ebooks on it to help us during university exams. I pretended it was a calculator. I know, I’m ashamed, but it was for a boring course on economics.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      I was the opposite. I used it as a calculator, without adding any ebooks on top, but my professors were uneasy about it. Then I got a calculator to curb their anxiety.
      - 0xEF 2y ago
        I remember when calculators were the Forbidden Fruit because, according to maths teachers, we were "not going to be walking around with calculators in our pockets all the time."
        bayindirh 2y ago
        For simple stuff, incl. calculus, I agree with them. This was for other courses, which prioritize methodical correctness rather than math knowledge, like physics and chemistry.
- bouncing 2y ago
  I find that often, having a tool that enhances something you never did doesn’t make you start doing that thing. But there are exceptions. I never had an address book or calendar until I had a Palm Pilot. It might have just been that I was becoming an adult at the time, but part of it was probably a barrier to use factor. The Palm was a small thing I could carry to class, keep near my phone, bring to my internship job, etc. It and the need for organizing did conspire to make it my first real organizer and my first time having that information organized at all.
  - lloeki 2y ago
    The key difference for me was that I didn't always have my notebook/agenda on me/at hand, so writing things was haphazard and unreliable (either I tried to remember and failed or I noted it down but consistently lost the random piece of paper I used as a fallback) whereas when I got a Palm device I always had that device at hand. It all boiled down to the physical paper tradeoff: small filled up quickly/was too constraining a space, bigger was impractical to lug around anywhere. So arguably I had sort of a broken system in place already but it became very intermittent to the point of being nonexistent in practice because of the constraints. Palm devices allowed me to fully realise the system.
  - codezero 2y ago
    Totally agree about there being exceptions. I never wore a watch, but when my wife got me an Apple Watch it became a huge utility to me to filter notifications to see only important things I cared about and it made me more productive to have one.
johnwalkr 2y ago
On Reddit a few months ago there was a post about someone finding their grandfather’s old gameboy.
- therealfiona 2y ago
  To be fair, by grandfather had a Nintendo DS.
- tomashubelbauer 2y ago
  This one's funny because on one hand you have young people finding their grandparents Game Boys in the attic but on the other you'll have kids of the same age recording YouTube videos about GB modding, because that scene is still huge, diverse and very lively.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  As someone who had a gameboy growing up, and now a child, I had to quickly do some math to console myself that I'm not yet "Grandfather" age. This is simply a (now) old man who had fun toys as a (normal age) adult.
  - thombat 2y ago
    But the (horrifying) maths checks out: say he got the Gameboy at the age of 12 when it launched in 1989, had a first child at twenty in 1997, that child has a child of its own also at the age of twenty in 2017, grandchild aged six or seven now excited to find granddad's Gameboy. Twenty is merely youngish for a first child, not the stuff of shotgun-wedding backblocks.
    - Eric_WVGG 2y ago
      When I was 17 I had a job at Software Etc (a forerunner of Gamestop), and person checking out asked if I had any kids. I was kind of bewildered and said "I think I'm a little young for that" and she sort of shakes her finger in front of me, "oh no you're not honey" I've been thinking about that ever since, marking various dates in my life where I could take this theoretical kid out for a beer, etc. If my child's child had made a similar… um… life decision… I could be a great-grandfather in two years.
pjmlp 2y ago
Now imagine what I feel when seeing paper tapes, 8" floppies, assemble kits for Z80 in such museums. On the other hand, there some special sense of nostalagia for what I was doing back on those days.
finaard 2y ago
I still have a section on my homepage about how to create and flash custom ROMs for the Palm Vx - and somewhat surprisingly, I still now and then get emails from people asking for help with that.
PaulRobinson 2y ago
At the Science Museum in London, there is a collection of mobiles phones, computers and consoles in one gallery. My partner and I take great joy in pointing out all the ones we've owned over the years, it's great fun to see them again.
donatj 2y ago
The Computer History Museum also has a Dreamcast on display and that bothered me way more because there is some unresolved traumatized part of my brain left from when I was a teen still actively waiting for Dreamcast to make it's big comeback
cmgbhm 2y ago
We had an org offsite there about 5y ago. The VP afterwards asks everyone what they most fondly remember. One of the younger seniors says “I remember when my Dad used a palm pilot!” The room had the same experience.
wazoox 2y ago
I still have my Visor with its VisorPhone module, the very first touch-only smartphone in existence, 5 years before the iPhone :) It was big, clunkly and relatively impractical (the Visor ran on 2 AA batteries, while the phone module had its own rechargeable battery) but the complete integration with Palm Desktop (later jPilot on Linux) was a breeze.
g19fanatic 2y ago
the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in Syracuse has a display regarding the history and tech of cell phones. Our children were also incredulous that the nokia brick was what passed as our first cell phones.
layer8 2y ago
Computer history museums seem so relatively recent that I almost expect there to be computer history museum history museums at some point.
sillywalk 2y ago
I thought the 90s were maybe 10 years ago, tops.
yencabulator 2y ago
What made me feel extra old was being momentarily confused about how a Palm OS device had a display that wasn't green monochrome.

codezero 2y ago

I still have my original PalmPilot in a box in the attic. Its existence was a huge life lesson for me. I asked my boss to pay for it (he did) but he said: do you use anything to organize your life and projects right now? If you don't, I don't think a PalmPilot will help you. He was so right.

astrange 2y ago
I read a lot of ebooks on mine.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  We used to put ebooks on it to help us during university exams. I pretended it was a calculator. I know, I’m ashamed, but it was for a boring course on economics.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    I was the opposite. I used it as a calculator, without adding any ebooks on top, but my professors were uneasy about it. Then I got a calculator to curb their anxiety.
    - 0xEF 2y ago
      I remember when calculators were the Forbidden Fruit because, according to maths teachers, we were "not going to be walking around with calculators in our pockets all the time."
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        For simple stuff, incl. calculus, I agree with them. This was for other courses, which prioritize methodical correctness rather than math knowledge, like physics and chemistry.
bouncing 2y ago
I find that often, having a tool that enhances something you never did doesn’t make you start doing that thing. But there are exceptions. I never had an address book or calendar until I had a Palm Pilot. It might have just been that I was becoming an adult at the time, but part of it was probably a barrier to use factor. The Palm was a small thing I could carry to class, keep near my phone, bring to my internship job, etc. It and the need for organizing did conspire to make it my first real organizer and my first time having that information organized at all.
- lloeki 2y ago
  The key difference for me was that I didn't always have my notebook/agenda on me/at hand, so writing things was haphazard and unreliable (either I tried to remember and failed or I noted it down but consistently lost the random piece of paper I used as a fallback) whereas when I got a Palm device I always had that device at hand. It all boiled down to the physical paper tradeoff: small filled up quickly/was too constraining a space, bigger was impractical to lug around anywhere. So arguably I had sort of a broken system in place already but it became very intermittent to the point of being nonexistent in practice because of the constraints. Palm devices allowed me to fully realise the system.
- codezero 2y ago
  Totally agree about there being exceptions. I never wore a watch, but when my wife got me an Apple Watch it became a huge utility to me to filter notifications to see only important things I cared about and it made me more productive to have one.

johnwalkr 2y ago

On Reddit a few months ago there was a post about someone finding their grandfather’s old gameboy.

therealfiona 2y ago
To be fair, by grandfather had a Nintendo DS.
tomashubelbauer 2y ago
This one's funny because on one hand you have young people finding their grandparents Game Boys in the attic but on the other you'll have kids of the same age recording YouTube videos about GB modding, because that scene is still huge, diverse and very lively.
vineyardmike 2y ago
As someone who had a gameboy growing up, and now a child, I had to quickly do some math to console myself that I'm not yet "Grandfather" age. This is simply a (now) old man who had fun toys as a (normal age) adult.
- thombat 2y ago
  But the (horrifying) maths checks out: say he got the Gameboy at the age of 12 when it launched in 1989, had a first child at twenty in 1997, that child has a child of its own also at the age of twenty in 2017, grandchild aged six or seven now excited to find granddad's Gameboy. Twenty is merely youngish for a first child, not the stuff of shotgun-wedding backblocks.
  - Eric_WVGG 2y ago
    When I was 17 I had a job at Software Etc (a forerunner of Gamestop), and person checking out asked if I had any kids. I was kind of bewildered and said "I think I'm a little young for that" and she sort of shakes her finger in front of me, "oh no you're not honey" I've been thinking about that ever since, marking various dates in my life where I could take this theoretical kid out for a beer, etc. If my child's child had made a similar… um… life decision… I could be a great-grandfather in two years.

pjmlp 2y ago

Now imagine what I feel when seeing paper tapes, 8" floppies, assemble kits for Z80 in such museums. On the other hand, there some special sense of nostalagia for what I was doing back on those days.

finaard 2y ago

I still have a section on my homepage about how to create and flash custom ROMs for the Palm Vx - and somewhat surprisingly, I still now and then get emails from people asking for help with that.

PaulRobinson 2y ago

At the Science Museum in London, there is a collection of mobiles phones, computers and consoles in one gallery. My partner and I take great joy in pointing out all the ones we've owned over the years, it's great fun to see them again.

donatj 2y ago

The Computer History Museum also has a Dreamcast on display and that bothered me way more because there is some unresolved traumatized part of my brain left from when I was a teen still actively waiting for Dreamcast to make it's big comeback

cmgbhm 2y ago

We had an org offsite there about 5y ago. The VP afterwards asks everyone what they most fondly remember. One of the younger seniors says “I remember when my Dad used a palm pilot!” The room had the same experience.

wazoox 2y ago

I still have my Visor with its VisorPhone module, the very first touch-only smartphone in existence, 5 years before the iPhone :) It was big, clunkly and relatively impractical (the Visor ran on 2 AA batteries, while the phone module had its own rechargeable battery) but the complete integration with Palm Desktop (later jPilot on Linux) was a breeze.

g19fanatic 2y ago

the Museum of Science and Technology (MOST) in Syracuse has a display regarding the history and tech of cell phones. Our children were also incredulous that the nokia brick was what passed as our first cell phones.

layer8 2y ago

Computer history museums seem so relatively recent that I almost expect there to be computer history museum history museums at some point.

sillywalk 2y ago

I thought the 90s were maybe 10 years ago, tops.

yencabulator 2y ago

What made me feel extra old was being momentarily confused about how a Palm OS device had a display that wasn't green monochrome.