Right stuff for tasks? (PDAs) ============================= This is only a brain dump, do not expect anything useful! I normally have ready to use several pocket computers (they are often on my desktop or near it): * Palm III * Psion 3a * Sharp Zaurus SL-C760 (just checked it - it's really a C760, not C750 as I thought) * Ben NanoNote * Elektronika MK-52 calculator Use of the calculator is obvious: it is often faster to use it than open a calculator application on the computer. For the rest of these devices the things are more complicated. I have some frequently stuff programmed in the Electronicas memory so it is practical to use it. For some reason I prefer to use the Palm III for reading. During my work on the desktop I do convert selected WWW sites to the Plucker format and the I load them to the Palm. That's easy and then I can read the stuff on the Palm at any time. The Plucker viewer allows to save the links to www in the Memos application: thus I can, for example, read results of eBay searches off-line. The I can sync the Palm with the desktop and open the saved links on my computer. It's nice. In other hand, I practically do nothing creative on the Palm (even the written text are limited to shopping lists, short notes and so on). I usually take the Zaurus when I need to write something on the run. The SL-C760 still fits in the pocket but has a a nice hardware keyboard. I found it much more comfortable than the keyboard on the Ben NanoNote. Actually the NanoNote is best as an advanced pocket calculator (GNU Octave+Gnuplot and my own software) but I didn't needed such functionality too much in past few years (my work was changed a bit and in reality I now need no pocket computer at all). Both of these devices can be used as nice music players (the Zaurus has even a great remote controller on the headphones cable). Sometimes I do some light programming on them (usually to test some ideas when I'm far from my desktop). Unfortunately, things became complicated when many WiFi networks started to use more modern encryptions and other modern things. My device became unable to connect to them: the NanoNote cannot connect to the Eduroam (works great on unencrypted networks, anyway - so in a train it is just OK). The Zaurus uses the "b" variation of the WiFi protocol so it is mostly out of luck. This makes both machines useless in one of their most important uses: in the remote UNIX terminal role. I had to use my Ubuntu phone for this. And I often carry just one computer with me (or the phone and the Palm as this is the lightest combination). And to be honest, I didn't used the Palm 3 for anything but testing for more than year at least. It's heavier than other machines and on the desktop I always have computer with bigger keyboard and larger screen. If you miss the HP palmtops (200LX, 100LX) or the Atari Portfolio: I still have them but use them very infrequently. It is because their size and weight but also because they are quite precious and I do not want to damage them (I have at least 4 working Palm IIIs so I'm concerned about Palm loss - and it is also mechanically simpler and thus more durable). Update: ======= Just did check spelling of my Gopher texsts by the ispell(1). Most of texts should be OK. There was HUGE number of errors! Sorry.