What to do with an old PDA?

Factual Questions
#1

One of my mom’s friends gave her an old Visor Neo (I’ve surmised from the pictures on www.handspring.com and “confirmed” with a google image search). I’ve gotten this since she didn’t want it. It’s in excellent condition… I don’t know if it was ever used. Along with this, I got a clear USB cradle.

Ok, now the following questions:

What can I do with this? I don’t have any Palm software on my computer, which I think might be necessary.

Are there games or anything else cool that I can download onto it?

What else do you guys think?

#2

You could try turning it into an LCD display for your computer. I didn’t have much luck with my Handspring Visor Platinum, but it’s a cool concept.

#3

You should be able to get the software necessary to run it from the Palm website somewhere.

I’ve found that PDAs are very nifty for reading eBooks, basically books converted to digital text. A good program for that is MobiPocket Reader, which is free, and can read books in various formats. You can buy eBooks online from different places, and you can get plenty of them for free, such as from Project Gutenberg

Other than that, mainly I use them for keeping my schedule and contacts list.

#4

What about useful things, like being able to sync it with my PC?

#5

Sorry, that was directed at Garfield226.

#6

I did a quick Google search, and there are quite a few programs out there to sync with a PC. I’d suggest starting with http://www.palmone.com/ or http://www.palmsource.com/index.html since those are the two companies that Palm split into.

(I’ll have to get one of those someday…)

#7

Is it Palm OS based? If so you could play with the Palm Robot Kit here

#8

Oh. I found it. :o

No, I think I’ve been misunderstood… I’m going to use it as a PDA for right now. I always wanted to buy one, but I was afraid that I’d never use it. I figure that if I can get addicted to using this one, then I can treat myself to a neater new one. (or maybe an awesome Treo or something. :))

#9

Holy crap, guys! This is too awesome. I can HotSync my Visor and PC, then IR all of my contacts and stuff from my phone to my Visor, and then they store to my computer, and I can enter them in my computer, then sync it to my Visor, and then send them to my phone.

This coolness factor would be diminished slightly if I could get the USB Bluetooth thing that I bought for my laptop to work, because then I could then just go straight from phone to PC that way. :confused:

#10

Great. Now I have another question about it, this time I’m relatively sure that it’s not on the website. On the back, there’s a port for something. A big one. Like, I take the cover off, and it looks like it could fit a Game Boy game. No, not a DS one. Not even the cute GBA games. A full-sized one.

Surely they didn’t team up with Nintendo to make this, right?

#11

It’s a Springboard module port. It lets you plug in compatible expansion modules, like backup memory, a modem, a dictionary, or a GPS receiver. I’ve never used anything Palm PDAs for anything resembling long-term, though, so I have no idea as to how good any of this stuff is.

I have a PocketPC (iPAQ rx 3115) that I use primarily as a wireless Internet browser and e-mail device. T-Mobile has an unlimited Internet plan that I have on my phone, which I can access via Bluetooth from the iPAQ, so I can read the intarweb no matter where I am. You might be able to do something similar with the Visor, but I don’t know.

…always happy to answer questions for my secret board crush… :wink:

#12

Whoa, whoa whoa… waitaminute. So if I get the cool modemy thing, can I use my cellphone to do cool stuff? Let’s give the situation with phone/Visor.

Phone: Bluetooth and IR. Very expensive “Mmode”, but damn-near unlimited minutes.

Visor: Cool expansion thing.

So… can I buy something bluetoothy or modemy so that I can dial an ISP through my cell phone? If I did that, would it require me to pay for monthly service through… somewhere? I’m thinking that there’s no way for me to cheat the man here.

Hijack: Bambi, how you doin? I’ll be in FL tomorrow. Except not really. I hereby offer you an invitation to Fayetteville, though. :slight_smile:

#13

If your phone has IR, then it almost certainly has (or can emulate) a built-in modem; assuming you can find an ISP that accepts dialup connections from a mobile phone (and at low-ish speeds), then you can do email and web browsing on your PDA - I think the Opera browser and email packages for PalmOS are free - if they aren’t, there’s bound to be a free one out there.

#14

Well, I’ve got the Sony Ericsson T616, if that helps any. Where would I look to find something like this? And this whole idea is shot if I am going to have to pay for an ISP… although I guess I could do something like that… thing that costs .25 cents/hr for internet service.

This whole thing excites me ( :smiley: ) and confuses me at the same time.

#15

Also, you can send text messages using your palm via your phone. It’s much less painful on the thumbs to txt on a palm.

#16

Yes, but how? All of this confuuuuses me. :confused:

#17

There is some pretty cool software for PalmOS to turn your PDA into the ultimate home theatre IR remote control. Definitely a cooler app than storing names and phone numbers or keeping track of an expense account. There also used to be a couple of sources for TV listings available, making your remote even more useful.

#18

In theory, you would find a Bluetooth module for your Visor, install it, pair your Visor with your phone (basically authorize them to talk to each other), and use the dialer software to dial up an ISP. In theory. In reality, the devil is in that there little last step.

I use T-Mobile, which offers unlimited wireless Internet for $19.99 / month at more or less landline dialup speed, so that part is easy for me. I have no idea how AT&T Wireless / Cingular implements theirs, so don’t get excited yet. I will say it’s really cool to have my phone in my pocket with my iPAQ wireless connected to the intarweb wherever I am.