Continuing the series of “15 Quick Bits About…”, let’s take a look at some facts (Quick Bits) about a personal digital assistant, or, PDA, I would see being proudly used a couple of decades ago — the Palm IIIe. I did not own one of these devices myself at the time having just recently picked one up from a thrift store a few years back.

Quick Bits on the Palm IIIe

1. The Palm IIIe was released in 1999 by Palm Computing, shortly after the more expensive and more advanced Palm IIIx. [1] [3]
2. Shipping with Palm OS 3.1, the Palm IIIe was the only Palm device to not include Flash ROM, which means it has no ability to upgrade the OS. [2] [3]
3. The Palm IIIe has a total of 2 MB of RAM with no expansion slot to add additional memory. [3]
4. The Palm IIIe has a 16 MHz Motorola DragonBall EZ CPU. The same CPU as the Palm IIIx. [3]
5. The Palm IIIe‘s screen has a 160 x 160 pixel 2-bit monochrome (4 grayscale) touchscreen display. [1]
6. After its initial release, a Special Edition IIIe device was released with a translucent clear case. [1] See Figure 1 below.
7. The Palm IIIe could be synced only by using its serial port. To sync with a computer using USB, you had to purchase a separate USB-to-serial adapter. [4]
8. The Palm IIIe is capable of storing 6,000 addresses, five years of appointments, 1,500 “to do” items, 1,500 memos and 200 e-mail messages. [5]
9. The Palm IIIe runs on two AAA batteries providing approximately two months of operation. [6]
10. The Palm IIIe has a super capacitor in it that gives you about one minute to switch out old batteries with a fresh pair without losing any data. [7]
11. The Palm IIIe is the third in a series of five models (or, six, if you include the Palm IIIe Special Edition model) in the Palm III lineup. [1]
12. The Palm IIIe featured an inverse electroluminescent backlight that illuminated the screen text instead of the screen background. [1]
13. The Palm IIIe was introduced at a price of $229 (USD) – the lowest ever introductory price for a Palm device. [8]
14. The Palm IIIe used the Graffiti handwriting recognition system, which uses a set of symbols and strokes designed to simplify data entry. [9] See Figure 2 below.
15. The Palm IIIe has a literal Easter egg in it. Switch to the Preferences app and draw a small, clockwise circle above the calculator button. [10]
16. BONUS: The Palm IIIe‘s ‘Find’ function quickly searches across all databases including addresses, datebook, expenses, mail messages, memos, and to do items.

References

1. Palm IIIe. Wikipedia. Retrieved 27 Feb 2023.
2. A History of Palm, Part 2: Palm PDAs and Phones, 1996 to 2003. Welcome to Low End Mac. 19 July 2016.
3. Palm IIIe. HandWiki. Retrieved 27 Feb 2023.
4. Palm IIIe Organizer. Macworld. 31 Dec 1998.
5. 3Com Announces Palm IIIe, USB Cable. Twice. Retrieved 17 Mar 2023.
6. Palm IIIe PDA Organizer. Cheekspot. Retrieved 17 Mar 2023.
7. Palm IIIe Battery Replacement. PeterVIS. Retrieved 17 Mar 2023.
8. Low-Cost Palm IIIe Handheld Ships. CNET. Retrieved 19 Mar 2023.
9. Graffiti (Palm OS). Wikipedia. Retrieved 24 Mar 2023.
10. Palm OS Easter Eggs. PalmInfocenter. Retrieved 30 Mar 2023.

Other Quick Bits

This is one in a series of Quick Bits, including:

1. Commodore 64
2. Commodore VIC-20
3. Texas Instruments TI-99/4 & TI-99/4A
4. TRS-80 Pocket Computer PC-2
5. TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) 2
6. TRS-80 Model 100/102
7. Palm IIIe
8. Compaq C120 (Pocket PC)
9. Compaq Portable

If you prefer seeing this type of information in video format, be sure to check out the Bits && Bytes YouTube channel.