Plucker in 2026
===============

Do you  remember the Plucker [1]  software for the Palm  Pilot devices?
Some years ago  I did used it on  daily basis to get news  into my Palm
(or other device which can read this format). The FBreader can read the
Plucker format so I used to read  documents in the Plucker format on my
Nokia 770/N800/N810 or on my Zaurus machines.

During the  time I have  ceased to use  this format. Mainly  because my
changing habits (I ceased to read in my bed and stopped to carry a PDA,
for example).  I still have  documents in  the Plucker format  here and
there.

To download RSS feeds and WWW sites and cot convert them to the Plucker
format I used the jPluck [2],[3] on the IRIX macjines (mainly on my SGI
O2). It's a Java software so it runs on the IRIX reliably but extremely
slowly. Thiw wasn't an issue as it usually worked in background (my SGI
O2 has 250MHz CPU).

When  the stuff  was  converted to  the Plucker  format,  I siply  used
pilot-tools to transfer them to my Palm III (to the TRG Pro actually as
it was  larger RAM and beefier  CPU - Plucker documents  with formating
are generally  bigger than Plam DOC  files and the Plucker  itself is a
big piece of software  by Palm OS standards). The O2  has a serial port
and a good  Palm support (both command line "pilot-tool  and the JPilot
work well here).

So speed wasn't  the problem. The SSL updates have  been a problem. The
old Java available  on the IRIX cannot access  modern SSL-enablet sites
so mosst RSS feeds are no  longer accessible. These few sites which are
still HTTP are okay but there are just a few now.

I still do have the jPluck installed  on my O2 and still have some Palm
PDA devices. So I  decided to try it once more. Many  sites in the list
no more  exist and  some are  SSL-only. But  some seems  to be  OK. The
jPluck is now quietly working (keeping  CPU usage at 100%...) so I will
see. Some sites still actually work tor me, anyway.



References:

[1] https://palmdb.net/app/plucker
[2] https://palmopensource.com/palmdb.php?more=384
[3] http://sourceforge.net/projects/jpluck