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title: Setting up My Palm Desktop
date: 2024-10-02
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Vintage PDA Software on a Shiny Platter
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Now that I have a working battery in the Zire, my next step is to
get it syncing with a computer to back it up, add software and
hopefully sync my calendar, contacts, notes and maybe email.
The Zire package included a Palm Desktop CD and the "Read Me First"
quickstart booklet had instructions installing it. Given that it's
2024, installing this software on a modern system wasn't really an
option, so I had to come up with a different solution.
GIF Palm Desktop Software CD
But First Macintosh
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In keeping with the theme of the challenge, my first idea was to
run Palm Desktop in the Macintosh emulator Basilik II under a
System 7 install I use for getting software setup for my Macintosh
Plus.
HTML Basilik II
I found various versions of Palm Desktop, but they required PowerPC
and newers Macintosh OS versions that I don't have configured
already. Before getting to far, I wanted to verify that USB
passthrough would work on Basilik, but no matter what I did I
couldn't get the Zire, or any USB device, to pass through. This
saved me the effort of setting up a new System 9 VM and looked into
other options.
HTML Palm Desktop on Macintosh Repository
Latitude 7320 Enters the Chat
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I briefly thought about setting up an older Windows VM or something
else on my Macbook Pro, but then remembered my wife had given me an
old Dell Latitude 7320 laptop that her work no longer needed. I had
planned to setup it up as a workbench system and figured this was
the right time.
I'm partial to Linux Mint as my Linux Desktop Distro of choice,
since I prefer Debian based distros and don't really care for
GNOME3 or Wayland. Linux Mint fits my style of just installing it
and having everything work out-of-the-box without too much effort.
For laptops this is key if you want power management and wifi to
work well too.
HTML Linux Mint
A download and USB flashing later I had Linux Mint 22 "Wilma"
running on the Latitude with everything (even the touchscreen)
working. I verified that the Zire showed up over USB with `lsusb`,
which requires starting HotSync on the Zire, otherwise it's USB
isn't active.
GIF Zire with Latitude 7320
lsusb
```
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1bcf:28cf Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc. Integrated_W
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 8087:0026 Intel Corp. AX201 Bluetooth
Bus 003 Device 012: ID 1050:0407 Yubico.com Yubikey 4/5 OTP+U2F+CCID
Bus 003 Device 018: ID 0830:0070 Palm, Inc. Zire
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
```
dmesg
```
usb 3-3: new full-speed USB device number 17 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0830, idProduct=0070, bcdDevice= 1.00
usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
usb 3-3: Product: Palm Handheld
usb 3-3: Manufacturer: Palm, Inc.
usb 3-3: SerialNumber: PalmSN12345678
usb 3-3: USB disconnect, device number 17
usb 3-3: new full-speed USB device number 18 using xhci_hcd
usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0830, idProduct=0070, bcdDevice= 1.00
usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5
usb 3-3: Product: Palm Handheld
usb 3-3: Manufacturer: Palm, Inc.
usb 3-3: SerialNumber: PalmSN12345678
```
Searching for Palmy Fisher
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Now that I have a working modern Linux platform, the next step is
finding the best "modern" Palm-like software to run on it.
After some searching and remembering from Linux days gone past, I
found a few software suites that could interact with the Palm,
HTML kPilot
HTML gnome-pilot
HTML J-Pilot
My next steps are to begin testing these out and see what works
best. It seems gnome-pilot has a connector to Evolution, and if I
can get that working then I might be able to sync my Calendar,
Contacts, email and maybe even notes off my mail provider Fastmail.
This could streamline keeping the Zire up-to-date with minimal
effort.
Links
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