In these final tense weeks of the semester, many students feel like they will never get every term paper completed, every test studied for and every holiday gift bought without something important being left on the proverbial back burner until the last minute. Some still swear by old-fashioned sticky notes and strings tied around fingers, but others have turned to a unique class of electronic organizers known as personal digital assistants. Devices based on an operating system called PalmOS, manufactured by Palm, Inc. and associated companies, are among the leading models of PDAs. (The devices were introduced under the trade name of PalmPilot, which is still commonly used colloquially but has not been used commercially since the Pilot pen company sued for trademark infringement.)
Though each device has its own specialized features depending on model and manufacturer, all PalmOS PDAs have at least seven things in common: a calendar, a notepad, a calculator, an e-mail client, a contact list and an alarm clock. In addition to these features, users can download a wide variety of add-on software, and modems can be purchased for around $129 for all models.
In lieu of a keyboard, one writes down information with a modified alphabet, called Graffiti. Some individuals may be put off by the fact that the Palm requires users to master the seemingly unnatural Graffiti style, however, the Web site pdabuyers.com points out that it's more efficient in the long run.
\While this might seem fascist, it allows the program to run on simple hardware [as found in many PDAs],"" the site says.
The evolution of the Palm is divided into generations ranging from the earliest models, the 1000 and 5000, to the Palm VII, which uses an antenna for wireless Web access and is nicknamed the ""FrankenPalm"" due to its odd proportions. Though Palm holds all rights to the Palm trademark, other companies such as Handspring and
TRG Technologies have created their own unique versions.
Handspring's Visor is known for its colorful plastic exterior and a proprietary expansion jack for extra memory or other peripherals while TRG's product is almost a clone of the Palm IIIx but with comparatively advanced memory capabilities and an unusually loud speaker.
One might expect PDAs to be result of aggressive market research, but in fact, one of the first came from the research of a scientist working the inner mechanisms of human reasoning.
That was Jeff Hawkins, the father of the Palm. In the early 1980s, Hawkins was hired by GRiD Systems. Here, Hawkins planned to come up with a device that was not only compact but reacted to human touch, the creation of which would aid in his studies into the causes of brain impulses.
In 1986, while a graduate biophysics student at Berkeley, he came up with PalmPrint, one of the first handwriting recognition programs. The end product of PalmPrint was the GRiD Pad'awkward and sluggish, but nonetheless a revolutionary device.
The first Palms appeared on the market in April 1996 in the wake of several failed attempts by companies like Apple to dominate the industry with comparatively primitive tools. A year and a half later Palm sales had exceeded 1 million units.
UW-Madison students have mixed opinions on Palms' true level of convenience. Some, like Kerr Hsin applaud the convenience of being able to use one device instead of multiple paper notebooks. Others, like junior Elizabeth Ries are considerably more skeptical.
""I don't feel like they are as convenient as just writing in a regular planner ... people with PalmPilots look pretty pretentious when they use them in public,"" she said.
Whichever manufacturer comes out on top, PDAs are bound to become more common as time goes by. Not everybody is hooked yet, but prices continue to drop, and the devices are getting easier to use by the month. Eventually, PDAs might be integrated with mobile telephones and pagers, to form one portable device through which users could access all the information they need instantly and reliably. The technology is not yet perfect, but it shows every sign of being something to watch from a technological and social standpoint.
