Palm IIIxe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Palm IIIxe

Manufacturer Palm, Inc.
Type Personal digital assistant
Connectivity DE9 serial port, infrared port
Media 8 MB RAM
Operating system Palm OS 3.5
can be upgraded to 4.1
Input touchscreen
Camera None
Power 2 x AAA batteries
CPU 16 MHz Motorola 68328EZ Dragonball
Display 160 x 160 px, monochrome, super-twisted nematic LCD

The Palm IIIxe is a discontinued Palm personal digital assistant that was designed and manufactured by Palm, Inc.

Contents

[edit] Product data

Manufacturer's part number: 3C80304U

[edit] Dimensions

[edit] Operating system requirements

Note: these requirements are for the Palm Desktop PIM software that originally shipped with the Palm IIIxe. For a more up to date version of the software please see the Palm IIIxe download page.

OS Required: Apple Mac OS 7.5.3 or later, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or later.

[edit] About the Palm IIIxe

A Palm IIIxe unit with Accessories.
A Palm IIIxe unit with Accessories.
Palm IIIxe Hotsync Cradle.
Palm IIIxe Hotsync Cradle.

The Palm IIIxe was introduced into the marketplace in February 2000 as one of the two remaining models (the other being the Palm IIIc) in the III series line of Palm's Personal Digital Assistants.

The Palm IIIxe unit came in a black flip lid with an infrared port at top which lets users beam memos, addresses, etc. to another Palm handheld or personal computer. With the right software, the IIIxe can also be used as a universal remote control.

At the bottom of the unit is a serial port for hotsyncing to the user's desktop computer by way of a cradle. The serial port can also support various peripherals including the PalmPix camera, and The Stowaway foldable and Gotype keyboards.

Like other Palms in the series, the bottom portion of the screen features a silkscreen used by the Graffiti input system, and to provide shortcuts to the calculator, application list, application menu and search. The unit comes with seven physical buttons: power/backlight, Date Book, Address Book, up and down scroll buttons, To Do list , and Memo Pad. All the buttons except for the scroll buttons can be used to turn on the unit.

The IIIxe features a 16 MHz Motorola 68328 EZ Dragonball CPU, and is powered by two AAA batteries which can last up to a month or two depending on use. It also features the same enhanced 4-bit 160x160 pixel grayscale super-twisted nematic display area as the Palm IIIe and Palm IIIx, but has 8 MB of RAM and 2 MB of internal flash memory for system upgrades and third party applications. The unit shipped with Palm OS 3.5, but can be patched to later versions. Palm OS 3.5.2 fixed a memory leak in version 3.5 of the Palm OS, and Palm OS 3.5.3 fixed a flow control problem and a dynamic UI pointer issue that caused incompatibilities with some 3rd party applications. The latest version of Palm OS that runs on the IIIxe is version 4.1, released in November 2001. Unlike the free version 3.5 updates, Palm OS 4.1 was available only as a paid upgrade on CD-ROM.[1]

A peculiar note about this particular unit was that the top battery inserts 'backwards', as the positive terminal on the battery contacts the battery compartment spring; however, the bottom battery inserts the usual way with the negative terminal on the battery touching the spring in the battery compartment.

Some Palm IIIc, IIIxe, and Vx units manufactured between October 1999 through May 2000 had a DRAM defect that could overwrite user data randomly. Palm has released diagnostics and a patch to correct this problem. [2]

[edit] References

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (July 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
  1. ^ Palm OS 4.1 Upgrade is Now Available. 15 Nov. 2001. Palm InfoCenter. 16 Sept. 2007 <http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2607>.
  2. ^ DRAM Test. 8 Aug. 2001. Palm Inc.. 16 Sept. 2007 <http://www.palm.com/us/support/dram/>.

[edit] External links