Talk:Personal digital assistant

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    [edit] Ugh its like holding a small book to your head

    I removed the line "Ugh its like holding a small book to your head." for the following reasons

    • I have never heard the word "Ugh" in an article (i have)
    • It should be "it's" not "its"
    • Since when have PDAs been held to one's head? *im pretty sure that they mean hand.

    If anyone objects then please revert the page MichaelBillington 06:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

    Since PDA devices incorporated mobile phone technology... AndyyE 19:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

    they are like a book when u hold them when taking a call its stupid and why do you correct this guys point??annoying?? :D:D<<<<hunter>>>> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.231.125 (talk) 09:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Old talk

    Other terms : Handheld PC.


    Why doesn't Microbrowser convert into a link?

    [edit] PADD

    The Star Trek PADD is said to have been one of the inspirations for PDAs user:ted-m 6-6-2005

    Hmm, that's an interesting observation. On a related note, I remember Jake Sisko in DS9 writing a novel using a PADD with a Palm-style freehand area below a text display, so it's been a nice two-way exchange. BTW, you can make the Wikipedia automatically sign your posts by entering four of these things in a row: ~ . Thus: Sockatume 03:09, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    Considering the first PADD was seen in Encounter at Farpoint in 1987, and the first flat calculator-like PDA was in 1978, it is not likely the former influenced the latter. Corvus 19:23, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    good point. I hope you don't mind my copy-and-paste of your comment into the PADD article. --DavidCary 15:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] "PDAs plus full-size keyboards"

    Over in Talk:Laptop, I've been chatting about things like the Cambridge Z88, and the TRS-80 Model 100 line, and the AlphaSmart Dana, and the Atari Portfolio. They don't quite match up with current perception of laptop computers -- they are instant on, have long battery life, can't run Windows, etc. I think of them as "PDAs plus full-size keyboards". This personal digital assistant article claims that the Dana is a PDA, and those other devices seem to me to be very similar to the Dana. So, should I tag them all with Category:PDAs, or would it better to make some other sub-category of Category:Portable_computers to put them in? --DavidCary 15:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

    Please note that smartphones have full pledged OSs(Windows CE, Symbian, Linux). There is also an Information appliances article that are charactized by their 'smartness ' and touchscreen. There is also a handheld device article... Does the keyboard characterize portable computers?--Jondel 04:05, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

    [edit] Other purposes

    I don't think all modern PDAs support game emulation software. Somebody should denote what brand of PDA dosen't support it, and other purposes. Nobody wants to buy the wrong PDA for the wrong reason as some PDAs are not as versatile as others. --Nintendude 09:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)jkjkj

    [edit] Cleaned up a bit and stuff

    I removed the old comments, I hope people don't mind. (If you think any of the comments are still relevant, just add them back.) Anyway, I think the link sections still need some kind of cleanup, there are still too many links IMHO. Also I'm not sure if all the info in the overview section is necessary, in particular the section which I've named "Increasing popularity". Not sure about "Popular PDAs" either, this section should maybe just link to some of the most known? But the "History" part could probably be longer, although I don't know much about the history myself.

    PS: If someone works on the "See also" section, consider adding Handheld PC. --Mythril 19:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

    Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. It is customary to archive, not delete, talk pages.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Other purposes

    I don't think all modern PDAs support game emulation software. Somebody should denote what brand of PDA dosen't support it, and other purposes. Nobody wants to buy the wrong PDA for the wrong reason as some PDAs are not as versatile as others. --Nintendude 09:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

    Removed the mention of emulators, as it's not really useful to the article.--Mythril 19:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Study details needed

    While not necessarily inaccurate, these numbers don't mean much in isolation. For instance, the numbers alone do not indicate if all Palm OS-running handhelds and phones were compared to all Windows CE-running handhelds and phones, or if the comparison was single-function PDAs alone (not including smartphones). If I am right about which study is being referred to here, the study excluded smartphones -- which would include Palm's most popular line, the Treo. -- Steven Fisher 19:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Overview: History

    Is Palms/Palm Pilots really used as a generic term for PDAs? First I've heard of it. 86.132.0.242 01:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

    At least in holland it is. And since palm used to be THE pda it seems likely that many people still refer to their pda as palm. Besides palm sounds cool, pda sounds sort of nerdy to me.

    It's not used in the same extent that a "PC" is always considered based on Windows unless otherwise noted (eg Linux PC) but fairly often used for any kind of PDA.

    Yes, people do overgeneralize with Palm (in California). I've often thought it was my duty (as a PC technician) to inform people that the generic term was PDA, not 'Palm'. The interesting thing is that I never heard it called 'Personal Digital Assistant'. It was always 'Personal Data Assistant'. Just do a Google, you'll see many (though a minority, a significant minority) use 'Data' instead of 'Digital'. Odd, I wonder where the reference to 'Data' came from. PDA, Nerdy? I disagree! :-)

    [edit] "Struddle my Noodle"

    Pointless. Use the Sandbox instead. I deleted it.

    [edit] PalmOne --> Palm

    Does this need changing?

    [edit] PDA Watches

    Is there room in this article to add a short discussion of PDA watches, or would that go better somewhere else?

    I'm thinking of things like the original Timex Data Link, which I think was one of the first organizer watches. It also used that blinky CRT method to download data, which made it sort of interesting. I'm just not sure where it goes.

    [edit] Educational - POV

    The educational section reads like it was copied from an advertisement. Han-Kwang 09:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

    I agree - having taught for many years PDAs are still too slow for effective note-taking, I am observing increasing use of digital audio recording, often without requesting permission first, but no note taking using PDAs. I suggest this section needs revision or deletion. Tony Davies (talk) 10:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
    I noticed this too, and think a problem with it is that it reads like an essay (both in the sense of reading like a personal reflection pushed as facts and the general tone of the writing), so I added the template for that. If it's to be fixed, it looks like it will need a major revision or rewrite done to it. — Northgrove 18:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Grammar

    Can people please remember that the correct plural is "PDAs", not "PDA's"? The apostrophe should not be there. --Tiberius47 04:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC) I agree


    And please check spellings before posting drivel!

    Yes! I want my drivel properly spelleded.Jedaniel (talk) 04:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Operating systems -- things to remember

    Please remember the following things when you edit stuff regarding operating systems:

    • Desktops are not operating systems. They are, just like Linux, components in an operating system. Plese treat them as such.
    • Only one name covers an operating system. Each operating system will have differences and each of them will want to be treated differently -- even if they do share some components or have similar functionality. If you want to refer to some missing functionality in an operating system, please do not refer to one of it's components, but use the full name of the operating system. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FrederikHertzum (talk • contribs) 08:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

    FrederikHertzum 08:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

    Would it then be acceptable to refer to a PDA running such an operating system as being "GNU/Linux-based"? This is how Richard Stallman refers to the entirety of the code which comprises the operating system in dispute here.

    [edit] external keyboards

    Good catch on that. Alatari (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Images

    Those images are nice but the are pushing the POV towards Palm devices. Unless the machines are the top sellers of all time maybe we should stick with a stylized image to avoid favoring one brand. Otherwise we'll have to put up pics up an iPhone, Ipaq, Treo, Toshiba e-series, etc, etc. Alatari (talk) 00:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] People with disabilities

    Changes should be self-explanatory, but in a nutshell: previous section version (titled "PDAs for the Visually Impaired") was both inaccurate and written in a personal voice. Comments were insulting and ill-informed. kid shelley (talk) 01:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Popular Models

    Deleted "OQO..." from list of popular PDAs. The OQO products are considered UMPCs, not PDAs. They are comparable to the Laptop in functionality, similar to the Samsung Q1 series, the Asus EeePCs, and TabletKiosk's eo models. See Ultra-Mobile PC for more information. Jedaniel (talk) 04:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)