04-01-2006, 04:00 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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APRIL FOOLS: Palm Announces Treo 700d, Features MS-DOS 6.22 and Legendary Simplicity
I've just received an exclusive report, apparently from Palm's executive team. It appears they're poised to roll out another Treo right after the 700p (PalmOS) release, and it's something from left field, but very likely to shake up the handheld industry overnight. I'm very proud to present to you a prototype picture of the new Palm Treo 700d!
As the screenshot and the name implies, this Treo is no slouch: it's running the latest independent release of MS-DOS, v6.22. This immediately makes this new Treo compatible with more software than most of the handhelds on the market. Apparently, the 60MB flash ROM appears as a hard disk to DOS. A floppy drive can be plugged into the USB interface at the bottom of the device; flash media up to 2GB can also be mounted, as long as it uses FAT16.
The press copy in the leaked report suggests that HP's old DOS-based handhelds is the inspiration for the 700d. It reads, "The huge success of the HP LX series handhelds inspired us to bring that technology to the consumer who demands full compatibility with legacy applications such as Lotus 123 v2.2 with integrated Allways, WordPerfect 6.0, and more. Since the Treo has a full QWERTY keyboard, DOS use is intuitive and really brings home the simplicity of Palm that consumers demand."
The hardware is visibly similar to the current 700w (and the rumored 700p), but features some new under-the-hood specs apart from the ones listed above.- An Intel i386SX processor running at 16MHz;
- 640KB of RAM, expandable to 1MB (the extra 384KB is available as either EMS or XMS);
- The screen is 320x320, but natively supports the CGA/MCGA/EGA/VGA 320x240 standards and will downsample higher resolutions, including 640x200, 640x350, and even 640x480;
- Borland's SideKick 1.5 is bundled and is resident in memory to serve phone functions. It features a full NotePad, Calculator, Calendar, and Dialer; the latter is enhanced to integrate natively with the phone module in the device. If more memory is required to run memory-intensive applications, EMM386 or a similar memory manager can be used to load SideKick into high memory.
I don't know about you, but I'm really excited about this. I can't wait to load the huge amount of DOS software I have into a handheld device. Rumors also abound that Windows 3.0 or 3.1 might work on the 700d -- if I get my hands on one, I'll be sure to try it out and report back. Anyone plan on getting one? 
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04-01-2006, 04:04 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 349
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I believe they also bundled Quarterdeck's QEMM 9.0 on the CD.
Gosh, I miss those days. TSRs, memory management, really tweaking your CONFIG.SYS (I made menus for different types of programs I was going to run that session).
At least we can kinda get back to it with PocketDOS... 
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04-01-2006, 04:06 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 218
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You guys are having entirely too much fun today! :lol:
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04-01-2006, 04:13 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 524
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Nice!
I'd buy one of these bad boys!
I wonder if it can run Windows 3.1 and Internet in a Box!
If nothing else at least DOS was more stable then the Treo 600/650's!
Very well done Janak! Happy A1!
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04-01-2006, 04:14 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 263
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Great, today's my birthday (yes, I mean it) and this is the best gift I can get, in my wish list on line as soon as it is available no matter the cost. :mrgreen:
Edited: Does this stuff run a PPC emulator? That would be nice.
__________________
MacBook Pro 2.53-250-4. iPhone 3G-8
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04-01-2006, 04:30 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 2
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I thought all the old "DOS jockeys" were long gone and retired. Long live Tim Patterson!
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04-01-2006, 04:39 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 14
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There might be life for me still? I can actually go back to assembly programming? Rock on... :rock on dude!:
April Fools... :twisted:
__________________
Original developer on the first pocket PC, the Poqet PC.
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04-01-2006, 05:18 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 450
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If Word 5.5 works on it...I'm sold!
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04-01-2006, 05:30 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 1
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They forgot to remove the windows key
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04-01-2006, 07:49 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 177
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The first Treo to actually be worth the money!
(BTW, like on all early Windows boxes, the Windows key is non-functional.)
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Linear Mode
