Happy 5th Anniversary to the Pocket PC!

[Jason Dunn]

Today, April the 19th, is the 5th anniversary of the Pocket PC's launch - the product we know and (sometimes?) love it five years old. Looking back at the original iPAQ 3650, it's amazing how far the hardware has advanced in some ways, but by the same token it amazes me how similar the devices are. It took almost five years for the Windows Mobile camp to move from QVGA to VGA, which is a bit sad. On the plus side, it's been five years and we've had four operating system releases - so those Windows Mobile coders have been hard at work. :way to go: Windows XP is, what, four years old now? And it's successor, Longhorn, is still more than a year away - so kudos to the Windows Mobile team for continuously releasing new versions of their operating system (now if we could just talk about that connection manager and IMAP glitches...).<br /><br />Looking back over the last five years, what are your favourite memories of owning a Pocket PC? Anything stand out?

[njl2016]

My favorite memories? How about the 800+ soft-resets and countless hard-resets I've done since December 2004. :wink:
Then there was that one time, when I thought I killed my iPAQ with static shock, but I just had to plug in the AC adapter and it was fine!
Seriously, this is my first PPC (switched after 3 years with PalmOS) and I'm looooooving it. My favorite memory of owning a PPC is talking to my iPAQ with Voice Command and having it talk back to me. It's great to see the looks people give you when you do that in public. :P

[OSUKid7]

Wow, big day. PPCT anniversary, Oklahoma City bombing anniversary, and new Pope elected. It's just too much! :lol:

[MitchellO]

My favorite memory of owning a PPC is talking to my iPAQ with Voice Command and having it talk back to me. It's great to see the looks people give you when you do that in public. :P

Yeah that would be neat!!

My favourite memory is when I first switched. I convinced my dad to swap his Jornada 545 for my Palm V and an MP3 Player!! That was when I was 10. I am 15 now and I have been using PPC ever since, and now have gotten converged with a PPC Phone. It has been a pretty good platform over the years. Palm is just so much more restrictive.

Since my Jornada I have owned 5 PPCs (including my XDA II Mini) and haven't regretted staying with the Pocket PC OS (Windows Mobile). WM2003SE is a nice upgrade over 2003, particularly with rotation support!

[redleg]

My favorite PPC memory goes back to 2001 and a fellow grad student who was using about 20 3650s with GPS units for her graduate project on vehicle tracking. I'm not sure if it was so great because I had gadget envy (I didn't even have one PPC at the time) or because of her...

[pepemosca]

In 2003 makes me realize how good a PPC is :)
I bought one.

Happy Birthday PPCT!

[encece]

Isnt the PPC older than 5 years?

Does the Philips Nino count? I know I had one when I worked for CompanyX....and that was 7 years ago.

[MitchellO]

No, the Pocket PC was the devices that were release with the Pocket PC 2000 OS running WinCE 3.0. The devices before were pre 3.0 i believe, and called Palm-Size PC or something like that.

[Gerard]

Leaving a too-large collection of least favourite moments out of this, as Jason asked only for favourites, will be tough. A lot of the good stuff I've learned has come from the bad experiences. Still, got to try...

The first time I connected part-way with someone else using VoIP was a rush. It was one-sided, using bSquared's thoroughly bogus client for which I'd just plunked down (read; wasted) $50, but it was a thrill almost on par with using a walkie talkie for the first time when I was a kid. Over dialup no less.

Then there was my stepdaughter's first bike ride without training wheels. She took off like the proverbial bat outta hell across the park, not realising I'd taken my hand off the sissy bar of her bike and was busy using my Casio PPC and Casio CF camera to grab it on video. That's 18 seconds of the most precious video I have.

There have been moments of gloating which offered some satisfaction, like when a Palmie is going on about whatever glorious features and then I trump them and do a couple of techno-backflips to deliver the coup de gras. I don't indulge in that any more. Well, not much. Learned to be more accomodating of other people's investments. And to be fair, there have been a couple of times when a Palm user came up with something a PPC can't touch... yet.

I bought my first Casio E-115 before they hit the stores here, through a consulting firm picked out of the yellow pages almost at random. They happened to have a contact at Casio and got me the device by mid-May of 2000. Got me a modem and a CF camera that summer too, then they lost their Casio connection. I loved that E-115. Still miss it a little, but apparently its third owner (it lived with a writer for a while after me, then with an artist) is very happy with it so that's okay.

It'll be interesting to see what another 5 years brings by way of changes to mobile tools. Of course JackAubrey, AKA Craig1959, is thoroughly confident that unless he can open his car and house and buy stuff at vending machines using his PDA the species will die an early death. So sad.

[encece]

I still count em...because it was still either that or the Palm/Handspring. :D

[Clinton Fitch]

Seeing a Pocket PC for the first time and thinking "WOW! I can get Windows on something that small!" Of course, I've come to learn not **all** things work like I think they should.

It has been great to see the products grow in power and productivity.

[Darius Wey]

(1) When Pocket PCs were first introduced, I still remember the Palm community having a bit of a chuckle. Sure, things weren't all that great, and there were a lot of things that needed improving, but who's laughing now, eh?

(2) For better or worse, I still remember when Compaq and HP became one. That impacted the iPAQ community in more ways than one.

(3) It's great now being able to whip out your Pocket PC and hop on to a wireless network to check your email, perhaps your RSS feeds and so on, and this is just one of the many defining points that tell you how mobile our lives are. Things can only get better, and I can't wait to see what unfolds in the next few years. A unified Windows Mobile device appears to be the way to go.

Happy Birthday Pocket PC! :bday:

[jimski]

Sorry Ed :roll: When I turned on the built-in Bluetooth :D on my 3870 for the first time, my primary reason for jumping from Palm.

Now, I have a couple dozen other good reasons, but at the time that's all I wanted.

[marcm]

I've had my Axim X30h since the end of June 2004, and it's my first Pocket PC. However, I have had a few WinCE devices along the way. My favorite moment was when i first tried it out, and then put my Palm Zire 71 to rest in a drawer for countless months. :wink: I do also love being able to browse sites over WiFi. I actually think my PPC is more stable than my Palm was. However this could be because I was trying experimental programs on my Palm that were already way ahead of the experiment stage for Pocket PC. I love WinMob, and will never turn back to P@|_/\/\! :wink:

[ctmagnus]

My favorite memory? The absolute smooooothness I've experienced with my iPaq the last couple of months. Nary an issue!

(Unlike the previous 46 months)

[firescorpy]

cant believe its 5 years since the launch of Pocket PC. Looking back, I started using a Palm in 2003, then switched to Pocket PC. Happy 5th anniversary!

[jgrnt1]

When the iPAQ 3650 made its debut, I was a Palm user (IIIxe). I couldn't wait to get the iPAQ. I was at the office when my boss (an extreme technophobe) asked me about the new-fangled Pocket PC and whether it would be useful (in other words, could I teach him to use it?). I told him I'd need one, too, if I was going to become an expert with it. He said to let him know when they were available.

I came back from a business trip and stopped at Best Buy before going home. I asked about the 3650. The salesperson said he would check, but he didn't think they were in yet. He found two that had just come in. One was supposed to become the display model. I called my boss, who told me to buy both of them....and ta-da....my first PPC.

I had every gadget in the world for it -- the standard CF sleeve, a Silver Slider II, Krussell CF case, an IBM Microdrive (which died after 15 months -- Jason, didn't one die on you, too?), a CF to PC Card adapter, so I could use a portable hard drive, and more. I didn't care how bulky the thing got, it was gadgety goodness. I slimmed down after that (Toshiba e550g, iPAQ 2210, iPAQ 4700) and will never go back. I don't imagine the PPC will either.

[bigkingfun]

As goofy as it might be, the thing that stands out for me is seeing the Commodore 64 startup screen the first time I ran Pocket C64. I spent many, many late nights hacking away at my C64 as a kid and seeing it on the PPC brought back a flood of memories.

Probably one of my geekier moments, but getting Speedscript running in Pocket C64 was probably the most memorable for me. If it only had worked with my folding keyboard, I would have been set :rock on dude!: (I couldn't find a propeller head smiley...)

[biglouis]

Per usual, it has taken Microsoft about 5 years to get it right. Not that I'm complaining because I did not own a PPC until 2003 SE.

LouisB
DOS 1.0 to Windows XP Pro - I've seen (and suffered) it all

[bleeman]

December 31, 2001. My wife and I were heading to Best Buy so I could spend my combined Christmas and Birthday money on some gadget (No clue what it was going to be) during the after Christmas sales. The parking lot was so full we had to park quite a ways away. Walking down the sidewalk out of the corner of my eye I saw a paper bag taped to the Window of Staples. On it someone had written "We have the iPAQ in stock!" (This was during the time when they were very hard to find). We went in, I started playing with their demo and I was hooked. Walked out with their last one!

My second memorable moment was 3 PPC's later in December 2004, when I'd finally saved enough for my 5555 (My "Dream iPAQ"). Finally I had WiFi, Bluetooth and an SD slot all in a nice slim package. No more bulky sleeves for me :D

[bcries]

My first PDA was a Casio e125, bought used from eBay. I sold my P-133 laptop for $200 and used the same money to get the e125 - more portable, longer battery life, more RAM!!

At the time my university buddies and me were without a home, since the landlord's stupid chemical spill had forced us out of our house. Staying on friends' couches for a few weeks, I had no recourse but to have the e125 shipped to my office at the university.

So I may have been homeless, but the Casio e125 kept me occupied and relatively happy. *sniffle*

[Sven Johannsen]

Wonder how many remember that the HP Jornada 545 was the first PPC that was actually available. Compaq and Casio were a bit behind getting them on the store shelves.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Ah, the memories! :D

[Damion Chaplin]

Wonder how many remember that the HP Jornada 545 was the first PPC that was actually available. Compaq and Casio were a bit behind getting them on the store shelves.

I do remember that. I also remember reading the reviews and saying "You can't read it outside in the sun? No thanks, I'll wait for the iPaq." :? It was the iPaq's sleeve design that really made me wait.

My fondest memory was calling all the CompUSAs, Best Buys, Circuit Citys, Office Depots, Staples and OfficeMaxs in a 100-mile radius of my house trying to find one that had an iPAQ in stock. I eventually found ONE in a Circuit City 50 miles from me.

My second fondest memory was when I saw the first iPAQ that wasn't mine and had a great conversation with its owner (at that point I had never even seen one on display anywhere).

[Don't Panic!]

Wonder how many remember that the HP Jornada 545 was the first PPC that was actually available. Compaq and Casio were a bit behind getting them on the store shelves.Hence one of my favorite memories. Getiing the 545 cover to flip open like a Star Trek communicator. :lol:

[Gerard]

Yeah Sven, I also remember that the Jornada was first out of the gate. I even got to try one in a Vancouver store in July of 2000, two months after getting my Casio. It wasn't for want of trying to find one to check out; they just didn't appear here until then, and the iPAQs didn't show up until the next winter. Wanting a device sooner than retailers allowed led me to make a decision for the Casio.

I'd followed what little I could find on the three models available for a little while, all in magazines, as I didn't have a computer. The iPAQ was drawing all the attention, plainly, but the Jornada appealed strongly just for sweetness of physical design. Expansion and sunlit viewability were good selling points for the iPAQ, but as I live mostly indoors the latter didn't seem relevant. And for slim expansion, the CF type II slot of the Casio was a strong draw.

The clincher, for me, was that the Casio had the best screen contrast and colour range by far. I'm a visually-oriented person, big-time. Being able to adjust contrast very widely to suit ambient lighting was attractive, and the brightness range was more than adequate for any indoor situation.

It still seems to me that some sort of hybridised version of the Jornada's shell with other device's features would make a good device. Perhaps take the vaguely art nouveau shell contouring and commit further to that, going a lot further towards a 'Metropolis' aesthetic... then toss in a wicked screen for indoor/outdoor use, dual slots (or triple, dammit!), native wireless, a phone, and a much better stylus than that stick the Jornada came with. That would appeal to a lot broader market than most of the current very ugly designs.

[jlp]

No, the Pocket PC was the devices that were release with the Pocket PC 2000 OS running WinCE 3.0. The devices before were pre 3.0 i believe, and called Palm-Size PC or something like that.

The name was different but actually technically they are exactly the same. The proof? If I remember right you could updgrade the Compaq Aero ROM daughter board to run PPC (then you didn't have flash ROM just non reprogrammable mask ROM). Also you could run PsPC (Palm-size PC) apps on the newer PPCs. You could still run these today if it were for CPUs, then only MIPS (mainly Casio) and SH3 (mainly Jornada) were available, now every device use ARM-core based CPUs (XScale/PXA, Samsung) so PsPC binaries can't run on ARM-core CPUs. Also the Casio E-115 was basically an E-105 (PsPC) with a PPC ROM board.

So technically the Palm-size PC can be counted as more than just the PocketPC precursor, but a PocketPC in its own right, just with a different name...

[jlp]

There have been moments of gloating which offered some satisfaction, like when a Palmie is going on about whatever glorious features and then I trump them and do a couple of techno-backflips to deliver the coup de gras.

You certainly mean "coup de grâce" i.e. "stab/blow of mercy", because "coup de gras" means "stab/blow of fat" :wink:

[Gerard]

Oh come now, surely a PPC is 'phat' compared to a Palm. ;)

I know, it felt wrong writing gras as I did it but as I never studied French the right spelling just wasn't at my fingertips. J'scuse? Pardon et mois?

[Cybrid]

Favorite moments

Convincing dad to loan me money to buy my first one. Casio-e125
Getting my first dial-up modem
getting my first LAN card
512Mb microdrive.
The Camera.
The GPS! I paid $60 bucks. Later I found out that I'm the owner of the oldest known surviving Co-pilot GPS unit.
Using said GPS for my first long road trip! 1400Km round trip.
Discovering that I don't need a nullmodem adapter since my Casio serial cable would suffice.
My first WiFi card.
My first VGA device. X50V. My first Extended battery :roll:
Learning that all my experimentation with PPC's could actually apply to desktops as well

I learnt all my computer lessons the PPC way!!! Back-up! Back-up! Back-up!

[emuelle1]

Life with a Pocket PC has definitely been interesting. I used to work with a guy who had bought one and found himself not using it. I didn't know much about them, other than my wife kept telling me that we couldn't afford them and I should be happy with my Palm Zire (long story, wanted a handheld, so I floated the idea at Christmas and got one). This guy said that he never used it and was considering selling it for $120. I asked if I could see it, so he brought it in, let me play with it for a few days, and I brought him the cash that Friday. It's an Ipaq 3765, and still runs for more than I paid for it.

It developed a problem syncing, which later turned out to be the switchboard, but I didn't know. I got so mad one day that I pushed the soft reset button too hard and broke it off (ooops). It finally reached the point where it wouldn't sync at all, except over IR with my laptop. I finally figured it out and ordered a new switchboard and it works perfectly fine now. I've found it to be a very solid unit.

Of course, by next week I'll have a Dell x30 high, so I'm going to give this ipaq to my friend's wife. It's served me well for two years.

I just love being a computer geek.

[redraiduzz]

had to be when I'm announcing football games, come into the booth and people just drop their jaws at all my "techno" setup!

I'll use the keyboard to track the stats, and pull out the Sipix pocket printer and print the stats at half and at game's end.

Some appreciate it greatly, some could care less, others marvel at it and while it's just a basic Excel sheet with summations for each player, I long to turn it into a ufll-fledged VB.NET app if possible someday and sell it! :lol:

[mightymission]

Gotta say the best change was in 2002 when I got my first converged device - T-Mobile Phone Edition. No more Bat belt with the PPC, cell and blackberry and I'll never go back!

[KTamas]

Hmm...memories...
First: when i saw my father's boss' iPaq 3670 (yeah, this was my first PPC too)...the first think I've done with, was a solitare i belive :D
Worst: When i broke my A620's screen and i was PDA-less for 3 months...oh, and once my ipaq lost all installed programs after a soft reset (no, it was not a hard reset, but a lots of data disappeared)...and once i saw that little switch (yes, the hard-reset switch :P) at the bottom of my ipaq and i thought i can really turn it off with that...and I did. I was shocked when i saw that i made an hardreset...
Best: When I switched from my A620 to XDA...oooh, the PDA-cell phone goodness :)...and when the WM2003SE upgrade came out to XDA.

[Steve Jordan]

Sorry, but after 5 years, I'm not so impressed.

Sure, M$ has perfected the pocket organizer/plaything in 5 years. But at the same time, engineers have managed to squeeze a full OS, and any applications it runs, into a computer the size of a PPC. RAM can now hold gigs of memory in a postage-stamp-sized space.

As far as I'm concerned, my PPC should be my full computer, not just a really cool organizer. I should be able to buy a detechable keyboard for full typing capability, a detachable tablet (minimum letter-sized) for digital ink and full-size display capability, and use it as a cellphone or wireless networked PC anywhere I go. THAT would be an impressive 5-year progression.