04-19-2003, 01:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Happy Birthday Pocket PC!
April 19th marks the third birthday of the PDA we all know and love, our dear Pocket PC. It's amazing that it's been three years - it seems I've been at this a lot longer than that!
I remember exactly where I was on the 19th. At the time, I was on a short-term contract for Microsoft helping them build and launch PocketPC.com. We couldn't push the Web site live until Steve Ballmer made the morning announcement at Grand Central Station in New York city. I was part of the team that was going to prop the site, although considering I was a content guy, I was just along for the ride. I stumbled into the mobile devices building at 5:30 AM, ready to see my "baby" (the site) go live. We had a few problems getting it to propagate across to all the servers, but shortly after 9 AM eastern time the site was live. Ah, what a day...
Let's celebrate this birthday by telling stories about our fondest Pocket PC memories. What's the best memory you have about your Pocket PC? Was there ever one day when it was so useful to you that you were incredibly grateful you bought it? Or were you one of the people excitedly waiting for the launch of the Pocket PC? Tell us your story!
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04-19-2003, 01:11 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 383
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I quit my day job and went on to study arts. Days were long and when I got home I was far too exhausted to do any graphic designing, which had paid my bills earlier. I was facing eventual need to take break from school and return to work.
I then invested all the money I had left to purchase a iPAQ 3630 and used it to do mobile graphics while sitting in auditorium, taking advantage of the "free" time I had while listening to lecture. Needless to say, PPC saved my life that winter. :wink:
/jizmo
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04-19-2003, 01:17 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 555
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I hope you didn't actually buy a cake then took a picture of it Jason! 
Well...a short story of mine would be using my Jornada as speaker's notes in a talk I gave at a conference. Everyone else had POS devices (PalmOS that is ) and they were dumbstruck at why they couldn't use their own devices like that -- I was holding mine in landscape mode with backlights on full, which blew the POS devices out of the water.
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04-19-2003, 01:57 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 119
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I was teaching a "History of Technology" course to a bunch of 7th & 8th graders who considered themselves entirely too cool and hip and with it. One day I walked in and at the start of class told them I had a computer in my pocket. Yeah, sure, whatever. It's probably a calculator or something, they all said. Then I pulled out my Jornada 430se, turned it on and held it up to reveal the color screen. Ooooooooh!!! went the class. What fun that was!!
--Welmoed
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04-19-2003, 02:15 PM
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Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 6,878
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And for those that are interested/missed it: The launch...
Steve
__________________
"My eyes are rolling back in my head so far I can see my grey matter bubbling and frothing from reading this thread....bleh." JD
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04-19-2003, 03:37 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,608
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I remember 'launch' day clearly. I was doing my usual Slashdoting while having morning coffee when I got an email from MS telling me about the new PocketPC's that were available. After reading all the marketing stuff, I decided to toter off to Best Buy to see what the fuss was about. I was amazed by these little gadgets that could do most of the things my laptop could. At the time they only had the Jornada and the Casio. I opted for the less expensive but better looking Jornada. Loved it until. . .I made the mistake of playing with the Casio. The screen was gorgeous! Within a week I had already established a PDA buying trend that continues to this day. The Casio served my well until. . . I saw a picture of the Ipaq 3630. OMG I frantically searched around till I found one (at higher then normal retail mind you) and bought it. So within 3.5 weeks I had gone from not knowing what a PocketPC was to having purchased 3 different models. I haven't looked back.
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04-19-2003, 03:59 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Steve, great find. Brings back memories. I visited pocketpc.com that day and saw the iPaq on the page, and decided that I would try to get that. Outside viewing with a color display! 8O Who would think of such a thing?
The rest, of course, is history. :lol: That original 3650 is sitting in the closet gathering dust (I'm going to send it off to PPCTechs one of these days), but it was a great little unit, despite its dust.
--janak
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04-19-2003, 04:22 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 96
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Nothing compare to the launch of the first gen Ipaq in the summer of that year. The immediate shortage and the high price ($1K+) people were willing to pay at eBay was just amazing.
Right now things are getting stable, we need new excitement coming from the future Pocket PC platform, both software and hardware-wise. Ipaq H1910 is a good start, but HP just don't want it to compete directly to their flagship big brother Ipaq. It is a shame that HP don't beef up this would be killing PocketPC.
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04-19-2003, 04:41 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 124
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Pocket PC saved my life twice - in one day!
I was crawling through the jungles of the Amazon, on a secret mission to rescue the Ambassador's daughter from a ruthless gang of hooligans. They had demanded a ransom of $1B with which they were going to build an army of robots powered by grey-scale, small memory computers implanted in their chests. True, the robots would have limited capability, but there would be so many of them!
As I crawled through the jungle, we werre ambushed by a tribe of headhunters! Arrows flew everywhere, and we were all struck by their poison dipped barbs. Falling unconscious, we wer dragged to the tribe's camp.
We regained consciousness standing in a pot of water up to our knees, a fire licking the sides of the giant cauldron. Thinking quickly, I whipped out my Pocket PC, and the natives were amazed! Truly this LCD that was readable in the sunlight with such vivid colors was the sign of a technomage!
They quickly untied us, and agreed to help us find the hooligans. In fact, they knew exactly where they had their camp. With our new allies, we made our way to their camp.
With whoops and hollers, we besieged the hooligans camp. Poison arrows and bullets flew every which way through the air, but I was untouched as I made my way to the fancy tent in the middle of the camp. Suddenly, the leader of the hooligans jumped out and stabbed at me with his bowie knife! I saw the blade punch through my shirt, only to be stopped by the metal case of my Pocket PC! Stunned by this misfortune, the leader dropped his knife, and I was able to subdue him.
I then strode into the tent, compared the photo of the ambassador's daughter to the one on my Pocket PC, and saved the day.
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04-19-2003, 04:53 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 144
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ExtremeSIMS
Pocket PC saved my life twice - in one day!
I was crawling through the jungles of the Amazon, on a secret mission to rescue the Ambassador's daughter from a ruthless gang of hooligans. They had demanded a ransom of $1B with which they were going to build an army of robots powered by grey-scale, small memory computers implanted in their chests. True, the robots would have limited capability, but there would be so many of them!
As I crawled through the jungle, we werre ambushed by a tribe of headhunters! Arrows flew everywhere, and we were all struck by their poison dipped barbs. Falling unconscious, we wer dragged to the tribe's camp.
We regained consciousness standing in a pot of water up to our knees, a fire licking the sides of the giant cauldron. Thinking quickly, I whipped out my Pocket PC, and the natives were amazed! Truly this LCD that was readable in the sunlight with such vivid colors was the sign of a technomage!
They quickly untied us, and agreed to help us find the hooligans. In fact, they knew exactly where they had their camp. With our new allies, we made our way to their camp.
With whoops and hollers, we besieged the hooligans camp. Poison arrows and bullets flew every which way through the air, but I was untouched as I made my way to the fancy tent in the middle of the camp. Suddenly, the leader of the hooligans jumped out and stabbed at me with his bowie knife! I saw the blade punch through my shirt, only to be stopped by the metal case of my Pocket PC! Stunned by this misfortune, the leader dropped his knife, and I was able to subdue him.
I then strode into the tent, compared the photo of the ambassador's daughter to the one on my Pocket PC, and saved the day.
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WINNAR! 
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