Palm Pilot
From Freepedia
Pilot was the name given to the first generation of personal digital assistants manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (then a division of U.S. Robotics and later 3Com).
Due to a trademark infringement lawsuit brought on by the Pilot Pen Corporation, the second generation in 1997 was named PalmPilot. From 1998 on, they were known simply as Palm but "PalmPilot" has entered the vernacular as a synonym for PDAs, regardless of the brand.
The original inventors of the Pilot were Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, who founded Palm Computing. The original purpose of this company was to create handwriting recognition software for other devices, named Graffiti, but their research convinced them they could create better hardware as well. Before starting development of the Pilot, Hawkins is said to have carried a block of wood, the size of the potential pilot, in his pocket for a week. Palm was widely perceived to have benefited from the notable if ill-fated earlier attempts to created a popular handheld computing platform by Go Corporation and Apple Computer.
Because Palm Computing was a subsidiary of 3Com, the group of founders became upset that they did not have enough control over the Palm product. As a result, they left 3Com and founded Handspring in June 1998. When they left Palm, Hawkins wrote a license for the Palm OS for Handspring, and the company became the first Palm OS licensee. Handspring went on to produce the Handspring Visor, a clone of the Palm handhelds that included a hardware expansion slot and used slightly modified software.
Palm Computing was spun off into its own company (then called Palm Incorporated) in 2000. Handspring later merged with Palm to form palmOne in 2003 when Palm Inc. split into companies based upon selling hardware (palmOne) and the software (PalmSource). In 2005, palmOne acquired the full rights to the Palm name by purchasing the shared rights PalmSource owned and changed names back to Palm again.
Palm handhelds initially ran on the popular Dragonball processors, a Motorola 68000 derivate. More recent models are using a variation of the widely popular ARM architecture (usually referred to by the Intel Xscale brand name). This is a class of RISC microprocessors that is widely used in mobile devices and embedded systems, and its design was influenced strongly by a popular 1970s/1980s CPU, the MOS Technology 6502.
Palm handhelds are beginning to become more and more advanced, including the ability to become hard drives on computers via USB cables, and are beginning to merge with smartphones. The Treo 650 is the latest offering that combines a Palm handheld with mobile phone, e-mail, SMS, and instant messaging. It is widely expected that Palm handhelds as a PDA-only device will disappear as multi-function Palm handhelds like the Treo 650 decline in price. Some predict that this will be caused in part by PalmSource convincing cellphone manufacturers to use Palm OS-like interfaces and PIM apps in their phones, bringing about cheaper, but less functional, Palm OS smartphones.
