The decline and fall of the Palm empire

I confess. I am somewhat of a tech gadget geek.

But one gadget which I find invaluable - as someone who is often on the road for business - is my handheld computer Palm TX. I treat it as a portable laptop, address book, and calendar (and use it to take notes, to track mileage, gas, and expenses, to create virtual sticky note reminders, to read ebooks, to listen to music, to write beer reviews, and ...!)

And that's its advantage for me.

A Palm is small enough to fit in my pocket. But it's large enough that I can create spreadsheets on it, something I wouldn't begin to attempt to do on a smartphone, whose screen is just too small.

I tell people I have a perfect memory. It's my e-memory - looking it up in my Palm.

Fascinatingly, the Palm TX is - after but a bit more than 2 years since its initial release - a relic. It's my phonograph player, as it were, of the e-age.

The parent company, Palm, seems to be on its way out of business. But I'm keeping my Palm TX with the hope that eBay will have working models for sale in years to come. Here's an interesting piece on Palm's rise and fall.

And yes, I do own a phonograph player ... and more than 5,000 records!

Palm 100 (2001) > Palm 505 > Palm T3 > Palm TX