In the dark ages, before iOS and Android phones became ubiquitous, there was the PDA. These handheld computers acted as simple companions to a computer and could often handle calendars, email, notes and more. Their demise was spelled by the smartphone, but the nostalgia of having a simple handheld and romanticizing about the 90’s and 2000’s is still there. Fortunately for the nostalgic among our readers, [Ashtf] decided to give us a modern take on the classic PDAs.
The device is powered by an ESP32-S3 connected to two PCBs in a mini-laptop clamshell format. It features two displays, a main eInk for slow speed interaction and a little i2c AMOLED for more tasks which demand higher refresh then an eInk can provide. Next to the eInk display is a capacitive slider. For input, there is also a QWERTY keyboard with back resin printed keycaps and white air dry clay pressed into embossed lettering in the keys and finally sealed using nail polish to create a professional double-shot looking keycap. The switches are the metal dome kind sitting on the main PCB. The clamshell is a rather stylish clear resin showcasing the device’s internals and even features a quick-change battery cover!
The device’s “operating system” is truly where the magic happens. It features several apps including a tasks app, file wizard, and text app. The main purpose of the device is on the go note taking so much time has been taken with the excellent looking text app! It also features a docked mode which displays tasks and time when it detects a USB-C cable is connected. Plans exist in the future to implement a calender, desktop sync and even Bluetooth keybaord compatibility. The device’s previous iteration is on GitHub with future plans to expand functionality and availability, so stay tuned for more coverage!
This is not the first time we have covered [Ashtf’s] PDA journey, and we are happy to see the revisions being made!
man i miss apps that would start immediately. this just makes me think of palmos.
it’s a real frustration that i want a lot of features that require immense complexity (like a web browser, tcp/ip, a deeply-interactive map). but then i also want simple things like a clock, and google’s stock clock for android these days is so intensely slow that they added a splash screen to obscure its slow loading, and even so it’s not fully loaded by the time it starts trying to render its screen. two seconds load up the 10 bytes of information represented by the alarm i set. something without the complexity is a non-starter for me, but do i have to give up all of modernity just to get a clock app that loads in an infinitesimal amount of time??
You remind me of my old Motorola phone. From power off, to fully working, took about 5 seconds.
Then came the smart phones – which took a full minute to start up.
With a “never switch it off” philosophy. Adding a “flight mode” was easier than speeding up the reboot process.
I’ve watched a video before talking about some softwares being artificially slow/load longer to make it seem to “do something”. While this may not be the case with all apps, some does this on purpose.
Sam(e) here. Simple things that can actually run in 8 bits of some kind of simple 6502 code should be running independently of the Main Beast. I suspect something truly tiny ATTINY85 (pun intended) might just do the trick admirably well.
The way I see it, the ESP32 family of SOCs went The Right Way – it is possible to turn off (aka sleep) the main CPU and let the low-power RTC CPU handle things (not all ESP32s have that – I believe C6 and S3 do, unsure about D1 and C3). Haven’t tried it yet (I am still coming up the learning curve with these), but I’ve read it is possible to throttle down the CPU speed to a bare minimum and make it barely consume anything while in sleep. Basically, wake up, refresh the screen with the clock, go back to sleep. If I remember right, some screen driver chips are advanced enough to automagically keep screen drawn (if using ordinary TFT or AMOLED) without main CPU intervening, so there.
Regardless, I long thought that integrating everything under the sun into one proggie running on one CPU was a terrible idea to start with – if the integrated proggie fails, everything integrated with it fails as well, integratively speaking. The clock, etc, fails as well. Why not set it aside as its own picosystem unrelated to the main cpu, then, and do the same with the other things. Bunch of ATTINY85s talking to say, low quiescent RTC board, and, I am pretty sure, I could program one ATTINY to run off the RTC board;s lithium battery, too : – ].
Something like that. Small, robust, reliable, and basically modular, when/if one module quits, replace with the equally small robust and reliable module with no downtime.
“Proggie”? At long last it’s come to this? What do you do with the time you (don’t) save?
: – ] I progg zem proggies. Some behave, some (especially conversion ones) partially do. The ones I wrote all Just Work When Need to Work.
I prefer simple/robust programming with as few lines of code as possible. Served me well so far. Little ones that don’t need any further refinement are the best. (I am pretty sure of all the utilities I’ve ever wrote in the last 25+ years, more than few are still around, propping up some unimaginable Super Duper Manager’s career).
The aforementioned PalmOS was a 32-Bit OS, however.
It originally ran on the Motorola 68000, which is a 16/32 Bit hybrid.
https://www.fuw.edu.pl/~michalj/palmos/Memory.html
The bad thing about 8-Bit CPUs such as 6502 is the highly limited address space (64KB).
Storing lots of data, such as for address book, telephone book etc might be easier with an 16-Bit CPU (1MB address space, often).
Because it needs no bank-switching or the use of various segments.
While looking at the video, all the time I was thinking how great it would be if the screen would be detachable and have its own power and (less powerful) processor. Then you could use the whole thing for normal, productivity use. But also detach the main screen if all you want is to use it as an e-reader, or something else that doesn’t need the power and versatility of the whole device.
The ‘base’ could then be used separately with only the smaller screen, e.g. as a calculator or something. Seems to me, by the way, that there is room for a slightly larger oled, which would help when used in this configuration.
The device would become an 80’s style device that never was… ;)
Its very cute, such an adorable device. Normally, seeing hinges and ribbon cables together make me anxious about the longevity but in this case, I’ll let it pass
Without legacy I/o, legacy access, and LED s’ it’s nothing more than a glorified sticky note.
“The main purpose of the device is on the go note taking so much time has been taken with the excellent looking text app!”
I’d love to see a period near the middle of that sentence.
It’s just missing a comma before the conjunction “so”.
the note, taking so much time, has been taken with the excellent looking text app
I can run fuzix on it?
And will it run Doom? ;)
I also find it funny how the idea of pocket PDA keeps returning every decade under different disguises.
IMHO, one of the best clamshell forms (with the shell that closes properly) were the early 1990s “organizers” that could run off two CR2016 (or 2032s, don’t remember) for like two months. I still own the Casio SF I bought (Radio Shack had its exact twin) – it has clock, calendar, notes, etc (also some simple games) – and it runs up to this day. The trouble was with the proprietary (back then) interface that couldn’t really connect to anything to be useful, I am sure by now I can trick it into working with what I need. I just wish it was rooted, no, probably not possible, but if I’d figure out how to transplant some kind of ESP32 into the same shell format, that’s exactly what I need. Also, perhaps, add another screen into the top of the shelf, so that clock and date are shown without opening the shell.
With a little digging, I found some info on the Casio SF line of Digital Diaries, regarding their communication protocols, serial wiring, and communications software here: https://www.imslsoft.com/faq.htm