Getting past 19200bps

It really took me a long while before I wrote the post. Partly coz I was really tired after all the mods done to my Palm, but also that after I completed it… I forgot. 🙂

From Part 2 when I last left off, I was really having issues trying to get the Palm to communicate with my Linux system at the full speed. 19200bps was the fastest I could go but I just couldn’t go 115200bps.

Getting a good clean signal over the serial port was really important. After a fair bit of use of the acrylic laser cut connect, it was found that it constituted too much trial and error in manually making the connection. So the idea to actually modify the Palm serial port into a connector started to take root. The key idea is to look for a space on the Palm, solder the connector and have that connected permanently on the Palm, so that when required, an add-on board can be used to expand the capability of the unit, instead of mucking around with the 10-pin port.

Serial ports are obsolete. So trying to sync the PalmIII to a modern desktop becomes a pain when you need to convert the serial port to a USB. The use of an adapter is to unwieldy to carry about, so the hunt for a PalmIII serial to USB cable begins…. and it ends rather quickly. It is very hard to find, and very expensive. So comes the consideration to make one yourself. Keep in mind that what I wanted to do was to create a cheap Palm to USB serial connector so that I could have PalmOS talk to a linux… for the purpose of… whatever.

However, mundane the PalmPilot is in today’s modern landscape, its simplicity still intrigues me. So as I continue to try to document the various steps I have taken to bring back the technology to life, at least within my own sphere of use, the hope is that we can all get back to a point where technology really is an enabler rather than just a distraction. So here is how I handled the final two basic components offered in a Palm. To Dos and Memos.

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3