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

If you have seen Part 1 and Part 2 of me trying to make use of the Palm IIIxe, this particular post would be no different. In fact, it might just be more of the same.

Contacts in Mac is not much different from iCal. We can essentially export all entries from the Contacts application into a vCard. This resulting *.vcf file can then be parsed and written into the Addressbook PDB format using PERL.

Getting data into the Palm IIIxe is a challenge. First of all, it doesn’t have Wifi. Secondly, it uses its own data format *.PDB to store data. Which means not only do I have to find a way to sync the data over the serial port, I also have to be able to convert the data that I currently have into the compatible format.

As mentioned before in the previous post, pilot-xfer is my friend. It can help me sync data in a few ways into the Palm. Serial or network. Thank goodness that Palm at least had the sense to include Network syncing, but the pilot-link suite of tools is the one that made it possible to redirect a serial port to a network-ed system running a HotSync capable machine.