Page 34 - The Ultimate Palm Robot

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Bots /The Ultimate Palm Robot/ Mukhar & Johnson / 222880-6 / Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Meeting the Palm Robot 17

Figure 1-7
The m105
almost kinda
sorta works
with the
PPRK—you
may have to
add some
glue to get it
all working
properly.

Handspring Visor

A few pages back, we told you the once-upon-a-time story of Jeff Hawkins
and his bid to make the perfect PDA. A few years after Palm launched its
first few devices, Hawkins left Palm and started a new company called
Handspring. Hawkins’ goal in creating Handspring was to create
smartphones—PDAs that doubled as mobile phones. It took a few years for the
first Handspring smartphone to materialize—you may know it now as the
Treo—but the company’s first few devices were Palm OS devices that went by
the name Visor (see Figure 1-8).
The Visor was similar to the Palm III, but it featured a key innovation: an
expansion slot in back called Springboard. Although not important for the
PPRK, Springboard proved to be important to Handspring for several years,
since it allowed dozens of independent developers to create add-on modules
for the Visor. These gadgets turned the simple Visor into GPS receivers, FM
radios, cell phones, digital cameras, and more.

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Monday, May 12, 2003 10:09:12 AM