Page 38 - 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 21

right now they’re standing in line at the theater so they can be first to see the
Matrix sequel. That’s probably where Dave is right now.
If your friend bought a PalmPilot Professional when it first came out, up-
graded to the Palm III, followed by the Palm V, and then the m515 as soon as
they were available, this person might still have his older Palm devices lying
around. Ask if you can borrow, or even have, one of the older PDAs for use
with a cool robot project. Who knows, your friend may even want to help
build the robot.

The Local Recycled Electronics Store

If you live in a fairly large city, chances are good that there’s an electronics
store that recycles computer parts. This store will have old computer cases,
motherboards, hard drives, 5 ¼-inch floppy drives, 8-inch floppies (try telling
a teenager today that there used to be 8-inch floppies; they won’t believe you),
cables, wires, resistors, diodes, and, if you’re lucky, old PalmPilots. While
you’re at it, you may also find parts for your robot.

Pawnshops
Pawnshops do tend to have a less than stellar reputation, but they have their
uses—Dave bought a guitar at one many years ago, though Kevin refuses to
go near any such establishment. However, they are one place that tends to
have used electronic items. If there’s a pawnshop in your area, you may want
to consider checking for any used PDAs.

Online Sellers

Various online retailers sell digital devices. You can, of course, find current
devices at retail prices. There are also places online to find older, cheaper de-
vices. Here are a few places where you can find PDAs online.

eBay and Yahoo Auctions

One insanely popular place you can look for used Palm OS devices is an on-
line marketplace like eBay or Yahoo auctions. eBay is a treasure trove of used
electronic gadgets. When we recently checked for PDAs, we performed a sim-
ple search for “Palm pilot” and got over 1000 hits. When searching for
“handspring visor,” over 1300 listings matched the search. Not all of these are

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