In a message dated 9/14/99 11:55:58 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Unfortunately
>
> http://www.palmlife.com/
>
>seems to be a case that will let you SEE a Palm below water but not USE a
>Palm below water,
I'd love to see someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're talking about
more than using a Palm Pilot while you are swimming, I don't see any simple
way for such a product to work. Are you seriously looking for something you
could use on Scuba? Building a case would not be a problem. The real problem
is that you've got a screen that works on a rather delicate touch from a pen.
At a modest depth of 33 feet, you have an extra 14.7 pounds of pressure per
square inch, which prevents the use of a flexible front screen that would
allow you to press through with a pen. If you go deeper, the problem is even
worse.
There are only three ways I can see to make this work, and none seems to pass
the dual test of being practical and economcal.
1. Completely reengineer the Palm device itself to be waterproof and to
survive high pressure. Got a few million?
2. Gerry rig some mechanical device that would transfer pen movement to the
inside of a pressure resistant box, more or less like an Etch-a-sketch. Lots
of luck using that with scuba gear. :)
3. Use a pressure equalization system. A simple one would be a giant baggie
with, say, four times the volume of the Palm at the surface, so the pressure
inside the bag can equalize to ambient as you dive. This is a cheap solution,
but it would be very cumbersome and easy to tear, and might not work: some
electronic components function in limited pressure ranges.
If you find a solution that is practical doesn't cost more than the Pam, I'd
be interested, too. It would be rather entertaining to do dive table
calculations underwater, or even to attach a depth guage to the Palm and turn
it into a dive computer/dive log.
Mike Westerfield
