"Pete Rickard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [...] > In US department stores (and many "job lot" stores) there are pocket organizers > for sale for $20 or less. Typical model is a Rolodex/Franklin 512k model that offers > many features as well as a phone directory and a jot-down-notes mode. What interests > me about these is a "free PC download" kit offered through the mail after purchase; > exactly what I could use - a little device I can use to record addresses, phone > numbers, names, diner locations, whatever on the road and, when I return home, > a way to dump them into my trusty text-only 386 PC.
I don't have any simple answers, but there's good news, bad news I think. There are two challenges you face: 1. Getting some software that will work with DOS to interface with the device (more below). 2. Getting a definition of the data that can be exchanged with the device. > The main problem is that the included software usually requires W95 or newer; > DOS ain't supported. But with the proper serial cable, isn't there a simple way to do > a basic "data dump" from one of these little pocket marvels? Has anyone tried this? > It would be good to not reinvent the wheel, so to speak. ALTERNATIVE 1: PORT *NIX SOFTWARE My experience in this area comes from using a Palm handheld. Although many of the issues are the same regardless of device, Palm does have the advantage of providing a wealth of developer info and data definitions. The good news is that if you use a Palm device, a lot of work has already been done. The bad news is that everything I've seen is written for *nux. The next bit of good news is that it's open source software, and the odds of someone porting it to DOS are pretty good, so long as they have experience working with serial devices under DOS. There are also a number of utilities to convert between Palm and non-Palm software, so that part should work well for you. Many of them are written in C, so someone suitably equipped could make it happen. They're all very small utilities, so size shouldn't be much of an issue. I haven't ported anything to DOS for nearly 10 years, so I'm afraid I can't help much. If you are (or know) a DOS developer, then take a look at www.freshmeat.net and look at the PalmOS category to see some of what's available. If someone's REALLY ambitious, the source for the Palm conversion utilities should give them a good head start on writing something equivalent to ALTERNATIVE 2: RUN A LIGHT LINUX DISTRIBUTION TO TRANSFER DATA Another possibility might be to use Steven's BasicLinux to set up a minimal Linux install on your 386 just for data transfer using the existing Linux tools, then manipulate the files in DOS. ALTERNATIVE 3: PSION I did a bit of searching, and found a few other links that might be helpful. The page at http://www.ericlindsay.com/epoc/sisync5.htm references conversion software for PSION organizers. ALTERNATIVE 4: DOS SURV-HANDHELDS If you don't mind using a Surv-Handheld, the HP200s and Atari Portfolio were DOS-based handhelds. The Poquet was a larger unit that was DOS-based as well. Using one of these might allow you to use the SAME software on both your desktop and handheld. Amazingly though, the HP200 seems to have held it's value better than a desktop, and they sell for a premium on ebay. I ran an Atari Portfolio for about a year back about 1990 or so (when they were new) and it worked well until I cracked the screen. It was an interesting unit, and ran native DOS apps quite well. With a serial card, it might be exactly what you want. The downside is that one of these will probably run for closer to $100+. Good luck! - Bob To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
