Gee, is it already over ten years ago that these oversized pocket calculators achieved the final breakthrough of the PDA? Together with the mainstream revolution of the WWW suddenly cell phones and personal digital assistants exploded everywhere.

Palm created 1996 a huge market that was invented by Apple with it’s Newton 1992. But the original Newton was a brick compared to the slender Palm (which would appear huge compared to today’s machines). And it played nicely with a Mac and a PC. Something Apple always hated until they finally ‘got it’ with the iPod.

Suddenly everyone wanted to have one of these organizers - in every meeting people would try to take notes with Graffiti - a special sign language to make the computer better understand human handwriting. Most people ended up using the keyboard map instead.

Today the PDA’s are slowly disappearing - or better say evolving into the smart phones. Today almost any cell phone offers an extended address book and scheduler. If you need more power - you simply use a notebook or small laptop. Especially since PDAs from Palm and Windows CE are bloody expensive.

The whole PDA market will be killed by smart phones. There is no need to have a small computer if you cell phone can organize your life as well.

More? Palm Pilot @ Wikipedia