Slap a smile on an old gadget

Entry Filed under: Hardware

December 1st, 2008

I had an old Palm m515 lying around, and even though it's not that old, it is fairly obsolete. It can accept MMC/SD cards for expanded memory, but I just don't know what to do with it! The sluggy Motorola 33MHz Dragon Ball processor is just way too slow to do anything useful at all... JPG images (with 3rd party software, of course) packing a modest 640x480 resolution load in about 10 painful seconds, there is no sound (only an annoying piezo beeper), the screen is only 128x128px in size (thus - drawing on it is very limited), so it's only good for what it was meant to be used for in the first place - writing down quick notes, creating to-do lists and using it as a phone book. I'll pass.

Now, since this thing is still a gadget, I was thinking about bringing it back to life for the purpose of doing something actually useful. I came across some Winamp controller applications, but they required a COM port cable (and all I've got is an USB cable that is active only when performing HotSyncs), and besides, who the hell wants to lean towards a tiny Palm screen with a greasy finger/stylus just to play some tunes? Later on, I found PalmOrb - a fairly decent LCD+Controller emulator that actually works over USB!

I have changed the ugly default PalmOrb green background to plain white+black with the largest font available, so it's nice and visible from a bigger distance.

To rotate the screen, I used XMaster (or any other Palm-hack app will do) with FlipHack (since the ugly and bulky USB connector won't let you keep your Palm standing up without it disconnecting accidentally). This step is unnecessary if you have a dock.

And, finally, to control the whole thing, I am using LCDSmartie. Works fine, has loads of features and the support forums (although outdated) have some nice ideas for creating the perfect LCD status screen. It's free, too! If I were using Linux as my primary OS, LCD4Linux should do the trick, although I haven't tried it yet.

Note for the anonymous lurker who probably wants to try this: Be aware that LCDSmartie has not been updated since 2007, and PalmOrb is no longer maintained either, so don't expect any active support if you run into any kinds of problems.

Oh, and enjoy the vid...

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