Making an old Palm "cooler"

Hi there!

I've a couple of old Palm PDA's such as m505, m500 and Zire 21. The only one I use is my m505 and I was wondering what cool things can be done with it and open source?. I mean, anything, from simple games to remote administrating my Linux box or controlling my TV with the Palm instead of a remote control . A devkit would also be cool, especially if by any chance python could be used to develop applications for Palm. Perhaps I'm asking much, but I miss the tweaking with underpowered machines . A couple of free applications would not hurt either, since every little thing I've found for PDA's are not free or affordable for what you get and I don't pirate (at least, not much ).

So far, I not even know what application I can use in Linux to hotsync my machines or even if some nice program in Linux to edit/add/modify my Palm applications and documents. I've tried googling a lot, but most of the stuff flying on the net is either dated or "untrusted". Something like source forge is what I need.

Well, suggestions, thoughts, experiences, informations you have about Palm, Linux or opensource are most welcome. Anything will do, so don't be shy

Thanks in advance!

P.S: This is the very best one I've found:
http://www.palmopensource.com/

http://www.raoult.com/palm/
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplan...orials/4445/1/
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_USB_syn...n_2.0_and_udev
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/PalmOS-HOWTO.html

I found www.palmgear.com to have a wide selection of free Palm Software. I have used it since I got my Handspring Visor Deluxe back in 2001. I have only used Palm since then....

Thanks a lot pevelius and stabile007 for your help. I'm still trying to sync my m505 to Linux. Tried jpilot, pilot-link and coldsync, no success yet. Gonna keep trying

Originally posted by Megaman X Thanks a lot pevelius and stabile007 for your help. I'm still trying to sync my m505 to Linux. Tried jpilot, pilot-link and coldsync, no success yet. Gonna keep trying

Describe your problem,... Maybe I can help. The m130 I use is very similar to the 500 series...

Thanks JaseP, that's very kind of you. First, I'd like to say that I actually have a m515 not a m505. Well, this is what I did.

OS: Slackware 10.1, kernel 2.4.29

First, I loaded the correct modules for the PDA:

modprobe visor
modprobe usbseriel

no errors reported. Then I've tried to press the hotsync key on the PDA and type lsusb to see if they were connected:

#lsusb
Bus 002 Device 019: ID 0830:0003 Palm, Inc. Palm M515

I've root-tail, which displays messages from my /var/log/messages on the root window. It displays the following when I press hotsync key on the pda:

usbseriel.c: Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Converter now attached to ttyUSB0 (or usb/tts/0 for devfs)

usbseriel.c: Handspring Visor / Treo / Palm 4.0 / Converter now attached to ttyUSB1 (or usb/tts/0 for devfs)

After a few seconds, the PDA fails to connect and an Hotsync error is reported on the PDA screen asking to check the connection...

Ok, so all seems to be working ok, the PDA and Linux are actually connected, right?. firing up j-pilot:

When I press sync on jpilot and sync on the PDA, nothing happens, it just stant still until the PDA reports the same error connecting. On the terminal, I get nothing.

Tried to connect as both root and user. After a while, I get the same Hotsync error on the PDA, but nothing is displayed on the Linux terminal. Jpilot status, displays:

****************************************
Syncing on device /dev/pilot
Press the HotSync button now
****************************************

OK, time to give coldsync a shot. First thing I did was to create by hand .coldsyncrc as described on their page. As user it fails, so I try to connect as root:

coldsync /dev/pilot

Nothing happens, but the PDA reports Hotsync error as usual, after a while. The .coldsyncrc file looks like this:

listen seriel {
    device: "/dev/pilot";
    protocol: simple;
    transient;
}

pda "My Palm" {
    snum: "L0PK17C13832-M";
    username: "Palm";
    userid: 1234;
    directory:
    "/home/alex/m505";
    default;
}

Have tried to change the listen seriel to usb and the username too. No luck. I also ran pilot-xfer, this is what I get:

bash-3.00# pilot-xfer /dev/pilot
Time elapsed: 0:00:00

Well, I'm running out of cards . Any suggestions for what I should try to do is more then welcomed.

Thanks again in advance!

I would point jpilot directly to the USB port where the cradle/cable is connected... rather than use the /dev/pilot setting.

That's the first hint... If that doesn't work, ther eare other things to try.

I would swear I had my m505 working a few years ago. I use a Tungsten T3 now, and that was a little more effort. But I basically do like JaseP says and point directly to the appropriate USB port.

Thanks again guys. I've manage to fix it and you were right. I had to point the jpilot to the USB slot that the Palm is connected to. It was a bit tricky though, even when I've tried "pilot-xfer /dev/ttyUSB1", it did not work. Turns out that even when pointing to ttyUSB1, pilot-xfer would still look into /dev/pilot and /dev/pilot was sym-linked to /dev/tty0. I've erased /dev/pilot and created a new link from /dev/ttyUSB1, and not it works

Thanks a lot for your help. Now it's time to check out the links and try my first Hello World application on my Palm

Regards!