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I have great fun explaining what a PDA is to my students. 'so it's a phone?' 'no because it isn't. Also because it does not have internet connectivity' 'so i
by Daub 4y ago
I have great fun explaining what a PDA is to my students.
'so it's a phone?'
'no because it isn't. Also because it does not have internet connectivity'
'so it's basically a brick? A smart brick?'
- aaws11 4y agopublic display of affection
- qwerty456127 4y agoYou over-complicate. A Palm practically is just an ancient iPhone with black&white screen and email-only connectivity over an IR or a COM port. AFAIK there even were late models which could make calls and browse the web. Smartphones were called "communicators", modem-less models (like what today iPod is to iPhone) were called PDAs.
- AshamedCaptain 4y agoI was calling "smartphones" as "smartphones" for sure during the 2000s. In fact, I just looked up the Treo 180 PR (2001ish) and it was calling it a "smartphone". For me "communicator" always meant something looking more like a, well, Nokia Communicator (or with the same form-factor).
- bitwize 4y ago"Smartphone" was a Microsoft coinage from the early 2000s used to refer to PDAs with phone capabilities running Windows CE. They didn't trademark the term, so once the iPhone and Androids came out it was applied to them as well. There are quite a few industry terms like this. "PDA" was coined by Apple to describe the Newton in generic terms. The term "game console" was promoted by Nintendo in the early 90s to prevent clueless parents from calling rival systems "Nintendos"; before that we called them systems or just referred to them by brand name.
- yellowapple 4y ago> The term "game console" was promoted by Nintendo in the early 90s to prevent clueless parents from calling rival systems "Nintendos" Too bad that didn't quite work.
- Daub 4y agoThe difference between an iPhone and everything that preceded it was not the hardware, but the deals that Jobs struck with the carriers, specifically AT&T, to upgrade their network.
- harryvederci 4y agoReminds me of a story of a friend of mine, who is a teacher. He said something like: "Back when there were no computers [...]." A student raised his hand, and asked: "But if there were no computers... How did people access the internet?"
- jrootabega 4y ago900 numbers. Even for kids. Letting your phone company be a 3rd party payment processor, mind-rotting garbage content drawn out as long as possible to maximize revenue, etc. Curse you, 1-900-89-MAURICE! https://www.gravediggerslocal.com/2008/10/the-little-monsters-1-900-number/ https://www.gravediggerslocal.com/2008/10/the-little-monster...
- michaelgrafl 4y agoJesus Christ what have you pulled out into consciousness from the deepest wells of my mind!
- badsectoracula 4y agoI think a much simpler explanation would be something like "it is like a phone with the SIM card removed - can't make calls or connect to the internet, but can still run its own applications and games" :-P (the SIM card part would be because it is something the students could do with their own phones -and some might have done at some point- so they'd have first hand experience)
- f1shy 4y agoOnce I saw a video of kids born in the 2000, they were put a rotary phone in front of them. They could not understand how to dial. We are OLD :)