I got the out-of-print book Piloting Palm as research for my book. You can get a used copy for about $9. (it's co-written by David Pogue, the guy you see on PBS

I got the out-of-print book Piloting Palm as research for my book. You can get a used copy for about $9. (it's co-written by David Pogue, the guy you see on PBS all the time) Shameless self-promotion: This New Internet Thing, by the way, will be free to read in serial form! Just search on Amazon for my pen name "Albert Cory" to pre-order the Kindle version. I actually spoke to Donna Dubinsky and got a "job" for one of my characters. Palm plays a key role for one of the characters. The context is that "handheld computer" was already a tainted category, after GO, Newton, Momenta, Zoomer, and General Magic had all wasted money and failed to catch fire. Everyone insisted that you had to have wireless communication, and you had to recognize cursive. Jeff Hawkins had the guts to defy that, and focus on the price and the form factor, period. He gave up on cursive and gambled that people would use Grafiti. Saying "no" to features is one of the hardest things in tech.