PC Card Adapter for III Series Ready for Release

Posted By: Ed Friday, July 20, 2001 11:50:48 AM

The Parachute is a full-size, Type II, PC-card adapter for the Palm III series. It's in production now and will be officially announced within a week. The Parachute accepts virtually any PC Card that communicates via standard serial protocols, such as most modems and many wireless Internet PC Cards. It will initially be sold for $130 and the manufacturer is taking pre-orders. Palm V and m505-compatible models are expected to come out this Fall.

It was developed at UniLinear Corp., who sat on it for years, but Parachute Technologies LLC recently made a licensing deal to put it into production.

It works right now with some packet WAN cards, almost all modems, and GPS cards. They're working on drivers for Flash RAM and negotiating drivers for wireless LAN cards.

According to a company spokesperson, "Obviously, you won't be able to get throughput that'll do any kind of justice to the 11 Mbps raw data rate of the cards. Network utilities and servers will have to throttle for the Palms with these devices. The reason is not only that the PalmOS can't handle those rates, but the Parachute interfaces through the serial port so all bus operation is virtualized, and the serial bottleneck slows it down, even at the maximum port speed of 57.6 Kbps. A small price to pay for that kind of connectivity in a retrofit for your Palm III."

The III series version is slightly less than half an inch thick.

A few months ago, QRS Diagnostic announced that it had licenced the Parachute from UniLinear and would soon be selling it. At this time, the device does not appear on their webstore.

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how long has it been?

ganoe @ 7/20/2001 12:20:28 PM #
It has been how many years since this was supposed to be out soon (two if I remember right)? If you shop around (Sam's Club mainly), you can get a TRGpro with a CF slot for about the same price.

I might have been interested in this a year ago.



RE: how long has it been?
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/2/2001 2:00:57 PM #
this Parachute III is a great product..its about time we have it for use...

Certainly not the form factor of an m50x or Vx

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 1:34:40 PM #
Talk about a brick! This thing looks even thicker than a PocketPC!

What's the application?

Leech @ 7/20/2001 1:42:52 PM #
I don't use a laptop so don't use PC cards. What's the benefit w/a Palm?

Parachute: THE LONGEST RUNNING PALM JOKE EVER

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 1:48:06 PM #
Defined the term "vaporware" for a generation of Palm users. Thanks for the memories.

RE: Parachute: THE LONGEST RUNNING PALM JOKE EVER
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 1:51:29 PM #
Does it come with a wheelbarrow or backpack to carry it in?

The Parachute was a great black hole for venture capital
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 1:53:59 PM #
Does anyone actually think more than three people will actually buy one?

What is this ? Dinosaur ?!

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 1:53:03 PM #
.......Palm III ??

RE: What is this ? Dinosaur ?!
Quik_Fix @ 7/20/2001 2:00:39 PM #
Me Ludo.
Me put bark on rock, call new.
Now no rock, now good good rock.
No use gun. No use stick.
Put bark on rock. Now rock good.
Ludo like III. Still run. No change.
Now drag woman to cave... play minehunt.


mmm . . . vaporware

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 4:13:15 PM #
it took at least 2 years for this to finally get released, nearly a year after palm discontinued the III series.
any guesses on how long it'll take to bring out the Vx and m50x versions?
any guesses on how obsolete they'll be when they do come out?

RE: mmm . . . vaporware
ganoe @ 7/20/2001 4:48:42 PM #
and ... it's still ... not quite ... out ... yet! The announcement is really that they're now going to let you preorder one.

I wonder how much of their venture capital they blew on changing the company name from UniLinear to Parachute Technologies, LLC or whatever they did. Their old website is still up.

http://www.unilinear.com/

Hey, it apparently will include a vibrating alarm and an LED alarm as well as a speaker.

RE: Nearly a year?
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 5:13:07 PM #
It is not "nearly a year after palm discontinued the III series." The IIIxe was still going strong less than 6 months ago. Christ, the IIIc *still* hasn't been discontinued. Plus the VII and VIIx still use that cradle connection and are still being sold. And then there's the HandEra, which I thought was stupid to use a III cradle design, but oh well, brand spanking new and uses this connection type.

Why not!

LorenzSzabo @ 7/20/2001 4:32:08 PM #
I have a IIIc and I'm not willing to sell all my add-ons like Stowaway, Modem, PalmPix, etc., too just for getting a new Palm. People, hold your comments -- I'm not going to dump my IIIc because you like a m505!

-Lorenz

RE: Why not!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 5:54:39 PM #
Hold this! So what if you're still playing with Atari, Commodore, Amiga, etc., too?

RE: Why not!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 11:01:09 PM #
Oh, go to hell. The IIIc is perfectly fine for most users, and with the new OS 4.0 update, it'll be just as good as your stupid m505. Oh, yeah...you can't see it outdoors. Well, at least you can it INDOORS. Now STFU.

RE: Why not!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/21/2001 1:24:50 PM #
Amen to that, Palm screwed themselves with the 505 My Vx does everything I need and is STILL the best selling PDA out there ! All you early adopters should be paid for testing the 505 if it holds up as well as the Vx I MIGHT buy one in 2 or three years after they change connectors about 5 more times to a "standard", don't you get why they made the connector changes in the 505 ? MONEY for their partners in the peripheral business ! I love palm but their management decisions Suck for the consumer.

THE AMIGA WILL RETURN!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/22/2001 11:25:25 AM #
THE AMIGA WILL BE BACK, AND YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY.

RE: Why not!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/22/2001 9:01:16 PM #
ALL YOUR ATARI ARE BELONG TO ME

Sadistic Interest in this post....

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 5:56:15 PM #
This has to be the worst product announcement ever...I'm serious, I'm chuckling as I write this.

I have to admit, I'm watching this with sadistic interest. It's like watching someone fall on their ass. You know it hurts, but you can't help but get a kick out of it.

RE: Sadistic Interest in this post....
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 6:56:14 PM #
hee hee. Amen brother.

2.5 years ago, before TRGPro, before the V, before FlashPro and the hottest thing out was a TRG 8MB SuperPilot board - I NEEDED this product. I was backpacking around for 1/2 a year with Penguin Floppy and a sync cable as my only backup, I would have killed for this. Now it's like... "Anyone wanna buy a slide-rule?"

April Fools a few Months late?

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/20/2001 10:31:22 PM #
This has got to be.

About the only use for this at this late date is for a second expansion port. Juggling cards is a drag [one of the things that dragged about the Newton up til the very last day when they came out with the 2x00--too late]. It would be nice to have a memory card and a modem in at the same time, but given the price and size why fork over the cash and lug this around too? Go to http://www.palmpilotupgrade.com/prices.html and for $129 you have 16MB Visor and have a Springboard slot free for the modem/phone or other peripheral. Costs less [take the dollar and apply it towards your 401k] and is less bulky.



I'm Getting This!!

YyThaiGuy @ 7/21/2001 11:00:08 AM #
I'm torn. I just bought a Palm IIIc a few months ago upgrading from my Palm IIIxe. I love them both!! They keep making more gadgets to extend the life of my Palm IIIxe. I carry both now... what to do? They are both essential to me- with this PC Card Adapter the possibilities seem endless. Forever Palm!!!!

If you don't use Palm III or compatible...

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/21/2001 7:50:02 PM #
then don't make some ignorant remarks about this product. You don't qualify. For users of Palm III, Handera, etc, this product expands options without limit.

The modem card/ethernet card for PCMCIA is about $20 combined. The cost of getting these two items for either CF format or other (SpringBoard, SD, whatever) is about what, $300. Now you tell me if this product is worth of it.



RE: If you don't use Palm III or compatible...
ganoe @ 7/21/2001 8:58:05 PM #
Hardly. You can get a CF modem and CF Ethernet card both for under $150, if you shop carefully. I did just that in the last month. The CF cards use way less power than their PCMCIA equivalents as well. I'm not sure what PCMCIA modem/Ethernet card combo you're getting for $20 total, but you'd better make sure there are actually drivers to support it.

You can also get a TRGpro for under $200 if you shop carefully. For around $300 you could replace your III with a new comparable TRGpro with 8MB RAM and be able to do backups to CF RAM. The Parachute brick uses extra batteries and runs over the serial port (slow!!).

RE: If you don't use Palm III or compatible...
ganoe @ 7/21/2001 9:13:09 PM #
I didn't post what I meant very clearly, but with some careful shopping (in the US anyhow) you could get a TRGpro, CF modem and CF Ethernet card for around $300. I've seen the TRGpro at some Sam's Clubs for $130, bought a Kingston CF modem for $49, and seen other posts about $70 CF Ethernet cards. I'd expect most CF IO expansion prices to be dropping pretty soon anyhow.

Palm VIIx?

webgrafix @ 7/22/2001 12:50:05 PM #
Will this work with a Palm VIIx, which is essentially a III?.
RE: Palm VIIx?
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/22/2001 4:03:03 PM #
Instead of posting this message, why didn't you just go to Palm's site and check the sizes of the two devices? You'd get your answer a lot quicker.

Parachute??

Jonathan F. @ 7/23/2001 2:15:36 PM #
The new PC cards they came out with for the Palm III should be called "Lead Brick", not "Parachute." A parachute is supposed to be light and fills with air to stop your fall. If you had a PC card attached to one of your Palms, you would fall faster :o)

--I'll use the PC cards for my laptop, and smaller modules for my Palm Vx.--

What about Europe?

Boris @ 7/24/2001 4:11:40 AM #
Hi to all of you. I have Palm IIIc, but still not clear for me whether this will arrive also in Europe, or I have to wait for special Europe edition of m700.
How big will be the memory? Same as the cards memory for the m500 & m505? How it will be sold? As a package or not?
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