Not ready for prime time: PDAs - four personal digital assistants are evaluated - includes related articles describing characteristics of the machines and analyzing their handwriting recognition capabilities - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1994 by Emerson Andrew Torgan

THE EVENT WAS LEGENDARY. ON AUGUST 2, 1993, former Apple chairman John Sculley took the stage at Boston's Symphony Hall as hundreds of invited guests, computer industry executives, Apple employees, and journalists from around the world waited in anticipation. In his right hand was a small, rectangular gizmo--the end result of more than five years of research and development devoted to wireless networking and handwriting-recognition technology that promised to create a new generation of mobile personal information devices. Raising the gizmo high above his head, Sculley announced to world, "Newton is here!" The age of the PDA had begun.

But all glory is fleeting, and many of the first Newtoniers had less than satisfying experiences with their MessagePads. (In fact, this reporter couldn't get a demonstration model to accept the word Apple fewer than five minutes after the applause subsided.) Consequently, the computer press was less than enthusiastic-- and said so in article after article. And only two weeks after the Newton's introduction, America-at-large got the opportunity to read Gary Trudeau's characteristically witty and cutting take on the MessagePad in his comic strip Doonesbury.

Apple, however, was not amused. Soon, Apple refused to just hand over evaluation units to the press--insisting instead that journalists first travel to Apple's turf and receive a two-hour class in the Newton's proper use. This served to affirm that there were more than just a few cracks in the ice.

Hot Promise In the course of a day, we are bombarded with information in the form of phone calls, faxes, e-mail, news reports, and short conversations with people we meet in passing. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this information comes to us when we are away from our computers, with no efficient means of capturing and storing the data at hand. As a result, it simply slips though our fingers. Enter the personal digital assistant (PDA).

Chances are, the first time you see one of these sleek devices, you'll want to own one. You can already picture yourself sitting by a pool, sending faxes to clients and pulling e-mail messages out of thin air. Unlike today's crop of notebook and sub-notebook computers, a PDA has a pen (or stylus) instead of a keyboard, recognizes handwriting, provides hours of battery life, weighs next to nothing, fits in your pocket, and keeps you in touch.

The PDA is an entirely new breed of personal computer designed not to replace the desktop or notebook computer (be it Mac or PC) but to function as an extension of it, filling the technological gaps as we move about. The perfect PDA would let you jot down notes on the run, schedule appointments, and send and receive data, faxes, and e-mail. It would also provide access to some online services, such as CompuServe and America Online, and allow you to make plane reservations or transfer money electronically.

In order to deliver devices that would live up to people's expectations, PDA designers and engineers had to develop new processors, displays, and operating systems capable of running on standard batteries. For size considerations, the first traditional component to be ejected was the keyboard; pen input, which is considered more natural, was adopted as the standard, placing an emphasis on the development of effective handwriting-recognition software.

The Apple Newton MessagePad and the Sharp Expert Pad PI-7000 (both manufactured by Sharp) use a 32-bit, 20-MHz RISC-based processor called the ARM610. Both run Apple's Newton Intelligence operating system, which includes adaptive handwriting recognition (it learns your handwriting over time with repeated use) for both printed and cursive, and an Assist feature, which can automate tasks.

Casio and Tandy, codevelopers of what was formerly called the Zoomet PDA, opted for a proprietary 16-bit processor customized by Casio. Unlike the Newton's ARM chip, Casio's unnamed chip is compatible with an Intel 8086 processor. Casio and Tandy chose GeoWorks's GEOS as the operating system for the PDA because GEOS features an easy graphical user interface and performs respectably on the chip. GEOS also incorporates Palm Computing's PalmPrint nonadaptive handwriting-recognition software (block printing only).

Something else you won't find in a PDA is a floppy-disk drive; new applications are loaded via PCMCIA cards or are downloaded from a computer via cable.

Above all, the most important test of any PDA is that it can perform communications and file synchronization tasks sans wires. This is where today's PDAs fall flat. Cold Reality The true promise of the PDA is one of mobility--total communications on demand--anywhere and anytime. People must be able to transmit and receive data (text, faxes, and eventually sound and video), send messages, access databases and online services, and perform transactions via wireless modems. Unfortunately, that is not yet possible. The PDA is a highspeed train with no track to run on.

Many development efforts are currently in progress, with the goal of advancing wireless technology. A wireless infrastructure is being built by cellular telephone, radio frequency, and paging companies, including McCaw Cellular Communications, EMBARC, RAM Mobile Data, and SkyTel. Motorola is furthering its Iridium project, which will establish a global wireless communications network of 66 satellites encircling the earth. But until these companies bring wireless products to market-backed by the presence of a reliable (and affordable) communications network-the PDA is little more than a pen-based pocket organizer.