Wow! When I first heard the rumor of the latest development in Japan, I didn't believe it. I thought 8 Megabytes was stretching the HP Palmtop internal storage capability to the max. Wrong. Once again we have a whole new HP Palmtop with even greater possibilities. For the last few days I have been playing with a palmtop that has 2 Megabytes of C drive storage and 32 Megabytes of internal F drive storage capacity! In the PC slot I have an EXP fax/modem with 8 additional Megabytes of flash memory. Check out my User-to-User column for more details.
As a fitting accompaniment to this news of larger storage capacity, we have three articles about using the database application on the HP Palmtop. As it happens, each article has to do with music, but each author's ideas apply to whatever information you want accessible. My guess is that substantial databases will be one of the most important uses for the 32 Meg internal drive. The PC card slot can then be used for a fax/modem card or a printer/backup card. Alternatively, a 32 Megabyte palmtop user can employ a flash card to store additional data or software, or as a data redundancy backup tool.
Another use for 32 Megabytes would be to contain large DOS applications; for example, DOS versions of Word or WordPerfect -- spelling checker, thesaurus and all. The article on MaxDOS shows how such programs can be run without shutting down built-in applications such as Lotus 1-2-3, PhoneBook, or ApptBook. With more data, users will want a more robust file manager than FILER. Ed Keefe provides a solution. He shows how to create a program that gives FILER users a choice as to whether to view, zip, modify, or execute a file.
Those of us who have stayed with our 200LX will be interested in Chris Lott's experience moving to the Windows CE 2.0 HP 360LX. (Hint: check out the punch line at the end of the article). Finally, you will want to read about Ted Hall's ingenious woodworking solution using the palmtop to control a woodworking tool.
Hal Goldstein