"end of life" issues, SmartList-To-Go databases, and emulators

alan.w...@gmail.com

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Feb 12, 2015, 11:15:35 PM2/12/15

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I inquired of three pilot-link experts about the demise of pilot-link and its home page "www.pilot-link.org". What I wrote was the following:

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www.pilot-link.org is no more. How dead is pilot-link? http://www.jpilot.org/ is still alive.

What's my interest, you might wonder. I have a Palm Tungsten E2 handheld (PTE2) , with multiple spares. None of the Smartphones have attracted me away from usage of this device. I haven't seen yet a good replacement for the Smartlist-To-Go (SLTG) database software.

I've moved from a Windows XP laptop to a MacBook Air 13 (MBA13) and don't want to count on the Palm desktop software or the SLTG desktop software. Jpilot seems to work okay on the MBA13 & I've gotten Perl modules ThinkDB.pm and PDB.pm in shape to allow me to update three of my SLTG databases (podcast tracking) on the MBA13 (transferred via SD card). Next move is to use pilot-xfer to get the SLTG databases back and forth between MBA13 and PTE2. Looking at Coldsync is another possibility.

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One expert replied and more or less said that I was wasting my time & should move on. Months ago, while researching pilot-link and jpilot, I read one person's commentary that expressed the concern that Apple might discontinue the underlying software that allows pilot-link to work. At that time www.pilot-link.org still existed & now it doesn't any more. I tested jpilot with OS X Mavericks, but have yet to do so with OSX Yosemite--so it's possible that that time has arrived.

My main concern is the multiple databases that I have that are based on the SmartList-To-Go Palm software (sold by Dataviz). I've not yet read anything inspiring about comparable database software on another handheld platform. Before "moving on" I would hope to find such a suitable replacement.

On the other hand, a post to this group leads me to consider an emulator (e.g. http://www.styletap.com/), which has the promise of keeping the old software but moving to modern hardware. I need to investigate further what use of an emulator signifies when one wishes to move files and or data between the handheld and the desktop/laptop.

This post clearly invites useful comments.

Alan Wehmann

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Feb 16, 2015, 10:31:31 PM2/16/15

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I'm pleased to note that www.pilot-link.org is present once again!

Alan Wehmann

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Feb 21, 2015, 7:21:34 AM2/21/15

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> On the other hand, a post to this group leads me to consider an emulator (e.g. http://www.styletap.com/), which has the promise of keeping the old software but moving to modern hardware. I need to investigate further what use of an emulator signifies when one wishes to move files and or data between the handheld and the desktop/laptop.
>
> This post clearly invites useful comments.

I've been evaluating Styletap on Android (during the 14 day trial period). I was able to use SmartList-To-Go on it. I posted to their Customer Support system the following note about the built-in apps:

Following advice given in

http://www.osnews.com/story/27765/Palm_OS_Simulator_run_x86_on_Windows

I installed a Tungsten E simulator on my Windows XP Home Dell laptop and could extract from it ROM software (Palm OS 5.2 versions) for Calendar, Memos, Tasks, Expense and Contacts. I installed these in your emulator on my LG Volt. I then extracted the corresponding databases from my Palm Tungsten E2 (has Palm OS 5.4.7), using pilot-xfer, and copied them to the import folder for Styletap on the LG Volt. The ones that worked in the Styletap emulator on the LG Volt were Calendar, Memos, Tasks & Expense. Contacts had an error message that read "Fatal Alert: AppInfo block is changed, Delete Contacts db and resinstall (Address.c 574)".

I then tried the same Contact files with the Tungsten E simulator on the Dell laptop & had the same error message. Following that test, I installed the Tungsten E2 simulator on the Dell laptop and tried that with the same Contact files. That worked fine, so my conclusion is that the Contact files from my Tungsten E2 handheld need something that emulates Palm OS 5.4.

That leads me to ask if there is a version of the emulator in the works that would emulate Palm OS 5.4?

My other observation is that the "Big Clock" application would not ring an alarm, on the Styletap emulator. I'm probably not surprised at this. Should I be?

Alan Wehmann

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Feb 23, 2015, 5:10:54 PM2/23/15

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After an evaluation period I decided to invest $50 for the Styletap emulator. It runs on my Android phone and emulates a Palm running Palm OS 5.2. I found Styletap's Customer Support to be very responsive (we were exchanging communications over the weekend) & now have their emulator displaying Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, Expenses & Memos transferred from my Palm Tungsten E2 (OS 5.4.7). With Contacts, I can even dial phone numbers! Tasks doesn't currently do alarms, but they tell me that there is no inherent reason why that shouldn't work (with some investigation on their part).