I wanted to take long close look at a spreadsheet on my Pocket PC the other day. So, I emailed it to my Gmail (Google Mail) account from where I could easily download the file to a PC that did not have ActiveSync on it (and on which I did not want to install it). When I opened my email in Gmail, I noticed that one of the options was Open in Google Spreadsheets. A column with text it in appeared but two columns containing date and time functions (e.g., =date(2006,11,18), =time(22,49,00)) were all empty.
I manually typed in a date function to demonstrate to myself that Google Spreadsheets supported that function… and it does. I was able to view the Excel spreadsheet translated to HTML by Gmail as well as download and work with the file showing that Gmail itself left the data unmodified.
It would have been nice to be able to email an Excel Mobile spreadsheet to myself at Gmail, work on it at any web enabled PC, and then mail it back to myself on my Pocket PC. But, oh well, perhaps Google will fix this in the future.
I don’t know the actual introduction date for the first Windows CE devices. But, I always considered their launch at Fall Comdex 1996 to be their public introduction. The original devices were pretty spartan by even my 1996 standards. So, I waited until early 1997 to buy my first Windows CE device: An HP 320LX Handheld PC. It was a step up from HP’x 300LX. The 320LX had 4MB RAM (compared to the 300LX’s 2MB), a backlit screen, and a CompactFlash slot as well as a PC Card slot. Unlike other Handheld PC, it also had a 640×240 grayscale (greenscale) screen. It was a great device and as you can see from the photos here, it still works! HP engineers really built stuff to last back then (I have a few choice words about the iPAQ line HP inherited from their Compaq merger in some other blog entry). I just stuck in a fresh pair of AA batteries and the HP 320LX fired up. Even the backlight still works fine.
Microsoft’s manufacturing partners experimented with all kinds of Handheld PC form factors before the HPC bit the product life dust in 2000 (or thereabouts). You can see the Compaq Aero 8000 Handheld PC behemoth in the second photo. Yep, this monster is a Handheld PC too. It has a 800×600 color screen, built in modem, and a bunch of other interesting features. But, alas the instant-on notebook sized device concept never caught on. The Aero 8000 also suffered from a pitiful battery life. I recall not being able to get much more than an hour of use under battery power. The T-Mobile SDA phone in the photo is just there to help you get a feel of the size of the devices.
Although the Handheld PC platform rode off into the sunset, a good idea never truly dies. We can see that current day Pocket PC Phone Edition devices like the JasJar, K-JAM (both pictured here), and host of QWERTY keyboard enabled Pocket PCs and Smartphones owe a great deal to the original Handheld PC design.