But maybe I'm being too hard on Palm, Inc. Look at the history of PCs. I got my first computer (if you could call a Timex Sinclair 1000 a computer) in 1983, about the same time some people started bringing them into their offices. However, it was a good seven years before most professionals had them on their desks, and maybe five more years before they started showing up in most middle class homes. At that pace, Palm, Inc. has until 2004 to convince my coworkers to ante up.

But as Palm, Inc. always says, Palm computers aren't PCs, so maybe this comparison isn't the right way to go. Let's think of calculators instead. After all, when Palm, Inc.'s first unit, the Pilot 1000 came out, it was often advertised next to calculators, as if retailers still hadn't figured out what it was. I first saw a calculator in 1974, when the rich kids at Covington Junior High started flashing their $200 Bomar Brains. Five years later, I spent $19 on a calculator that could do everything including wake me up for my 8 a.m. classical civ class, though it couldn't make me go. By then, they were so cheap that they were stamped with corporate logos and given away for free as advertising and, most importantly, everyone could figure them out.

If this is the right comparison--and I think it is--Palm organizers need to start falling out of the sky for $25 a pop by 2001. I'm no Palm unit guru, but I don't think that's going to happen.

That is, it's not going to happen unless--and this is still a big unless--they are tied into cell phones. While not many regular folks use Palm organizers, I noticed the other day that even the garbage collectors in my neighborhood have cell phones. There's a lot of talk about putting organizer functions, whether from Palm devices or others, into cell phones. Although I still think that sticking your Palm device up to your face and chatting into it would feel like a bad Star Trek episode ("Kirk to Enterprise, one to beam up"), maybe some clever engineer can get around the dork factor and put a Palm unit-sized screen in a normal-sized cell phone. If that happens, Palm unit-integrated cell phones will probably be given away free by cell phone providers. Then the sky really will rain Palm organizers.

On second thought, maybe I don't want them to become popular. Right now, I'm ahead of the curve when it comes to having my information at my fingertips. When I pop up an essential phone number that nobody thought to bring with them it can still draw a few oohs and aahs from the crowd. Once everyone has one, I'll be expected to have my data with me at all times.

Hey, I'll just be a regular guy again.