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EXPANSION TECHNOLOGY
Battle lines drawn in expansion war
By Vladimir Campos
I could never really understand why Handspring didn't adopt one of the major standards available in the market instead of creating a new expansion system for their handhelds. And although no reasonable explanation was ever given, the Springboard system ended up becoming the first really popular expansion system for Palm OS handhelds. Some even say Handspring's incredible popularity came from the Springboard expansion system.
They became so popular that two yeas ago, in August of 2000, during a chat at Redherring.com, Jeff Hawkins declared, "We will continue to make products with the Springboard slot and intend to maintain compatibility. That's not a guarantee that all Handspring products for all time will have a Springboard slot." Some time after that we saw the release of the Visor Edge with an adapter for Springboards. On March 15 of this year, Handspring even kicked off "module madness" with instant rebates on Springboard modules. However, on June 3, PalmPower Magazine reported on a News.com article stating that Handspring is scrapping its proprietary Springboard technology in favor of the same Secure Digital technology in use in Palm computers.
Back in 1999 HandEra (formerly know as TRG) released the TRG Pro, a Palm OS device with the same form factor as the Palm III series, but with a CF (Compact Flash) slot. The TRG Pro was a very good handheld, but CF never became the standard in Palm OS machines.
The other expansion system that became very popular among Palm OS users was the Memory Stick from Sony. All Sony Clie handhelds are equipped with a Memory Stick slot for data storage, or to connect Memory Stick-based accessories like digital cameras. Memory Sticks are as popular and important to the Clie users as the Springboards are to the Visor users.
And what about Palm? At that time, Palm, Inc. didn't have a single handheld with an expansion card slot. The only possibility was the axxPAC from a German company called AMS (at http://www.ams-fl.com/axxpac/e_index.html). The incredible accessory could create a Smart Media slot on Palm IIIe and Palm IIIx handhelds, but Palm itself didn't have any handhelds with expansion cards. The arrival of the Palm m100 and Palm m500 series would finally change that.
The Palm m100 and m105 were nothing more than the Palm IIIe and Palm IIIxe with a new shape: no flash memory, same serial connector, 2MB and 8MB of RAM, and some new applications like the Note Pad. After that, all new Palm handhelds would be equipped with the Universal Connector and an expansion slot. Palm chose the SD/MMC (Secure Digital/Mulitmedia Card) open standard, and just like what happened to Handspring during the release of their Springboard system, a lot of specialists and analysts started questioning Palm's decision.
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