Help, dead Palm (and so far very unimpressed by TRGpro)!

I had posted in another thread about a deal I got on 2 Palm devices (including the rare TRGpro) and a color ebook.

All were sold as working but only the ebook worked. I noticed the Palm III had a rusted battery terminal which adding a bit of aluminum foil got it working.

Unfortunately so far I can't get the TRGpro to show any signs of life, I tried aluminum at all 4 battery terminals making sure there's no shorts.

I tried everything, adjusting the contrast, even closing the battery door just in case they were smart enough to tell it was open like on CE devices (they aren't).

BTW I'm already very unimpressed by the TRGpro even without being able to turn it on, the reason is that the idiots designed the CF slot upside down (either that or they're dumb enough to have forgotten the mechanism to prevent you from inserting a card upside down). This means the memory card that's already in it is pretty much stuck there forever, because it's in the wrong way the eject tab is facing the wrong way so there's no way to grab it to pull it out.

So which is it: Were they dumb enough to put the CF slot the wrong way, or were they dumb enough to make the CF slot accept a reversed CF card? In either case it's an absolutely stupid design. Or was this card slot meant as "permanent expansion" where the card was meant to be lost in there forever? Even if that was their idea, that's still incredibly dumb.

I hope I can get the TRGpro back to life, but at this point it's already pretty much sure I'm reselling it even if I get it back to life, the CF slot's design makes it all but useless.

Thanks


Edited by aab 2012-08-01 5:07 PM

Oh wow, guess what? All problems solved themselves at the same time!

I eventually managed to pry out the CF card using the CF slot cover, it was very hard to remove all the way until it was out. Turns out it does have the mechanism to prevent you from inserting a card upside down, but someone forced it in upside down anyway.

As soon as I took the upside down CF card out it powered on, even with no aluminum required like on the Palm III (I'll sand the contacts on that one to fix it).

So this is what I meant by all problems solved themselves at the same time:
-The CF card was in fact upside down
-There is in fact a mechanism to not insert cards upside down
-Removing the upside down CF card allows the system to boot

Now the only problem left is that it runs Palm OS lol.

Well I'm glad I got everything working.

Edit:

Wait a minute, the TRGpro has a proper backlight! This changes everything, the reason I didn't want to keep it was I read it had the same atrocious reversed backlight as the Palm IIIxe which I have, but it has a normal backlight! Why did I read the TRGpro had the reversed backlight?

However I noticed another problem (unless I just can't figure out this device) but I have no sound whatsoever, I slid the volume slider all the way up and turned on system sounds in Prefs.

Thanks


Edited by aab 2012-08-01 5:42 PM

I took it apart to figure out the sound problem which became quite obvious, someone had removed the wires from the motherboard to the speaker, so I cut pieces of wire and soldered them from the speaker to the motherboard and I now have a 100% functional TRGpro!

The difference between a Palm and Windows CE device is just as dramatic on the inside, while inside a Windows CE device it's like they packed as many components in there as physically possible, while inside the Palm it looks more like "we'll put a small part here and a small part there and that should give you the bear minimum for something you can call a computer". There's virtually nothing on the motherboard, plus this is a TRGpro with all those upgrades!

Anyway I'm glad everything works in the end.

LOL, you seem to have the worst luck with computers. Glad everything worked out in the end.

However, your mentioning of the regular backlight got me to thinking. Since someone had obviously been inside the case, was the screen swapped out with a regular Palm III screen (just speculation as I have no idea is the screen/hardware is really different or if that function resides on the motherboard)? In any event, a regular TRGpro does indeed have an inverted backlight like the IIIxe.

You might want to check if the screen can render a 16-greyscale image (like a regular TRGpro) or just a 2-bit image (like a regular Palm III).

Rick

Actually I'm not sure anymore that someone removed wires, I saw a photo of an open one online and it too had no wires, do you know if the contacts are supposed to touch just by closing the case? In any case I made sure not to cross the wires so that if the contacts do touch it won't short it.

About the backlight, I'm not sure if someone would have swapped the screen, or is it possible that they made some TRGpro with the normal backlight?

However it's clear as day that the Palm III and TRGpro have the same screen while the IIIxe has the "improved" screen (the IIIxe does look better in full light condition, but in any other conditions the others are miles better).

How do I test if it can do 2 or 4 bits?

By the way like I said before, the reversed backlight is part of the LCD, it's not just the motherboard sending a negative image, this can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt by installing a hack to "unreverse" the backlight and you can see that even with it "unreversed" it looks just as bad with that holographic look. I might try to take a photo of them side by side, the difference is night and day.

Thanks

You're right, the contacts on the speaker and the motherbooard touch. There should not be anywires between them.

Every TRGpro that I've seen has the inverted backlight. I've also never heard about any with a regular backlight (but stranger things have happened...).

The quickest way to test the screen is to load a drawing program and try to produce a grayscale image (or display a greyscale image in a photo program).

Have fun with it...

Rick

Opps, got that wrong. Just took the back off a TRGpro and it does have two wires running from the motherboard to speaker.

Also, just double checked the backlight on the TRGpro. It is an inverted backlight, but if you go into memopad and enter the dot code for inverse backlight, it looks pretty darn good. Also just checked it against a Palm Professional (running the III ROM upgrade) and the TRGpro is similiar (but brighter). Try it, you might like it.

Rick

Edited by Richard Plume 2012-08-01 11:30 PM

The reverse backlight hack does the same thing as the graffiti shortcut.

You know what I'm considering doing now? I'd like to swap the LCDs between the IIIxe and TRGpro, that way I'd have a better screen on the IIIxe while being able to sell the TRGpro. I'd normally keep the TRGpro if it was worth $10 or so but knowing how much it's worth I think I prefer selling it.

Is this possible? I didn't look when I had it opened, but I assume the LCD has a plug in connector like on CE devices and can be replaced without desoldering anything?

Thanks

I don't know if it's possible, I've never had to swap screens. You can always open both and check the connectors...

However, if you swap the screens you might nullify any value the TRGpro has...

Rick

Edited by Richard Plume 2012-08-02 12:00 AM

I think I just realized the TRGpro's screen has in fact been swapped, the "silk icons" (I think they're called) are of the older generation like on the Palm III while the IIIxe has the new silk icons and photos of the TRGpro online show it with the IIIxe's newer icons, so it looks like it has been replaced.

So it would seem the screen can on fact be swapped, I just might put the TRGpro's LCD in the IIIxe, I'd love the IIIxe (for a Palm) if it had a proper backlight, I love that it has 8 MB of RAM which is basically endless for a Palm device, I have it loaded with tons of big games and have less than half the memory used!


Edited by aab 2012-08-02 12:01 AM

If the screen has been swapped it won't matter to the value of the TRGpro - go for it.

Rick

I'll play around with them for a while to see which I prefer, but I think I very well might end up swapping the IIIxe and TRGpro's screens and sell the TRGpro as it originally was while "upgrading" my IIIxe's LCD, I'd definately like the IIIxe more with the normal LCD.

Again the benefits the TRGpro provides over the IIIxe are of little value to me, I don't need the CF slot because since I'd use it mostly for games, I won't have regular backups to do (the memory contents won't change), so I don't mind making my backup through activesync... I mean... what is it called? Oh yea hot sync. And about the only other benefit is the louder sound which I also don't need. Other than that I don't think it has other benefits. That's why the IIIxe is just as good to me as the TRGpro because it's the same but without the added features I don't need to begin with. But I admit if it was a device I were to actually use as I do my Palm Size PCs, without a doubt I'd keep the TRGpro, but for actual use I by far prefer both the software and hardware of Palm Size PCs (in general it seems to require far more clicks on Palm OS to accomplish the same thing with less clicks in Windows CE, plus having to write in grafiti rather than normal letters drives me insane).

I'll give it a week or so but I think I'll end up swapping the IIIxe and TRGpro's LCDs and selling the TRGpro while having upgraded the IIIxe's screen.

Edit:

Where do you set the device/owner name on Palm OS? I restored a backup from the CF card and there are several cool games (some of which I had on my Palm Pro and had completely forgotten about!) but when I hotsync it has the name of the previous owner. Anyway I'll beam the apps I want to keep to another Palm, then hard reset this one to have a clean install (seems like it belonged to a contractor/electrician from Ontario and is not the person who sold it to me even though they too are in Ontario).


Edited by aab 2012-08-02 12:36 AM