Who is the Father of the community?

In the UK House of Commons there is one parlimanrty member who is called the Father of the House as he is the longest serving MP.


Tam Dalyell ~ Father of the House of Commons

So in the same spitit of that, I'm wondering who of our users in H/PC land (note Windows CE only) is the longest serving.
a) User
b) Internet community member; be it HPC:Factor, WinCECtity, the newsgroups or anywhere with an active CE community BBS.

c) If you want to slip in how long you've had a digital organiser, go ahead, but I'm only counting WinCE lifespan

... and if Jason Dunn posts in here, I'll cry.

a) September 1999
b) I didn't post onto ms.pub.hpc until June 2001, I was posting in computing.net's PDA board Jan 2001, before that I was running ce320 and relying on email - but my own site doesn't count. Not wanting to sacrifice email addresses to spammers made me never register anywhere before

c) 1989

a) Casio E-10 May 1999 (Bought it from a pawn shop for $175...it was stolen).
b) Aug 22, 2002 PDAStreet.com alias Richie Rich...and still the use same handle there.
c) First non-CE device: Handspring Visor Deluxe June 2001.

ok, I qualify for nothin'! The closest I got to a HPC was back in 1998 when a colleague got a Jornada 680 (I think!) ... didn't own it though! ... was using a Palm Pilot Pro and then a Palm IIIe (clear case edition).

In 2000, did a talk on "Developing Great Applications for PocketPC" during TechEd2000 ... ok, still not HPC ... but hey, its on wince3.0, pretty close? ...

Fast forward to last december with the MobilePro 790 ... so I guess I dun qualify for anything ... neither father nor the youngest newbie!

Hrmmm, lemme see here.

a) would be when I bought my Cassiopea A-11, sometime around Christmas 1996 or so. (It was shortly after they came out - all I remember was I bought it while I was home from school. I think it set me back $600 or so at the time.) Lovely little CE 1.0 device, which I upgraded to CE 2.0 as quickly as possible after they released the ROM/+2MB RAM board.

b) would be, erm, whenever I signed up for this forum?

But maybe I don't count. I had a hiatus from the HPC world after my A-11 gave up the ghost. I went PPC with a Targus Stowaway keyboard for a while, until I got my MP780 a couple months back.

Interestingly, I was cleaning out boxes and discovered I still had my old A-11 and all the accessories in a box. (Only thing I haven't found is the box with the original CE 1.0 ROM board in it.) The screen is still kinda wonky, but it still works otherwise. The contrast knob is shot - if I touch it the screen goes black or blank, depending. Plus the screen surface is scratched to hell - no such things as screen protectors back in the day...

i had a texas instruments Avigo! that was promptly stolen (i loved the t9 text entry)

then i got a us robotics palm pro (before 3com) and then got the upgrade rom to palmIII (until it was stolen)

after that i had a visor neo and then i had a hp 1910 that i couldnt stand for its lack of sdio support... (so i returned it)

and then in may i got a couple ppc's

Erm, 2005

My LG Phenom, so I exactly count.

Nick

I think we'll need Jason Dunn to better btrimmer here.

There's still everything to play for on community interactivty though, so come on everyone, show your colours.

Okay, let me see here....

A) 1998 with Simply|HPC
B) My first public newsgroup posting was 7/3/2001 http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsce/browse_thread/thread/f5f75781e65c08e8/3090a1ec08084988?q=author:Clinton+author:Fitch&rnum=700&hl=en#3090a1ec08084988

C) My first "handheld" Computer was a TRS-Pocket Computer 1 in 1983 (A gift from my grandfather who said "there will be a day when everyone has a computer in their pocket"). http://oldcomputers.net/trs80pc1.html On this device, I had both the attachable printer and Cassette recorder attachment. Yes, I still have it and yes it still works.

My first WinCE-based device was a Compaq Aero 1500 in 1998ish. My first handheld was in 1999 (Jornada 720).

I'm intreagued... especially because SHPC didn't arrive until 2001.. and S720 can't have been that much older

I've got to be one of the newest newbies here

I've owned a PDA since I was 15 (Palm IIIe), progressed steadily from there (Revo+,Axim,Clie (yes that's a step backwards, the Axim died)) but the whole time I was eyeing handheld PCs. I remember being in the last few years of high school and pining over a Jornada 720 or 820... and being far far from being able to afford it.

Then one day I stumbled across this site (who knows why) and did some searching around to find that the HPCs I always wanted had dropped to a price I could finally afford! Sos I gave my Clie to my girlfriend and bought up Snappy's 790 and voila, here I am.

Nice ancedote, always nice to hear user stories. (Especially when they involve us)

Incidentally what are your three dates?

Got carried away, I apologize!
a) May 2005
b) April 2005 (I'm guessing here, I'm terrible with dates)
c) And CE based, 2003 was when I got my Axim which is somewhat still like CE ;p Otherwise still May 2005 when I got the 790

S|720 (what I intended to post) started in May 1998... I logged on sometime in July 1998 when I began looking at the devices for corporate use.

Oh O.o

I'd always assumed that S720 was named after the Joranda 720... do you know what it was named after then?

The story I got from Bill was that he had a pre-release 720 to complement his 680.

Now the truth of that statement....