Rare & Tough & Windows Mobile: TDS Recon

So the other day, I got my hands on a rare specimen (well a PDA). A really tough and bulky TDS Recon. And not the usual Yellow, but olive green.

It runs Windows Mobile 5.

Here's some pics:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiYsOd-BvlP/?taken-by=stingraze
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiYrBdLBqaZ/?taken-by=stingraze

The interesting things were there were several apps usually not installed in other PDAs. I think this was device was used by some sort of NPO or NGO for some relief work?

The apps were related to SQL and database as well as an RDMS app.



Edited by stingraze 2018-05-05 8:03 AM








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Pretty cool, does it do resistive touch?

Yes, it's resistive touch. It has a stylus in the back.

Reminds me a bit of a couple of barcode scanners I've talked about here, one with CE 5 (Wasp WPA1200, a clone of the Unitech PA600, which also has a few color variants), and the other with CE 6 (DT Research DT430). I still use the latter device every day for keeping track of things. Both of those devices had a choice of OSs, the former having Windows Mobile 5 as an alternative (and even a few with Windows Mobile 6.1, like one of the three I've picked up), and the latter with Windows Mobile 6 as an alternative. Doesn't look like the Recon has any core CE firmware, though.

Yeah, it is, except this TDS Recon has GPS in the black part.

What does the OS report as the model number? The Trimble 400 actually came in 6 optional colors… yellow, green, gray, black, blue, and red.

Your's however, looks like the newer X series.

I bet if you pull up the black part you'll find that the GPS antenna is simply plugged into one of your two compact flash slots.

And CEGeek, the older 400 models had a full version of CE.NET 4.2 as one of the optional OS's, as well was WM2003, and later WM5, and WM6.

The extended cap on the units protected the cf cards that stuck up further in the slot. The optical cap was simply a cf optical card scanner.

I will check the model number when I have time. :-)

TDS and Trimble are just different brand names for the same thing?

Yes, I think I saw in a picture that the GPS is inserted in CF cards.

Edited by stingraze 2018-05-09 11:57 PM

Trimble was the guy who quit HP back in the 80s. GPS was still being developed… but I remember the focused on long range marine navigation. Remember those old huge satellite dishes, the C band satellites? They used those aboard commercial ships and integrated it with LORAN technology.

Tripod Data Systems weas another company that was into land surveying and were developing CE based software. Towards the end of the 90s, Trimble bought them out and TDS became the property of the Trimble. Over the past 15 years Trimble has bought up dozens of companies and expanded what was a small niche into a monster business.

Thank you for a good history lesson.

I remember satellite dishes, but not huge ones...
I don't know much about ships and LORAN, but I checked it up to know LORAN is long-range navigation.

Over all these years, I bought a very small transceiver that the maximum allowed output of the band in Watt is 1W. I think mine is well below that. You don't need license for this. Someday, maybe I'll get a amateur radio license...



Edited by stingraze 2018-05-11 12:22 AM

You don't need a lot of power…I've talked around the world on 10 watts on 10 and 15 meters. With 100 watts I even contacted the international space station. With a linear amp pushing 1000 watts I even did a moon bounce once.

But my favorite mode is CW using around 50 watts which will get me to pretty much anywhere in the world.

That's me…Mr. Old Guy…still using a ham rig in the age where internet communication reigns supreme.

KL7WI calling cq cq cqdx… de KL7WI

Cool.

I did hear the AFN (Armed Forces Network) at Eagle 810 in Japan (810 kHz, AM) mentioning something about them using 50,000 Watts. Is that even possible? and for what would they need such power...

Contacting Space Station is so cool!

50,000 watts? Has to be an AM broadcast station…in the KHertz band...certainly not in the amatuer radio spectrum.

Which reminds me of my youth. I remember getting a 6 transistor radio when I was about 7 y/o. Circa 1960 when FM broadcasting was a project being developed. WKMI was my local Kalamazoo station. Long before I even knew what "skywave propogation" was, I knew that I could pick up faint stations from a long distance at night time.

I remember lying in bed, single earphone in my ear, trying to pick up a station call sign. WWL in New Orleans came in good, and WSM when they cranked up the power to Grand Ole Opry. But I loved it when I'd pick up some Mexican radio station or France (which I now realize was more likely Quebec). And now and then I'd get the BBC or the weather report from Miami. A whole world that I could listen to.

I'd spend an hour turning the radio dial travelling the band…

Ah yes. It isn't amateur radio spectrum.

I have this station called FM Yokohama at 84.7MHz, and we listened to the station whenever we rode on a car. Before you know, people had CD players in the car. (We had tape players in car from first car we had, I think)
I have a short wave radio receiver I bought last year, it picks up Korean stations and a lot of Chinese stations. I think I heard BBC too.