Hello from a brand new HPC fan!

Hello, handheld folks!
I am a newcomer to the realm of HPCs. Recently I took over a bunch of vintage stuff (PDAs, very old subnotebooks and peripherals) from my collector friend, Among them I am particularly fond of the Jornda 720. In stark contrast to today's forced/planned obsolescence on the gadget market, I really adore the superb product quality of the 720. Despite being a vintage product made two decades ago, my device still remains in an excellent condition, probably thanks to the top notch design at the time, commanding the original USD$900+ price tag of course.
Surprisingly, the little old 720 has got so many checks in my list of features of the ideal mobile device: clamshell form factor, portabaility, comfortable keyboard, widescreen display, reasonable battery life, expandabiity, user friendly and practical applications.
Pardon my sidetracking: I am also aware of the Gemini PDA. I was seriously contemplating on getting one last year, but I gave it a pass at last. Andriod updates go as far as 8, plus the unclear state of fully working (including calls, screen functionalities, and power management) linux ports on the device. As for the Cosmo Communicator, I personally dislike the slide mechanism and the price is way beyond my budget. A $200 new Samsung plus a small portable keyboard can just suit my needs. The PinePhone looks neat, but the software development seems like it needs to take another year or two before the product can become more ready for the consumer market.
Okay enough rants, back on the Jornada. It's my first time trully using wince for real. The builtin programs are a decent surprise. The HP Quickpad is a hidden gem (hidden in the Windows folder and not being shown on the desktop) and is just amazing! It is designed as the default point of qucik data entry (or "Inbox" in GTD lingo) and is able to send the written notes the builtin Email, Calendar, Contact, Task, and Quick Word programs. The PIM Suite actually works really nicely together and seems to just fit my daily use. The Task program is really great for project and task planning. Despite not having outlining features, the fully customizable columns and filters rival Bonsai for Palm OS, a killer app for GTD enthusiasts.
It just amuses me to see how much hardware resources and bloated software are needed to perform such simple tasks in today's "smart" devices. And no thanks I don't actually love the idea of using a 24/7-connected machine to take care of my very personal and private life.... I must stop ranting now.
I was not among the fortunate ones back in the days being able to afford such high end gadgets. But now I am super happy to be a proud owner of a J720.
My near future plan to "upgrade" my Jornada experience:
(1) In my treasure chest also lie a bunch of spare ROM boards for Jornada 728 (is it 64MB?) . Not sure if they are Japanese or English. Will test them out (my friend said they're working when trying them years back) and try to swap one with the stock Japanese version on my machine.
(2) I think I do need an English 720/728 keyboard for a better typing experience. Anyone out there selling one, or just a junk machine with a working keyboard? It's also possible to trade one with my ROM boards...
(3) Last but not least, Linux!! Stefan is doing such a great job injecting new life into the Jornada. I've been learning and switching from Windows 10 to Linux (Ubuntu and Debian) over the last few months and am very excited to see a relatively modern kernel and userland working on the Jornada as a more powerful alter ego.
(4) Replace the aging cells in the battery. The battery that comes with my J720 holds charge but it doesn't last very long. I've learned that the cells are just commonplace 18650 and there's no corporate top secret locking mechanism in the charging circuit. My soldering skills suck but I believe I can manage that.
If Alphasmart Dana is my queen of Palm OS, then the Jornada is my King of HPC.

That's all for now. It's my poor habit to type too much in a post (as typing on Dana is simply addictive).

Hi and welcome! I'm also a newcomer (I've recently got my first and only H/PC, a Jornada 728).



On my 728 Quickpad is on "Start>Programs>HP Applications>HP quick pad." Is it not there on the 720?



Yep, at least mine is. According to Wikipedia there are a few with 32MB but I don't know how accurate that is.

Thanks, can't remember. I can confirm that my 728 ROM boards are 64MB (tested two so far).

My 720 is a Japanese version. For unknown reasons Quickpad is neither in the application menu nor the desktop as shortcut. Anyhow I do love such a simple, lightweight and elagant program, which is hard to come by even today (never found a satisfactory PIM/GTDapp on my Android phone).

Edited by hpcboy 2020-09-24 5:33 AM

Welcome to the community.
Do you know MrSB?

Yea, MrSB (Ben) is the friend I was talking about and the original owner of the gadget lot I have now. I am guilty of borrowing his account this couple of months to learn more about the handhelds (his has download permissions) before I finally decided to create one myself. Ben seems no longer interested in gadgets now but it's just my beginning.

By the way last night I was trying to get a Bronze subscription but paypal rejects my transaction saying "Donations to this recipient aren't supported in this country". Any solution?

Well that explains why your account got flagged as high risk then. Users aren't allowed to have more than one account.

Apparently you aren't alone: https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Payments/Unable-to-make-a-paymen...

CPC/CCP having an anti-sedition clampdown? My heart goes out to you guys

Oh IP checks of course.

It's far beyond my imagination to think of subscribing to a membership as having to do with anti-sedition. Come on... these old techy wince stuff ... even the mainland Chinese people have long forgotten about them. It's time for "Harmony" right? Politics like this is just full of sh@#.

So what should I do now in order obtain my own membership? As a regular HPC user now I don't wish to be a surrogate member anymore.

The paypal comments in C:Amie are interesting. It seems this strange issue is affecting quite a few Asian countries at the same time.
Another comment there says a fix is to send money directly from the sender's paypal account instead of getting through the subscription link from this website. Perhaps that can work?

China does blanket bans on western platforms all the time for the mainland. It's not an out there thought that you are going to start to see that happening in HK. I hope that this is a temporary issue and encourage you to keep trying. The chances of this being a technical glitch after nearly a month are, however, astonishingly low. A company that makes money from money transfers isn't going to accidentally let itself lose all that revenue.

I did look at the option of doing it via a personal link, however that would require my phone number, email address and postal address to be public domain; and that just is not going to happen I am afraid. So at this time, I am terribly sorry but I do not have an alternative option for you. Perhaps someone else has a bright idea on the subject.

Can I pay for hpcboy? I don't need the subscription because I'm an old user and already can download stuff, but if I donate, can you manually change hpcboy's rank to subscriber? I think this will be a good way for me to contribute to the site (which I use for so many years) and at the same time help someone else.

ntware, that is a very generous offer and yes of course you can gift subscriptions. You can do it via:
https://www.hpcfactor.com/info/help/donations/

Done! Enjoy your subscription hpcboy!!

I can't thank you enough for going out of your way, ntware. You made my day!
I will without doubt give back to this community when I can.

ps On my desktop I have already logged out of MrSB's a/c and logged in my own as hpcboy. But when I was trying to reply on my android phone, the chrome browser stuck with MrSB's login (the previous deleted post). I found that the logout bar is not visible in the Chrome browser on my phone (should be right under the banner?).

Bronze subscription applied... and a little something for ntware for his generosity. The first member to gift a subscription

@ntware - Nice generosity