>Do I need an adapter?
No. An adapter is another thing to carry around. I change batteries on
the average 1 time a month. File transfers eat power faster, and I almost
always need to make my monthly battery change during a file transfer
(no, I've never had a file transfer fail even when I get the low batt
warning).
>Should I get SRAM or Flash RAM? How much will I need?
I> know that SRAM is faster than Flash RAM and it needs its own battery
>but are the differences beyond that. Does the battery make SRAM
>harder to use? What about the stability of the data once the card is
>removed from the Zoomer. At this point, I don't think I'll need more
>that a couple of MB of memory. How accurate is this initial
>impression? I realize that it depends on how much I want to keep on
>the machine and how many apps I want to run but I just wanted to get
>an idea of how much memory others have added to their base machine.
I have a 1MB Newton SRAM card. There were no technical reasons for
getting it... it was cheap and available at the time. Very stable so far. It
seems to be all I need... I have a few extra apps (the Geos Text Editor,
TextReader, GeoGo, etc.) and at least one fairly long text file for reading
at odd moments (I use the Zoomer a LOT for reading). I had my card
compressed with Stacker for awhile, but didn't need the space. I do
have to watch the quantity of stuff I have on the machine, but I have to
watch hard drive space on other machines, too!
>What should I use to connect to my desktop machine?
There are a lot of good answers to that. The simplest and most universal
is to get a modem cable and null modem adapter from Radio Shack. Then
find the program "ZDOS", a small DOS program that does file transfer
between a PC and the Zoomer. It works very nicely and you can keep it
on a diskette and use it on any machine that is handy. You can use the
cable to attach to a modem, too. Costs probably less than $25 for the
cable and adapter, plus the minor download time for ZDOS (depending
on where you find it).
The second answer is PalmConnect. I use this most often because I
need to print my todo list, etc, and it does a good job of letting the basic
Zoomer apps run on the PC. Comes with a serial cable that is NOT FCC
certified for use with a modem, even if you get a null-modem adapter to
make it usable with a modem. Max price is $129 (list price from
PalmConnect).
The PCMCIA drive idea is good, but limits you to using the machine the
drive is on. Dunno about cost.
Bottom line... I'd get the modem cable, adapter and Zdos no matter what.
Then you can add to it when and if you need more functions from your
transfers.
>The Zoomers are being sold by three different companies under
>different names. I know that the accessories are interchangeable.
>But are the machines identical?
Yes indeed they are. Only the labelling is different. A Zoomer is a
Zoomer is a Zoomer.
I love my Zoomer, too. I'd love to have a Newton, but they are a bit
pricey, and the Zoomer works really well for me. Hope this has been of
some help to you!
>Green Party. Green beans. Bowling green. Green card.
>A big green raspberry to Cantor and Siegel.
Or... green SPAM!!
Lee Hauser
hauserls@wkg.com