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Comment by mysterydip | Hacker News Reader

For those of you out there with experience, if someone wanted to plat around with a palm for games and apps, what would be the go-to/ideal device? There were so many made I don't know where to start.

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Honestly? Probably the device you already have, via emulation - old Palm hardware is definitely a rabbit hole, and it's worth dipping a toe before you dive in.

CloudpilotEmu [1] is a free emulator that runs in a web browser, and works very well on smartphones. It's what I use when I feel the need to scratch my Space Trader itch, and it's definitely where I'd recommend starting. There are any number of repositories still active of old software you can run with it, and I'm sure folks will chime in with their favorites to give you some places to start.

[1] https://cloudpilot-emu.github.io/

Given the age of the devices, and that this is a retro-activity anyway, I would suggest one of the Palm III or Palm m1xx devices -- most of them take AAA batteries, not a built-in rechargeable. And will give you the experience of the typical heyday of Palm OS. (By the time large colour screens rechargeable batteries and WiFi became standard, Palm was already already well into decline.)

I like the physical keyboards so I'd go for a treo or a tungsten.

Or if you want ultra nerd cred, get the watch by fossil.

The Zire series are cheap, coloured and powerful. :)

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