Mobile Studio: Palm OS4

Some time ago I posted quite a bit about the older Capers applets and demos. This made me think about lots of old apps I used to use which won’t run under Palm OS5. Sad really. I decided to get myself an old Clie series device.

Why clie? Simple, the older clies (some of them anyway) have a built in MIDI chip and hence don’t need a module like the Swivel Systems SG20. If you’re interested there’s a good list of which ones have the chip at the MiniMusic site under the hardware section.

Anyway, I’ve got one now. A clie T425. Very nice it is too. It took a bit of getting used to a monochrome screen again, but even so I am impressed. The sound is fine, and even with only 8mb (7mb available) on board it is still quite useable. The device itself is very slim indeed. The only drawback is it doesn’t have a headphone jack, so anything I use it for I will need to record with a mic.

After this initial disappointment I decided that this was a good thing as I could actually record one palm with another, which would be quite interesting.

So what am I using it for then? Well, here’s a list of what music app I’ve put on it so far:

AxisPad (current minimusic preview)
BeatPlay
Burrito
Egg-Demo
Hedgehog
Luna
Meedy
Piezo Power
SpinPad
Theremini
ThumbMusic
Tractor
Beat Key
Botzam MIDI Player
ittyMIDI Player
Almond
Bugband
DaCapo
EarTrain
FretBoard
GTrainer
GuiPar
McChords
Mozart
PocketBeat
Transpose
Tuneit
BeatPad
composer
ittyMIDI Drummer
Handi Drum
MelodyPad
MusicInHand
MusicStudio
MusicTracker
NotePad
Pocket Piano
pQuencer
RhythmPro

Quite a list, and I’m still going back over old CD-ROMs where I kept apps to see if there’s anything else. You never know, I might find one or two bits more.

Once I’ve had more time to play with some of these I’ll post proper reviews on some of them.

burrito.prc
HEDGEHOG.ZIP
meedy.zip
EGGTIMER.ZIP