I’ve been using the HTC Universal (branded as an i-mate JasJar) for almost a year. This in itself has been a bit out of the norm, because many of the PDAs I’ve owned haven’t lasted near as long.

Let’s go tripping down memory lane, shall we?

The first pen-based (or stylus entry) Personal Digital Assistant that I remember buying was the Casio Zoomer, sometime in 1993. Beyond the contacts, calendar and Pocket Quicken that came loaded on the device, there was also a version of Pyramid that I could literally waste hours playing. The resulting scratches and scribbles on the screen would eventually help shape my firm belief in the value of screen protectors.

I bought my first Pilot from the Franklin catalog; Franklin as in the day planner company! This was in late 1996, and I can’t even remember what the cost of a brand new Pilot was, but a little known fact was that if you looked in the paper insert in the middle of their catalog - Franklin also sold refurbs. I wasn’t sure if I would like the blocky little monochrome device, so I reasoned that buying a slightly used one would be prudent. Up until then I had been using various keyboard-input clamshell devices, including my longtime favorite the HP-95LX and several of its upgraded future generations.

Once I got that first Pilot, I was hooked. I mastered Graffiti very quickly, and used to amuse family and friends with the way that I would obsessively jot everything down in the device.

Remember the days before rechargeable batteries? I can remember always keeping a supply in my desk drawer and in my bag. It was completely wasteful, really; when my battery bar hit a certain level I would change the batteries. I was so afraid of losing my data that I got quite proficient at changing the batteries quickly. Even so, I still managed to lose my data a few times because I took an extra second or two too long to complete the process…thank goodness for Palm Desktop and hot-sync’d data!

Ah, those were the good old days.

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