.KEYWORD backflip
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE A communications accessory to do BackFlips over
.OTHER
.AUTHOR Jason Perlow
.SUMMARY Sometimes the best solution to a new high-tech problem is to recycle ideas from outdated technology. Back in the early days of personal computing, a device called an acoustic coupler was used to transfer data over analog phone lines. With the advent of the Internet, email, and the Palm handheld computer, the good ol’ coupler is back, and it’s better than ever. Contributing Editor Jason Perlow gives you the skinny.
Last month, we reviewed Omnisky’s Minstrel V wireless modem and wireless Internet service for the Palm V computer. While we thought the technology was cool, there are obvious disadvantages to accessing your email on a wireless handheld device, especially if you’re inside an RF shielded building or not in a CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data) coverage area. Let’s not even get into talking about the three to four hundred dollar expense of a wireless modem and the estimated forty to fifty dollar per month access fees.
Wireless isn’t where it needs to be yet if you’re a frequent traveler and you need to get your email from anywhere. For that need, a regular modem usually does the trick. But snap-on modems for Palm devices require hooking up phone lines, and typically you end up having to call long distance to your ISP to retrieve your email if you’re on the road. If you want to use your cell phone, you need to be sure you have a specific digital cellular model that has a Palm cable accessory. Any way you slice it, it’s a pain in the butt.
Enter the PocketMail BackFlip, shown in Figure A, a new device and service combination from PocketScience.
.FIGPAIR A The PocketMail BackFlip is self-powered and snaps onto any Palm III compatible device.
As shown in Figure B, the BackFlip snaps onto the serial port of any Palm III or PalmPilot device (you can even use it with a Palm V if you buy one of those Palm III device converter attachments that were recently released).
.FIGPAIR B Here’s a back view of the PocketMail BackFlip on a Palm device.
The BackFlip allows you to retrieve your email through any kind of telephone connection (including office digital PBX phones, as well as analog and digital cellular phones, and pay phones) using an updated version of late 1970’s-era acoustic coupler technology.
.H1 Return of the coupler
What is an acoustic coupler, you ask? Basically, it’s a speaker and microphone combination that, when held over a telephone handset, allows you to transfer data over an analog phone line. At a 9600Kbps effective transfer rate, it’s not the fastest thing in the world, and you can’t browse the Web with it. But for email transfer, it’s more than perfectly adequate. The technology is proven, and it works great.
Back in the early 1980s, field reporters used portable computers with acoustic couplers to file their stories over wire services and to bulletin boards from phone booths and land-line phones in remote locations. With legendary machines like the Tandy TRS-80 model 100, shown in Figure C, they could stand at a phone booth and transfer their news reports at a blazing 300 baud.
.FIGPAIR C Acoustic couplers are a proven technology for data communications. They were in wide use in the early 1980s by field reporters using the TRS-80 Model 100, the world’s first laptop.
As a historical note, the Model 100 is the last computer for which Bill Gates personally coded software. If it worked for Reuters and UPI at that speed, it’ll work for you just swimmingly at 9600Kbps.
The BackFlip is powered by its own set of AA batteries, so you don’t have to worry about running the power down on your Palm device when using it. Simply install a small set of PRC files on your device; call an 800 number to register your unit’s serial number; and, within minutes, the device is ready to use.
.H1 Get my email, now!
Retrieving your email on the BackFlip is easy. Simply snap on the BackFlip, run the PocketMail program, and dial 1-800-POCKETM on any phone. The BackFlip’s coupler speaker is fitted on an adjustable, sliding mechanism so that the analog connection between the device and headset fits no matter what kind of phone you’re using, as you can see in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D Here’s the BackFlip in action.
When prompted on the phone, hold the device over the phone’s handset, select Tap Here for PocketMail on your Palm device’s screen, and that’s it. The BackFlip will then start screeching modulated tones into the handset. Depending on how many messages you have to send or retrieve, it can take anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes to complete a mail transfer session. Three 500 character messages take about 25 seconds. While the transfer rate is only 9600Kbps, PocketMail uses a special 7-bit encoding sequence instead of standard 8-bit ASCII, so the data throughput is more efficient.
By default, PocketMail gives you your own @pocketmail.com email address. However, as shown in Figure E, you can use your existing email accounts with it by forwarding your email to your PocketMail account using your corporate email system, or by consolidating up to three POP3/IMAP4/AOL accounts in the customer account administrative interface on the PocketMail Web site. We like this a lot.
.FIGPAIR E You can easily consolidate your existing email accounts on the PocketMail service.
PocketMail’s program interface is also easy to use. The composer and reader is intuitive and there’s very little to learn. By default, text and HTML attachments are pasted into the body of the received messages — binary attachments that are sent to you aren’t downloaded, but you can retrieve them from your account by using PocketMail’s POP3 servers on a regular PC email program, like Microsoft Outlook.
In addition to intelligent handling of large attachments, a built-in Message Title/Message Body preview feature, when enabled, reduces the amount of time spent communicating with the PocketMail Network. When this feature is active, only message Sender and Subject fields are initially received. The user then chooses which messages should be downloaded in their entirety and reconnects to the PocketMail Network to retrieve them. You can see this feature in Figure F. It’s useful when time is of the essence and you don’t want to waste a long download session on retrieving get-rich-quick and porno spam or the latest stupid joke that was sent to you by your goofy friend.
.FIG F The PocketMail email interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use.
In addition to email, the PocketMail service also allows you to send faxes, shown in Figure G, at an extra cost of twenty-five cents per fax message sent to recipients in the continental US, and one dollar per fax message sent internationally. Faxes are sent just like regular emails, but instead of a domain name after the @ symbol, you put in the fax number.
.FIG G You can also send faxes via the PocketMail service at an additional cost.
.H1 The bottom line: cheap and effective
While the PocketMail BackFlip isn’t as sexy as Omnisky, a Palm VII, or a Qualcomm PDQ, it does what it says and it works — all the time. And, unlike any of the previously mentioned wireless solutions, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. At $99 for the device and $9.95 per month for unlimited use and toll-free 800 number access, you’re not going to go broke using it.
If you need to be able to retrieve your email from everywhere, and a wireless solution doesn’t fit in your wallet, the PocketMail BackFlip is the ideal email access solution for your Palm device. We give it a big thumbs up!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
You can check out the PocketMail BackFlip at http://www.pocketmail.com.
To read last month’s review of Omnisky’s Minstrel V wireless modem and wireless Internet service for the Palm V computer, go to http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200002/omnisky001.html.
To find out more about acoustic couplers, visit http://www.zdwebopedia.com/Communications/acoustic_coupler.html.
Read up on the Tandy Corporation at http://www.tandy.com.
For a Model 100 computer club that has been active since 1983, when the unit was first introduced, visit http://www.the-dock.com/club100.html.
If you want For a cool place to read about ancient personal computers like the Model 100, visit http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Jason Perlow is Contributing Editor to PalmPower magazine and is proud to be an uber-geek. He can be reached at his fashionably evil email address of Perlow@hotmail.com
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6df3b
