Aceeca Releases 64-bit Palm OS Hotsync Drivers

hotsync icon Ruggedized PDA manufacturer Aceeca has done what many thought impossible by releasing USB drivers for users of 64-bit Windows and Palm OS Garnet devices.

While the driver is primarily intended to work with the company's Garnet-based handhelds such as the new PDA32, Aceeca is encouraging unsupported testing on other Palm OS devices running some version of Garnet (i.e. Palm OS 5.4 or higher). Compatible Palm Inc. devices, in theory, should be the T5, E2, LifeDrive, Z22 and TX handhelds along with the Treo 650, 700p, 755p, and Centro smartphones.

The driver is digitally signed so as not to cause any unsigned device drive alerts in Windows. Thus far, users reports from the community indicate that the older Palm Inc. 4.1.4 version of Palm Desktop from 2004 intended for Windows XP has a higher success rate working with this 64-bit driver than the newer Vista-compliant Palm Desktop 6.2 released in 2008.

Aceeca's Hotsync drivers currently only officially supports Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit, which is by far the most popular and compatible 64-bit version of Windows to date. A stickied thread on the HP Palm support forums giving advice on driver installation and Hotsync setup is here, while Aceeca's forum thread detailing the driver release is here.

Article Comments

 (24 comments)

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.

Start a new Comment Down

Yes!!

Tuckermaclain @ 4/28/2011 8:38:40 PM # Q
Got it downloaded and will install as soon as I have some free time. Will be nice to hot sync again!
RE: Yes!!
Gekko @ 4/29/2011 5:59:30 AM # Q

what's next? cave paintings and stone tablets?


RE: Yes!!
HyperScheduler @ 4/29/2011 8:41:58 AM # Q
Gekko, you are wrong on this one. This is FANTASTIC news!


RE: Yes!!
Gekko @ 4/29/2011 7:44:20 PM # Q

or you could go hire that hooker you were looking at the other night.

RE: Yes!!
Gekko @ 4/30/2011 9:16:39 PM # Q

where are all of the white women?

Reply to this comment

The driver works on os4 and os 5 palm devices also

reb1 @ 4/29/2011 5:44:15 PM # Q
OK here is some info from the forums. The driver is currently working with Vista and windows 7 64bit operating systems. There hase been successful usage by people with these different models of palm that I have seen post on different forums. TX, E2, E, T3 Zire 72 & 71, m500, m515 and a Treo 680. People are also posting that outlook 2007 in combination does not work with desktop version 6.2 on windows 7 64bit but everything else works. I have the 64bit driver working with the desktop version 4 that came with my TX although I have not tried the outlook update for this version because I do not use outlook. Aceeca posted on 4/12/2011 at brighthand under PDAs and Handhelds/New Garnett PDA/ page 13 post 130 about which devices might work and of course the link to the driver. WyreNut a moderator at the Palm Support Community forum has posted a how to with the links in the windows hotsync area called 64bit drivers are here. And there are several posts of others who are installing with trial and error.
RE: The driver works on os4 and os 5 palm devices also
Gekko @ 4/29/2011 7:45:49 PM # Q

will it interface with a VHS player and 8 track too?

please go call that hooker you were looking at the other night. you need it.

RE: The driver works on os4 and os 5 palm devices also
Gekko @ 4/30/2011 3:49:04 AM # Q

in other news - Commodore is providing new support for the 1541 5.25" floppy drive.


RE: The driver works on os4 and os 5 palm devices also
Tuckermaclain @ 4/30/2011 5:04:51 AM # Q
Next time you feel like posting on a Palm OS thread, Take your keyboard and smash it on your head until the urge goes away.
Reply to this comment

Well done, Aceeca!

Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 4/29/2011 8:13:57 PM # Q
I wonder why our little buddies at Access didn't do this a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago.

Thanks for nothing, Schlesinger. How's that ALP OS hanging? How many phones sold with ALP OS so far? Idiot.

FJH

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
reb1 @ 4/29/2011 9:43:41 PM # Q
They did not believe there was money enough in it for them. Aceeca has two Garnett devices available and will have two more in the near future. They have a vested interest in producing a driver and other software to make there devices more acceptable to there customers.
RE: Well done, Aceeca!
hkklife @ 4/30/2011 8:18:38 AM # Q
When time permits, I am going to round up all of the remaining USB Palm OS devices in my stable (TX, Treo 755p, Zire 72) and post my findings as well as any pertinent install or configuration info here in a how-to article. All of the PIC faithful can respond with their own tips, questions and experiences.

Ironic how Win 7 (in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors) hit the market when there were still a number of new Centros out in the market and being sold/activated. If a small operation like Aceeca can release this as an act of goodwill to the Palm OS community (I can assure you there are more late-model Palm Inc Garnet device users installing this driver than there are Aceeca PDA users), Palm or Access definitely could have done it with their far greater available resources. What a shame but kudos again to Aceeca!

This might be the final chapter in a long saga but it's definitely not the first instance of the "Palm companies" twiddling their thumbs while 3rd parties and the user/dev community scramble to address a glaring flaw or product shortcoming. Softick Audio Gateway & Card Export, TealScript for the G1 fans, Dmitri's PowerSDHC, FAT32 driver and all the other "PowerUps", Aeroplayer on the T|T etc etc etc etc)


Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 4/30/2011 9:46:45 AM # Q
Centro is still a hell of a bargain for a PDA. I keep an unlocked GSM Centro around for travel + some PDA purposes, but the power of my 400 iPhone apps has made PalmOS less crucial to me over the past year. PalmOS PIM, speed and 20 of my all time favorite PalmOS apps will keep me using PalmOS devices forever though. I have a really nice collection of devices that can be pressed into service at whim.

FJH

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 4/30/2011 10:20:51 AM # Q
"They did not believe there was money enough in it for them."

Smart companies don't shaft longtime customers. Palm lived off the goodwill of the Palm name for the past decade during which time they foisted crap like Lifedrive and Pre upon unsuspecting victims. (Read the horribly inaccurate, never-updated Palminfocenter fluff "review" of the Lifedrive to see how the media played a role in deceiving customers.)

Having ACCESS to the sourcecode, both Palm and Access should have been able to fix the desktop issues within a few weeks and at minimal expense. Instead they said "Screw you!" to the millions of people who have purchased PalmOS devices over the years. Palm abandoned PalmOS users and developers when they transitioned to webOS. HP/Palm screwed the developer that had released the PalmOS emulator for webOS. HP/Palm abandoned owners/early adopters/victims of the original Pre. Access LIED repeatedly about its ability to get its tragic ALP OS onto shipping hardware. Access changed its OS and strategy/business plan yearly for 3 years, the entire time releasing nothing but fetid VAPOR(ware) from the mouth of its chief shill, David "Lefty" Schlesinger. See a pattern with these companies? History repeats and eventually customers and developers that have been burned in the past will wise up and move on to more reliable/trustworthy platforms.

So yes, maybe there would be no DIRECT financial gain to Palm or Access from supporting legacy products, but the goodwill such a move would have generated would have been worth the trivial cost of providing the support.

FJH

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
reb1 @ 4/30/2011 10:41:56 AM # Q
Aceeca is a small company and they build devices to there customers needs. I am hoping there bluetooth and wifi options become available in the near future on one of there newer devices. I will be needing a replacement for my TX. I still use it for a book reader and there devices have twice the battery capacity.
RE: Well done, Aceeca!
hkklife @ 4/30/2011 12:24:30 PM # Q
Someone somewhere (Brighthand, perhaps?) commented on what a good e-book reader the PDA32 was with its gargantuan battery life and the brightness turned down to the lowest level.

I'd like to see Aceeca introduce a refreshed PDA32 in the future (perhaps to coincide with the availability of 802.11g & BT options) in a black case. Adding 4GB SDHC card support to it would be icing on the cake. Hell, I bet Dmitry Grinberg could really give them a hand for stuff like FAT32 and SDHC support.

Back to Palm: The LifeDrive, with its initial shipping ROM, remains the single worst product I ever purchaed at a substantial pricepoint with reasonly expections of performance and reliability. In fact, I returned the first one, waited a mont hor two, then bought another hoping I just got an early production dud the first timea round. It was just as bad. What a horrible, horrible device. Some of its flaws were addressed in future ROM updates but there was simply no reason to release a Microdrive-based device with such a feeble amount of RAM in 2005. I'd rather have seen a refreshed T5 with 512mb or 1gb of internal flash than that nasty 4GB Microdrive.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
reb1 @ 4/30/2011 2:20:40 PM # Q
When the PDA32 has the available wifi and bluetooth ready they state the wifi will be b/g and the bluetooth will be class 1. They might come up with a SDHC driver for it themselves.
RE: Well done, Aceeca!
Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 4/30/2011 5:20:39 PM # Q
Why did Ryan publish such a B.S. "review" of the LifeDrive? Did he actually use the device or did he just have someone from Palm write the review for him? Probaby one of the all time low points for Palminfocenter.

The Tapwave Zodiac makes a decent book reader if you can still find them. I bought a couple back when they were being blown out for around $100 apiece when the company announced they were giving up on the market and liquidating all of their remaining stock. It was definitely ahead of its time.

FJH

RE: Well done, Aceeca!
reb1 @ 4/30/2011 8:42:28 PM # Q
When I look at most of the reviews on the different handhelds they were more like public release statements sent by Palm. I have never owned a livedrive myself. I have had several others and it seemed as newer devices were made. There was either software or hardware problems or both in increasing volume. If it was not for other people writing software for them to fix there screw ups they would of folded several years sooner. Aceeca is a small company that supplies to more of a commercial customer. I am interested in the RDA1500. I believe it has a daylight readable screen and is waterproof. I of course want it with Garnett operating system.
Will Gekko realize his comments aren't funny?
Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 5/1/2011 1:49:40 AM # M Q
Between his shrill pom pom cheerleading for Android and his increasingly strident whining about why he wishes PalmOS was no longer still a useful OS it's obvious that he's just a mailroom clerk with control issues living out his fantasies online. Whatever.

OK, we get that you're in love with Android an want everyone to stop using PalmOS and instead join you in the Google Collective. But that's not going to happen. So go back to your circle jerks with the other mailroom clerks on the Android sites. If you find you need to post here try to at least string together a cogent paragraph or two... if your tiny brain is actually capable of such a feat. Save the tiresome photo and YouTube links for your Android Reach Around Buddies. Perhaps you need some more snuggle time with a certain craven member of Colligan's BoyToys? Mmmmmmmmkay.

FJH

Reply to this comment

Android Reach Around Buddies (ARABs) fear the Ugly Truth

Fake Jeff Hawkins @ 5/1/2011 11:26:38 AM # Q
Google is spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing a mobile OS to give away "for free", but they STILL don't get it. Android is an OS designed by geeks for geeks. It isn't an OS for regular, normal people. Normal people don't spend several hours a week rooting thrir phones, downloading and installing hacked custom ROMs and tweaking 100 different near useless widgets cluttering up their home screen.

Android is an utter mess in terms of its User Interface and ironically may have gotten even worse since the Google Collective's acquisition/assimilation of webOS UI guru Matais Duarte. The ONLY reason Android has become the most commonly used smartphone OS is because almost every manufacturer is using it, so consumers are forced to use Android whether they want to or not. And the only reasons manufacturers are using Android are because it's "free" and they're too shortsighted, stupid and moneyhungry to realize why using Android and entrusting their future to Google is a big mistake.

A mobile OS should be all about speed, simplicity, ease of use, rapid presentation of data, stability, flexibility, and ease of application development. Android fails in most of these aspects. Compare iOS, webOS, Windows Phone 7, the new BlackBerry OS and even Meego and Symbian to Android and it becomes obvious how poorly designed Android is.

Android clearly needs a COMPLETE redesign of its User Interface. Copying the webOS UI (as RIM did) would be the a good idea. Or else just mimicing the UI of a jailbroken iPhone running Infinidock, Infiniboard and Infinifolders. Another option would be to create a Launcher X UI (or at least provide this as a user-selectable option ). Upcoming CPUs are so powerful that it soon won't matter that Android is a sluggish, poorly optimized OS. Security and the rampant problems with rogue apps stealing user data needs to be addressed immediately. That issue alone should be enough for wise consumers to stay away from Android phones.

Android has quickly become a blight upon the smartphone world and should be avoided at all costs until it is fixed. Just say no to Android.

FJH

RE: Android Reach Around Buddies (ARABs) fear the Ugly Truth
Tuckermaclain @ 5/1/2011 8:03:30 PM # Q
I don't know for certain, but I think that the Centro doesn't spy like the Android or iPhone. I really doubt it because it is a relatively "crude" device. (I say that in the kindest way). I suppose the majority of the spying would be from the carrier and not much of a forensic investigation could be done on it. Makes me seriously consider dumping the Evo for a Centro. Don't like the idea of spying on me. Bastards.
Reply to this comment
Start a New Comment Thread Top

Account

Register Register | Login Log in
user:
pass: