Bitchin100.com presents DLPilot

DLPilot emulates the Tandy TPDD drive on PalmOS PDAs that have a serial port. So far it has been tested on the following serial Palms:

Palm Vx
Palm III
Palm IIIxe
Palm VIIx
Palm M505
Palm Tungsten T3
Palm Tungsten W
Handspring Treo 90
Handspring Visor Prism
Handera 330

(PalmOS must be 3.3 or greater)

For those who don't know what a TPDD is: the TRS-80/Tandy TPDD ( Tandy Portable Disk Drive ) is a battery powered, ultra-quiet portable floppy disk drive that connects to the serial port of the

TRS-80 Model 100
Tandy 102
NEC 8201a
NEC 8300
Tandy WP-2

and other devices. Lots of Model 100 vintage laptop users have this drive, and some don't. They aren't plentiful anymore, and the old ones are breaking (I mean the drives, not the users!). So I created DLPilot to emulate these old drives.

I've been asked to make early copies available, so If you are willing to keep up with the alpha releases then you can buy what I have for $25.

When the final version is released it will cost $30. For those who buy before release, the upgrade fee will be only $5.

Send email to jhoger@pobox.com with your name and address if you would like to order a copy, and I will send you the invoice as a PDF file. I accept Paypal or check drawn on U.S. bank in U.S. funds.

Details of the currently shipping version:

Validated working with Tungsten T3 by Daryn Hanright! [turn off Bluetooth!]
DO file auto-converted to PalmDOC text files
Save/load binary C* files
Tested with TS-DOS ROM, Booster Pak
Tested with TEENY
Tested with WP-2 (Built-In) Diskette Driver
Tested with FLOPPY.CO
Tested with POWR-DOS
Rename and delete files on the Palm from your laptop
XON/XOFF text file upload for driver bootstrap

If you have a Palm III you need to be running at least PalmOS 3.3, which is available free to Palm III,IIIx, V, IBM WorkPad 20x, 30x, C3 users at PalmOS 3.3 Upgrade

For vintage PCs that connect to floppy via a controller instead of a serial cable, check out Eric J. Rothfus's "Semi-Virtual Disk", a flash based floppy disk emulator which plugs directly into your vintage machine's floppy controller. Disk images are transferred to it from your PC via Serial cable. It has many other features too.

If you want to pay by PayPal* my address is jhoger@pobox.com
If you are in California, please add 7.25% to cover tax.

Screenshots of DLPilot on a Palm Vx PDA:

Mockup of screen with model combo box open

* PayPal charges me fees for using PayPal. If you want to go the extra mile (not required, I won't even give you funny looks if you don't) and pay my fees, here is the formula:
        Let x be the actual price of the goods + shipping cost
        Let y be the final price you ask the buyer to send you via
        Paypal.

        Paypal standard rate fees are y * .029 + .30

        Then y - x should be equal to the Paypal fee.

        y - x = y * .029 + .30

        Solving for y gives

        y - y *.029 = x + .30
        y ( 1 - .029) = x + .30

        So,

        y = (x + .30) / (.971)

So for $25 that would be $26.06