Ghosts of my Gadgets' Past

I am always a staunch believer that every natural phenomenon is a fruition of stimulus. Even as simple as terrestrial rains are caused by transitory condensation. A catalyst instigator of some sort, the one that causes the "cause" of the "effect."

Even my affinity to gadgets is triggered by some precursors of this uncontrollable passion, forming like a billowing clouds of smoke, awaiting for the fire to appear in its blaze of glory. 

Who would have thought that my fondness to PDA is because of Mrs. Lily Ong's(fondly known to us as "Mader", our collective respect to her stature... and tenure) new retail merchandise, the Franklin Ebookman. I vaguely had any knowledge on it at first until it was presented to us during one of our routine meetings(Ops meeting). 

To most of you, you don't even know that such a product exists. To my colleagues in the Marketing Department of Avid Sales, it may already have resided in the cobwebs of your memory, and to the branch heads who either ignored it or don't know what it is and how it is used for, this was the foundation of today's technological marvel. The wizardry of yesterday is now the basic component of our new digital lifestyle. 

The Franklin is an ebook reader that works much like the current crops of ebook devices like Sony eBook Reader. But during those times, devices like this costs real estate. And I thought I would pass of the desire since my salary grade couldn't compensate my buying frenzy. 

Or so I though, but one day, Roch Dalino, our then-brand assistant, went to our office with a dysfunctional Compaq Ipaq 3970. It was the time that I relish temporary ownership of the product, fiddling every nooks and corners of the display to figure out what's wrong with it. And it was probably my first baptism to the fires of touch technology.

The Franklin was already crossing its way to become a PDA, with similar PIM functions to boot aside from Franklin Reader and Viewer. 

Now, so many years had passed by. I became a senior member of two most renowned PDA user organizations in the Philippines, the Mapalad.org(Palm users group) and a PinoyWindows Mobile(PocketPC users group). I also share coffee moments of Marvin Emata, formerly of Computer Devices Corporation, to talk about his Sharp Zaurus, a Linux based PDA. 

I have guzzled every science of these gizmos. I already have owned several of them in my lifetime, and if only I get to keep all of them, I probably have a gadget relic slash library named after me. 

But to date, these were the only ones that survived the ocassional losses and the daily wear and tear.  The Motorola Q 8 Windows Mobile Smartphone, Sony TJ37 PDA, Handspring Visor Prism, Nokia 6260, and a Motorola handset whose model name I couldn't remember. On top of it were cable tangles of CDR King Mice(would we call it mouses if we're referring to the plural form of computer mouse?) and MPIO FY200 256 MB MP3 player.  On topmost is the  retail box of my newly acquired iPhone  3G. 

Not in the picture were the Palm M105 and Sony Clie SJ30, which were already serving new masters.