The Internet Archive Has Archived More Than 500 Classic Palm Apps For The Web

The Internet Archive has the dream of providing universal access to all knowledge.

And to do that, it is preserving digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books.

And all that is publicly accessible for free.

This time, it is preserving Palm Pilot apps and it is making them accessible through web browsers. This way, internet users can instantly play any of its available Palm Pilots apps on any web browser, from desktop to smartphones.

Initially, the Internet Archive is making 565 classic Palm apps available, which include games, widgets, and also free trials from both the greyscale and color eras.

What's more, the Internet Archive didn't just archived individual apps, because it has also making the entire Palm OS available, and loaded with each launch, including its full selection of default apps.

In other words, the Internet Archive is turning back time, where users are transported back to 1990s, the time when handheld PCs were the hype of the decade.

For example, users can use their smartphones to experience how pocket computers were back in the pre-smartphone era, and how apps were in before apps stores exist.

Archivist and historian Jason Scott said that creating the project took him a few months to finish.

The project credits Scott and developer Christian Speckner and the POSE emulator that came before that.

Scott explained that his intention in soft-launching the Palm Pilot emulator collection is because he’s "kind of tired of people finding that I missed a spot."

At this time, during the moment of the launch, the project lacks metadata of each app's creator.

Scott said that he also hopes to add the instructions for each app.

Palm was a line of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones developed by California-based Palm, Inc., originally called Palm Computing, Inc.

The first generation, and also the most popular device from Palm, is called the Pilot. It was originally manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996.

As handheld PCs, the Palm devices function as a personal information manager. They are equipped with an electronic touchscreen visual display, and can be made a portable media player, among others. Later PDA models can also access the internet.

Palm Pilot devices were successful, when previous similar attempts, like Apple's Newton failed, failed.

Palm devices are often remembered as "the first wildly popular handheld computers."

The popularity of PDAs have been mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of highly capable smartphones, like those powered by iOS and Android.

But its existence cannot be overlooked, simply because Palm was responsible for ushering the smartphone era.