A Doctor's Love Affair with PDAs
by Jose Maria Enriquez Ferrer, M.D.


Love and technology—an unlikely pair. Irrational matters of the heart seemingly go against the logic of the computer processor. But love and technology actually complement each other. While one flourishes on communication, the other allows communication to flourish. When a hopeless romantic finds hope—and love—in technology, he turns into a techie.

These days, nothing says "techie" more than a personal digital assistant (PDA). These ubiquitous devices are now in the blazers of executives, the clutch bags of college girls, and the white coats of doctors. Every techie worth his byte has to have one. I am no different.

My love story with PDAs actually dates back to about half a decade ago. It has been fraught with highs and (battery) lows, breakups (and breakdowns) and reconciliations, good and bad memories (and oftentimes the lack of memory), infidelity and loyalty, (data) loss and grief. Looking back, I can only say that it has been a learning experience. (Remembering the devices I wished I had but never did--the ones that got away, it was also a yearning experience.)

I only find it fitting that I dedicate this article to all the PDAs I've loved before. (I hear Julio and Willie singing in my head.)


If memory serves me well…



Back when the original PalmPilot was starting out, I had expressed my desire to own one to my aunt in the States. She sent me a Rolodex 64K instead. It was an electronic personal organizer with calendar, phonebook, calculator and world time functions. I was ecstatic over the device. Imagine! A total of 64 kilobytes of memory! How could I use all of that in my lifetime? Well, it turns out that it only took me several weeks to outgrow the device. In fact, it ran out of memory first!


Loyalty from royalty



As the PalmPilot was gaining ground and the new 3Com Palms were coming out, I knew I had to have one. For weeks, I was regularly looking at a PDA shelf in a Makati electronics store, gathering up ample inspiration to make me save enough money to buy my own Palm. That did not happen at all. I could not raise the cash, and had to settle with the next (best?) PDA on the shelf: a Royal daVinci. It wasn't exactly cheap by my standards but it was definitely a LOT cheaper than the Palm. And who was I kidding? The daVinci had a datebook, an address book, a to-do list, a memo function, and you could synchronize it with your desktop PC. It carried 256 kilobytes of memory (Yes! Four times as huge as the Rolodex!) and it only needed 2 AAA batteries to run. You could even buy a cool-looking external keyboard if you wanted. The daVinci definitely had everything the Palm had--or so I thought. When a lot of free medical programs were coming out for the Palm, I did not hear of any for the daVinci. Still, like a loyal dog, this PDA served me well. Unfortunately, after several months, I felt that I really needed to buy a real Palm device. At this time, I was already earning and could well afford a basic one.