Instant Vintage PDA Business Card

I needed a private business card and was not able to find my usual boring ones, so I fetched some vintage hardware, and used a printer in photocopy mode. No use of a PC!

Step 1: Select Suited Vintage Gadget

I am a pocket computers collector (owning also a couple of PDAs). Of course, all items are in perfectly working condition!

Too vintage gadgets won't make it:

You need a multi-lines backlit display.

So bye-bye Sharp PC-1211 (one-liner), PC-1600 (no backlight), etc. Such a shame!

I made a tests with a Sharp PC-1600 (1986) and a Sony Clié (2002). My choice ended to be my Sony Clié (Palm-compatible PDA).

Step 2: Create a Note, Photocopy With Reduction

Create a note, and write your wanted business information. Set the display to big fonts.
Remember your great graffiti skill? It will come back pretty quickly.

Place the PDA on the copier face down, mask unused area with blank paper to save ink, then:
- set printing quality to high,
- reduce to approx 66%,
- put strong blank paper in the tray,
- make sure the PDA's backlight is still on,
- start color copy.

Step 3: Cut and Use

Cut and use. This was the "instant" version.

Drawback: not very paper efficient. If you have many suitable vintage gadgets, copy many together per sheet. Or, turn on your PC, make a scan, crop the picture, and create a document with 10 copies of the picture per sheet.

Comments

[susanrm]

Cute!! I have a color Treo that might be able to be resurrected. But rather than just print it on my printer, which doesn't look so professional, I might turn it into an image and have that printed by Vistaprint or somewhere. Great idea!

[pcairic]

Or start the PalmOS emulator/simulator, choose a skin, type your note and make a screen copy. Cleaner, faster, and doesn't require the actual gadget which battery is dead and cables are long lost.
I must have an archive of the SDK somewhere...

[Bongmaster]

oh wow a clie XD i had one of them X3 gave it to my bro wen i got a smartphone tho XD

[Penolopy Bulnick]

Great! Very unique business card!