User`s guide

machines that morning. One sold
when the store opened; I bought
mine at noon.
Back
at my office, the first task
was to check the package contents.
When you open the box there are
two manuals, a large setup instruc-
tion sheet (useful for explaining the
battery insertion order and reset
procedure), an add-on product cat-
alog,
warranty, licenses for H/PC
Explorer and the other software,
and two CD-ROMs containing the
software for the desktop (or laptop)
partner machine you must have to
connect
with the 320LX. Inside the
inner box the 320LX was enclosed
in cardboard on one side. The other
side of the box held the docking
cradle, with serial connection cable
attached,
HP's neat folding-prong
AC adapter, two AA alkaline bat-
teries
and the backup battery.
Use care during setup
I followed the instruction sheet to
insert the ba tteries and reset the
new palmtop [Actually, resetting is
unnecessary; the palmtop powers on
automatically. EDITOR]. I turned it
on by pressing the [spacebar] and
hurriedly began following the
setup and personalization instruc-
tions, using the stylus. The result of
this process demonstrated the
importance of following the on-
screen setup instructions precisely.
Pay special attention to stylus
calibration.
If you do not calibrate
the stylus accurately (as I
unknow-
ingly did the first time through),
the commands and menus will not
work correctly when you use the
stylus. For example, pressing on
one menu item may execute the
adjoining menu choice. I could see
the problem immediately when I
attempted to cruise around the
menu bars in the built-in programs.
Because of
the difficulty this mis-
calibration caused in restarting the
calibration
program in the Control
Panel, I finally had to remove the
batteries (including the backup bat-
tery), reset the machine and go
through setup and calibration from
the beginning. [Pressing (CTRL)+
(ALT)+(=)
allows you to recalibrate.
It's not necessary to remove the batter-
ies and reset. EDITOR]. Everything
worked as it should after my sec-
ond attempt.
I
unpacked the docking station
and plugged in the 320LX. The
palmtop's plug on the AC adapter
is noticeably smaller than the
lOO/200LX's, and the serial connec-
tor has a flat, rectangular shape
with an arrow on top for proper
orientation. The serial connector
may be removed from the docking
station by turning the unit over
and pinching the plastic clip that
holds the cable in the docking sta-
tion. The cable rests
under the clip
and removes easily. It's unfortu-
nate that HP changed the design of
the
power and serial connectors; it
means
that none of the accessories
for the
lOO/200LX which use these
connections will work with the
300/320LX.
The first accessories I obtain
will be an extra AC adapter and
serial connection cable for my trav-
el kit. Nearly as
important will be a
CompactFlash card, which will
allow me to leave the PCMCIA slot
free for a
modem. (The HP 320LX
unit has two card slots: a PCMCIA
slot, as well as a Com pactFlash
card slot.)
Importing usable
lOO/200LX files
One of the first things I wanted to
know was whether the Windows
CE machine would read files
directly from the Sundisk 5Mb
PCMCIA card on which I have
stored programs and all reference
files I have maintained on my
lOOLX for the last four years. (The
predecessors of San disk cards were
Sundisk cards). I
turned the 320LX
off
with the [fn] + [spacebar] keys,
inserted the card and turned the
CE machine back on. I searched
everywhere on the Windows desk-
top and My Handheld PC menus,
but the palmtop gave no sign of
recognition of the card.
I
called HP's Technical
Support folks. It seems that the
300/320LX is known to recognize
only the Sandisk PCMCIA cards
and CompactFlash cards that are
listed in the README file on HP's
CD-ROM which comes with the
unit. Other AT A flash cards using
3.3v should work, but cards requir-
ing 5v are not recommended by
HP.
Another revelation came out of
this experiment: All file transla-
tion/ conversion of lOO/200LX files
must be performed on your desk-
top machine (not in the palmtop),
using HP's PIM conversion soft-
ware and the H/PC Explorer syn-
chronization option that must be
installed on the desktop PC from
the CD-ROM. If you've been using
HP's Connectivity Pack to back up
your palmtop on your desktop PC,
you already have the files, but it's
unfortunate that you can't simply
interchange files by moving a
PCMCIA card from a lOO/200LX to
the 300/320LX.
Phone to Contact conversion
Converting my phone/contact list
was the most important task to me;
I
have almost a thousand names
and phone numbers of clients,
friends and professional associates.
The first step in this process is
installing the special H/PC soft-
ware on the CD-ROMs that accom-
pany the 300/320LX. When the
Microsoft CD setup program starts,
it
shows three software installation
options (which
must be installed in
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THE HP PALMTOP PAPER SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 1997 21