apache 2.0
PWA (Organizers)
SvelteKit 2 + Svelte 5 dashboard, backed by Supabase (Postgres + RLS + Edge Functions + Vault BYOK). Date Book / To Do / Address / Memo / Note Pad / Mail / Expense.
v0.5 live
some things deserve to be
written down.
not all of them deserve to be online.▮
the hardware vellum for the post-cloud age.
2× AAA
corner-shop batteries
160×160
monochrome screen
0
radios on device
1996
oldest reference
2003
youngest reference
>_ what is this
PalmVellum is an open-source platform that gives the native apps on a 1996–2003 Palm Pilot AI-assist and cloud sync — while leaving the Palm itself completely alone.
You write on the Palm because it's quiet. Two AAA batteries. 160×160 monochrome screen. No always-on radio. No camera. No infinite scroll. You hold it, you note things down, you put it away. The platform watches the cloud copy and helps when called.
What "low-fi" means here
Not low quality. Not retro for retro's sake. Low-fi = low fidelity, deliberately. Fewer pixels, fewer notifications, fewer pretexts to pick up the device. The platform brings AI and cloud in where they're genuinely useful — natural-language input parsing, transcription of handwritten sketches, daily research digests, agentic event / task creation — and stops there. We don't profile you. We don't show ads. There is no profile.
>_ the manifesto
- 01 The Palm hardware is the trust root. No radio. It cannot leak. Everything that matters can stay on the device; what you sync to the cloud is your choice.
- 02 Low-fi is deliberate. A working Palm IIIe in 2026 was built in 1999, paid for once, and asks for two AAA batteries a year. We respect what's already in your drawer.
- 03 The community owns the foundation. Toolchain, daemon, schema, HotSync engine, sync conduits — all Apache 2.0 on GitHub.
- 04 BYOK or platform credits — your choice. Bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini key and pay nothing. Or buy platform credits via Airwallex. Both are first-class; neither is mandatory.
- 05 No social, no analytics, no email marketing. You write the records, you own them. We do not aggregate, sell, or recommend.
- 06 The Palm stays Palm. We will never push custom firmware. The platform speaks existing HotSync to existing Palm OS apps. Our reference target and design focus is the AAA-battery family (1996–2003) — that's the device we believe in and test on. The platform itself just speaks HotSync, so other Palm OS devices outside our target are welcome to use it too; we just won't be testing those.
What the platform does
Each native Palm OS app gets a partner surface in the platform "Organizers" dashboard. Same data on both sides. Multiple Palms in the same household read and write the same records.
- Date Book. Paste any rough text — "Coffee with May Friday 3pm" — AI parses it into a structured event. Manual create / edit too.
- To Do List. Tasks with priority and due dates. Prefix with
(AI)and an agent executes the prompt and writes the result back as a Memo. - Memo Pad. Notes sync both ways. Memos prefixed
(AI)trigger an agent that creates events / tasks and appends a summary. Upload a PDF, DOCX, or image and AI summarises it into a memo. - Address Book. Contacts with rich fields and categories.
- Note Pad. Sketches arrive from your Palm. Vision AI transcribes handwriting and describes drawings.
- Mail. Per-source AI digest of a website, or topic-mode where AI uses web search to write a 10-20 minute research article with cited sources, in the language you choose.
- Expense. Multi-currency log with category totals.
Goal
Help you accumulate a slow, deliberate body of personal records — calendar, contacts, notes, sketches, research digests, expenses — without being interrupted by your own tools. The Palm holds them in cold storage on AAA batteries. The platform holds the duplicate cloud copy and runs the AI assist whenever called. A native Android companion app, Palm Organizers, is in preparation.
>_ what's in the repo
Apache 2.0 on GitHub. The repo is a pnpm + Go monorepo with a small set of focused packages.
apache 2.0
sync-cli (vellum-sync)
Go CLI. Bridges PalmOS Memo Pad / To Do DB <-> Supabase. Push, pull, sync.
v0.5 liveapache 2.0
mac-daemon
Future Network HotSync daemon. Go + modernc.org/sqlite, no CGO.
in progressapache 2.0
android (Palm Organizers)
Capacitor wrapper around the SvelteKit dashboard. Native Android APK / AAB.
in prep>_ reference hardware
Our reference target is the AAA-battery Palm family. That's the device we test on and design the UI for. The platform itself just speaks HotSync, so other Palm OS devices outside this list are welcome to use it too — we just won't be testing those.
Palm Inc.
- Pilot 1000 1996
- Pilot 5000 1996
- PalmPilot Personal 1997
- PalmPilot Professional 1997
- Palm III 1998
- Palm IIIe ★ 1999
- Palm IIIx 1999
- Palm IIIxe 2000
- Palm m100 2000
- Palm m105 2001
- Palm m125 2001
- Palm Zire 2002
- Palm Zire 21 2003
Handspring
- Visor (original) 1999
- Visor Solo 2000
- Visor Deluxe 2000
- Visor Platinum 2001
- Visor Neo 2001
Sony Clié
- PEG-SL10 ★ 2002
The only AAA Sony Clié + only hi-res 320×320 mono in scope.
>_ get involved
PalmVellum is pre-1.0. We're looking for hardware testers, translators (繁中 / 简中 / 日本語 / 한국어 / Русский / Español), logo designers, and documentation contributors.
>_ support the research
PalmVellum is researched, designed, and built by one person in Hong Kong on evenings and weekends. No company, no sponsors, no VC. Every cradle bought, every Palm dumped, every datasheet re-read — paid out of pocket.
The price of one coffee is enough to keep the research going for another evening. If this work means something to you — the nostalgia, the simple fact that a 1999 device can outlive your phone — that's all it takes to support the next PalmVellum release.
$support the research
≈ US$5 — one coffee, one more research evening.