FluConf
My "talk" for FluConf 2026
Here's my summary write up and I made a small demo video at the bottom of this page. Thank you for checking out my project.
A Palm Pilot Shaped Hole In My Heart
Who Am I?
You can call me c0debabe.
I'm a developer, maker, and artist who needs assistive technology to counter their ADHD, whether that's pencil and paper or digital tools. I grew up using PDA style technology and I want to return to that style of digital assistance.
Prior Art
I am attempting to make a personal digital assistant (PDA) device. Before smartphones, they were the go-to type of device for personal information management (PIM). Popular devices in this category included:
Palm Pilot style devices
Palm Treo style devices
Sony CLIÉ
Window Mobile on Pocket PC devices
And then the fire nation attacked. I mean the iPhone happened.
Hardware I am using
Paper Links: shop link and docs link
CardKB Links: shop link and docs link
T-Deck Pro Links: shop link and repo link
But Why?
PDA devices were digital, but wireless networking was no where nearly as omnipresent as it is now. These devices were offline-first software (this used to be the default) that would sync to your personal computer over specialty USB connectors.
It has not been a full technology detox, but the last several years I've been using less of the latest and greatest. I've put my mental health first. Speaking of mental health, I got diagnosed with ADHD recently and having that additional context has helped me immensely.
I need that extra bit of help with remembering stuff. It can be a paper notebook or smart phone, but I want the PDA experience back. (see my first PDA post for more ranting)
Challenges
As of FluCon 2026, I'm three months into this project. I have learned so much and cursed just as much.
Challenges in the project for me have been:
- this is my first embedded project
- Megabytes and kilobytes only; you get giga-nothing
- I have not used C/C++ since college in the 2000's
- e-ink screens do not let you use usual UI tactics
- it's surprisingly easily to end up in a crash and reboot loop
- mergers and acquisitions are bad for documentation
- Just because a library is popular doesn't mean it's easy to get it to work in your project
So there has been a lot of f.a.f.o.
Solutions and Lessons
- Thinking of it as a paper flip-book has made working with the UI easier
- Starting over fine, but don't delete past attempts
- If something is smooth and pretty it's because of iteration from clunky
- Catching exceptions is important
- Typography matters on e-ink
- When working with just text you don't need much space
- Learned how to setup callback functions
Where I am and What's Next
Working
- boots, yay
- keeps running, double yay
- can sync time with SNTP
- read and write to SD card
- data files are plain text and JSON
- command line style interface
The device "runs" now. So next is the PIM stuff.
To-Do
- Open and edit notes
- Calendaring
- Contacts
- Tagging
Nice to Have
Probably much futher down the road
- Advanced productivity activities like
- setting routines
- reminder to keep in touch
- habit tracking
- GPS logging
- On the LilyGo, which is a LORA device, add in LORA messaging
DIY
Project Status: Under active development.
Future versions of this talk (and the content on my website) will have better instructions, eventually.
- Buy hardware
- Find manufacturer examples
- Clobber examples in working hello world
- Iterate
No, really though my repo is on codeberg.org:
https://codeberg.org/c0debabe/pawb-pda
This is mostly for transparency. I am not ready to accept patches or requests.
I did want to share my base working code so others can have their own adventures.