Busted Flush?

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My speculative eBay purchase of a Palm Tungsten TX PDA [if you're under forty, you'll have to Google it] I mentioned the other day, arrived this afternoon. As per the sale pictures, it powers up and does some stuff - but unplug the charger cable, and Pffft! Judging by the slight bulge in the back of the case, I figured the original battery had met its maker, so I opened the thing up - mercifully straightforward: nice design - and sure enough, the OEM Samsung battery had turned into bloated mush [the silver baggy on the right of the picture]. A bit of Googling later and I found and bought a new replacement on eBay, which is on its way. All that's required is to solder the new one to the board, give it a full three-hour charge, and it should be good for the foreseeable. What remains to be seen is to what use I put the thing, given my iPhone does all it does and a shitload more besides. But you know me, cold logic is never really the point with this retro thing. I like the design ethos behind these devices, just as I love the nearly completely analogue world I was fortunate to have grown up in. Having been a very early digital adopter too, having started using and programming computers in the late seventies, also gives me a rich vein of obsolescent nostalgia fetish-objects to draw on. Once a collector, always a collector, I guess...

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