I'm a young person, as in not even out of high school young, but I have this fascination with technologies from times that I never even lived. I'll probably do a write up on what I have experienced later, but for now, I want to talk about one specific thing.

Now two weeks ago, I was browsing for PDAs because that's where my mind was at the time when I saw a full package Sony CLIÉ PEG-SJ20 on eBay for a decent price. Me being me, I pulled the trigger and waited a week.

When I got it in the mail, I had a bit of fun with the novelty of a stylus and the Graffiti writing system, but I realized, to my disappointment, that the battery didn't work. It only worked when plugged in, and the data would be wiped if it was turned off. I ended up buying a replacement battery off of Amazon.

Amazon listing for the battery.

They still sell these?

The PDA in question.

Replacing the battery was a bit of a task too. The battery door is not easy to take off at all, and I ended up snapping the stylus in half during the process (I got a replacement for that too). Once everything was said and done, though, the system worked like a charm. The battery even lasts a long time on standby, which is pretty neat.

I don't think I'll be using this very much since it's basically a worse phone, but it's really interesting looking at what was used twenty to thirty years ago. Can't wait to pick up more cool retrotech in the future!