Zire 71 resurrected in 40 minutes

2026-08-03 · bench log

Found in a drawer with the screen showing the "AC mode" battery icon and nothing else, in a box labeled OLD STUFF (junk). It is not junk.

The repair

Two screws under the battery, two under the stylus well, then the display assembly lifts off — the flip-hinge ribbon is the known failure. Don't pry the bezel; warm it with a hair dryer and work a guitar pick around. New ribbon from a $4 lot of three arrived in an envelope with no stamp information and a handwritten "thanks!". The device booted before I'd even put the case back on, because of course it did.

About syncing in 2026

Original Palm Desktop installs fine on any XP-era VM image, and the serial cradle just works with a $6 USB-serial dongle — the Palm doesn't care what's behind the COM port. Calendar and address book round-trip like it's 2004. I've started keeping the todo list on it on weekends, which has the side effect of making me unreachable, and I intend to keep doing that.

The greyscale screen is gorgeous in a way nothing modern manages. Battery holds 6 hours with the backlight off, which was always the correct decision anyway.

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