Most religious cults attract the disgruntled, disillusioned members of more organised religions. Likewise, the members of my cult had become disenchanted with the increasingly inscrutable world of the PC. Many of us had already sold our souls to the devil, surrendering our Macintoshes for the seemingly global compatibility of Windows. Quickly caught in an endless cycle of upgrades, we became slaves to our machines. Colossal programs ate our Ram and pay cheques. They seemed ìeasierî to use, but they distanced us from the workings of our machines. And the more opaque they got, the less we understood about what we were doing. We were lost.

The tiny PalmPilot, reminiscent of the Nintendo Gameboy, is a monochrome and essentially text-only computer with, at its very best, 2 megabytes of Ram. Thereís no hard drive, nor even a place for a floppy disk. You enter text by writing or tapping a little picture of a keyboard. Still, itís not nearly as convenient as a genuine laptop, or as multi-featured, or as ergonomic. Then why the cult?

I didnít understand this myself until I put my demo unit into its cradle so that it could ìsynchroniseî its data with the records and files on my huge PC. With a friendly bleep, the PalmPilot wrestled my entire computer to the mat, sucked out the data and bleeped its thanks. It was like watching a mouse rape an elephant.

Better still, the PalmPilotís simple and transparent operating system has encouraged thousands of young software developers to create programs for it ó often distributed for free. Just like in the good old days, when the transparency of Dos or the early Apple system allowed novice programmers easy entry, today it is the independent developers who are pushing the PalmPilot to its limits, creating Web browsers, guitar tuners, alarm clocks, and hundreds of other applications for the platform ó all available in an easy download from the Internet.

It was while downloading a PalmPilot e-mail program, in fact, that the essence of the cult made itself apparent to my unworthy senses. The whole program downloaded in less than two seconds. That was the entire piece of software ó less than a couple of hundred kilobytes. And, frankly, it does just about everything that the latest version of Microsoftís gargantuan e-mail program does. (With a lot less tinkering, too.)

Thatís when it hit me: Iíve been spending thousands of dollars and hours nursing and upgrading a monstrosity that doesnít really do anything more for me than a handheld PDA. Sure, itís nice to have a keyboard, and I like a big monitor. But the machine and its operating system have become so unwieldy that no layperson knows how to program it anymore ó only the high priests.

Now, hundreds of thousands of people are waking up from the same dream and forming grass roots communities around this new accessible platform with the passion and zealotry of the original Mac-heads. A movement is underway to translate the Gutenberg Project, a huge collection of public domain texts ranging from Aristotle to H G Wells, into free, Pilot-compatible files. Many Web site designers have begun to simplify their interfaces so that they can be accessed from the primitive but spunky little browsers that run on the Pilot.

In short, the PalmPilot is forcing us to reassess our priorities in computing and networking.

Microsoft, however, is aware of this new threat to its uncontested rule, and is now releasing its own version of a palm computer. Though it may look and feel like a PalmPilot, I say itís time we draw our line in the sand. If its track record gives us any indication of where it will attempt to lead us, Microsoftís entry into the palm computing market will only serve to increase our dependence on the Windows system. What begins as open architecture will eventually become as opaque and impenetrable as Windows 95 . . . or 98.

But keep the faith. If we demonstrate our commitment to the PalmPilot, Microsoft will have to submit to our bidding. Even if we lose, and the PalmPilot is wiped out by what will surely be a more colourful and better-marketed PDA, let us not forget this brief moment in computing history when real people understood the code.

And remember: every great cult gains strength through its very persecution.

© Douglas Rushkoff 1998

[Douglas Rushkoff can be reached at rushkoff@well.com]