Sync A Palm IIIxe Serial on Mac Mini with iSync

Sep 01, '05 09:24:00AM

Contributed by: jIyajbe

Tiger only hintI have successfully connect my Palm IIIxe to my Mac Mini (running Tiger), and sync'ed it with iCal and Address Book using iSync.

Summary of steps:

  1. Bought Keyspan USB-Serial Adapter, model #USA-19HS.
  2. Installed the OSX software that came with it, then connected the adapter.
  3. Connected my Palm serial cradle to the adapter, then put the Palm in the cradle.
  4. Downloaded and installed the Palm Desktop software for OS X. (Note: Must be installed as root; the installer doesn't give you the opportunity to authenticate.)
  5. As root, ran each of the Palm software apps that I just installed (there are four or five of them). In particular, HotSync Manager and Conduit Manager.
  6. Still as root, ran iSync, added the iSync conduit to the HotSync Manager.
  7. As root, sync'ed with the Palm. (Not sure if this step was necessary, but it didn't do any harm.)
  8. Back as a regular user, ran HotSync Manager, made sure the Keyspan adapter was checked, so that HotSync Manager was listening to it.
  9. Ran iSync, and (again) added iSync conduit to the HotSync manager.
  10. In iSync, enable Palm sync'ing.
  11. In iSync, added the Palm device.
  12. Clicked the "Sync" button.
That's it; it worked at this point! Joy! Note that (almost) all of this is well documented -- I carefully followed the directions in all three of the programs involved. Every time I tried to jump ahead ("it should be working now!"), it failed. So do yourself a favor, and just step through, one step at a time.

The only part that isn't documented is the doing stuff as root bits -- in particular, running the HotSync Manager and iSync as root first, before doing it as a regular user. Fortunately, I found that info here on this board.

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