Hacker News' “most unique support email of 2014”
(TL;DR: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png) While digging around in drawers that hadn't been touched for decades, I found a wonderful piece of history. The Palm Treo 600 [1] was the Mercedes-Benz of the cellphone 10 years ago, and I was lucky enough to rediscover one.[2] So I decided to restore it to working order, slapping in a T-Mobile SIM[3] and a fresh battery. It worked! It could browse the Internet[4], send/receive text messages[5], make phone calls...[6] The onboard browser even passed Acid1[7,8] and could do some level of JavaScript![9] Unfortunately, most websites…
In plain words
This is a documentation of a personal restoration project where someone revived a decade-old Palm Treo 600 smartphone and discovered it could browse the internet and run basic JavaScript, but encountered unusual compatibility issues specifically with Hacker News. The project demonstrates the capabilities of early 2000s mobile technology and explores why certain websites failed to load on the restored device. It serves as a nostalgic technical retrospective for those interested in mobile computing history and legacy device functionality.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
(TL;DR: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png) While digging around in drawers that hadn't been touched for decades, I found a wonderful piece of history. The Palm Treo 600 [1] was the Mercedes-Benz of the cellphone 10 years ago, and I was lucky enough to rediscover one.[2] So I decided to restore it to working order, slapping in a T-Mobile SIM[3] and a fresh battery. It worked! It could browse the Internet[4], send/receive text messages[5], make phone calls...[6] The onboard browser even passed Acid1[7,8] and could do some level of JavaScript![9] Unfortunately, most websites were a little heavy on this poor thing's CPU. One site that I knew wasn't heavy was Hacker News! Unfortunately again, it didn't work. It "didn't work" in an odd way, though: it raised a "Communication Error" that would never occur on other pages, just Hacker News. So I did what any inquisitive individual would do: record a video, and ask HN support! This is what I sent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqn-EmU5KPw This is what they got back to me with: http://i.imgur.com/LuPHqiN.png I am truly honored to accept this award. I'd like to thank Palm, for making such an incredible phone (10 days of battery life!), as well as the Academy. And also my parents. And you, dear reader. Thank you so much! PS: kogir :) PPS: I've always wanted to do some teardowns of old device UIs and see what our mobile device forefathers thought up. I have a couple of really cool archeological finds that I could share. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_600 (gallery of 2-6,8-9 here: http://imgur.com/a/Gu70R) [2]:http://i.imgur.com/xVdpUST.jpg [3]:http://i.imgur.com/2Yy8fkM.jpg [4]:http://i.imgur.com/nZ7GwC1.jpg [5]:http://i.imgur.com/OJuZmh3.jpg [6]:http://i.imgur.com/z9mNkHt.jpg [7]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid1 [8]:http://i.imgur.com/9VKcxlY.jpg [9]:http://i.imgur.com/5KeI9TI.jpg
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