1. Alphasmart dana 64bit drivers alphasmart dana and palm software http://mrpk21.com/userDL/Alphasmart/dana.zip.
2. AlphaSmart Manager Software. AlphaSmart Manager for AlphaSmart 3000 and AlphaSmart Manager for Dana allows teachers to easily configure and manage an entire classroom set of up to 30 devices. AlphaSmart Manager software streamlines the tasks that you do everyday – from retrieving and printing files from students’ devices, to updating them with software and word processing files, to.

Dana by AlphaSmart: Word Processing The Dana, from Renaissance Learning (formerly AlphaSmart), combines the word processing functions of a NEO with the organizational functions of a Palm. This Quick Guide covers word processing and printing. A separate Quick Guide is available for organization features. AlphaSmart Manager for Dana begins updating the Dana system software on the devices you selected. This operation takes quite awhile.

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Subject: Dana vs. AlphaSmart My 8th grader writes slowly and has had an AlphaSmart on loan this year for note taking. For HS I may have to purchase a key boarding device. Is the Dana a better tool for HS? Inquiring Mom
Inquiring, You may want to go to the alphasmart website www.alphasmart.com and check out their community boards. This question comes up often and you can see how others respond. Besides notetaking, why would your son need either device? The beauty of both devices are they are easy to use, instant on/off and automatically save documents. The AlphaSmart is an excellent tool for brainstorming, first drafts, etc and is virtually indestructible and the batteries last forever (unlike laptops). Editing work is best done on the computer and it easily transfers text to the computer. The Dana is essentially an AlphaSmart PLUS a Handheld device with Palm OS software. It is great for organizing, scheduling, wordprocessing and anything else you use your Palm Pilot for. Does your school have any available so that your son could try them out?
I was able to compare both devices side by side last week and the Dana does have a major advantage in terms of note taking - it displays more lines of text than the AlphaSmart and the font can be changed so as to make the printer more easily read. As noted in a post above, the Dana also has a PDA for calendaring etc. inquiring mom Inquiring Mom
Did you end up buying one of these devices? What was the result?
Inq. Mom, You may want to hold off on the purchase. AlphaSmart just announced a new product called NEO, which sounds like an AlphaSmart update. It has some great new features compared to the AS 3000. Definitely check it out at the AlphaSmart website www.alphasmart.com. Also check out the Community Center message boards. Many writers and college students love these products because of their instant on/off features, durability, extremely long battery life and portability. It's not just kids with LDs that benefit!

The major attractions to the hobby of admiring and using retrotech is the low cost of entry and the ease of seeing what technologies of the past have stood the test of time to survive and prove their worth and durability for particular tasks.

Recent blog posts in the ‘sphere have lamented the obsolescence (or at least the end of manufacturing) of the Alphasmart Neo recently.. Like the typewriter before it, another excellent distraction-free, single purpose writer’s tool bites the dust. The fact that this happens just before NanoWriMo is doubly sad, I’m certain, for those who haunt the Alphasmarties group. For me, however, the passing of the Dana was a greater loss.

The main differences between the two are:

1) The Dana has a much larger screen.
2) The Neo has a much longer battery life.
3) The Dana runs a much richer PalmOS operating system than the Neo, and includes a touchscreen interface.
4) The Dana has 2 SD card slots.

Of these differences, the first two and the fourth are really the only ones that matter to me. My Dana’s screen space is better suited to my writing style, although I do envy the weeks and weeks of battery life enjoyed by Neo users. I’m happy to get a few days worth of work out of a set of batteries, which is, in the long run OK by me. The touchscreen PalmOS is nice, but I don’t often find myself using a stylus when my main use of the machine is as a simple word processor. Often, I just use my finger to position the cursor in the text or select screen icons, and that works as well as the stylus.

The fourth point is also a big reason I prefer the Dana over the Neo. I have several older SD cards ranging in size from 16mb to 64mb that all work well in the Dana. Newer cards in the GB sizes do not work. These cards are non-volatile and are unaffected by the state of the battery, unlike the Alphasmart’s internal memory. I have heard many reports of people losing their work on Alphasmarts when the battery power failed. This does not happen on a Dana, if you’re careful to start new documents on the SD card instead of the machine’s internal storage. The SD card is also a handy way to transfer files if you don’t happen to have a USB cable handy.

Because these Alphasmart machines were used extensively in schools for many years, used ones have been surplused in huge lots by schools systems over the years, and you can easily find these on eBay, which is where I obtained mine a few years ago. We have two of these surplused Danas and I have to say that they are well worth the cost (about $35 each with shipping).

A quick check of eBay suggests that they can still be had for about that price. A used Neo will set you back about $50 with shipping. These deals are unlikely to go away very soon, so if you’re interested in trying one out, they aren’t very hard to get ahold of for about the same price you’d pay for a decent typewriter.

Both the Dana and the Neo have full-sized laptop-style keyboards that are nice to type on, compact, light and durable. I like to compare my Dana to my much older Tandy laptops (Model 100, 200 and WP-2) in terms of probable longevity. As long as USB stays standard and AA batteries are still manufactured, the Alphasmart will likely still be a useful tool twenty or thirty years from now. The machines themselves will probably still be kicking then, as long as they are treated decently. I expect mine will still be around long after the more modern Windows machines I have now are sitting in landfills.

Alphasmart Dana Review

That’s the advantage of simplicity in design of a machine that does one thing well. A large backlit monochome, low power consumption LCD, a good full-size keyboard and multiple well-supported methods to transfer files coupled with a power source that’s not going to be obsoleted are the reasons that the Alphasmart Danas that now exist will still be with us decades from now.

I’ve been skimming through some Google searches for Alphasmart Dana software that might be handy for Nanowrimo, and it turns out that there are a few Wrimos out there who have written Dana apps specifically for Wrimo tasks like compiling wordcount totals for writing sessions and file management on the SD cards. I’ll be loading these up and reviewing them over Nanowrimo to evaluate their usefulness.

Addendum: Blogging via Alphasmart is an easier process than with a typewriter. It eliminates the scanner step, which with my ancient scanner, has lately been somewhat troublesome. The dang thing only works at all with an old WinXP laptop, and it’s not even working well with that in the past few months. Like a balky typewriter, it works just enough of the time that I haven’t yet given up on it, but it’s a break in the chain, a squeaky violin in the chamber quartet of my workflow. (Camera, Writing machine, Scanner, WordPress)

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