That was a shock. Colligan recalled later: “Jeff basically went off on his own. When he came back, he was like Moses holding the tablets.” The tablets contained only three commandments. The first read: “Simplify the requirements to the recognition algorithm by transferring a part of the work to the user.” Instead of slow recognition of anything man can write, they should go over to fast recognition of special simplified hieroglyphics – Graffiti. The idea of making the user learn a new alphabet for communication with the device was questionable. It met a hard welcome in the team, but was eventually accepted.

The second tablet contained a much more evident thing: the device should be small enough to fit into the breast pocket. The example of the Newton, which was much blamed for its size, was striking. Jeff would make a wooden model of the PDA and go with it everywhere. When he received a call, he took the wooden brick out of the pocket trying to figure out how he would enter data into it. Everybody around were losing their sanity trying to understand why Jeff was playing with a piece of wood. Donna made a correction: Jeff didn’t play, he was inventing.

The third tablet…had the sketch of a cradle with a quick synchronization button. They decided to listen to the users for a change.

Overall, in the August of 1994, three months after Hawkins had sunk into his creative bout, Palm Computing had the vision of a new device. It fitted into the breast pocket, was powered from four AAA batteries, had four integrated applications (a calendar, address book, scheduler and notepad). And it was supposed to cost less than $300. Ed Colligan said: “I remember us sitting around the table when the device was introduced. We all felt tingles down our spines.” The codename of the tingle generator was Touchdown.

The company was toiling on this project for two years watching the market situation getting worse and worse. When Dubinsky and Hawkins came to Dunlevie with their plans, none of their old partners wanted to work with them any more. No one wanted to make a computer to run new software. Once again, Palm Computing was first purely a software developer. The financier listened to the couple and remarked, “'Stop complaining about your partners being unable to do what you want them to. Do you know how to do it right? Then go back to the drawing board and do it yourselves!”

Well, it was easier said than done. Where could they take the money from? Transformation of a software firm into a hardware one meant buying their own fabs and stores, establishment of a distribution channel and so on. Still, there was a roundabout: make contacts with a number of “hardware” companies and create a “fabless” one. That’s what Dubinsky got busy with: sums of money, but mostly the company’s stock, promises of future dividends, rented equipment. They used to joke then in the office that if Donna could rent a cup of coffee, she would surely do it.