Stopping the Palm III's Stylus From Slipping

(Note that this applies equally well to the Palm IIIx and IBM WorkPad, which use the same design of stylus)

Tired of whipping out your Palm III, only to discover that you've just flung your stylus across the room and imbedded it in some poor stranger's back? Are the police starting to follow you around, hoping they'll find your secret ninja headquarters? Fear not!

The Palm III's grip on its stylus tends to become looser and looser over time, eventually getting weak enough that the stylus slips out of its little slot at the slightest provocation. I've seen people mention other ways of fixing this, such as going back to the all-plastic stylus (yuck!) or wrapping a bit of tape around the part of the stylus just below that flange at the upper end, but I don't like the idea of gooey tape possibly gumming the whole thing up. Instead let's attack the problem at the source!

So what is our problem here? The Palm III stylus has a pair of little notches, one on each side of that flange at the top. On the Palm III case there are two little bumps on either edge of the stylus slot that fit into these notches and hold the stylus in place. With time, these bumps get worn away, and the heavy Palm III stylus starts slipping out.

So let's augment those bumps! Remove your stylus, and put it somewhere safe. Take your Palm III, flip it over, get out your handy dandy super glue, and put a teeny tiny little drop on each of the two bumps! You don't want a lot, or it'll just ooze all over the place. We want to keep it in the shape of a drop, so that it dries into a little bump. I used the tip of a straightened paper clip to apply the drop of glue, which seemed to work well.

Let it dry (!), then slide your stylus back in, and check to see if you used enough glue. I'd guess it's better to use too little than too much, but I had to put on a second drop before its nice old solid snap-in feel came back.

A little bit really makes a major difference! And the best part of this method is that if it starts getting loose again, it's just another 15-second operation to fix! Whee!