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no, PalmOS=32bit, at least according to the people who make them.

Palm Ethernet Cradle

• Fits into my pocket. This is very important.
• Boots up within a second or two.
• Stores my information.
• Doesn't need to be recharged every two hours.

My Palm is 119mm x 81mm x 17mm and weighs 170g. This thing is 128.8mm x 83.5mm x 19.9mm and weighs 225g. The difference is pretty significant, since my Palm is of the thicker and heavier variety, and I'd like my next PDA to be smaller, not bigger.

Just my $2*10^-2. <g>

--

It's not Microsoft that Palm should see as their major competitor, it's Symbian's EPOC system. Symbian's on a bit of a 'slow burn', but don't lose sight of the fact that all the world's largest cellphone manufacturers are lined up to put EPOC on their next-gen phones and phone/PDA hybrids before the end of this year, or the middle of 2001. While it's obvious to most people that current attempts at integrating cellphones and PDAs haven't been entirely successful (the Nokia 9110i is probably the best, but not entirely satisfactory as either a phone or as a PDA), the advent of devices such as Bluetooth headsets should really change that situation. Imagine something with the form-factor of a Palm Vx, running Symbian's EPOC, talking via Bluetooth to a headset, and via GSM to the phone and data networks, and the possibilities should become apparent... there are a hell of a lot of cellphone users out there; whoever conquers that market is practically guaranteed dominance in the 'traditional' PDA market.

Dear Palm Solution Providers:

We've received some questions from the Palm economy regarding what we think about the new version of Windows CE, which Microsoft calls Pocket PC. We expect that Microsoft will make a very big launch event and advertising campaign starting April 19, just as they did with the last version of Windows CE.

Just like last time, some industry analysts will announce that Palm is dead, because Microsoft's handheld has more PC features than Palm handhelds. And just like last time, when the smoke clears we think Palm will still be on top.

We don't ever underestimate a competitor, though. The market is too competitive and changes too fast. Besides, there's no question that Windows CE is less unpleasant than it used to be. So we'll continue to work hard to tell Palm's story, including the amazing array of great software and hardware products that you bring to the Palm platform.

Now that we're a public company, we have very aggressive plans to drive the long-term growth of the Palm platform. We'll be revealing more about those plans in the next several months. And in the meantime, we think we have a great story to tell about Palm and our partners today. Here's some of the information we'll be distributing. You'll see this reflected in new and more aggressive marketing campaigns this summer. If you get questions about Palm's competitiveness, we encourage you to pass this information along. And we'd like to hear from you if you have comments on this memo, or ideas on things that we could do better.

Please email your comments and suggestions to devinfo@palm.com with "Pocket PC feedback" in the subject title.

Thanks very much for your support of the Palm family.

Michael Mace
VP, Product Strategy
Palm, Inc.

forget that cheap part, Wince machines cost 2-3 times a much as a palm.

Microsoft unveiled the Pocket PC today. Products being available by its partners include: HP Jornada, Compaq iPaq H3600, Casio Cassiopei a E-105 and Symbol PPT 2700. Microsoft's touting it as being better than Palm. Here's a list of features, significant among them: Microsoft Reader (for reading e-books), Windows Media Player (for playing music), Pocket Streets (a map program), Pocket Internet Explorer, and office productivity tools like Outlook, Word, and Excel.

FWIW though, Japanese make good appliance-type gadgets, and you can count on them to deliver good quality end-user products (witness the game consoles). Only problem is if some terrorists decide to use a Sharp Zaurus in their Missile Guidance System.

• http://www.landware.com/produ cts/gotype/gotypeps.html Landware's origional
• http://www.palm.com/products/keyboard/ Newer foldable keyboard OEMed by Palm
• http://www.pfuca.com/products/hhkb /hhcindex.html This is another product that allows you to connect a normal PS2 keyboard to your Palm.

&nbsp - Mike

Think for a minute about how this would be bad. You have to grow a computer right? Well then you would most likely have to do all sorts of very precise measurements and set up conditions. These are going to require a massive lab to get to work properly. Also there is a high degree of failure possible. If people are having a hard time getting organs created via cloning and the like how likely is it that a computer is going to be created?

Also AI for the most part is still a plaything and something that one really can't easily study or actually get a job in. Sure you might learn something but getting money is top priority for survival.

Metacreations is entering a very competitive, but under utilised, area. There are lots of applications of good, fast, interactive 3d models for the web. Have you heard of Cult3D by Cycore?? Lets you play with an interactive Palm VII, Nokia Communicator with sms from the model and heaps more.

I've been using VRML in the past but it is far less suitable for these applications.
Metacreations one is good too but they don't have the customer base of the Cult3d yet, but if they continue with their usual excellence of software and innovative gui's then we should see something great soon.

For anyone interested in developing apps for PalmOS, there is a GPL'ed Palm emulator; which borrows code from other neat GPL'ed projects - UAE: The Ultimate Amiga Emulator and WinUAE (the windoze port).
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

For anyone interested in developing apps for PalmOS, there is a GPL'ed Palm emulator; which borrows code from other neat GPL'ed projects - UAE: The Ultimate Amiga Emulator and WinUAE (the windoze port).
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

In the Development Zone area of Palm Computing's web site, they have a pinout diagram of the Palm's serial port. More importantly, however, if you register as an independent Palm Solutions Provider with Palm (registration is FREE), one of the many things Palm provides is a list of hardware vendors which sell serial port connectors and modem casings which will fit various Palm devices. In addition, Handspring, which makes the PalmOS-based Visor, provides mechanical information on all of their products, including suggested dimensions for both standard and expanded SpringBoard modules. They also provide a list of recommended vendors for SpringBoard module casings.

In the Development Zone area of Palm Computing's web site, they have a pinout diagram of the Palm's serial port. More importantly, however, if you register as an independent Palm Solutions Provider with Palm (registration is FREE), one of the many things Palm provides is a list of hardware vendors which sell serial port connectors and modem casings which will fit various Palm devices. In addition, Handspring, which makes the PalmOS-based Visor, provides mechanical information on all of their products, including suggested dimensions for both standard and expanded SpringBoard modules. They also provide a list of recommended vendors for SpringBoard module casings.

In the Development Zone area of Palm Computing's web site, they have a pinout diagram of the Palm's serial port. More importantly, however, if you register as an independent Palm Solutions Provider with Palm (registration is FREE), one of the many things Palm provides is a list of hardware vendors which sell serial port connectors and modem casings which will fit various Palm devices. In addition, Handspring, which makes the PalmOS-based Visor, provides mechanical information on all of their products, including suggested dimensions for both standard and expanded SpringBoard modules. They also provide a list of recommended vendors for SpringBoard module casings.

In the Development Zone area of Palm Computing's web site, they have a pinout diagram of the Palm's serial port. More importantly, however, if you register as an independent Palm Solutions Provider with Palm (registration is FREE), one of the many things Palm provides is a list of hardware vendors which sell serial port connectors and modem casings which will fit various Palm devices. In addition, Handspring, which makes the PalmOS-based Visor, provides mechanical information on all of their products, including suggested dimensions for both standard and expanded SpringBoard modules. They also provide a list of recommended vendors for SpringBoard module casings.

USB never reaches close to 12 Mbit/sec (theoretical max). For tiny portables with only a USB link, this might be nice. No modem accessory required. For instance, the Palm. Use this USB connector to sync with your desktop & get on the 'Net at (relatively) high speeds. You can be certain USB will become standard on portables of all stripes, so it is a semi-useful feature. Then again, why not place an ethernet port on the little tikes.

You know, at first glance I thought this was cool just for the hack value. But with the introduction of the color PalmOS systems, this might become really cool in practice too. Could be some extremely portable eye candy, at the very least.

John

Only system software can launch a separate task. The multi-tasking API is not available to developer applications.

It's nice to know that mistakes like that can slip by on the product launch. LOL.

Looking at the product spec for the IIIxe, available here, it has 2M of Flash ROM as well as its 8M of regular RAM.

At only $20 more than a IIIx, this seems a great choice for those who aren't such yuppie managers that they need the V. ;)

Fross

"To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text, the text that is to be interpreted is written in accordance with this invention using symbols that are exceptionally well separated from each other graphically. These symbols preferably define an orthographic alphabet to reduce the time and effort that is required to learn to write text with them at an acceptably high rate. Furthermore, to accommodate "eyes-free" writing of text and the writing of text in spatially constrained text entry fields, the symbols advantageously are defined by unistrokes (as used herein, a "unistroke" is a single, unbroken stroke)."

And notice the title, expressing what is being patented: "Unistrokes for computerized interpretation of handwriting"

Not any method of computerized handwriting recognition, but only single-stroke characters.

Now, look at the "X" in the Grafiti Character Set.

Aha! Two strokes! That means that Grafiti's not representing the entire alphabet in single-stroke form.

"But", you cry, "a lot of the letters are in single-stroke form!"

Like the letters "I", "O", "U", "S", "C", and "V"? A lot of the Roman alphabet is already expressed in single-stroke form.

So 3Com isn't trying to rip off the idea of a single-stroke alphabet for computerized handwriting recognition, they're just using an obvious approach to generic handwriting recognition.

And generic handwriting recognition is NOT covered by the patent. The patent itself begins, "To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text..."

Which means that the patent itself cites prior art in general handwriting recognition.

And the patent itself gives specific directions and actual vectors to use to generate the Unistroke alphabet. The result is a bunch of simple squiggles that look kinda "Arabic-ish".

The Grafiti alphabet is immediately recognized as a variant of the Roman alphabet, not designed to be "orthographic", as Unistroke was, but rather to emulate existing stroke patterns as closely as possible while clearly differentiating the characters from one another so the computer can recognize them unambiguously.

Which, IMO, is the obvious solution to the problem.

Now, since shorthand was invented long before Unistroke (as many posters have pointed out), the patent can only protect the specific alphabet mentioned in the patent, and only for purposes of computerized handwriting recognition.

(For a little analogy, this is the equivalent of patenting the "Longbow and Feathered Arrow for Purposes of Hunting Deer", and suing someone who builds an elephant gun, claiming that you have a patent on "all long-range mammal-killing projectile devices". Although that may not be the case with software patents >:^)

This concludes my messy disembowelment of the spurious Xerox claim.

Permission is granted by the author to distribute this message verbatim to the 3Com legal defense team.

(Score: -1, Rambling Lunatic)

My 10 second analysis is that they are fairly similar

Well, looking at the two links provided here and here my >10 second analysis differs.

Of just the alphabet the following letters have convergence. F, I, J, L, S, Z. Of those only F really differs from the normal Latin rendering in both sets as it drops the cross bar to become an upside-down, backwards L. The others are the same. There are other similar strokes, but they mean different things. For example, Q in unicode is K in grafiti, A is "uppercase", E is "backspace", K is "command", R is the start of the two stroke set, etc, etc, etc.

In fact, writing the unicode alphabet on my Palm IIIe renders the following:
Tcftijaoxks vuhy
z

Hardly what I call a highly convergant set of characters. The c is actually the C with the little tail (dunno the ASCII code for it) and after the J would be KL which on the Palm using unicode is "Command-L" for "lookup". I had to go back into the memo pad to continue the rest of the alphabet.

My opinion is that, yes, Xerox did advance an idea which may or may not have been unique for the time. However, Grafiti, however Palm came about to aquiring it, is clearly superior to Unicode. Chalk up Xerox ("y" in unicode on my Palm, for the record) for a nice lawsuit based on nothing more than sour grapes.

To me it appears that the unistrokes alphabet is designed for speed of entry while the grafiti alphabet is designed for rapid learning. There is an obvious correlation between grafiti strokes and the letters they represent, whereas unistrokes are pretty much random.

See for yourself:
Grafiti strokes
Unistrokes

And if they've just patented a way of entering characters via strokes, well, that's pretty obvious when it's your only method of input. Not that obviousness seems to matter to patents anymore.

(For those of you not familiar with the Palm devices input method, point your java browser here for a demo). Also, this image shows clearly how simplistic the method is for getting small amounts of text into a PDA when you're on the go.

Arguing that this simplistic text input method is a trade secret is like trying to patent a Font.
_________________________

(For those of you not familiar with the Palm devices input method, point your java browser here for a demo). Also, this image shows clearly how simplistic the method is for getting small amounts of text into a PDA when you're on the go.

Arguing that this simplistic text input method is a trade secret is like trying to patent a Font.
_________________________

If you want that transparent look, it'd be worth looking for the Special Edition of the Palm IIIe, which has a transparent case! same spec as the regular IIIe, and you can likely find a good deal on it now the V is getting widespread.

You can find a link to it on Palm Central here, or another link with a better picture here.

I wonder about the memory sizes... people are going on about the IIIx and the Vx as essential as they have 4M and 8M ram respectively, as opposed to the basic III and V which only have 2M... personally i have a IIIx, have put a ton of programs on there, use almost all its features, and have put 600K worth of books (about 5 books)on it with CSpotRun, and have still only used just over 1M on it! Has anyone actually filled up a IIIx or Vx with stuff?

Fross

Here's the link for this product : Palm USB Kit.
But look around, you can get a better deal elsewhere.

The future is going to be dictated by two things, software and interface. The biggest reason wearable computers aren't "human efficient" yet are the interfaces. The point of wearables is lost if you have to break out a keyboard in order to enter data, or need a flat surface to run your mouse on. The pistol grip mouse controller this new machine has is a step forward, but the lack of random character input hinders its usefulness. There are TV ads for wearables that are voice-controlled, but these interfaces are not optimal due to the simple fact that people sitting next to you on the bus simply do not want to hear you controlling your computer.

There exist some palm-held keyboards that work on a chording principle, I believe some of the gargoyle cyborgs at the MIT Media Lab use these; with only five buttons, you can chord together all the keys on a keyboard. The major problem with this reaching mainstream is that it is a completely different mechanism that would have be learned & practiced. There were some ergonomic keyboards that took advantage of the chording concept (to prevent having to move your fingers all over the place), but these didn't take off for much the same reason.

What, then, is going to drive the industry towards wearables? IMHO, it's software. People were apparently willing to learn the Graffiti system for the Palm because that line of PDAs provided the right kinds of software in a very portable fashion. The software was mostly read-only, data entry is not its strong point, but neither was it intended to be. That's the kind of thing that a wearable computer could be useful for -- the keyboard isn't so necessary if all you're doing is displaying data.

Of course, you don't need a Pentium to display data! Which means a heads-up Visor (hmm... fate? ;) could just as easily be the next big thing. As well, perhaps it's not the machine we should be impressed with, so much as the headset -- I can think of many more uses for a head-mounted, your-eyes-only, just-like-a-monitor display, even with conventional laptops -- on a plane, bus, train, for security reasons and/or for space limitations.

I love the idea of wearable computers. Someone just needs to develop the killer app for it, something that would give people a reason to actually want to use one on a constant basis.

--
If it's not important, you can probably find it in...

• A Personal Jukebox MP3 player w/ the car audio kit
• The ever-popular choice, a 3Com Palm Vx
• I could really use a new harddrive, or, better yet...
• I'd love to have an Athlon system to replace my P133
• Tux would make a great stocking stuffer
• I'd like to have a DVD player

I can't think of any real geek who wouldn't want one of these babies - except someone who has one already.

Team up with the guys from PALM and/or HANDSPRING.
For them, the availability to download books into their devices
has cash value since it can attract new customers.
They'll eventually place some pointer to PG into
their hand-held manuals or their web sites.

Try to get some authors to sponsor PG by providing
etext stuff (or even books?) donated to PG.

Speak to Tim O'Reilly. ;)

The /. crew provides a column "My Favorite
Literature Download of the Month" which can
bring new insights to geeks who usually read more
Perl than literature pearls (training the other
half of your brain cannot be wrong and
might even improve your programming skills :)


--

I think the iMac has been infiltrating the marketing mentality of all who have come across it. Check out the Palm IIIe special edition at this link. If I'm not mistaken, it has a clear see-through enclosure and has multicolored flip tops.

I guess you're missing the forest for the trees. Linux is a great OS and I have it running on two of my machines, but it isn't the best OS for everything.

You can download the PalmSDK for free along with GCC for the PalmOS and develop today. If you want to buy Codewarrior for the PalmOS you can, but you do not need to buy anything.

Here is a link:
http://www.palm.com/devzone/tools/sdks. html

You might even find this link more useful:
http://homepages.enterprise.net/j marshall/palmos/

Palm has even purchased the CoPilot emulator from the author and made it available and open source.

There is a ton of information out there. If you were actually interested in developing for the device you would have seen this by now. It was never hidden.

Does anybody run Simcity on PalmOS 2.x (like
Palm Pilot Professional)? The SimCity web page claims

Suitable for : Any organizer running Palm
OS[tm] 3.0 or later, like Palm III[tm], Palm
IIIx[tm] or Palm V[tm]

And if SiCi runs on 2.x: is performance OK?

That's some stupid shit to say, since the Visor just came out. Why don't you give Palm Computing the opportunity to bring their prices down, since this is their first PalmOS competitor? Is that okay with you, Mr. Anonymous Fuckstick?

As many have already pointed out, M$ is unlikely to go true open-source; the best we can hope for is viewable source. In that vein, some of you may not know that a fair fraction of PalmOS source is viewable for free if you sign their NDA.

Once you've upgraded the OS, there's no turning back.

This page says otherwise. Still, it's good to check compatibility before re-flashing anything.

p.s. A quick tip if you want to download the file without clicking through all the official pages - the actual URL ends up as http://palm.www.conxion.com/PalmOS330_ENG_PalmIIIx .exe (modify filename accordingly for other versions).

Not only that, but they're also making an Ethernet Cradle, so that you can sync and connect directly over a network. Cool.

Now, if they'd only release a Hotsync manager that would run as an NT service, life would be grand. They are releasing the Palm Sync Server, but that costs US$20K(!). Yowch.

Not only that, but they're also making an Ethernet Cradle, so that you can sync and connect directly over a network. Cool.

Now, if they'd only release a Hotsync manager that would run as an NT service, life would be grand. They are releasing the Palm Sync Server, but that costs US$20K(!). Yowch.

Please note that this upgrade is not designed for the following:

Palm VII(TM) organizer Register for future upgrade notification.
Palm IIIe(TM) organizer Model does not contain flash ROM.
HandSpring(TM) Visors Models do not contain flash ROM.
Pager Cards Click for more information.
Symbol® handhelds
Qualcomm pdQ(TM) smartphone
The Palm Vx(TM) organizer is already running Palm OS® software v3.3 and thus an upgrade is not necessary.

Yeah, but maybe Nokia will offer something soon, based on Palm OS.

• Titrax (hour tallying program)
• PocketMoney (keep track of my spending habits)
• Strip (secure storage of my passwords)
• Date Mate (make me remember birthdays!)
• DiddleBug (paint package)
• Nag Screen (really useful utility!)

• Titrax (hour tallying program)
• PocketMoney (keep track of my spending habits)
• Strip (secure storage of my passwords)
• Date Mate (make me remember birthdays!)
• DiddleBug (paint package)
• Nag Screen (really useful utility!)

• Titrax (hour tallying program)
• PocketMoney (keep track of my spending habits)
• Strip (secure storage of my passwords)
• Date Mate (make me remember birthdays!)
• DiddleBug (paint package)
• Nag Screen (really useful utility!)

Okay...first of all, the most common reason for reverse-engineering something is to remove or bypass the copy protection scheme. I know this because I see the results float by every day on IRC channels. I bought every game Blizzard ever made, but yet I am extremely glad some talented person reverse-engineered their copy to get rid of the damn CD checks...which I just happened to acquire as a "offsite copy for backup purposes".

In the interest of education about reverse-engineering, I'm going to discuss a step-by-step process as it relates to the most popular use for it...copy protection. If you want to flame me, or moderate this down to -2, or post hateful comments go ahead...your local library has instuctions on how to make bombs so I see no reason to feel guilty for teaching something that requires at least ten times the brain power of bomb making.

Not to mention, if you seriously think that someone who has never reverse-engineered a program in his or her life is going to somehow magically take the information I post here and never have to pay for software again, get real. Warez are just a search engine away so if someone actually take the time to LEARN a new skill, I say good for them. Okay, here we go...

Required definitions:

1) PRC : Palm Resource File. Like an EXE. Contains app's code, graphics and forms
2) Form (FRM) : A Palm window filled with text, buttons or dropdowns
3) Alert (ALT) : Popup form, often used to comment on the validity of one's reg code
4) String (STR) : ASCII characters like "Registration Successful!"
5) Offset : Location in the PRC file where we will do some editing
6) ID : 2 byte hex code such as 05 DC that identifies a Resource
7) Trap : Palm function to perform a task such as sysTrapStrCompare

Required tools:

Yes, they are all for Windows, but if you are smart enough to read /. then you are smart enough to have access to a Windows box or know how to VMWare one.

1) PilotDis to thoroughly break down PRC files
2) Prc2Bin to untangle PRC files into Alerts, Forms and Strings
3) Palm Emulator (POSE)to run PRC's on your Windows machine for testing
4) Hex WorkShop to reach into PRC files and change the most delicate parts of them
5) UltraEdit to quickly find text occurrences in files

Now, you don't need to own a Palm to learn how to reverse engineer a Palm program, but the emulator isn't going to run without a PalmOS ROM file. If you can't figure out how to get a ROM file on the Internet, forget about learning to reverse engineer and instead learn how to use a search engine. Of course, if you own a Palm, or know someone who does, POSE has a button to download the ROM from it.

Fire up the Palm Emulator (POSE) and load the OS ROM to begin a new emulation session. Load up whatever program it is you want to reverse engineer. I recommend starting with a nice simple program like Yearly (stand-by for /. effect) because it is easy to understand.

Click the menu button and navigate to the Info menu where you'll find an About option. Choose that option and note the text "Unregistered Copy" (write this text down). Now choose the Register option and notice the test "Yearly Registration" (write this down too). Enter a bogus number like 111 and notice the message "Registration Failed: You entered a wrong code!"...yes, you need to write this down too.

Now, let's see where those resources are in the program file. Run PilotDis with the command "dis yearly.prc". Then run PRC2Bin with the command "prc2bin yearly.prc". If everything was done properly then your should have many .BIN files and a file called "yearly.prc.s"

We know that the "Registration Failed" window is an Alert because it pops up when we enter the wrong number. If you've installed UltraEdit then right-click on one of the Alert files like "Talt138c.bin" and open it. What do you see inside? It says "Registration Successful!" Check out the other Alerts. Open them one by one. You'll notice that A#138D (Alert ID #138D) contains the text "Registration Failed".

Now, where do these ID's show up in the program? Open up UltraEdit and load "yearly.prc.s". Search for $138D to locate calls to the Failed Alert.

Here is the code nearby the call:

00004a02 4e4fa0c5 TRAP #15,$A0C5 = sysTrapStrCopy
00004a06 6100bcf4 BSR L48 ;What is this?
00004a0a defc000c ADDA.W #12!$c,A7
00004a0e 4a6c0028 TST.W 40(A4)
00004a12 6708 BEQ L607
00004a14 3f3c138c MOVE.W #5004!$138c,-(A7) ;Successful
00004a18 60000006 BRA L608
00004a1c 3f3c138d L607 MOVE.W #5005!$138d,-(A7) ;Failed
00004a20 4e4fa192 L608 TRAP #15,$A192 = sysTrapFrmAlert

It is called at x4A1C (Address 4A1C), right after the #5005. Right above it is a call to $138C after #5004. This is our Successful Alert. Where does it decide what Alert to branch to? See the instruction 'BEQ'? That means 'branch if the compare or test equals 0'. The TST.W 40(A4) code above it checks memory location 40(A4). Therefore, somewhere in the program, 40(A4) is set to a value and depending on the value, flags either Pass or Fail responses. In this case, a 0 means we've Failed the check. Let's take a look at the the code immediately above it: L48 (label 48), part of the BSR (Branch Subroutine).

Here is truncated routine L48 that you found by searching for 'L48':

0000071e 3e06 MOVE.W D6,D7
00000720 9e40 SUB.W D0,D7
00000722 426c0028 CLR.W 40(A4) ;Our memory address! ~~~~~
000007fa 4e4fa0c8 TRAP #15,$A0C8 = sysTrapStrCompare
000007fe 4a40 TST.W D0
00000800 6606 BNE L53 ;Leave 0 or make 1?
00000802 397c00010028 MOVE.W #1,40(A4)
00000808 4cee04f8ffe8 L53 MOVEM.L -24(A6),D3-D7/A2
0000080e 4e5e UNLK A6
00000810 4e75 RTS

Noticed that the instruction CLR.W 40(A4) refers to the key address? This makes the memory location equal to 0 which it remains until another instruction affects 40(A4). The only way around it is at x0802 where 40(A4) may become 1. The BNE instruction above x0802 steers the program from the Pass outcome. Farther up, the instruction sysTrapStrCompare is a big tip-off things are coming to a close in L48. Memory location D0 will hold a 0 if the two compared values are equal and a 1 if they are not. The BNE instruction at x0800 means "branch if the compare or test does not equal 0". So, if we can ensure that the routine always returns a 1, it will always Pass.

Let's take the quickest path and plan to get rid of the BNE instruction, ensuring that we will always MOVE.W #1 into 40(A4). When you want to remove an instruction, the easiest thing to fill it with is a NOP, short for no instruction. The 2 byte opcode for NOP is 4E 71.

"Huh?" Well, unfortuately, Palms use Motorola DragonBall processors and the list of instruction codes is copyrighted material. I can't provide a link to it here. If you are seriously interested in reverse engineering on the Palm platform, you'll have to contact Motorola and request a copy from them. I'm providing the NOP number here so that its possible to learn how a reverse-engineering process works.

Anyway, at x0800 we want to place 4E 71. Because our BNE L53 instruction is also 2 bytes we only need one NOP. Open Hex Workshop or another hex editor and go to address x0800. In UltraEdit, type CTRL+G and type '0x0800'. You should find '66 06' there. Type over it with '4E 71' and save.

Now, reload the modified yearly.prc file into POSE. Try to register with any number. Does it work? Of course it does. Check the About screen. It says "Registered" now.

Thus ends the lesson. You now know why reverse-engineering is such a hot topic on the Internet today.

- JoeShmoe

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The iPalm isn't real as expressed on that site, but 3Com is now indeed selling a clear Palm IIIe. It retails for $229, and will be sold only at "select college bookstores."

Just to clarify for everyone, the Palm VII uses BellSouth Wireless, just like the RIM pagers (and Blackberry. Same network. You can read about it on this Palm VII press release.

Someone posted speculating that Palm is building their own network. This is of course not true. They are running in NY only at first to catch any problems early and deliver better QOS.

I know people that have used the RIM pagers and they have been highly recommended. I wouldn't give up my Palm, though, so the Palm VII will be great. I wouldn't want to carry both.

--
bob

Sorry, I should have worded my statement more clearly.

You're right, indeed the Palm does TCP/IP. Using my Palm Pro and modem to dial into my isp and browse around with Proxiweb, as I do frequently, would be pretty hard without it. I was using the term "tcp/ip" in a less precise manner.

According to the white paper , "The Web Clipping Proxy server implements a reliable layer over the UDP protocol to talk to the Palm VII handheld."

Lemme try again - It would appear from the paper that you can't simply open up a socket on an IP address and start slurping data across as an ordinary browser would do. It also seems that this "reliable layer" is something fairly transparent, and you can't get around it. I recall reading somewhere that you simply won't be able to browse in a conventional sense, nor open up a Telnet or IRC or somesuch session either. In fact, this is explicitly stated on page 3 of the paper(first paragraph under "Web Clipping, Not Web Browsing". Thought it was in an article here a while back.

Annnnnnnnyways...

If anybody's listening, my dream Palm peripheral would be a Minstrel that works over GSM. Mmm.

--John Riney
jwriney@awod.com

The Palm 5000, Pro, and III run for about two months of normal use on two alkaline AAA batteries. The Palm V runs for about a month on its tiny internal Lithium Ion battery and recharges in just minutes, even automagically taking a small charge every time you link it with your PC. See 3com's Specs for details.

The betteries in the Everex Freestyle Windows CE handheld device are good for only about 8 hours.