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While this Yahoo! article mentions alot about Pocket PC 2002's features, it does not mention that Palm OS has many of the same, as well. Here is a description of PalmOS' platform. It clearly states that PalmOS 4.0 has 16-bit color, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, faster universal serial bus (USB) connections, and support for wireless Internet. Here, the site goes into even more detail on it's features.

What I found interesting in Pocket PC 2002 is that it comes with Windows Media Player, and an Outlook client. However, users in PalmOS can listen to media and send e-mail too, it just isn't your godly Microsoft applications. Just my two cents on the matter...

While this Yahoo! article mentions alot about Pocket PC 2002's features, it does not mention that Palm OS has many of the same, as well. Here is a description of PalmOS' platform. It clearly states that PalmOS 4.0 has 16-bit color, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, faster universal serial bus (USB) connections, and support for wireless Internet. Here, the site goes into even more detail on it's features.

What I found interesting in Pocket PC 2002 is that it comes with Windows Media Player, and an Outlook client. However, users in PalmOS can listen to media and send e-mail too, it just isn't your godly Microsoft applications. Just my two cents on the matter...

The shift to ARM will mean of course incompatible binaries for all those vendor-supplied and open-source projects. Generally not too big a deal since there are lots of tools for ARM (gcc supports cross-compiling to ARM of course).

But, perhaps more interestingly, a new version of POSE is required. Development of the original POSE (nee CoPilot) is a fascinating story of reverse-engineering, ingenuity, and personal persistence of Greg Hewgill. Do a Google search for 13hewgil.pdf for an interesting account.

Let's hope Palm publishes the data sheet for the chip they're using -- unlike the originally secret Dragonball -- so POSE can be implemented for the new architecture without too much headache.

When i joined (it was a few years ago) they required no such thing. (I don't beleive they do now)
It may take a few days to get approved but for those in the US getting the roms legally from there is just a matter of going through their clickwrap license (those outside of the US need to snailmail a license) You can sign up here.

I'd be curious to know whether this company started from scratch or whether their "product" is based on the open source Palm emulator.

Sure. Download the Palm OS Emulator, ask Palm for a ROM file, or search on Gnutella for one, and go.

Runs on linux, runs on windows, runs on macs as well, I believe.

The Palm OS Emulator for Linux is called POSE. You can find it here. If you're running Debian, apt-get install pose should do the trick.
--

http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/emulator/emul ator_src_31.tar.gz

The source and binaries are available for download without any EULAs I see.

--Cycon

actually, dumbass, java was originally written with this exact purpose in mind. write once run anywhere means anywhere not any OS. they have run somewhat astray of their goal, but java first came out, it was touted as being a unifying language for devices and computers. cellular phones, organizers, telephones, televisions, portable audio devices, and even your refrigerator, plus a whole bunch of other junk.

Oh yeah, and enjoy these links:
http://java.sun.com/j2me/
http://www.palmos.com/alliance/guide/levels/global /sun.html
http://www.embedded.oti.com/

There is a linux based Palm SDK and emulator available. Here's an intro on Linux Gazette. You can download tools and documentation from the Palm developer page. You can do all your programming on linux with the familiar gnu tools, do some testing with the emulator, and then download them to the Palm for more in depth testing.

http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/p almos35/

Some of the more "significant" changes that Palm touts include:

• The Graphics System includes support for 1, 2, 4, and 8 bit color and grayscale.
• The Datebook's new Agenda view combines a view of a day's appointments with the day's ToDo tasks
• The Alarm dialog now has larger buttons to facilitate finger operation, as well as a "Snooze" button
• When beaming an entire category, the receiver's dialog allows selection of the destination category in which to place the items
• The Title, Company, City, State and Country fields in the Address book support auto-completion of the input text
• Masked records
• The Command bar
• Tapping the title tab of an application shows the menu bar
• Double-tapping on a word in a field selects it; triple-tapping selects the line
• The category indicator has changed to differentiate between when the data is changing versus when the view of the data is changing. See the memo pad edit screen for an example.

Personally, I don't think that it's worth a $20 upgrade. Not only are the changes minor, but from all indications I've seen, 3.5 is SLOWER.

umm..you cant port the palm OS to X dimwit.
Why go to the effort, you can just run native binaries under emulation :)

There are already supported emulators for Windows, Mac and Linux. Unofficially one for CE, too. For those that care, an O' Reilly article describes the Linux Palm emulator. Download from Palm's own download area. You need a Palm ROM file to get this to run, however. And you're supposed to extract it from your own real Palm.

its a non multitasking OS with virtually no screen management..hell its doesnt have any memory management either and treats memory like a database

Its simplicity and low end hardware requirements also happen to make it really easy to emulate. The PalmOS runs thousands of useful little programs tuned to run on a tiny screen. Typically these programs perform stand alone functions, they're unaware of and don't interoperate with any other programs that are installed on the Palm.

Reusing these in an emulated environment on a Linux PDA might be a worthwhile effort. The IPaq surely must have the CPU oomph.

So the 'cool' factor is there, but how long will it take to get the wide variety of software that the PalmOS does?

FYI - If you're interested in development on the Palm OS I highly recommend the Palm Developers Conference. It has to be one of the best conferences I've been to.

This page has more details on the hardware.

Have fun. Best of luck.

O'reilly book online for free Palm Development-Howto Links to more info and I assume you have gcc for palm as well as prc.. All that can be found here: http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/gcc/ Hope that helps.