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Palm Moving From Dragonball To ARM/StrongARM
mikefoley wrote to us with some interesting news from the
PalmPilot folks regarding chips. They'll be moving to Arm/SA as the title indicates, but the story also contains some cool information about their wireless plans. Looks like I'm going to need a new Palm soon.
As great as wireless computing sounds, anyone know when it will get cheap enough for the rest of us to pick up?
This seems like a great move. If I recall correctly, this is what the old Newtons were using. I remember the last Newton that was made (right before they were canceled) was really quite fast. As a saddened Be PPC user, I know the pain of being on left on a chip that doesn't get supported anymore. I hope the same thing doesn't start to happen to Palm. I hope it won't create many ARM only apps. This is mainly dependant on the developer though, whether they decide to compile for the old platform. ---Lane
What's the point of moderating?!
One thing that has probably hurt Palm a little in the past is the perception of a slow processor. I can't even imagine how awesome a Palm with an Arm/Strong Arm processor will be! The awesome PalmOS on a processor that WinCE devices have usually had.
If every unit is going to have internet connectivity (be it two way radio, or bluetooth) I think Palm will be able to make it affordable. Otherwise they will lose the low end of the market that is currently made up of the IIIxe.
I wonder at what point does a fast-and-furious upgrade schedule, like Palm seems to be engaged in ("wireless! color! new processor!") become a problem for revenue. I was going to upgrade my Palm IIIx a couple times, but have held off, wavering between getting a Handspring (has anyone used the mp3 module on those?) and waiting for Palm's Next Big Thing. I wonder - I'm not a MBA type - at what point does that sort of upgrade cycle lead to "consumer paralysis."
"Will it run Linux?"
Correct me if I'm right, but I believe one of the drawbacks to Linux on current Palms is the lack of a MMU (memory management unit). The ARM has one (?) so maybe we'll see Linux really take off here?
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
More info about ARMs.
Current ARM powered products.
The problems is, I keep waiting to see what the next generation of stuff has to offer. Then when that comes out, it's too expensive, so I have to wait for prices to come down, at which point they start marketing The Next Big Thing(tm). It's a vicious circle.
What can you do with a 400mHz Palm Pilot?
I wonder if we could put linux on it :) Seriously! Netwinders use ARM cpu's.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Wow... looks like ARM has captured the majority of the handheld market. Wince devices use the StrongARM processors as well. Is ARM the next Intel??
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
So, the StrongARM processor chalks up yet another adoptee. Ever since Acorn Computers spun off Advanced Risc Machines (ARM) as a separate company, ARM has made progressively more and more inroads into the embedded processor market. Today there are ARM chips almost everywhere I look, from ATM routing systems to palm-helds to the odd desktop PC or Net box running either RiscOS or ARMLinux. And this has been a fairly quiet revolution happening out of sight of the general public, who neither know nor care what sits inside that little black organiser. When there is so much noise happening in the desktop PC CPU market, this is an almost refreshing change.
Now - the real question is since there is a port of Linux on the StrongARM processor, how long will it be before we can attach a microdrive to this baby and run a pocket Linux machine?
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Ah.. I was a bit worried there that the MS machines may be getting an advantage over the palms.. Glad to see they are moving on to a faster processor.. And if they can drop the price on wireless access (so I'm not paying big money to recieve spam) I'm replacing my old pilot.
BTW-
"If Palm doesn't come out with a voice recognition handheld, someone else will," Gwennap said.
Um.. Does anyone really want this? Do you want to be in a public place talking to your palm? ug.
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air and light and time and space
They're going to put voice recognition in all palms. I can't think of a worse idea. Isn't it bad enough that we can't go anywhere without having to endure listening to people yell into their cel phones to affirm their perverted self importance, or walk through an office without passing at least one fool listening to voicemail over speakerphone? Now we're going to have a whole new breed of idiots speaking loudly and s-l-o-w-l-y into their handhelds, repeating everything because the first try didn't work.
"FIND MOM'S PHONE NUMBER
...
no
...
FIND MMMOMMM'S PHONE NUMBER"
over and over again.
please help me
It seems like the Palm CEO is referring to Palm competitors when he says this, but if he is, it doesn't seem to make much sense, with the way about one-third of the Palm's supposed screen size is wasted with the silly silk-screen thingy.
The extra processing power is nice (I think the real reason behind it is a plan to catch up with the WinCE devices' multimedia capabilities), but that Voice Activation is not a good idea if it's anything like the current voice technologies. The last thing I need is to have a bunch of jokers activating my Palm willy-nilly, like the way everyone has fun screwing with the poor folks who bought The Clapper to control their lights and televisions.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
ARM used to be owned/manufactured by DEC, but when they were bought by Compaq, the ARM division went to Intel. See Intel's product page on them here.
Newton binary compatibility!
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
I don't think any MP3 modules exist... yet.
But since you brought up Handspring, I wonder what this means for their future devices? Because they use Palm OS, and future versions of Palm OS will run on different chips, will Handspring be forced to change chips to keep pace?
What if Palm managed to get a volume or other business deal with the new manufacturer, and Handspring can't produce their devices affordably anymore? Would handspring be forced to scramble to change their vision? "Sure PalmOS was good for starters, but now we're moving in a whole new direction!" or "All future handspring devices will be identical in function because we are unable to upgrade the operating system... but look forward to some funky new colors!"
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
One thing that doesn't seem to be addressed in the news item is binary compatibility. Palm has an enormous library of software that is compiled and matured on the Dragonball MCU. For the most part, this software is written in some form of C, so should be cross-compilable, but will require motivating anyone with closed source to recompile [in the very least].
Less obvious is how they are going to keep all of that straight. Hopefully they will[have] develop[ed] some kind of binary signing standard so that people who unwittingly download the Dragonball version don't install it on their ARM version [or vice versa]. I seriously doubt the two are that binary compatible... In some cases, the CPU may see that it has been handed an invalid opcode, and will branch out to a handler (if that has been implemented... that is a design subtlety that I know that I wouldn't normally worry about), but there are only so many opcodes, and there are bound to be overlap.
Anyway, the point being: trying to execute binary code for the wrong archetecture would probably have rather catastophic results. Does anyone know if there already exists a mechanism that could handle this in the Palm? I'm not aware of how application loading occurs on the platform.
Besides, I won't buy one until I can play FreeCell on it...
Are they going to phase out all their 68k stuff? All older palm will get obsolete quite fast now, un less they do like apple and include emulation in the OS, but i doubt it.
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They should have used a low-power Crusoe processor.
= ==============
CT
===========================================
=====================================
I took a bitchslapping for the energy-efficient Crusoe(tm) processor.
I've heard ARMs are famed for low power consumption, but wonder if someone who knows more than I do about it might comment on what kind of battery life we might expect from an ARM-powered Palm.
A question relating to this item...
Currently, HP and Compaq use ARM... also, they are running WinCE (or whatever MS has decided to call it this week). As a result, could a marketplace open up for these devices where you could choose the OS to run on them? Clearly, the OS would have to be overwritable in the system (flash, or some other chip storage), but there could be a blossoming of this market on this fact alone!
Alright, the decision to use an Arm processor is a good one, but has Palm really thought this all out? They'll have to port PalmOS to an entirely new architecture, and every program available for the Palm 1000 all the way up to the Palm VII will have to be recompiled. Also consider that many coders in the Palm world (especially the 'OS enhancement' people) code in assembler to get to the bare metal and achieve speed increases/bypass the operating system. Assembly language is not especially portable...
Am I worrying for naught? Is Palm going to announce some kind of 'binary compatibility' built into Arm versions of PalmOS? I *very* seriously doubt it; that would be to daunting a task. I personally don't want to have to track down all of the programs that I use on my Palm III if/when I buy a new Arm-based Palm. I wonder if they've considered all of the implications of this decisions...
Having a nice new, fast PalmXVI will be great, but will there be any applications for the beast? I can't see Palm developers dropping support for the huge installed base, and I also can't see them snubbing their noses at a product that might potentially change the way handeld computing/information management works. I guess only time will tell.
My favorite quote from the article...
"I think we all know that the screen sizes suck, and that the
drop-down menus are the road to hell," Yankowski said.
Finally, a CEO who just comes right out and says what he thinks. I'm tired of all of the posturing and marketing hype that we're always exposed to. I'm sure Palm's PR department dropped a bomb in their collective pants when they heard that one.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
So the palm is going ARM, is this a good thing?
Are we not going to see the Palm battery life drop significantly when the CPU gets a 4-8 times speed increase? How does an ARM processor stack up to the Crusoe for performance and power consumption? How hard would it be to port the existing Palm line to a Crusoe and retain total compatibility with a faster processor? Why wouldn't Palm do this?
How long can I wait for a crusoe webpad, and is it longer than I can wait before I buy a Palm?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
There really is no good reason for running Linux on these palms (tho I'm sure you will see some sort of port floating around eventually). I think the effort would be better concentrated on making an ssh client and X11 server to give you the ability to view programs run on almost any UNIX-like OS. I don't know if wireless has enough bandwidth for something like X (it would definitely need low bandwidth X), but it shouldn't require too much with a lower resolution screen. Another challenge would be getting it to work with the touchscreen as a pointer and having some sort of onscreen keyboard. Would this be possible on a palm with an ARM processor and wireless?
http://www.ximuoi.com/ has an impressive mp3 player comming out for the palm sometime this year i think... It can work alone too! (and do many other things, gimme!;-)
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I suggest that we not be so quick to assume that the voice processing capabilities are strictly for voice recognition. This could be their move to run end-around Nextel. Wouldn't that be cool, I mean, with a flip-top case like the Palm III - life will be that much more like living in a star trek episode.
I have really mixed feelings about this move. What made Palm is that they did not attempt to make a general purpose computing platform. Instead, they chose a simple data acquisition device. Being nice to developers has helped them as well. Even if a porting kit is made available, it will still be a nuisance for developers. I'll probably wait until the first or second price cut to jump on board.
cat
Kudos to the Palm team for moving to the ARM processor family. Of course, it also runs NetBSD - check out: http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/arm32/
Now all we need is a way to get Ethernet into a Palm to have the ultimate portable rescue device. Imagine coming to rescue a down system and just plugging in your Pilot to restore basic service.
It doesn't get any cooler....
What they don't mention in the article is that Qualcomm has been one of the main companies pressuring Palm to switch from the Dragonball to the ARM. Now Qualcomm can offer a Palm PDA (hopefully not as pathetic or expensive as the pdQ), 64k packet data, GPS and a multimedia core for mp3/mpeg, etc. Check out the MSM3300 chip from Qualcomm.
Aside from the processor info, this article and doesn't really say much. Is it just to steal some of the spotlight from the PocketPC?
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For its part, Palm says it will gain popularity through its design, which executives say is better and more stylish than the offerings from competitors.
It's always astounding how clueless executives can be. The cases are nice, but nothing special given the form factor of the many WinCE devices. I would argue that the popularity of the Palm is the relative ease of use of the OS, how easy it is for folks to write apps for it, and how cross-platform it is.- "I think we all know that the screen sizes suck, and that the drop-down menus are the road to hell," Yankowski said.
Yeah, so what is Palm going to do about it? Double the screen size? Replace drop-down menus with voice commands? *shudder* - ...by the end of the year, all of the company's handhelds will be able to connect to the Internet.
So when should we see these? In 6 months?Incidentally, I wonder about the use of Transmeta processors in these. Surely someone who reads Slashdot on the inside must know someone who's toying around..
Doesn't anyone here get it yet? As soon as some smart person realizes we don't want to carry around all these DIFFERENT devices, no matter how connected they can get to be, and no matter how small each separate item is, they'll build my next computer.
Meanwhile, I'm researching how to build it myself. It will be a modular (no more ridiculous complete replacements every two years) wearable PC with connectable/disconnectable options for voice (replace cell-phone, using voice over IP); screen (use "embedded" screen in glasses except when I'm presenting); additional storage devices; AND (most importantly) a single, foldable (hinged, to wear while walking), weather-proof keyboard with light action, power-generation (it's been invented already), and excellent layout. The first version will feature the Crusoe 5400 chip, which I expect to be able to run all day on a widely-available ordinary 9-volt battery.
Is there anybody out there interested in helping me build this? I could raise money so we could both have them by next fall, if we can find a suitable keyboard manufacturer.
As some of you are aware, there have been rumblings for some time now that Apple will release a new PDA... Rumors range from it being a MacOS or MacOS-lite kind of device (like WinCE but Mac-themed), to a Palm/Handspring unit with Apple bells n' whistles.
Hypothesis: Apple sunk a ton o' cash into the Newton, and especially with version 2.0 of NewtOS, came up with some really interesting technology. All ARM native.
See where I'm going with this? Could this be evidence that Palm and Apple are swapping technology? Granted PalmOS and NewtOS are very different beasts, but moving from Dragonball to ARM would seem like the first logical step. Apple loved writing in Assembler Language in those days.
// END RUMORMONGERING
It's easy to write EPOC off, as its share of the PDA market is still pretty small (although it's quite high in the UK), but its inclusion in smartphones from later on this year could well see it being widely-adopted at that end of the market, with consequent "sudden" demand for compatible PDAs...
I hope that eventually the Palm catches up with the Newton and lets me write more than one character at a time. Maybe going to the ARM will help that out.
Here is a pocket ARM Linux machine. No HD, but Flash, and a CompactFlash slot.
Sorry for the formatting:
Display
240x320, Bright Back-light, True Color TFT Iiquid
crystal, 65,536 color
CPU
206MHz ARM RISC 32bit Microprocessor
OS
ARMLinux
Interface Serial
RS232C & USB Serial port
Memory
32MB RAM, 32MB(64MB) Flash Memory
Built-In
Internet Web Browser & E-mail S/W with Mobile phone
or Wireless Modem
MP3 Player Function
MPEG Moving Picture Function
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
I'm sure its just a twist of fate that this announcement comes right on the heels of the release of the PocketPC. They can call the processor anything they want, but its still a damn 68k. About time they decided to upgrade. MS is also making noise about combining your PDA, cell phone, and MP3 player. You can dismiss MS if you want, but Compaq and HP carry serious weight in the corporate world. Palm is gonna have to seriously fight to maintain their position.
If you got 7 palms together could you summon Shenron and wish people back from the dead?
----
Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Actually, in Europe they're coming out with a lot of multi-function devices, such as wristwatch cell phones and PDA/cell devices.
I know that I bought my Palm V because I was sick of carrying around a pocket day calendar, an address book, and a calculator.
Of course, I own Palm stock from the IPO, so I'm biased.
An interesting point made in the news item was that they're thinking of phasing out the roman numerals. Maybe we'll just get arcane glyphs instead.
Will in Seattle
I really hope they don't kill Palm's great battery life when they start using 400 MHz processors. Then they would be sacrificing one of their major selling points -- for what? To become more like the MP3-playing PocketPC?
I really think that Palm currently has a good product that they should be building on rather than scrapping. Unless their new architecture is exceptionally wonderful, they risk losing market share, because they will be launching a new product that competes against their own firmly entrenched installed base.
Such is The Innovator's Dilemma -- long-term success may sometimes require pissing off one's current customers.
why does slashdot make such a big deal of anything to do with Palm? Psion have used ARM processors for years. (and they are a lot better than Palm too, but that's not the point)
Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is
Stop complaining about how we now need to recompile all of our chess programes so we can run an the new chips. Forward progress means that yes some times we need to recompile or even sometimes rewrite our apps. But this is the price we pay for newer, faster, better. Unless you want to go the x86 way.
What? I can't spell, wow, I had no idia. Thanks!!!
Seems like he would be a great person to interview. Anyone have an in with him (or the other Palm gurus?)
See, hopefully the voice interface will be optional, so it'll only be losers babbling at their PDAs, so it'll be easy to weed them out of the herd before they breed.
Seriously, though, there is for some bizarre reason a perception that voice-interface would be a good thing, so devices with it may sell better than devices without it. Unfortunately.
This could be something as limited as understanding the months, days of the week, numbers (possibly as high as the millions), years, AM/PM, morning/afternoon/evening/night, and maybe a few commands or other keywords like "with, alarm, minute(s), hour(s), todo, folder" and the like.
I even know how I'd use it - hit the record button, record a quick note or reminder ("Meet with Scott on Project X"), hold the record button, tell it where to store the recorded item: "Calendar May fifteenth at one pm with fifteen minute alarm" or maybe "Third Monday of every month at nine AM". Or maybe record "Listen to album by Artist X", then store it with "Folder music," or maybe "Todo purchase."
An awful lot of functionality could be managed with just a little bit of voice recognition and a small pre-defined dictionary of words. With the hardware available, enhanced dictionaries would be an obvious add-in, and as faster processors came along the number of distinct words that could be recognized would go up.
Overall I'd classify this as a win - if I was looking to purchase a new PDA right now I'd probably get a Palm Vx for its size, but I'd be tempted by some of the lighter CE handhelds for the recording capability. After all, I'm carrying a little digital voice recorder right now for notes when I can't write things down - should I carry two small pieces of electronics that rack up to about 8 ounces or one larger piece that weighs the same?
fencepost
just a little off
"I think we all know that the screen sizes suck, and that the drop-down menus are the road to hell," Yankowski said.
Yes, Palm (and WinCE) handhelds have really small screens. But, what's this deal about the pull-down menus? One of the reasons I like my Palm organizer so much is you don't have to worry about the pull-down menus because you rarely use them. And, with MenuHack or PalmOS 3.5, to pull down the menus you just tap the application tab at the top of the screen; what's so hard about that?
I had been thinking lately about how Palm was going to take that next hardware leap. As much as we all like it, let's face it: the DragonBall is a 20Mhz 16-bit processor in a world that is demanding 32-bit processors more and more. So, the StrongARM sounds like an OK choice. But, this new CEO dude sounds like he doesn't care about the famed "Zen of Palm." It sounds more like he's willing to sacrifice the simplicity and elegance of the Palm design to get a few lame options like "voice activation." If that happens, I think he'll find a lot of Palm faithful going somewhere else (or buying up old Palm units!), and those new users he's trying to attract buying PocketPCs.
My $0.02, of course.
--Mythos
I find this move to the StronARM *very* interesting. Here's why:
1) Ever since Apple EOL'ed the Newton, a lot of Newton engineers went to work at Palm.
2) The Palm is going to this new processor.
3) The Newton had full-screen handwriting recognition.
4) There's been rumours for the past year that Apple and Palm Computing have a tech sharing deal of some kind in the works.
Do you think maybe this move is in preparation for a real handwriting recognition feature coming soon to a Palmtop near you? Hmm...
There's no doubt in my mind that the ARM is a great chip for PalmOS. Having used Newtons from quite some time, I can attest they have both great battery life and excellent performance. Combined with reasonable color, this will extend the reach of the Palm line into many interesting application spaces, such as palmtop mapping.
I can forsee this getting a bit rocky, however.
Remember the last great CISC->RISC migration undertaken by a consumer device company: Apple's move from 68K to PowerPC. One of the things that really hurt Apple was their CISC->RISC migration was managed very poorly and in my opinion set back developer innovation on the Mac a good two years.
Palm's situation is different; it is unlikely they'll make the same mistakes Apple did; I'm just hoping they don't dream up new ones of their own.
The sooner a commodity hardware market for Linux PDAs exists, the sooner we can take control of our own destiny. Individual companies controlling platforms are just too untrustworthy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What the real killer application for the next generation of wireless palm devices should be is wireless communication over about a 10-100m radius. This would allow the USER to own the base stations that the device communicates with - who is going to use wireless internet billed per KILObyte? Not me. Not a lot of people.
Make the palm have a wireless serial connector - like an RF serial port (Bluetooth, ahem, vapour, ahem), then all sorts of control applications will spring up. Applications to automagically download the weather and slashdot whenever you walk into a micro-service area. If the devices can talk to each other, you can synchronize schedules by walking by friends in the office. The applications are endless!
If palm doesn't do it, RIM or someone else will. People are in love with 100% connected internet, but that's missing the boat. Remember what made the palm great; It was cheap, and did what you expected it to.
The trick will be doing it without losing that V form factor.. my Palmpilot Professional looks obese next to the nice shiny new Palm Vx. The microsoft offerings are too fat to get into my pocket; I had a Newton Messagepad (Not the latter generation, though) and it had no-fit-in-pocket-itis.
Get us programmable wireless palm, with lots of $75 base stations, and you'll see applications pop up everywhere. If bluetooth would ever become available, I'd do this myself. :)
Kudos
..don't panic
REBEL.com's NetWinder (originally designed and formerly made by Corel's hardware division, which REBEL bought) runs an ARM port of Linux.
These are nice little boxen. They run off a 9v AC adapter, and supposedly will run off a 9v battery if necessary for a short period.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
How long will it take to get the GCC/PilRC toolset working with PalmOS on ARM?
How long will it take to get a working PalmOS Emulator using ARM?
Oh, I'll be able to buy MetroWerks Code Warrior? I see... That means I'll have to buy a Mac or a Windows PC. I won't be able to use my preferred development environment and I'll have to use an IDE which I don't particularly like.
I don't mean to complain (much) -- Palm has been great at making developers happy. I'm just a little worried about when or if a Free Software toolkit will be available.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Assuming they go with a StrongARM chip no slower than 200MHz at launch, one nifty thing is that the increase in power and speed over a 16MHz 68020-family chip like the Dragonball is so great that you could run the Dragonball-based Palm binaries on it at full speed in an emulation harness easily.
This should be fun.
So much for 2-month battery life from a pair of AAA cells, though.
How about a Slashdot interview with Jeff Hawkins?
Palm Inc. won't move to EPOC because they've positioned themselves directly against it. One of the goals of the spin-off from 3Com was to focus Palm more on developing PalmOS and licensing it to others. Now, OTOH, if ARM PalmOS ends up having a lot of EPOC-like pieces, well, there you go.
--Mythos
I remember a while back a guy from a mobile phone maker commenting that they used either WinCE or EPOC instead of PalmOS because "the screen size couldn't be changed." They may have decided they were going to have to handle different size screens anyway so they could license to other mobile device makers.
--Mythos
Wearable voice-activated computing would be excellent. Dictating lyrics to my next song while riding my bike down the street. With an integrated cell phone you would just say "call looie" while riding your bike down the street. Why would I always want to look at my computer?
I think University of Washington has a port of Linux to Dragonball. Has anyone ever tried to hack a Palm and place Linux on it. You can probably put a better Linux once you have a palm with an arm attached to it.
the ultimate accessory...
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^
The DragonBall has a 68000 history behind it, so it was a simpler move for a number of embedded engineers.
When Mr. Jobs cancelled the spin-off of Newton Inc, within 2 weeks 32 of the engineers from the Newton Project left in mass to Palm.
They followed a few others who had left eairler, and I'm sure told the 32 how wonderful it was to work at Palm.
As for the Newton technology in a Palm....
1) The original Graffitti authors are gone. So the sacred cow of graffitti can go. Same for the Dragonball.
2) The authors of rosetta are at Palm. They COULD do the handwriting on the palm (and rumor is this has happened...;-) ) BUT the Apple lawyers would sue.
SO....If Apple wants to market a re-labeled Palm, and Palm wants handwriting, the simplest way is to swap IP.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
That is just a pointless troll. If you had the courage of your convictions you would identify yourself. British technological innovation is alive and well thank you very much.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Am I the only one who thinks sub-vocalization would be neat? All the advantages( are there any? ) with less of the gross stupidity that comes from yelling at your PDA.
As the articles state:
"Palm devices will either contain receivers for connecting to the Internet directly or a Bluetooth chip that will allow them to connect to the Web via a cell phone bridge, or they will come with a cradle or add-on option to facilitate connections."
There will still be cheap low-end units. You'll just have to buy an OmniSky or GSM phone cable/connector to get your wireless connectivity if you need it. I dont think Palm is foolish enough to sacrafice the low-end market (students, 1st time buyers) for net connectivity.
If this is what I think it's about, this could easily be Palm's death sentence.
Seriously.
The Palm's setup is a very delicate balance of features and power, and changing it around needs to be done pretty carefully. Add a color screen, for example, and battery life might suffer. Change the serial port on the bottom, and suddenly several accessories don't work.
Swap the processor chip for a larger one? You get a *big* ripple.
Think about it. Yes, a lot of apps could be solved by a simple recompile. But what about those of us who use applications that are no longer being developed by the authors? We'll have to make do without those, which is one point against.
If Palm does include an emulation layer, that's going to require an even stronger processor. Thus, more power to said processor. And thusly, less battery efficiency. Another point against.
Consider, then, that there are three major things that get the Palm sold:
1) The size and simplicity of the device;
2) The gigantic number of accessories;
3) The *very* long term reliability.
Swap out the processor and 2 gets hurt badly, and 3 takes a hit as well.
(Oh, and as a totally aside thought - I'm not a Palm developer, so i don't know for certain, but... what happens to HackMaster, and all the hacks that come with it? Would *they* make it with just a recompile? Would they work reliably on an emulation layer?)
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Maybe it's time to wean developers from hardware-specific code? Nothings worse than being held back from great new hardware technology by 20,000 pesky developers who just couldn't code by the rules.
If Palm really wants the Palm OS to gain momentum in the future, one thing they're going to need to do is shed the hardware factor. They can't expect cell phones and refridgerators and automotive GPS systems to all rely on the Dragonball and a 120x120(?) screen.
Better to clean up the mess now, while the competition is still floundering, I say.
Except from what I understand, the range of Bluetooth is pretty limited. Like, it works in ranges of much less than 10 meters, more like 1-2 meters.
But this thread is pretty interesting to me because it's exactly what I have been thinking for at least a year. As the original poster says, I'd like to be able to be sitting in a meeting and pull out my Pilot and check to see if I have new email, or to see if my long-running job has finished, or to check on my stock quotes. And then without changing anything, be able to go home and have the same configuration of software connect to my LAN at home so I can do the same things while I'm watching TV without having to go into the computer room. It's only a secondary concern of mine to be able to have cellular-type access where I can be sitting in a coffee shop and access the network. Most of the time I'm in a location that would be wired to the LAN anyway.
Plus, like the original poster pointed out, all sorts of cool applications would ensue. My Pilot could exchange information with your Pilot if we were close enough to each other. One can envision all sorts of interesting applications.
The only concern I'd have is that the wireless connectivity might trash battery lifetime.
I'm getting sick of these Linux idiots...
Looks like I'm going to need a new Palm soon.
My palm, while a bit hairy, shouldn't need replacing any time within the next fifty years.
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.-.--
I had to re-read this post several times before I was able to believe it.
Palm must think very dimly of their HUGE already-established user base if they're trying to pull a stunt like this. Sure, whiz-bang new features are nice and all, but is the cost of an entire readily-available software base justifiable?
I know that if I want some new kind of whiz-bang program right now, I can go off to Palmgear or Tucows or even Joe's Web Site and download a Palm app, and I !!!KNOW!!! it will work. The Palm architecture has remained extremely stable, between hardware and OS releases. Hell, I even have some PalmOS 1.0 programs, written for the old Pilot 1000 (BEFORE "Palm" came into the title)... AND THEY STILL WORK!!! But when the new architecture takes over, poof, there go literally thousands of perfectly good programs. Sure, some of the developers will port, but that will take time (during which you can't use the program), and for commercial programs, I'm sure they won't just *GIVE* the upgrades away, being corporations and all. And what of the shareware/freeware/GPL developers? Can they afford to buy whole new development environments? And those using the free/GPL dev tools, well too bad! They don't generate the right kind of code any more!! THOSE will have to be ported as well.
I just went on a bit of a spending spree to outfit my new Handspring Visor Deluxe (GREAT machine, btw -- ignore the (mostly based on old/outdated information) reviews and get one today!) Got all sorts of cool goodies. Mobile WinFax, so that I can send FAXes from my new Handspring Modem module while on the go. Documents to Go, which lets me read those oh-so-common MS Office files. And probably my #1 most used program: Landware's Pocket Quicken. Since I use desktop Quicken to track my bank accounts, now I can have that exact same data on the go as well. Now I always know whether or not I can afford that new hard drive, or whether I have paid the phone bill already. The thought that I will most likely have to re-buy everything again, when I decide that I want the Next Big Thing, really irritates me. I've learned to expect this kind of behavior from Microsoft, NOT from Palm. Sigh, there goes the neighborhood.
A while back, I was forced to use (ugh, gag, puke) Windows CE devices at a (former) employer of mine. This was probably one of the most confusing things in the Universe. HPC, HPC Pro, or Palm PC (now Pocket PC)? SH1 or MIPS processor? COlor or B/W? I wanted to use ACT! on my Palm PC, so I went looking. Yeah, sure enough, Symantec had a WinCE version of ACT! But it was only for Handheld PC. Boo, hiss.
The new Palm IIIc has already helped start this type of schism in the Palm community. Now you have to know if your app is color enabled or not, before you know you can use it safely. The new CPU architecture will be even worse.
Palm, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???!?!
--
Donald Burr of Borg
WWW: http://www.borg-cube.com/
[= Resistance is futile! =]
Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
No offense Mythos Traecer.
Really I know the reason that the palm organizers are so popular is that they do what they are supposed to really well. That's great if all you want is the buisiness market.
I'm a student I want a pda with a decent size color screen. I want to be able to play games, read ebooks, surf the web, play mp3's, and use the palm to store quick notes and information. I want a pda that can replace 15 pounds of the 30 pounds of books and paper that I carry around at school. It should be able to replace my graphing calculator. I want voice recognition and voice recording so that I don't have to take as many notes. I want some type of wireless connection with my computer and other PDAs. I want a PDA that I can spend countless hours programming useless games for. I want a PDA that runs linux. I would really like to have more then 64 megs of storage. I wouldn't mind having an ethernet port.
I almost bought a WinCE device. I would have if they had been reliable and the screen had been a little bigger and brighter. I think that these companies are missing a golden opertunity. They could replace handheld games, ebooks, organizers, and textbooks with these if they would do what is needed. I hope that the palm device will at some point in the not to distant future do some of these things, since I have little hope that microsoft will ever understand the true market for devices of this type.
I think that in this case it very much depends on what the palm company wants to be. Do they want to continue to create an extremely simple device that targets a small audience by doing only what is necessary and doing it well or do they want to expand on their success and create a truly usefull device one that will apeal to a large number of people. If done right I think that a good PDA could replace a laptop for most uses.
Somewhat offtopic has anyone heard anymore about last years advances in speech recognition. I remember reading that some computer scientists had very good results with a new algorithm that they said could recognize human speech better then humans even over noise.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Who says they will be using a StrongARM? ARM has a variety of processor cores, including the very-low-power ARM7 and the faster-but-still-sleek ARM9. They all are mostly code compatible -- some cores have added instructions, but the base ISA is all the same.
I've seen ARM7 devices running at very low clock speeds, and with super small power usage. The ARM is lots more scalable than the M68K-based Dragonball, and there are lots of reasons to use it, even if they aren't goint to produce a 200MHz battery-eater anytime soon.
Faster chips typically mean more powerful processors
Thanks, Cnet! I always wondered what a faster chip was good for. Coming soon to an informative Cnet article near you:
I could go on.. but I'll stop here and just say, thanks Cnet!
Now go figure - Palm is a 16bit OS with a flakey TCP/IP stack, atrocious multitasking and zilch knowledge of CDMA or GSM air interfaces, or Bluetooth... but a well-established UI
Symbian's OS has great TCP/IP stack, real multi-threading and a peachy asynchonous programming model, comes with all the air interfaces and Bluetooth built-in - and a UI no one gives a shit about...
It's not too hard to see that PalmOS is really just gonna be a Palm UI onto Symbian's OS, but the Palm guys are too up their own asses to admit it.
The bottom line is that Palm needs the Symbian technology alot more than Symbian needs Palm's branding.
Check The Register's reports or this or read about Quartz ... Palm's not going to survive without Symbian...
"The only good endian is a dead endian"
Maybe this is more to do with Palm combining with the next version of the EPOC o/s from Psion's Symbian consortium, especially since Palm has had some link-up with Symbian. I heard a rumour that they would use the same core with different GUI's. Sounds like Wince may get shut out of the action.
when do they ship the Legs?
-- / The whole history of this invention has been a struggle
I'd have to agree with that.
:(
Speaking as a Palm user and a NaturallySpeaking user, I'd be delighted if they could be combined. It's far from perfect yet, but I'd say it's giving accuracy comparable to OCR programs 5-6 years ago. _Good_ OCR programs, that is. Certainly more accurate than Graffiti, which has started consistently misrecognising 'e', of all the letters to get wrong
Dictation is a valuable facility that works well. It's certainly something I regard as a worthwhile addition, and I can type pretty well.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Never played with pervasive interfaces for now, heh?
The Trek interface has two major points right, at least:
- A keyword to have it to start listening for commands, i.e. they always start their interactions with "Computer"[1]
- An voice acknowledgement of all commands ("Processing", etc...) as soon as they are understood
The only really unrealistic part in there is the blinkenlight orgy.
OG, creating real-world trek-like interfaces for a living
[1] Our is called "Scooby", though