Perl on Handhelds?

Jeremy Pruitt asks: "I'm wondering if there is a way for me to do some perl scripting on a handheld device. I know there is no port for WindozeCE yet, but I also know there are a few BSD/Linux ports for handhelds. Can I run Perl on these ported versions of BSD/Linux? If so, does anybody recommend a handheld/OS combo that I can do some scripting on?"

Comments

Yes

[rjamestaylor]

See http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/.

Re:Yes

[rjamestaylor]

Yeah, heard about these HPC ports of linux & BSD before, but does anyone out there have any experience of actually using them?
What OS / hardware combinations have you tried out?

I have a z50 and have successfully loaded NetBSD on it. I used a SanDisk 96MB Compact Flash (partitioned into a small DOS16 partition) to hold the pbsdboot.exe program, which loads the kernel, and the tar'ed binaries (base, sys, and misc, I think). I used the other partition (74 MB) as the FFS disk, which was split into sub-partitions for NetBSD's use. I used a SanDisk Imagemate USB CF Card Reader on my PC to partition and load the CF card. Others use a Ethernet card in the PCCard or CF Card slot to directly install over the Internet, but I didn't use that route.

Right away I was able to telnet from my pc to the unit and I realized that my crippled-Windows z50 was now a multiuser powerhouse. Not bad.

How easy was it to replace winCE?

Never did. Replacing WinCE would mean a FlashROM upgrade (which is being considered: see z50 new ROMs!!! give me your opinions please. ). Instead, I have to use pbsdboot.exe to load/boot NetBSD when I want to switch from WinCE to it. This became a major frustration, along with the fact that, at the time (April 2000) no power management or screen-power-off functionality was available. This meant that I had to shutdown and power off in order to stop using the battery (or leave it plugged in -- but the screen never would/could shut off; not even using the buttons -- those are software triggers, not direct hardware controls). Perhaps later versions/builds are capable of power management.

is it *really* a viable platform for coding on the road?

I used it for actual work. I write web applications using vi (html, dom, javascript, perl/mason, and a legacy procedural business scripting language). This setup worked nicely, except one thing: no power management, no sleep mode, no way to gracefully end a session and pick it up later. Eventually I started staying in WinCE using pocketWord -- it read my unix text files just fine -- which I still do. I have removed NetBSD from my CF card (but am willing to give it a go when the power management features are enabled).

The z50's battery life (8 hours, honest), the 95% keyboard (quiet and easy to use), the trackpoint (personal preference over a slide-square, or whatever), the VGA-size monitor (just not outside without shade)...awesome. WinCE is good enough for a textfile coder (which is what I mainly do).

Oh, apache runs great on the HPCMIPS NetBSD port, as does perl and your favorite compiler. But, I didn't load the compiler b/c I didn't have enough diskspace.

I think it's viable - but needs ... power management so I can suspend a session to return the volleyball that just bounced over toward me, and maybe join in the game for a while...

EPOC

[WhyCause]

Perl is available for handhelds running EPOC (i.e., the Psion Series 5/5mx/7/netBook/Revo, the Oregon Scientific Osiris, and the Ericsson MC218). The installation is LARGE for a device of this caliber (~4MB of storage and running space). You can check out the author's web page for the port here.

Alternatively, most of the machines I listed (with the exception of the Revo and possibly the Osiris) come with a programming language editor and byte-code compiler built in. The language is called OPL32 (organizer programming language 32-bit). OPL is a relatively powerful language (even if it is interpreted), with the capability to expand (i.e., graphical printing functions, multi-page dialogs) via .OPX libraries.

The newer machines (NOT the Series 5, and maybe not the Revo or Osiris) can also run Java. Which may also meet your needs.

If you would like to learn more about programming the EPOC OS, you can download OPL and Java SDK's, and the included emulator, from the Symbian site (you have to register to download, but it's free. It does run only under Windows, though). One additional note, the Perl port will likely NOT run under the emulator (compiled OPL will run under both, C++, will not). You have been warned.