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Handspring's New Palm-OS Entrants: Color and Speed
ResQuad writes: "Handspring realeased a new palm top in their Visor collection, the Prism. It is $450 and have 65k colors, compared to the 3c's 256 colors. It also has an internal Li-Ion battery. Handspring also came out with another new palm, the Platinum. It is still gray-scale, but it is suposed to be 50% faster that the Visor Deluxe. This makes four palms out from Handspring." These are the same models discussed a few weeks ago, but now Handspring claims that they're shipping. Personally, I'm still pretty happy with my Deluxe, but the Platinum one looks very nice.
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But since I'm such a nice guy...
Prism product details
Battery Life: 2 weeks or 6 continuous hours
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Go with an operating system built for this instead - Epoc. True 32-bit multitasking from the ground up.
it's in my head
Be careful here. You may be slightly misled by the 'photos' of the Visor.
The Prism looks awesome in the photos, but remember that the resolution is ONLY 160x160 -- the same as the Palm IIIc. For those that have seen the IIIc, you will remember that it has a very grainy resolution.
Although the Prism does have a higher color depth, and uses TFT color, unless the screen has a tighter dpi, you will probably find that it is only marginally better than the IIIc. Also, remember that it is thicker and heavier than a regular Visor.
Be careful buying this blind -- I'm very interested in seeing a real one up close, in both indoor light AND outdoor light. As far as color goes outside, I have only seen 2 color LCDs that really work well outside -- the Sony hybrid LCD on their digital camera, and the Compaq IPAQ. The rest wash out completely.
But it's not virtual. So even if you maxed out the Dragonball VZ's DRAM controller with 64M, you'd still need some way of controlling fragmentation etc, because you don't have a hardware MMU to shuffle pages around.
Why is controlling fragmentation important? Old Amiga hackers remember the pain of programs refusing to load, not because you didn't have enough memory left, but because you didn't have enough contiguous memory left. (If an app is expecting to be able to malloc a meg, the OS can't really reply "would you take two 512k chunks instead?".) That kind of behavior sucked back then, and it would suck even more on a PDA that stays up for weeks at a time.
The most reasonable way to solve fragmentation on a 68000 is to address all memory through handles. Load up a raw 32-bit pointer to the start (or middle) of a chunk of memory, then do all addressing based on offsets from that pointer. Whenever nobody is using a chunk, the OS is allowed to move the data and the pointer---after the move, the data, relative to the pointer, will be in the same place.
This is not a very Unix-y memory model. This is why nobody has ported perl to PalmOS. You'd have to change everything that assumed that a single 32-bit pointer was enough to access memory. Even if you could convince PalmOS to give you, say, a contiguous 2M chunk to use for malloc, and lock that region down forever (don't want pointers in there moving out from under us), you'd be back to the original problem of fragmentation.
A 2M chunk would be unnatural for another reason. Until the 020, 68000 addressing modes can only reach +/-32k from a register. Plop your chunk pointer in the middle of a region and out pops...that 64k limit you're always seeing in PalmOS hacking. If you're willing to take the performance hit, you could *manually* add 32-bit offsets to an address register (and give up the offset addressing mode). But pretty soon this starts looking just like the near/far pointer tar pit from the bad old 8086 days.
The newer versions of PalmOS are also moving closer to processor agnosticism with a HAL, which will sever its dependence on the DragonBall Series (MIPS, anyone? How about an IPaq, then? Mayhaps even Crusoe...).
I still can't figure out what they're going to do to move beyond 160x160 or 160x240 screens. Those hundreds of third-party apps are almost all using absolute pixel positioning for form layout. Wait...I have an idea---what if we redefine old pixel positions as really being dimensioned in "dialog units", and...wait, nobody would actually do that...
Unlike Microsoft, Palm is changing and eliminating its OSes primary weaknesses rather than saddling its developers/users/customers with archaic requirements, just like a company in a competitive market should.
So, what should Linux people be doing? Sitting back and waiting for Palm to be the source of All Good Things?
Take a look at the VTech Helio (http://www.vtechinfo.com). It's about the same size and shape as a Visor, but it has a 75MHz MIPS processor, 8 megs RAM, a good LCD panel, audio hardware (voice memos), and it runs Linux. I got one at the Atlanta Linux Showcase from the Pocket Linux booth. They were selling them cheap to attract developers to their new Linux-based Java handheld platform.
The Helio comes with VTOS, which seems to be a clone of PalmOS. It's actually pretty decent, and I'm using it until the Linux desktop stuff stabilizes. It uses Jot, a pretty good clone of Graffiti (I had no trouble switching over). This particular model retails for $180 or less, considerably cheaper than anything from Palm or Handspring (the Palm III series STILL sells for $250, which is exactly what I paid for mine 2 years ago).
Palm has been selling the same basic palmtop for years. It's not bad at all (I'm a happy owner of a Palm III), but they're going to need to innovate more if they want to stay in the lead. It does its intended job well, but VTOS is just as good and runs on a much more powerful processor. I think Palm is currently riding on its name recognition rather than its features.
-John
One of the features described in Wired's article on this:, 00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39456
is that there is a (vaporware) attachment to make it capable of attachment to a projector for doing presentations. For me, this is (nearly) a killer app - no more lugging the laptop onto the plane. Right now I can only ditch the laptop if someone else is presenting too and I can email them slides...now if the Ansyr Primer PDF viewer (http://www.ansyr.com/) works on it (in colour) I'm in.
Most of the new handhelds feature Lithium Ion batteries that don't have the memory features of the older Nickle-Metal-Hydride and Nickle-Cadmium types. In my experience using my HP 545, I get between 8-10 hours of solid use, with a CF storage card. I've gotten more without it. -WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
most of these devices are still vapor. Symbian has had those pretty pictures up on their web site for years. I know because I've kept going back to see if anything changed. I fully agree that architecturally EPOC32 is the king of consumer electronics OSs. It's got practically everything WinCE has (except maybe the multimedia eyecandy) in a fraction of the space and at much higher speed. It's much more modular and expandable. But if they keep dragging their feet, Palm and WinCE will be so entrenched that they simply won't stand a chance. Look at Nokia and Ericsson, they're starting to cut deals with alternate OS suppliers on the side.
http://www.pencomputing.com/palm/Pen37/visorsprism platinum.html
What you do is implement a new, updated OS on more capable hardware with a bigger screen, and by all means DON'T saddle yourself with backwards compatibility. Then run the old stuff in the extremely good Palm emulation that already exists. The emulator should be able to map the 160x160 dimensions to the new screen without too much difficulty.
I'm hoping for someone to do this with Linux on the IPaq.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Now I can finally descreetly take my pr0n into the bathroom. No more lugging around that bulky notebook. Fewer odd-looks too from roommates too.
Speak truth to power.
or isn't the Palm platform advancing much anymore? I mean, it's nice that a couple more Handspring colors are available, but come on, the two new offerings are nothing to write home about. For the Platinum they basically jacked up the clock speed a bit and charge you $50 for that. The color, ok it's nice that they didn't have to make it larger than the regular Visor (well, I guess 0.1" thicker), but other than color it offers nothing else--at $450. Let's not loose sight of the fact that we're starting to get less and less for the money here compared to the WinCE platform--and I'm no great proponent of WinCE by far. Palm and their cohorts can talk it up any which way they want--more focused OS, leaner, no fluff, etc--but at the end of the day they charge you the same as WinCE for a fraction of the hardware capabilities.
http://www.zdnet.co.jp/macwire/0010/16/r_viprfi.ht ml h tml
http://www.zdnet.co.jp/macwire/0010/16/r_viprfi2.
After many years of owning a Palm and writing a couple of hello-world-level programs, I finally got a copy of Palm Programming and sat down a bit with it. The more I read, the more limited the Palm platform started to appear. Until your post I didn't realize that the 16-bit signed offset was a Dragonball limitation, I thought that was a Palm thing. I was reading about the 64k segmentation model, and how Code Warrior can handle some of the work for you. As you say, that brought back shades of 80x86 real mode programming.
I don't know, even simple things turned me off: why should there be two calls, LoadLib and FindLib, and why should the programmer be in charge of doing refence counting and unloading of libraries? Why couldn't OpenLib and CloseLib do that behind the scenes, without duplicating all that code for each program that used libraries? It seems that doing it the way they did precludes multitasking at some future point.
Anyway, I'm starting to wonder whether Palm OS is really as great as it's made out to be. It's one thing to encourage programmers to keep the apps small and simple, but it's quite another if you force them to do so through architectural limitations and artificial shortcoming. Forcing small apps just because you yourself as an OS creator can't really see any use for large apps on a handheld smacks of shorsightedness.
W/O wings, bumbler that I am.
I must admit that this device looks very cool, but I wonder how long it will run, compared to other Palm devices: both speed and colors are known to drain batteries.
Anyone know a place? Ideally retail, with the iPaq in stock, within an easy drive of Palo Alto/Mountain View. Alternatively, somewhere in the UK. E-mail me direct - I'll go and buy one and then come back here and post it. That way, I get one before the store gets /.ed :-)
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
See Symbian's website for more info, or just browse around on Ericsson's for some pictures of the R380 smartphone running Epoc ... or look at the devices Motorola, Sanyo, Psion etc will release.
The future looks bright indeed!
it's in my head
That's true. No multitasking, only various hacks (as dos had).
But no one says you have to run palmos on it.
ucLinux!
"Source... The Final Frontier" -- keepersoflists.org
Since the iPaq (with Linux, of course) may not be much more expensive once they ship in larger quantities, why not just get that?
The PalmOS 3.5 Memory architecture allows at least 128K for its dynamic memory heap, which is huge in the Palm world (Palm apps are tiny). PalmOS 3.5 also has a dynamic memory heap that changes as the amount of memory on the machine goes up. As far as hardware limitations, DragonBall is a 32-bit processor, so it has an addressable memory space of 4G. I don't see much of a limitation here.
The newer versions of PalmOS are also moving closer to processor agnosticism with a HAL, which will sever its dependence on the DragonBall Series (MIPS, anyone? How about an IPaq, then? Mayhaps even Crusoe...).
Unlike Microsoft, Palm is changing and eliminating its OSes primary weaknesses rather than saddling its developers/users/customers with archaic requirements, just like a company in a competitive market should.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
This will please people who play Quake on the Palm. For everybody else, I think the relevent response is, "So what?"
__________
You don't get to replace the batteries in a lot of the devices that have built in rechargables. Handspring is currently /.'ed so I can't check. However the palm V and Vx for example don't let you change the batt. The custom rechargables are also pretty expensave (I assume because the market is small and there arn't many comperiters). For example a new battery for the Canon PowerShot 100 is about $60, while four AA rechargables are about $3. The four AAA's in my Visor were also about $3 (plus $30 for the charger).
So it is really more like "buy AAA's every month or a new Palm in two years". Of corse in two years you will probbably want a new Palm, but it would be nice if the old one had some resale value!
Given a choice I would like NiMH AAA that recharge when the unit is in the cradle. That would be more convenient then using NiMHs in the current Visor/Palm, and would be a lot cheaper in the long run then custin batts. I don't know why it isn't done, the legal issue can't be too bad because Semmins does that on the GigaSet phones (well NiCADs, but still if you put Alkalines in it they will explode or leak...)
No uCLinux for the Handsprings, they don't have programmable ROM.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I agree on the handheld movie front, but handhelds and mp3 are (nearly) a good fit. I would like to reduce the amount of electronics I carry - to *one* power supply, *one* screen, *one* set of rolodex/calendar apps, *one* set of earphones/mic. Unless the mp3 player fits in there somewhere I'll be mighty disappointed. (I carry a Palm Vx and Nokia 7110 everywhere, I'm loath to carry any more)
The mp3 player (IMHO) fits in as part of the headset, not the handset. All the handset should need to do is sequence and stream stuff, eg over bluetooth, and leave mp3 decoding to a dedicated codec. NB that mp3 over bluetooth is not a bad fit as you need to compress the sound for transmission over a limited bandwidth network anyway - so why should the handheld decode anything? In this scenario the handheld mainly acts as a memory device.
WinCE comes nowhere near this ideal (nothing does, yet) and I agree with your main point that handhelds should stick to the KISS principle - mostly. However, handheld (computers) should be expected to supercede other devices which are successful _as_handhelds_ (phones, media players, radio recievers).
Of course, I still want a wearable with an optical display :-)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Handsprings are still way ahead of the Palm platform.
You're overlooking a serious feature in the Visors: Springboard expansion.
The basic system doesn't really need much more evolution - the color Visor is really about all you need in a platform, since Springboard gives you so many options.
Right now, you could turn your Visor into a cell phone, a GPS receiver, an MP3 player, a MIDI instrument, an Oscilloscope, a Data capture device (16 analog inputs), etc. All with Springboard modules.
Try to do *all* of that (not just some) with a Palm. Forget it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
If you ever take a computer architecture class, you'll learn that simply doubling the processor speed doesn't give you a machine that can execute code twice as fast. There are many other factors involved in determining a computers computational speed.
I'm not exactly sure what they are using to base their "50% faster" expectation on though. Anybody know what kind of benchmarks exist for PalmOS? Global Searches?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Go with an operating system built for this instead - Epoc.
There are no palm-sized machines that run EPOC. The clamshell sucks. If the EPOC partners came out with a machine that was like the ones everybody has been buying, they'd probably catch on a lot bigger in the US.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Remember that the Visor runs a CISC processor (Dragonball EZ, basically a 680x0 based microcontroller), which is very efficient in code size. Also, Palm apps are well known for being efficient in use of data space.
I have at least 30 third party apps, including a web browser with 1 MB cache, in a 4MB Palm IIIx. I've just upgraded to a Visor with 8MB, but that's largely for web browsing and to read books on the thing. If you just want to use it as an organiser, even 2MB is overkill.
Having said that, the iPaq is tempting because it can run Linux - although there are probably few useful apps for Linux at present, the stability is attractive (my Palm III just had to be hard-reset, losing all data - first time in months, but still...)