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Palm to Shift to ARM Processor
krugdm writes "According to this article, Palm is expected to announce that it will be modifying its OS to run on faster ARM processors instead of the current Motorola Dragonball processor."
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So what are the guys from Dragonball Z going to do now?
Yeah. And who needs a computer with more than 640k of memory, anyhow?
If we combined this rumor with the one above about NewtonOS, then maybe we'd be onto something really interesting. They just have to fit Go PenPoint and Novell SuperNOS technology in there somehow.
RISC is now more a obsoleted marketing term than anything. Technical wise, I think all modern cpu implies RISC in some degree.
When only a few companies incorpate RISC, they boast about that a lot. In reality, pipelining is probably are more importance leap for perforamnce, isn't it?
Because most vendor realize pipelining is good about the same time, no one really care to marketing it.
When a cpu translates CISC internally into a few RISC instructions to execute, it is only matter to the marketing department to decide should the cpu be named as CISC or RISC.
Thomas
ARM processers have been around for quite awhile now. They are semi-modern RISC machines that don't have a lot of the brain dead architectural cruft from years gone by.
And no, they can't help you move pencils with your telekenetic "third arm", sorry.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
See: this page for information about Motorola's MX1, Dragonball + ARM9.
something clever
The core apps that come with the device will be ported to the new architecture.
If there is an emulation layer (which seems likely) the new chips should be plenty fast enough to emulate an old, slow chip like the DragonBall. Many 3rd-party apps may even see a speedup, depending on how good the emulation is.
Good point.
And of course, this is just how Motorola prefers to do business. Lock 'em in, suck 'em dry. God, you should try dealing with them in telecom...
I disagree. The one thing Apple didn't do going 68k->PPC was fragment their market. Sure, the first generation of PowerMacs ran old 68k software slower than the last 68k Macs, but that was more than made up for by the fact that it was relatively easy to port apps to PPC native code, and when you did, they ran much, much faster. [Incidently, Apple never introduced "faster" Quadras after the first PowerMacs - the fastest Quadra was the 840 @ 40MHz, which came out several months before the first PowerMacs. The only post-PPC 68k machines were the 630s and the PB190 @ 33MHz. Yes, the 630s were a big mistake for Apple. I blame Scully.] Even Quadras weren't dead ends at that point, other than being slow (as all new computers will eventually be); consider that the first MacOS that wouldn't run on any 68k machine was 8.5 in 1998 - 4.5 years after PPCs first debuted.
Apple was also very successful with the transition because they had a great emulator (in software! that's important), which was perfected in about a year, at which point PPC Macs were outperforming the fastest 68k macs in emulation. There were *no* incompatibilities due to the emulator.
Apple's biggest mistake was that after transitioning to PPC, they relied too heavily on their emulator. They sat around with their old OS software which did not perform as well as it could have been. 8.5 made a huge difference, but even 9.1 still has legacy 68k code sitting around in various parts.
Where Palm is in trouble is that, while Strong ARMs are fast, I don't know that they're fast enough to emulate old-series Palms. This might be important. Apple had the luxury of knowing that PPCs would eventually be fast enough to make up for any performance lost to emulation. Does Palm have this? Either way, it should be easy to avoid the mistake of relying on an emulator too heavily. However, Palm might be able to just say "okay, use a new Palm, use all new software too."
In conclusion, Palm: figure out if you need to support old software on new Palms: if you're technically capable of doing so, make an emulator; if you make an emulator make it work perfectly, but don't rely on it for too long; don't second-guess your product strategy and go backwards with old-generation products; and deliver your customers the features they care about, not the ones your competitors think are important.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Is when Palm announces they will be building devices that run Windows CE.
:)
I give 'em two years.
Have you ever developed software for the palm? It's butt ass slow. Doing any kind of drawing routines can be downright painfull. I know a few people who will be dancing in the street when these bad boys hit the shelves.
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This moves us onto the second question, which was about feature count. WinCE's trying to do much more than is appropriate for a handheld machine; things (like word processing) which are honestly better left to a desktop computer. The point I was making about "waaay too overpriced for too little functionality" was in comparison to the desktop machine that WinCE's apparently trying to overtake.
And finally, I have to quote this one directly:
That's just it. The pocketPC is simply overpowered for what's needed from a handheld. Sure you could make a handheld computer that does everything a desktop does, but you'll pay for it in weight, size, battery life, cost, and complexity. The Palm handheld is simple. The core applications that it comes with it don't have complex user interfaces, don't require megabytes of ram (the original palm came with what, 128K?), and don't ask much of the user in order for them to find use for it. They can just pop in whatever phone numbers they want, maybe a name, whatever.If you're looking for a cool new toy, go WinCE. If you're looking for a useful tool, go Palm. Feature count simply doesn't matter once the features you need are present.
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Palm's single greatest asset has been a _WELL_DEFINED_ _PLAN_ and a _TARGET_MARKET_. CE's target market is "Palm's customers," without a second thought about _WHO_ those people are: salespeople, businesspeople, etc... you know, the _ordinary_user_, who doesn't really care that much about running a full web browser in their pocket (hence the philosophical difference between full internet connectivity and web clipping
I don't see Palm turning their products into the ubergeek-toys that the CE crowd has been putting out: tiny handheld computers that are simply painful to use because they try to replace desktop computers with shitty, overpriced, small screened, keyboardless versions. Palm aims for the general public with a tool that lets you store your data, recall it, and otherwise, just gets out of your damn way.
CE's just turning into another Apple Newton: a handheld computer that's waaay too overpriced for too little functionality; useful only to those
Palm's probably going to use the new CPU power for things like a prettier GUI, voice recognition, MP3 playing, and perhaps some multimedia. At the end of the day, just improving what it does now: assists you with your life's tasks, not taking them over like CE.
But, let me end my random tirade on WinCE versus PalmOS... I'm afraid that the percentage of people here on
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More memory means more stuff for "find" to search (for those that don't know find runs every app and asks it to look at all the data it knows how to search). More pixels (and more bits per pixel) means more stuff to manipulate on the screen, again requiring more CPU to keep up.
Is the Palm slow? I had a Visor Delux until a month or so ago, it never felt all that slow. I broke (and later repaired -- any one want to buy a Delux?) it, and got an Edge. It feels a whole whole whole lot faster. So did I need it? I don't think so. Now that I have it, will I give it up? No, I don't think so.
Besides, it could allow other kinds of applications. Ever wonder why it costs $200 for a MP3 playing module? If you had a 200Mhz ARM you wouldn't need $200 worth of hardware to play MP3's (you may still need an external module for stereo output).
Plus...maybe better games. Civ would be fun...And if MicroProse won't do it, maybe someone will port OpenCiv, but it just isn't any fun porting things to a non-memory protected OS (and the DragonBall doesn't have a MMU, the ARM does...hopefully the ARM version of PalmOS will use it)
Are you sure they are using more power, as opposed to storing less? The IIIxe takes normal AAA batts, the m500's have a built in rechargable. Rechargables tend to be more costly, and store less power per unit volume. The m500 most likely lasts 30% as long because it only has 30% of the power! (well, it may consume a little more power to run the CPU at 33Mhz vs. 25Mhz, but probably not much since the CPU on a Palm spends most of it's time "executing" the HALT instruction).
My "new" Visor edge has more then 50% of it's battery after 2 weeks of use (with the power not connected to the cradle). My old Visor Deluxe (anyone want to buy it?) has rechargable NiMH AAA's in it. It lasts about 5 weeks between charges. It doesn't look to me like the Edge eats it's power noticeably faster (and I use the backlight more on the edge because the lighting is more even, and also it's far louder speaker sucks more power, and my new headphones keep me from hearing the alarm a lot of the time, so it frequently has to ring a lot more...)
Eh? Not only can the Palm do that, it can do that via SSH. Go look at TopGun SSH. Enjoy.
Just a reminder the Sony Clie 710c (and the newer 610c that's coming out) both support 320x320 screen res.
The ISA bus was fairly tightly coupled to the 8086/8 processor bus, but it still exists in many modern PCs where the processor bus has changed out of all recognition, and I remember there being ISA bridges for the Amiga.
I know its a joke, but actually, Palm will likely use Thumb, which is an extension to ARM's instruction set using 16-bit compressed instructions. You execute more instructions, but you use less memory bandwidth, making it a big win for 16-bit wide memory architectures.
Actually, the Motorola DragonBall ARM doesn't run 68K code, it just has a peripheral set that is register-compatible with the DragonBall Super VZ. You would still need to recompile code, but you wouldn't have to do major rewrites of device drivers.
Palm will have a 68K emulator in their new OS. It will execute system calls in native ARM code, so it should be pretty fast for most programs.
Palm developers knew about their plans since Palmsource 2000 last October. Old apps will run on the new Palms so the only problem is that new apps may not work on the old ones. Such is progress...
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No they won't use Thumb.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see a WINE for PalmOS 5 which lets you run PocketPC apps on your ARM Palm. Not that Palm is in any need of them hehe
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you mean like Wordsmith or Tiny Sheet? :)
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Compaq announces the Dragonball PocketPC
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yeah but PalmOS 5.0 will have official OS support for it. It's much easier for developers to program for OS 5 than for Sony and Handera's specific implementations
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yeah but you'll never stick a 10 gig harddrive and a cable modem on it. And even if you could, the batteries wouldn't last longer than a few minutes. There's more involved than just cpu, memory and a better OS.
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No, Palm won't have that problem. First of all they are sticking with ARM for their next gen CPU instead of the free for all that exists in WinCE (i.o.w no SH or MIPS to deal with). PalmOS 5 will have an emulator to take care of legacy apps but it will use native calls so it will be faster than a traditional emulator. Also, PalmOS 4 is the bridging OS: apps written to the API's won't have a problem under 5.0.
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take a look at what's planned for PalmOS 5.0 here: http://www.seapug.com/articles/palmsource2000.html
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I dunno -- I have a telnet app on my Palm that I can use to run emacs. Seems to me that's a real app... haven't connected to an Oracle instance, but I've managed a PostgreSQL DB with it.
The telnet app is only a double-handful of K too. However, trying to run emacs with a stylus is... well, pretty stupid.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Nice. New processors. But will they fix the OS, or will ARM palm programs still have to deal with ~32k heap and so forth?
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The goal is to increase the power of the CPU while simultaneously reducing power consumption. The ARM technology is lean and mean and fits that bill perfectly. It's a very impressive technology; my little NetWinder flies. Who needs an old bloated, power hog like the x86 or clunky code morphing like the Crusoe?
With this move, Palm technology will get a big shot in the ARM. How long before Palm adopts ARM Linux as an API base? With an existing hardware platform and months head start the Agenda VR3 is looking sweet right now.
Given that Palm has developers on staff whose sole job is development of POSE (i.e., Keith Rollin), this is not likely to be a problem.
This is simply not true. When I upgraded from my Palm Professional (running PalmOS 2.0) to a Palm V (running PalmOS 3.5.2), every single program I had continued to work. Even system software like Hackmaster continued to work.
In addition, as a palm developer, I have developed software using the PalmOS 3.5 SDK, the software runs just fine on PalmOS 2. This requires the developer to be aware of what API's appear on what PalmOS versions, and work around the lack of API's on older versions of the OS, but it is possible.
PalmOS is probably the best OS at maintaining compatibility that I have worked with.
Tell me why an electronic datebook / addressbook / personal information unit needs a fast processor? Is it that important to display a datebook entry in
The Palm line was designed for a few specific tasks, and to perform those tasks well. Palm succeeded in doing this; the Palm is a wonderful organizer. But who needs an organizer that runs faster than 33 megahertz?
A switch to ARM-based chips means that Palm OS-based handhelds will run at significantly higher clock speeds than their current 33MHz. This means the devices will be able to handle more complex applications, such as video streaming and digital-audio playback, and to match the processing power of handhelds based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.
Okay, hold up. Let's review this:
Palm has significantly more market share than Windows CE, because it does what it's designed to do a lot BETTER than CE.
So why are they changing their product to adapt to the weaker market segment? Who the fuck needs digital audio and streaming video embedded in their addressbook? Yes, it's badass whiz-bang stuff, but not practical. They throw in the excuse of "planning for the future", but that's marketspeak bullshit. They need to concentrate on making their products BETTER, and not necessarily COOLER.
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For Palm to stay in their longstanding $200-$450 price range, this move is right on schedule. Palms have been shipping for about 5 years now, just over 3 generations of Moore's Law. Since the original Palms were 20 MHz 68030-class computers, it should be possible to produce something 8-10 times faster overall with 8-10 times the memory. This roughly translates to 150-200 MHz ARM-based systems (right on target) with 4MB RAM in the lowest-end devices (think m100) and several times that in the high-end ones.
Do all the math and you can easily come up with roughly the same hardware spec as a current iPAQ handheld, but about $200 cheaper since it will hit the market about a year later, which in 2002 puts a color 200 MHz ARM-based device with 16-32MB memory built in right in Palm's pricing sweet spot.
While Compaq will be targeting its $500-$600 price range with lovely 300 MHz 64 MB devices, this hypothetical $400 Palm device should be comparable performance-wise to the current iPAQ, but with longer battery life and what will probably be transparent support for all Dragonball Palm apps. They're not dead yet.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Or so the rumor mill goes.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
There is already very good emulation for the Palm devices: it's used for software development. It will be no big deal to include some version of it in Palm OS 5, and it will moreover give a clean fix to the problem of running the legacy apps on new high-res screens.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
That's a cheap shot, but really, I'm not sorry.
The fact is, the Palms and the Newton were and are entirely different animals. The Newton was tablet-sized, at least twice as expensive, didn't hotsync, and was more of a tablet PC than a calculator-like device.
It didn't really sell, possibly due to a bad launch (the thing was rushed out the door thanks to bad decisions by John Scully). But then, tablet devices generally don't. It might have been spun off into a survivable independant company, but even that is debatable. There is enough of a niche market in hospitals and etc. to keep tablet PCs going, but the tablet PCs can run Windows software. They probably woudn't make it if they had to develop all their own software.
The Palms did sell, because they're small enough, cheap enough, get enough battery life, back up their data, and they're easy to use like a calculator. Plus, Palm made it easy to develop for, and the devices come with all the basic apps you need.
The Palms are about as much like the Newton as a dog is like a dire wolf. Same phylum, maybe, but sorry, one of them just didn't make it in the wild.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
It's all got to do with the relative cost of the processors. I don't know, but I suspect that a Dragonball chip is now *very* cheap, so they make up a smaller and smaller part of the manufacturing cost of Palm devices. However, they aren't likely to get any cheaper.
As time goes by, the ARM processor will reach a point where it, similarly, costs only a few dollars more than a Dragonball. At that point, seeing that you get maybe ten times the performance for negligible cost, why wouldn't you go with the high-performance solution and the extra applications it will make possible?
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Speaking of power how long is a battery going to last for a 1 Ghz machine?
But what's the battery life of that device? Who cares if it runs Linux. I'm not programming on my PDA.
Je ne parle pas francais.
As an employee of Micron Tech, I *wish* prices were high and ever increasing *grin*. Unlike the other posters, I saw the sarcasm.....
This is great, in my opinion. Faster processor, with backward compatibility. And no sacrificing the easy to use PalmOS. At least if Palm does it right :)
:) working for them, so I'm sure they are studying the 68k->PPC transition that Apple pulled off. Don't expect the radical (completely new OS) on this, but expect a smooth transition... they have way too much investment built around the 68k Palm (both in binaries and source code) to just throw it away for a different CPU.
The ARM has a number of advantages over the Dragonball/68k line. One of which is that it is designed to be used in battery powered devices such as the Palm and the GameBoy Advance. The current Palms run between 16-33mhz. You can even overclock them (in software!) to run faster. The ARM chip in the Palm should be running at 200mhz.
Why such a jump? Well, there are a couple of reasons:
- 68k emulation. To run the old dragonball apps, you'll need to emulate a 68k. I'm going to guess here, and say that instead of using something like POSE running under a new OS, they will instead go the same route Apple did. The core OS will be written in ARM, and the 68k code when calling a trap, will run code natively on the ARM. i.e, OS routines will run at full speed.
- Multimedia. I don't think that the Palm will be ready to run very much in the line of movies, but MP3 playback becomes very practical. Along with other things such as dictation, telephony, etc, etc. The extra boost of speed will definetly help here.
- OS functions. I currently have a Visor Deluxe, with about 800k free. And the thing is slow at times. If I go to check info, delete an app, whatever, it takes 10-15 seconds just to get the list. After that, it's cached so it appears instantly, but the initial time it's slow. And once another app is started, the cache is gone. In addition, the Find function isn't exactly the fastest thing in the world. The extra speed will help here.
As far as the PalmOS goes, I think that the ARM version will be an evolution of the current version. I'm sure we'll see Palm push different screen sizes, we already have some variations on the market now (Sony's Clie - 320x320, for one). 160x160 will probally become the minimum size.
I think another thing that will happen is that Palm tosses out the current kernel they use, and use another kernel that they can actually expose to the developer. This will allow things like MP3 playback to continue in the background while other applications continue to run -- a kernel thread would handle it. I don't see Palm getting rid of the single application running scheme -- it just works so well, and prevents things like out-of-memory errors from occuring because you have 20 programs open (WinCE/PocketPC).
Palm knows what they need to do. I think they want to make the transition to ARM as seemless as can be. This means making source code compatible (as much as possible) between the Dragonball and ARM version. If programming an ARM version of the Palm is completely different than the 68k version, developers may just get up and move to WinCE.
On the other hand, I would imagine that most developers could write 68k version and allow the emulation to handle running it under the ARM. For most apps, you don't need the power of the ARM. And on the ARM, those apps would benefit from the faster CPU (for OS functions).
Palm has a lot of ex-Apple employees (or at least they did
This is going to be an exciting time for both Palm users and developers. I personally can't wait until I can buy a ARM based Palm of the shelf at the local computer store.
dennis
Most of the great palm tools in use today (Hackmaster, Beam Box, Backup Buddy, BigClock, Silver...) were written many years ago and have been pretty stable (as in no updates) ever since. I'm worried that a large number of programs will never be recompiled for the new architecture.
Nothing pleases application developers and users more than when the vendor suddenly changes the hardware platform underneath them. Does Palm expect developers to recompile and rerelease all of their existing applications for a new processor? Does Palm expect the users to NOT be pissed when their old apps (and possibly data) are no longer forward-compatible?
:-(
This processor only seems to benefit Palm, so I hope the internal benefit is enough to offset the outward pain Palm's users and developers will feel!
cpeterso
They should make sure the new Palm can play DTMF tones through its speaker; people have been crying for this since the first Palm. Look up a phone number, hold the Palm next to the phone, and click on "Dial" and the Palm makes DTMF tones and dials for you. I'd like that.
I made the Qt Palmtop Environment address book
do that. Its pretty cool
Rob
License fees for what? Last time I checked, they wrote PalmOS themselves, without any third-party parts in it...
Let's see... they would gain control over their destiny and stop paying licensing fees... because they would no longer be using their own OS??? Forgive me, but I fail to comprehend the logic here.
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Keep in mind that despite the fact that Microsoft has utterly failed to make this sort of a transition work well, it has been done. Apple's emulation of 68k processors on PowerPC was pretty damn bulletproof. The overwhelming majority of software out at the time just kept on workin', with only modest speed penalties. After a recompile, it was off to the races.
This can be done, and done well. I just hope they don't spank their battery life (PalmOS's single hugest advantage) moving to this gee-whiz new processor.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Palm OS is running on top of AMX.
http://www.kadak.com/html/kdkp1400.htm
AMX is a real-time OS that's available for x86 and many CPUs common in embedded applications.
AMX is royalty free (if distributed in executable form (ie compiled)).
So Palm didn't write everything on the Palm, specifically not the hardest bit, the realtime elements. Palm OS deals with the resource allocation and UI issues, leaving task scheduling and (if they go to ARM) memory protection issues for the AMX segment.
IMHO, it was a very smart move. AMX is incredibly stable, very low overhead, and abstracts a lot of the annoying hardware issues, making it easier to port Palm to a new CPU (AMX already supports ARM, and has for quite a while.)
This was first announced at Palm Source 2000 in San Jose. (I was lucky enought to be there.) They demoed a development board running PalmOS 4.0 on the ARM, pretty cool. However, they are pulling an Apple: Hardware Emulation. All 68k Palm apps will run unmodified on the new ARM based models, or course anything that circumvents the API will not.
I think they are doing to give themselves more flexibility.
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I think it's a more apropriate comparison. You get added benifit for old games. Two alternating screen-sizes to try and enhance the old size (wide screen) or play old games at original resolution. Everything from what I have seen of it works quite well.
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Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
Of course, this assumes that the price is right. But the current trend towards PDAs with "open" operating systems (eg. Symbian-based devices) is to provide all of these features and more... for if not an equivalent price to a Palm, a price cheaper than buying 3 of the above devices.
To be blunt, if all you use your PDA for is as an addressbook, you should have a paper addressbook. But if you actually use it as a Personal Digital Assistant, the more CPU power you can get, the better.
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With palm I doubt it will be that bad. They've never shown any real intention from what makes plam so great. Even Motorola was EOL the old 68000 Dragonball, they really needed to move to a new platform eventually. They'll probably have an emulator to execute the old code (the new ARM is easily more powerful that the old chips, as referenced by the WinCE emulator discussed eariler today), but in the end I expect they'll stick with ARM. Probably even stick with the Dragonball processor, since the next version will have the AMR technology in it. Just because WinCE decided to take the brain dead move of making incopmatable and different versions of the same OS, doesn't mean Palm won't do the same thing .
This is an interesting, and mostly welcome development. I could argue that a palmtop platform really doesn't need to be terribly fast, since most people simply use them for keeping up with contacts and maintaining schedules, rather than watching video and streaming MP3s wirelessly...
What has me worried is this:
200MHz is a lot. 1GHz is utterly ridiculous. The biggest concern with having faster chips is reducing battery life. Most, if not all, WinCE devices have a max battery life in the hours. Granted, most such devices have colour screens, but it would be foolish to say the faster chips doesn't play a part in it. Even Palms are using more power nowadays. A year ago, it was common for a Palm (say IIIxe) to last a month or more on one set of batteries. Right now, I'm averaging 6 weeks between replacement, which is terrific. The newer m500 models are touted as lasting up to two weeks. That's nice, yes, but a disturbing fact of life is becoming increasingly obvious and disruptive: more features require more power and drain more energy.
Do we need the extra abilities? As I see it, we'll be losing sight of the original goal of a palmtop. Instead, what is now occurring is that the personal agenda of a year ago is being replaced with ever more powerful be-everything devices.
This has me worried. Perhaps my fears are misplaced?
That's why Motorola came out with a new DragonBall with an ARM in it.
In normal organizer-like usage, the CPU inside a Palm handheld spends most of its time turned off (napping, even when the display is on). The faster the CPU, the faster real work gets done, the more time the CPU spends napping, the longer the battery life (assuming the new CPU is actually more efficient in terms of "mips"/mW).
Plus nice compute-intensive features like compression and encryption are no longer too slow for use under a responsive UI.
They already have. Sony (320x320) and Handera (240x320) already make PalmOS handhelds that have higher resolution displays.
> What I want to know is, why does my palm really need to be faster?
Haven't we heard this same line eternally before? As computer speeds increase, we always seem to come up with new ways of using that performance, and it's not just 'code bloat'.
I'm sure everyone can come up with ideas they'd like to see in a hand held device
1. Voice/audio recording - GSM for voice, MP3 for audio
2. Voice recognition - My voice, not someone elses
3. Hand writing recognition - My handwriting, not what I'm told to write
4. Video capture - MPEG4, see the movie "Until the End of the World" for an interesting vision of future 3G mobile services
etc
Rob
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Heh. My visor is a great little organizer. The springboard is a dandy idea. Too bad Handspring's customer support is woven from sticks and dung.
The Palm bone is connected to the .. ARM bone
God Fucking Damnit
Oh no the program i had to write for assembly class to draw rectangles will be usless now!
So... Palm might be supporting the Palm emulator for ARM chips after all...
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I wouldn't say "Apple really did a great job of smoothly transitioning their users over to the PowerPC", quite the contrary.
The 68K --> PowerPC transition fragmented the Mac market. The first PowerMacs wouldn't run legacy software even as fast as the Quadras that had been out for some months, and Apple was bringing out faster Quadras. However, if you bought a Quadra, you knew you were buying a dead end. Result: many Mac users transitioned to Windows, where there was a clear upward path. That setback hurt the Mac by robbing it of critical mass.
IF Palm is smart, IF they make sure the StrongArm based Palms will run all older software as fast or faster than the current crop of Palms, IF they make sure users know they will not be buying a dead-end product, they can benefit from this. If they don't learn from Apple's mistakes, they will fragment their market at exactly the wrong time, and WinCE and Linux will claim their spots.
True, I wouldn't need a PDA to play movies, but having one that could play MP3 or Ogg files would eliminate once gadget I want to carry.
And as a side note: The DTMF generation trick isn't as useful as you might think: between having to dial access codes (or not), area codes (or not), extensions (or not), you have to have a fairly complex UI to select the options. Plus, since the PDA cannot listen for the call progress tones, it cannot know when to send the next burst - it has to just wait. I know, I have a watch that does DTMF.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I don't see why they would transition PalmOS to Linux. The second they do this, they become irrelevant. People like Handspring and Sony would no longer pay Palm for every machine they made, and would likely be able quickly gain dominance over Palm. I mean, Sony already got mp3s onto Palm before Palm did.
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Memory is important, and it's pretty close to free. Selling a 2MB machine is tacky enough if you're doing it to get people to buy the overpriced memory expansion card, but there's simply no excuse for doing so on a non-expandable machine just to create product differentiation, or to bait&switch people into buying the much more expensive model just to get $6 more RAM. For many applications it doesn't matter, but if you want people do buy the box for things beyond the basics - ebooks, or industry-specific applications that require more data, or reading some real fraction of their email (especially using the overpriced radio link), you need more memory, sometimes lots more. Even if the future Palms don't play MP3s, storing compressed speech uses about 1MB per 20 minutes, so it helps to have more memory.
Better Screens - the Psion 3a has 480x160 mono, and lasts about as long on batteries as the Palm; the WinCE and iPaQ machines really do have good-looking screens, more readable as well as flashy, but the battery life is too short for practicality.
Audio, especially speech recognition - that does need more horsepower, though some of it can be done with ASICs like cell-phone voice compression instead of the CPU if that makes sense. Microsoft is going after the MP3-player / Video Game / TV set in your pocket market, but for business users and other people who want organizers rather than toys, the two obvious directions to go are cellphone capability and speech recognition interfaces to the box, and those may be CPU burners.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is pure rumor mongering, but it would interesting if a hidden motive for this move was to leverage technology from the Newton, which was built on the ARM and StrongARM processors. The Newton has been dead for years, and still no one has built anything even close to its utility.
For you, it probably doesn't need to be. But some of us want realtime streaming video on our handhelds. :)
This isn't really surprising since it's meant to do really simple things like run Palm devices, and not meant to act as, say, a server.
This is generally fine, except it lacks things like modern memory protection that lead to crashes at times. There are also a number of assertions in the kernel that can fail and crash the system outright. ("Memory chunk overlocked" comes to mind.) It's just not a good OS for anything except the basics.
That's irksome now, but it's going to be unacceptable in the future. All of Palm's competitors are going to be offering much more solid platforms running much more complicated apps. They'll be cheap, too, since we're talking a significant time in the future.
Palm should:
As for that last one, almost everyone I know bypasses the OS to do quick graphics...this obviously would break with the compatibility library. Oh well--that should be acceptible losses. (Another option might be to run an old-Palm emulator on the new Palm, but you'd need a pile of RAM for that.)
This is going to be quite a tightrope walk for Palm. I hope they work things out, but I'm not buying their stock, know what I'm saying?
Based on the humorous jabs at Palm sprinkled throughout the article, it seems that the author feels that this is the application that Pocket PCs need to really overtake Palm.
A lot of Pocket PC owners turn their nose up at Palm handhelds, declaring them unfit for use due to a lack of color, high resolution display, multimedia capabilities, etc. And yet this app appears to be the holy grail of the Pocket PC world. Strange.
So do the more extreme zealots in the Pocket PC camp look forward to using the Palm to-do list? Probably not. I think they feel that this is going to open the floodgates and people are now going to swarm to the Pocket PC camp. Do they really think that this is going to influence that many people into buying a Pocket PC over a Palm handheld? I just can't see that many everyday users passing on the Palm and purchasing a Pocket PC based on the fact that this emulator exists. Sure, some people will, but I don't see it making that much of a difference.
I have an iPaq and I admit that this emulator interests me, but I think it's because I miss the Palm core apps. IMO, the only thing my iPaq has over the new Sony is Pocket Word and Excel. If I had it to do over again, I'd stick with the Palm OS.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
I'm a palm lover myself (not in the literal sense ofc), and I think this will be great for the platform. After much arguing with my co-workers (manager types) about the merits of the Palm in business, they basically settled the argument by showing me that they could work on their 12 meg uber-spreadsheets on their CE devices. I think Palm's market is these manager types, and I think the proliferation of stupidly large spreadsheets (or word documents) makes a good case for the need for bigger and badder CPU's and much more memory. Even if the applications just supported reading of these "monster documents", all would be well again. Data is getting fatter, and the device has to compensate for it.
Success is as dangerous as failure, hope as hollow as fear.
Motorola, TI and Intel will use Palm's software developer kit to build processors using ARM technology, sources say.
Man, thats some SDK. Why don't my SDKs do that?
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
The m500 and m505 don't support content protection in SD cards. And you don't need to run the backlight all the time, especially if you spend a lot of time indoors. It really depends on the lighting of your environment.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Apple showed it can be done. Apple really did a great job of smoothly transitioning their users over to the PowerPC.
As long as they are doing this, Palm needs to break out of the 160x160 display trap. I'm sure they are eager to do it. All the current Palm apps, when running under emulation, can have a 160x160 box to run in, but new software can have more room. And, Palm needs to release two different reference designs, with different screen sizes, just to make people get serious about testing their apps with different screen sizes.
I'd be thrilled if they used this as an opportunity to transition from PalmOS to Linux, with the emulator running PalmOS of course. If they did a good job on the SDK, people should be able to recompile PalmOS apps to run under the new Linux. I don't have a feel for how likely this is, but it would give Palm more control over their destiny, and save them paying licensing fees.
They should make sure the new Palm can play DTMF tones through its speaker; people have been crying for this since the first Palm. Look up a phone number, hold the Palm next to the phone, and click on "Dial" and the Palm makes DTMF tones and dials for you. I'd like that.
If they make it rock-solid reliable, and give it really long battery life, this transition could be a very good thing. Oh, and they need to keep making DragonBall Palms for a while: don't make people feel they are being forced at gunpoint to switch.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
So, does Handspring stick with the DragonBall? Or do they try to emulate the Springboard bus using the ARM? Or do they do Springboard 2.0 using the ARM bus? Or can they do a new bus that isn't so tightly coupled to the CPU's bus? (How about making the plug-and-play use some sort of portable bytecode?)
By the way, I hope Handspring will adopt the "universal connector" idea Palm introduced with their latest devices. Having both a serial port and a USB port is a nice thing. Having both of them plus a Springboard would be even better.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
So let's see.. PALM is going to use ARM. I wonder if HANDspring will use ARM as well since they use PALM as well. Will the programs be written in THUMB?
I'd far rather be happy than right.
A lot of people, I'm sure, are going to ask about backwards compat. Yes, the new processor is being designed my motorola and it will still run the old DragonBall based software, it is an ARM based dragonball. I would also like to point out that for some reason or another, the new processor includes built in support for Sony's memory stick, as well as SD media. I for one am looking forward to this new processor, as long as they leave the interface the same.
WOW you just gave me a flashback. My father asked my that of my Apple II...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was just at their site looking for info on Palm OS 4.0 and found this in their 'future plans' section:
Support for faster, more powerful ARM microprocessors, while maintaining compatibility with current Palm software applications.
Now if Handspring will only port it to my Prism I'll be happy. Well, happier.
Omega9
#chown us base
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
I'm pretty sure the Gameboy Advance doesnt have a touch sceen or grafitti area for data entry though. It would be a bitch to have to scroll a list of letters and hit "a" every time we wanted to type a character.
Although, with 6 buttons (A,B, Select, Start, L, R) 2^6 = 64 different characters you could type in some crazy binary typing scheme. (i.e hold A, B and select to type a "K") It would be pretty interesting watching someone type one that thing.
Palm devices have done great things for the people who bought them for contact management, scheduling, and porting small data files with them on the go. But the reason WinCE devices are selling at levels that are beginning to really erode Palm's lead, is that the average consumer simply wants bells and whistles.
I look at my Palm IIIc that I got just this past February for $329, and wonder what I really did get for my money. Having waited just a few months, I could have gotten an m505 with the extra money saved. Though if I were going to do that, and spend five hundred dollars or so, why not get a WinCE device? Expandable memory using more common components than the new stuff in a 500/505, and with a variety of vendors to choose from.
The basic reason Palm needs to make this change, is because simple and reliable isn't impressive. Those of us who -do- know better, are rare indeed. I was a longtime PC fanatic, until I saw a recent iBook, and how well it handily trashed my IBM ThinkPad for reliability. I may be glad I got my IIIc when I did, but I do still feel badly about the fact people with less knowledge get better toys.
I shouldn't rant when I'm tired. Damn this heat.
Palm needs to deliver stability, AND better toys and gimmicks. I just hope they pull it off.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
But now is the time that Palm must do this. They still have a stranglehold on the market. If they wait longer, they'll lose that and their hardware will be even slower.
Why are other people criticizing them? Supporting legacy hardware (x86, anyone?) sucks. Here's a company with the guts to say, "trust us, this will make things better in the long run." And it will.
Of course, there are issues to RISC that says they shouldn't have to change ISA's, but... well... RISC has changed the world, but it hasn't exactly won.
So, this is a really daring change. And I think we should commend Palm for having the initiative to do this.
With the much higher raw processing power of the ARM chip, emulating a 33MHz Dragonball should be no sweat. I heard a rumor regarding this switch about 9 months ago, with speculation running that the ARM chips would be hittling 1GHz (as mentioned at the end of the article); the hope was that there would be enough processing power to support fairly sophisticated voice-recognition capabilities. My understanding (which could be way off here, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) is that even the higher-frequency ARM chips have low enough current requirements to allow for "Palm-like" (kick-ass) battery life.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I once built an optical hub that would let 5 Mac laptops with IR all "see" each other. All you had to do was point each IR eye at the hub... which was a drinking glass.
For me, Palm's killer app is Epocrates. There is no comparable program for WinCE with the same ease of use and speed. And yes, the database is already large enough that I feel the need for more speed. Some of the lookups (especially the drug interaction feature) are not exactly snappy anymore.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Not now they don't need to. Ten years from now will you be saying this same thing? Advancement must start somewhere. If the next Palm can stay the same price, run the same temperature and with the same battery life, but do much more - what's wrong with that?
Very sad story."
p.s.: the best was certainly the 'spring of drowned octopus' -- still trying to figure out how that works.
I first heard of this last summer.
:)
This brings along great opportunities for Linux. For example, the Rebel.Com NetWinder kernel could fairly easily be modified to run on this Palm system, with full X, etc. The news could impact the Palm and Linux even more than it did on the iPaq.
The ARM is a greatly versatile, very low power RISC chip. I'm happy they are finally pursuing this. Nokia is supposed to also take advantage of this in accordance with their deal with Palm to use the PalmOS. This is why the PalmOS isn't on Nokia phones yet, they are waiting for the ARM version...
This will be cool on two fronts.
"That's why they are revising their platform--to grow room for the future." A standard idea, but I for one, do not want streaming multimedia and MP3s on my handheld. My Palm m105 does exactly what I need it to do. If I want to watch a movie on a plane, $4 headphones from the stewardess or a laptop w/DVD will do the trick. If I want to read a book, I'll spend $6 and get a paperback from the store or check out one from a library. No batteries, backlighting, or internet connection needed.
The Palms were designed to replace the paper organizer that contained our calendars, to do lists, addresses, etc. Last I checked, my paper dayplanner did not play MP3s. It doesn't need to. My Palm doesn't play MP3s either. It doesn't need to. Unfortunately, too many people forget about this and want the latest and greatest. Maybe when they start burning holes in suits because they run so hot, people will realize that the current Palm line does more than they need it to.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
There's been rumors for the past few years that Apple was in on Palm with some sort of new OS incorporating the Newton OS that the Apple Messagepads used to use. The messagepads ran on an ARM processor. I wonder if this is a step towards something bigger
Palm developers have always had to recompile for new versions of the PalmOS, as well as for the different Palm devices:
apps that worked in 2.x broke for 3. Apps that worked in 3 were broken for 3.3 and 3.5. Apps that worked great were recoded for the higher quality grayscale screens, and then refused to work on earlier Palm IIIs.
Apps that worked great on the new 16 shade grayscale screens got recoded for color devices.
Everything got altered to work on Handsprings.
In other words,
making changes to existing application code is nothing new to Palm developers.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
..that even some programs that can be easily recompiled will have the same problem many old DOS ones do on modern hardware: they'll run way too fast.
Agenda VR3 is getting better every day. Soon it will play MP3s... hopefully, and I can already play a mean game of Solitare while I travel... and it does the regular stuff like contacts, email, etc... and soon it will have ethernet. Go Buy One and write some more apps for it....:)
Welcome to the incompatibility that now reigns in the world of Windows CE. Will that be SH3, SH4, MIPS, ARM, etc with your Palm? Do they plan to emulate the older chips to get the older software to run? That would definitely make the point of moving to the new processor moot.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
It's about time...
Scientia est Potentia
I'm surprised that nobody here has figured out the real reason why Palm considering switching to the ARM processor for future Palm models: a smoother Internet access experience.
I mean, look at the way the Palm does Web surfing and the way the iPaq running PocketPC does Web surfing; note that web pages are actually much more readable on the iPaq. Remember, look at the major compromises Palm had to make in order to do Internet access with the Palm VII series, which required web page providers to produce special versions of their web pages tailored for the Palm VII display.
ARM also patented revolutionary network technologies such as a (V22 soft modem) based on their lovely chip so we might soon see some real and versatile alternatives to these phone/organizers behemots.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Mine doesn't need to be faster, but I reckon I could use a faster crosscompiler (I know, I know, here's a nickel to upgrade my old linux box).
What I want to know is (and I don't know bo diddly about ARM technology, except that it reminds me of Gil the ARM, so these are probably moronic questions)...
- how big will the heap be next year, and
- will I still have to mess around with these blasted code segments?
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
I'm confused. I already program for my Palm in the environment I know and love: emacs+gcc+gdb on a linux desktop.
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
In the past, the stability, battery life, and simplicity have been hallmarks of their device, and brought them success.
If there is now enough "oomph" to decode MP3, play video, etc, will Palm stray from their ease of use?
Quoting: "Let's hope Palm publishes the data sheet for the chip they're using -- unlike the originally secret Dragonball" *nearly chokes* You are kidding right ? The 68328 Dragonball processor HAS GAZILLIONS OF DOCS about it on Motorola site (EZ, nonEZ etc...) I was using them in 1997. How hard did you look ? Why do you seem to assume it's Palm Inc. responsibility as opposed to Motorola's ? Farewell =)
Playing MP3's
Voice recognition... "Dial Adobe lawyer" (hold Palm up to phone as it sends dialing tones)
Third party encryption on the Nokia phones.
Personally I think organizers are fine, but I really hate that my palm just does organizing. Granted, I'm not willing to hook up a fusion reactor to power the thing more than an evening, but I only get about 2 weeks out of the batteries on my current Palm, which is pretty old, while others get over a month on the same batteries. Bringing a new Palm down to two weeks is fine by me.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
This is practically the same thing they said when they announced the switch to ARM processors over 7 months ago!
Gotta get this in before others do ... Obligatory line: Can you imagine a beowulf cluster ...
m.mmm..myyy
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.
Anybody want a peanut?
Shogakukan's 'Ranma' processor. If you douse it in cold water, it transforms into an 'ARM', but if you pour hot water over it, it changes back into a 'Dragonball'.
"Oh sirs, very tragic story of microprocessor that drown in spring one thousand, two hundred year ago!"
Okay, enough with the stupid anime jokes already.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I can think of two reasons I'd like a palm to be faster. First, I would like speech recognition. I'd like this so that I can more easily enter long notes (grafity is a pain for more than a sentence or two) and so that I can enter notes while driving.
Second, text to speech would be nice (again for useage while driving).
Third (and this doesn't look like it's going to happen real soon), I'd like Palm to ad least double and preferable quadruple the screen resolution (from 160x160 to 320x320 or even 640x640). They don't need to make the screen larger, just higher res. True gray scale (instead of the faked grey scale that results from flickering pixel quickly) would also be really nice.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
True. But the OS doesn't yet support the higher resolutions. We need OS 5 for that I believe.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
It is called not rereading my opening paragraph after adding a third point. I must remeber to say there are "SEVERAL" things, not 2 or 3, or whatever things.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
It essentially replaces my organizer, which was, as far as I can tell, it's intended purpose.
Why does it need to get faster. More memory I understand, color and backlighting and better batteries also, but are people really feeling the lag when looking up phone numbers or appointments?
How about making the things cheaper? I don't want a palm to replace a computer... if I did, I'd buy an iPaq (and put linux on it). I want it to take care of scheduling, take notes and remember phone numbers.
...oh, and I guess a few simple games never hurt anybody.
What I want to know is, why does my palm really need to be faster?
From the August issue of MaximumPC:
A sequal to the DragonBall VZ, the Super VZ doubles clockspeed to 66MHz and adds on chip support for USB 2.0, on-chip SRAM cache , DMA memory transfers, and a frame buffer to speed up video. Its 0.18-micron shrink (down from 0.25-micron) should offer a two-to four-fold increase in speed and drink less power compared to the fastest Palm procs available today. The Super VZ will debut alongside the DragonBall MX1, which will be based on ARM technology and run at 200MHz.
The Apple Newtons used an ARM processor. Now, it occurs to me that Apple still has all the old NewtonOS software lying around somewhere (probably in Setve Jobs' glove compartment). If Palm switches to an ARM platform, I say let them do the engineering to port the PalmOS to these chips, then licesnse said technology, and release a Palm/Newton hybrid. Of course, I'm just an armchair tech CEO, so WTF do I know?
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I recently read that ARM is working on a JVM that executes the most common bytecodes in hardware. Could this mean a smaller, faster JVM for PalmOS? I've held off developing Java apps for the Palm because of the current platform's limitations.
Why don't they use Transmeta chips?
Ever wonder why the ARM is faster than a similarly priced Dragonball? It might have something to do with the fact that there are dozens of manufacturers that license the ARM core and build chips around it, and only one that makes the proprietary Dragonball.
This is another excellent example of open platforms beating closed ones.
Invisible Agent
Invisible Agent
This post is a mirror; when a monkey stares in, no hacker gazes out.
I'd like to see a Cursue in a palm :p
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
I own a PalmIIIx (black&white display). I'm very happy with it.
I would replace it for a better palm if the new version would be:
thinner
lighter
with better battery life
can do simple wireless operation (with my cell phone for example)
cheaper
What I don't need it to have:
color display
3D surround sound playing MP3s
T1-speed internet connection
voice recognition (not with the current frustrating technology)
voice recorder
word processor/spreadsheet/presentation manager or other office related software (which I can use at the office).
I want an easy to use organizer that will make my life easier.
-Omer
Hmm those nice tight slim programs that seem to be the trend with palm, would run freaking fast, when compared to ce apps, which have to contend with with old embedded NT.
If the new programs will be as slim, I can just see running even more powerful games. UT anyone. Well I can hope
Remember, when you are downloading MP3's, you are downloading communism!!!
badness 10000
Who cares if it runs Linux. I'm not programming on my PDA.
:)
I think the point is not programming ON your PDA, but programming FOR your PDA in the environment we all know and love.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
Oh great! Now how is Goku going to buy gohan for Gohan?
Those heartless bastards.
"The general contract of the method run is that it may take any action whatsoever." -- Java 2 API
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster ...
Yeah, but you'd better get those IR ports lined up just right...
Sorry, I couldn't resist...