Details Of Palm OS 6 - 'Cobalt'

Splezunk writes "Looks like Palm has finally released some details on Palm OS 6 a k a 'Cobalt'. Palminfocenter has more on it, and I have just noticed that there are now screenshots. Highlights are a 32,000x32,000 screen support, BeOS like multitasking and threading. Currently 256MB memory, but this will be upgraded in time."

Comments

I'm glad there are....

[callipygian-showsyst]

I'm sure glad they recently discovered three more elements! Now Palm can make three more versions of their OS.

Re:I'm glad there are....

[adrianbaugh]

Hmm. Element 115 is called ununpentium. Does this mean we're waiting for ununceleron, ununathlon, and finally ununG5, each of which will be heavier, contain more components, require more power (to make) and, just possibly, be more stable?

Phui

[Rick Zeman]

Not Mac compatible (synch wise), I heard.

Re:Phui

[rjelks]

OSNews.com has a story about how Palm dropped the Palm desktop for Apple, but as I understand it, there are better programs for synching on that platform. I don't believe that Palm Desktop has ever been very popular on the Mac.

Re:Phui

[Moofie]

I'm curious. What do people use? I like the idea of Address Book and iCal, but there are still a lot of compatibility warts there.

What do MacOS X users prefer?

Re:Phui

[lpontiac]

I spoke to one of the Palm engineers last night at the conference.

All of the development with regards to Hotsync, the Conduit Dev Kit and Palm Desktop has been happening on the PC only. They haven't ruled out getting it working on the Mac at some point in the future, and it sounds like the engineers want to do it, but there's no timeframe for this to happen.

It's a similar story with their development tools - they have PalmOS 6 (Cobalt) dev stuff happening on the Mac, and apparantly half the engineers at the company with laptops have a Mac, but they're not complete, tested and ready for release like the Windows tools are.

Re:Phui

[Kesh]

Mark/Space is developing Missing Sync for Cobalt in response to this.

Essentially, PalmSource is not going to develop for MacOS anymore, meaning that their new devices will be unsupported. Mark/Space is stepping in to offer their own Hotsync software, which will support PalmOS 4.x, 5.x and Cobalt devices (including Clies and the Zodiac).

This will allow you to sync your device with Apple's iApps, as well as mount your storage card on the desktop, etc. Also, they claim that current conduits will work without change under Missing Sync for Cobalt.

The only real question is whether the hardware manufacturers will include a copy on their installation CDs, or if we will have to pay for it seperately.

Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[EricWright]

What in the world do you need that kind of resolution for a Palm based system? Are they looking at expanding into other types of systems?

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Karamchand]

Think in bytes. Or words at least. You can't always have anything in between.
Think about the colors.. 16.. 256 - there's no such thing as "120 color support".

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[El Pollo Loco]

It's for porn. Horray for microscopicaly small boobies!!!

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[minkeyboodle]

Article: The new graphics system is designed to support screen sizes up to 32,000 by 32,000 pixels!

That doesn't mean the screens themselves will support that resolution (yet). But in the article it is abundantly clear that they're really, REALLY targeting multimedia applications for this OS, and very much want to push PalmOS into the "true modern operating system" realm. So big numbers like 32,000 x 32,000 sound good to people who don't know any better. At least I'm not aware of any technology that can deliver that many pixels in the size of current palm screens.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Frennzy]

I find it amusing that it supports 256MB of RAM.

If it were to find and use a screen with 32kx32k pixels, then 256 color support would max out the available RAM.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Wateshay]

Hmmm... "microscopically small" isn't usually what I'm looking for in porn star breasts.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[stonecypher]

Man, this would be insightful if what you were claiming was a boundary power of two. Unfortunately for you, that's 2^15, not 2^16, and the whole-screen resolution is 2^30, not 2^32.

I think the real issue here is that someone at Palm said "hey, let's not impose stupid limits on the platform for five generations from now" and everyone went "What? i can't count that high. That am be dumm. Let's guess why! It's got to be... uh... about... uh... the *machine*. Yeah."

Of course, the astute notice that 32,000 isn't 32k, that a word isn't nessecarily (soon even frequently) 32 bits, and that colors don't always come nearly packaged in machine-sized powers of two.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[drayzel]

I just figured that 32k x 32k would be the maximum resolution in the noncolor modes. As you add color I would assume the maximum screen dimension would shrink as the color depth increased. So maybe with 32bit color the max screen size would be 800x600 or something?

I'm sure there are some math genius out there that can do the math for me... that reminds me I need to go study for a math test :(

~Z

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. Next you'll be saying 1 km = 1024 m.

If you computer scientists want to make a new unit prefix system, go right ahead. But please don't pollute the namespace.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Shanep]

Of course, the astute notice that 32,000 isn't 32k, that a word isn't nessecarily (soon even frequently) 32 bits, and that colors don't always come nearly packaged in machine-sized powers of two.

; ) I wonder if thier marketing department will decide that specifying a maximum screen resolution of a gigapixel sounds better than 32k x 32k. And I also wonder if it really is 32,768 x 32,768, but it got rounded down so as not to confuse anyone.

Is the screen frame buffer using main memory and thus within the main memory addressable range? Perhaps this is merely hyped up marketing speak for "1GB addressable memory"?

1 gigapixels on a screen measuring 2-3 inches across just seems absurd, no matter how far in the future we look. Do we need pixels that are 15 thousandths of an inch square? Unless of course this screen is "looked through" and appears ahead of us as a heads-up display. In which case, that would be awesome!

PS, I realise that Palm may merely be future proofing thier products OS. But even if they decided to build a notebook size "Palm" device, by the time 32k x 32k displays are around, I think a new Palm OS will be around.

BTW, a screen of that resolution, with 16bit colour depth refreshing at 60Hz, will require updating (frame buffer to screen) at 120 Gigabytes per second! But if you had such an awesome display, you probably would want no less than 24 bit colour, refreshing at 75Hz, which would require 225 Gigabytes per second. ; )

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[stonecypher]

Mmm. You're right to say that. I actually tend to agree that making a new unit prefix system, which was done 35 years ago, is the right thing to do. However, nobody knows what a kibibyte is.

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[stonecypher]

Is the screen frame buffer using main memory and thus within the main memory addressable range? Perhaps this is merely hyped up marketing speak for "1GB addressable memory"?


Especially given that elsewhere in the article they quote the addressable memory range at one quarter that, I'm inclined to suggest that unlikely. All palm did was say "let's give them a huge potential screen aperture so they can do weird stuff. 15 bits sounds good, hurf hurf, let's go."

It's no more complex than that. Stop speculating on how absurd the maximum resultant screen could maybe someday be.

Besides, BillG once thought that having over a half million positions in RAM for a home computer would be useless. Palm's setting the same sort of "we'll fix it ten years down the road" limit here. Gigapixel screens won't seem absurd at all in ten years, when our reaction will be "of course it's a gigapixel, it's got to look at least as good as print."

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[twalk]

Oh brother...

1 byte == 8 bits == 256
2 bytes == 16 bits == 65536

There are already 320x320 and greater screens, so we'll need 2 bytes for storage for each dimension.

32K == 2^15 == a signed 16 bit value (2 bytes).

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Shanep]

Especially given that elsewhere in the article they quote the addressable memory range at one quarter that

No they do not...

With support for up to 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM

That specifically refers only to RAM and ROM, which adds up to double what you claim. The addressable memory space (which usually includes RAM, ROM and devices) is almost certainly higher. Do you know at this stage whether the frame buffer shares main memory or not?

All palm did was say "let's give them a huge potential screen aperture so they can do weird stuff. 15 bits sounds good, hurf hurf, let's go."

You speak with such authority!

It's no more complex than that.

Back it up then.

Stop speculating on how absurd the maximum resultant screen could maybe someday be.

A gigapixel on a 3 inch screen will ALWAYS BE ABSURD unless it is to be projected. Gigapixel displays are not on the horizon yet. What's more, what good is an OS capable of addressing a 2 Gbyte display (as an example, 32,768x32,768x16bit) when it can only address 256Mbytes of RAM!

Besides, BillG once thought that having over a half million positions in RAM for a home computer would be useless. Palm's setting the same sort of "we'll fix it ten years down the road" limit here.

Garbage. Combining gigapixel display ability with 256MB main memory limit IS NOT FUTURE PROOFING!

Gigapixel screens won't seem absurd at all in ten years, when our reaction will be "of course it's a gigapixel, it's got to look at least as good as print."

I did not say they would. I said, gigapixel 3 inch displays (implying those to be viewed with the naked eye without projection) are absurd.

BTW, in 10 years, will you be using Palm OS 6?

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[stonecypher]

Especially given that elsewhere in the article they quote the addressable memory range at one quarter that

No they do not...

With support for up to 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM

That specifically refers only to RAM and ROM, which adds up to double what you claim.

Ah, yes, I forgot how useful ROM was for storing video memory, especially with its high speed write capabilities. So clearly I was a fool not to include ROM in mention of how much Video RAM was available. Silly me.

All palm did was say "let's give them a huge potential screen aperture so they can do weird stuff. 15 bits sounds good, hurf hurf, let's go."

You speak with such authority!

Tu quoque, I see. Occam's razor. Got a better explanation?

It's no more complex than that.

Back it up then.

Rephrased for demonstration purposes: "There's nothing more to say." "Tell us more."

Stop speculating on how absurd the maximum resultant screen could maybe someday be.

A gigapixel on a 3 inch screen will ALWAYS BE ABSURD unless it is to be projected.

No, it isn't. That's about 10,000 dpi, or roughly eight and a half times the linear resolution of a $30 inkjet printer. Most of the prototype digital ink projects are 1600-2000 dpi already. That sort of resolution has a big impact on the quality of deep color images and on text. That sort of resolution would have a tremendous impact on zoomed documents, which on a very small screen like a PDA is often a critical issue.

What's more, what good is an OS capable of addressing a 2 Gbyte display (as an example, 32,768x32,768x16bit) when it can only address 256Mbytes of RAM!

That's exactly what I just told you, and you tried to tell me I had to count the rom and that I was off by a factor of two. Now, you're informing me? Are you drunk, or do you post a bit at a time over the course of a day?

Garbage. Combining gigapixel display ability with 256MB main memory limit IS NOT FUTURE PROOFING!

Apparently nobody's informed you that not all screens are square, and that especially in industry dramatically lopsided aspect ratio screens are moderately common. Or maybe you're just too dense to realize that there's no good reason to make it any smaller. I do find it amusing, though, that my suggestion that this was a failure to handle future proofing in an appropriate fashion was met with "this is not future proofing." I wonder if you're also the type which believes that if you just set the bar high by today's manufacturing cost standards that nobody six years down the road will find a way and then a reason.

I did not say they would. I said, gigapixel 3 inch displays (implying those to be viewed with the naked eye without projection) are absurd.

It's quite annoying when someone takes a statement you make and tries to suggest that it's worthless because it's tangent to something they earlier said and therefore isn't germane. I wasn't rebutting you. You carried little content. I was bringing up a new issue. I don't give a damn what you said. Gigapixel screens won't seem absurd at all in ten years, when our reaction will be "of course it's a gigapixel, it's got to look at least as good as print."

It's funny how now you're suggesting that I should have taken into account what you didn't say about projection. I don't need to; I was simply not presuming to know what sorts of screens PDAs will use in ten years. I don't believe in projection; it needs a flat white surface (those fog screens may prove me wrong, but I wouldn't want my screen reservoir to run dry.) Maybe it'll be a foldable OLED screen. Maybe it'll be holographic. Maybe it'll be in our eyewear. Maybe it'll be traditional.

The point is, you're making the hasty assumption that in ten years, Palm devices will be limited to a three inch screen. Don't do that. They're only limited to that right now b

Re:Isn't 32k x 32k overkill?

[Shanep]

Ah, yes, I forgot how useful ROM was for storing video memory, especially with its high speed write capabilities. So clearly I was a fool not to include ROM in mention of how much Video RAM was available. Silly me.

RAM, ROM and devices normally are within the addressable memory range.

Tu quoque, I see. Occam's razor. Got a better explanation?

You judge me to be speculating and yet you make comments like this...

All palm did was say "let's give them a huge potential screen aperture so they can do weird stuff. 15 bits sounds good, hurf hurf, let's go."

That's about 10,000 dpi,

I have heard claims that the healthy young human eye can perceive resolution up to 1000dpi (typically about 600dpi). Having 10,000 dots per inch is going beyond the human limits, which would be a marketing tool to sell more product to people who don't know better.

We are afterall, talking abouts dots per inch. I mentioned projection (previously AND originally) because it reduces the dpi dramatically (from the display substrate to the area where the image is formed).

or roughly eight and a half times the linear resolution of a $30 inkjet printer.

The dpi that common inkjet manufacturers refer to, is NOT the dpi you and I refer to (actual pixels). It refers to the very many dither dots which make up a real pixel. Without specifying the real dpi, their values for "dpi" are largely meaningless because one does not normally know how many of their "dither dots" makes up one real dot.

That sort of resolution would have a tremendous impact on zoomed documents, which on a very small screen like a PDA is often a critical issue.

More than 1000 dpi is a waste of bandwidth, memory and computing time. 10,000 dpi IS absurd on a display technology which is not projected (the act of projecting, decreases the dpi of the viewed image).

2 Gbyte display vs 256Mbytes of RAM.

That's exactly what I just told you

Yes, that's right, which means that my guess that the frame buffer might share main memory would probably be wrong. But it also means that the OS can address more than 1Gbyte memory (32k x 32k x 256 colour) for the frame buffer, which seems strange that it can only address 256Mbyte RAM for main memory. This is seperate from addressable memory though, which the frame buffer should fall within.

and you tried to tell me I had to count the rom and that I was off by a factor of two.

The display, RAM, ROM and other devices are usually seperate areas which typically fall within the addressable memory range. You do have to count ROM as addressable memory, but certainly not as display memory.

Apparently nobody's informed you that not all screens are square, and that especially in industry dramatically lopsided aspect ratio screens are moderately common.

I never said all screens are square. I'm using squares as the example because it is the most simple to do and relate to, you don't want me to provide examples of every possible resolution do you?

Or maybe you're just too dense to realize that there's no good reason to make it any smaller.

You've read beyond what I wrote and yet not noticed what I did write.

I do find it amusing, though, that my suggestion that this was a failure to handle future proofing in an appropriate fashion was met with "this is not future proofing."

You don't have to take every point in a discussion, as a counter point. You said it yourself.

I wonder if you're also the type which believes that if you just set the bar high by today's manufacturing cost standards that nobody six years down the road will find a way and then a reason.

I've worked in Computer Engineering since 1989 and Computer Science since 1994. I most certainly do not adhere to what you describe.

About damn time!

[luigi22_]

I've wanted multitasking since I got my palm! Pocket PC users get it, why can't we? One less thing for the PPC crowd to brag about!

</TROLL>

Re:About damn time!

[Acrimonious Coward]

Palm OS already is already multitasking and has been this way since the first Palm OS. The original OS was built upon the AMX embedded kernel, which has preemptive multithreading, however the more recent Palm OS's are based on Palm's own multitasking kernel. The real problem is that the user events are only handled in the "UI Thread" so all GUI driven applications must run in that single thread.

32,000x32,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, that's a pretty high resolution for such a tiny screen.

Re:32,000x32,000?

[NanoGator]

"Man, that's a pretty high resolution for such a tiny screen."

That's a pretty high resolution for a sheet of paper.

Or are they just forward thinking? I wouldn't be totally insane if I predicted that display resolution will take a radical turn much in the same way that RAM and HD storage did in the not too distant future. I think we're all looking forward to 1200 dpi monitors. Microsoft's already pushing in that direction. Longhorn's UI is vector based with the idea that you can scale it up to really high resolutions and still maintain the same proportions. The image just gets clearer, as opposed to getting smaller. It has even been reported that MS is working with an LCD manufacturer (I want to say Viewsonic, but I'll just have to come forward and say I don't remember too clearly which company was mentioned) to develop displays that ran up to at least 5,000 pixels wide. That's almost 300 dpi on a 19" monitor. Crank that up to 1200 dpi and you almost arrive at that 32k number.

Does it still seem excessive on a Palm sized display? Sure. Given how the numbers work in the computing world, the next digit down was probably a little too close to what is practical in the next 2-3 years. Better to be safe?

Re:32,000x32,000?

[craXORjack]

Can that be a misprint? If we assume that in this mode we would have at least 4 shades of gray for colordepth, then the memory needed just to hold the state of the currently display screen is: 32000x32000x2 bits or 256MB which is given as the maximum amount of ram in the thing. On the other hand, maybe what that really means is that they will be able to multipurpose RAM as video RAM the way the macintoshes did and no shortsighted barriers like 640k on a PC.

Re:32,000x32,000?

[Sparky77]

Specifically, the article says "The new graphics system is designed to support screen sizes up to 32,000 by 32,000 pixels!" (emphasis added).
All they are saying is that the software is less limited in what resolutions are supported, not that they expect the device to actually have a screen that size.

Re:32,000x32,000?

[mrseigen]

Even if they don't use it, it sure looks good on a spec sheet, right? :)

Re:32,000x32,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, the image gets clearer, but still wastes the same amount of screen real estate. What an improvement!

Seriously, can XP's bars and buttons get any bigger? I think what everyone would love to do is shrink those god-awful things down to reasonable sizes and be done with it. Instead MS is pushing forward to make them a fixed-size reference point from now until the end of time, because Not Invented Here is their mantra.

Re:32,000x32,000?

[NanoGator]

"Cool, the image gets clearer, but still wastes the same amount of screen real estate. What an improvement!"

Trying a little too hard to bash MS are we?

Screen resolution?

[PatrickThomson]

Highlights are a 32,000x32,000 screen support

So when will I be seeing gigapixel screens in other devices?

Re:Screen resolution?

[gringo_john]

Great! But I only have 1600x1200 on my puny desktop.

I want to know if...

[lxt]

...existing Tungstens will be able to upgrade. Probably not, but they've done it before with OS 5...here's hoping.

Re:I want to know if...

[queen of everything]

PalmSource also announced Palm OS Garnet, an enhanced version of the popular Palm OS 5, designed to accelerate the development of Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones.

I think that's what you can get for that...Its a good reason to upgrade your hardware!

Hmm...

[JoeLinux]

Honest question: Is there any design that you can think of that doesn't result in a bulky cell phone/palm, or an impossibly small screen, with no stylus? I'd love to use this. But I don't want to feel like I have a mini-computer as a phone.

Joe

Re:Hmm...

[rjelks]

I'm still waiting for a pda with a small harddrive, like the ipod. I know that it would use more power, be slower, larger...but it would still be cool. Maybe apple will make a video/pda ipod soon.

-

Re:Hmm...

[tachyonflow]

It can be done. I really like the size and feel of this Samsung i500 PalmOS phone.

Yea! 32,000 x 32,000 pixel resolution!

[stephenb]

Finally, I can use my uber wall of flat panels monitors with my PDA!

Re:Yea! 32,000 x 32,000 pixel resolution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with a max of 256 MB RAM. A single screen image for a 256-color 32,000x32,000 display would take over 900 MB by itself.

Re:Yea! 32,000 x 32,000 pixel resolution!

[PMuse]

OK, I'll byte. Why in the name of George Seurat's greyscale ghost define a screen area with this many pixels for handheld devices?

Re:Yea! 32,000 x 32,000 pixel resolution!

[Anonymous Coward]

The only possible explanation i can think of is some kind of scrolling virtual screen (yuck), although I wonder, if this is indeed the case, if they've actually tried using a scrolling virtual screen for any length of time. It sucks.

yeah, yeah, 255 in da howse

[Anonymous Coward]

Palm OS Address Book and Date Book are redesigned to support up to 255 fields, providing better interoperability with Microsoft Outlook.

Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[Dashing Leech]

When I clicked the link I got a message saying "Welcome Slashdot visitor, you have been redirected to a lite version ..." and so on, and this was before there were any comments on the article. Looks like they were heading off getting slashdotted beforehand.

Oh, and I also didn't see any screenshots anywhere. Could someone direct me to them.

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[samsmithnz]

Now they will be slashdotted twice as bad, once for the first article, and then the 2nd time when people go to read the user comments.

:p

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[momerath2003]

Just copy/paste the URL so it doesn't have the REFERER as slashdot.org.

And even on the full site, there are no pictures.

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[SparafucileMan]

They could just be having their server redirect any GET requests (or some subset of all possible GET requests, like all their articles) to a lower-bandwidth version by checking if HTTP_REFER="slashdot".

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[bobthemuse]

They're doing this by checking the referer, go direct to the link in a new window and you can get the original version. Sorry PalmInfoCenter!

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[wash23]

They could just have a script that checks referrals and puts up graphics-free text of their articles.

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=65 42

Was at the bottom of the article, link was titled First Palm OS 6 Cobalt Screen Shots

Re:Welcome Slashdot Visitor?

[mph]

Just copy/paste the URL

No, don't do that! You're supposed to re-type URLs.

256MB memory

[LookSharp]

With support for up to 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM...

I suppose this is a lot for a Palm, but what's the imitation? Address space/overhead? Nowadays you can fit a gig into an area that the first Palms fit 512K into, so size isn't an issue... voltage/battery life might be a consideration, but probably not a showstopper.

Eh, I suppose the design of the Palm is really not meant to handle things requiring that much memory. But guys at work are cramming 512meg memory cards on their iPaqs and watching movies; does the 256MB limitation in the OS mean that "external memory" cannot exceed that amount as well?

Re:256MB memory

[milgr]

does the 256MB limitation in the OS mean that "external memory" cannot exceed that amount as well?

Currently PalmOs 5 devices can handle 1G or more memory. I would expect that Colbolt devices would handle GB of static external memory.

Re:256MB memory

[Splezunk]

Most palm devices have External memory slot. My Treo has a SD card with 512M on it, and has no problem using it. Most applications I have run of the SD card.

I have seen people cram a DVD (reformated into the screen dimensions) on an SD Card. Works great. I have my MP3's on there too. Not bad for a phone!

Re:256MB memory

[dulinor]

This is true - PalmSource has confirmed that the 256 MB limit is for internal RAM. External sources - CF, SD, memory stick, etc. are supported at least up to current capacities (1 GB or so)

The "Chief Competitive Officer" posted to Palminfocenter on this:

RE: Limited vision Michael Mace @ 2/10/2004 12:39:57 PM

We can go higher than 256 megs in future editions of Palm OS Cobalt. And keep in mind that you can go to gigs of storage on a memory card.

As for the naming, numbers were a problem because in the PC world a higher number means the lower number is obsolete (Windows 98 immediately replaces Windows 95). Palm OS Garnet is just fine for many users and will persist a long time, so licensees asked us to move away from numbers.

I have worked on a lot of naming over the years, and the one sure thing is that you can never please everyone. It is very hard to find names that pass trademark muster and also do not mean something inappropriate in some country. We settled on minerals because they are an ingredient in many things. That seemed appropriate for software designed as an element in many great products.

Mike
CCO, PalmSource
On a Treo at the conference

Re:256MB memory

[civilizedINTENSITY]

This was addressed by the CEO in the comments below the article. The limitations aren't in the OS, and those numbers refer to onboard chips. You can always pop in external memory cards. Thats not a problem.

Re:256MB memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at the PalmSource conference right now, and they explained the 256MB limitation yesterday. Here's the story: the OS is quite capable of handling more than 256MB. Since the OS is licensed by all the hardware makers, and since none of them are actually building hardware with more than 256MB of RAM, the limitation is in there for now. But as soon as one of the licensees tells PalmSource they are building a machine with more than 256MB of RAM, the limitation will go away.

So, in practice, there is no such limitation. It's just something they've done temporarily until there are actually devices that can have more than 256MB of RAM. When those devices come along, the limitation will be removed. (Why do they have it at all? Well, Palm OS 6 requires an MMU, so it may be that such a limitation makes the MMU run a little more efficiently or waste less RAM for tables it uses to manage things. But that's just a guess.)

Also, you'll be glad to know, memory in OS 5.x and earlier is not managed all that well. There is a fixed dividing line between dynamic heap memory (which is used like you'd think of RAM normally) and storage heap (which is the Palm substitute for disk space). For example, on a device with 64MB of RAM, right now you have 10 MB or so allocated to dynamic heap, and most of the rest is storage heap for your databases. And there is no way of changing this. But, in Palm OS 6 (which is now called Cobalt, by the way), the fixed barrier is gone, and you can use all of or none of the memory for either purpose. So the point is you can make better use of the memory you do have.

By the way, external memory, such as SD Cards and (on Sony devices) MemoryStick, is not subject to this limitation and never has been.

Re:256MB memory

[sharkey]

I suppose this is a lot for a Palm, but what's the imitation?

It's imitating a PC, perhaps?

OS X / Mac hotsync....

[johnpaul191]

the info on that is vague.... it's possible Apple will make it work straight through with iSync. Hopefully they will, and add some way to upload Palm OS apps? Maybe Palm desktop is not worth them working on when iCal and Addressbook are on every Mac now running OS X (unless the user deletes them).

Re:OS X / Mac hotsync....

[momerath2003]

Actually, the only way that iSync works with palms is if you have Palm software installed. When you install it, it installs Palm Desktop (the PIM software), the HotSync application, support libraries, and conduits.

The iSync for Palm basically removes the Palm Desktop conduits and adds a conduit to sync with iSync.

In order to use iSync with the Sony Clie, one of which I have, you must have Palm Desktop, Missing Sync for Clie, iCal, and the iSync for Palm installed.

Missing Sync provides the Palm HotSync communication, iSync for Palm provides HotSync iCal/Address Book.

iSync alone won't touch Palms, so it is highly unlikely that Apple will be able to bypass Palm Desktop/Hotsync completely.

Re:OS X / Mac hotsync....

[JWW]

You know the sad part is, its not much easier for Palms (or Pocket PCs even!) connected to windows. Depending on your email client and other software on your PC the setup gets just as convoluted as you have mentioned.

Re:OS X / Mac hotsync....

[gaelicwizard]

Unless you use ALL default clients... i.e. M$ IE and OE with all their locks and limits... :-)

Hmmm...

[dustmote]

I know these are pretty ubiquitous among business users and those who can afford them, but are they really that useful to the terminally broke? What functionality does a PDA offer that makes it worth the price tag to someone who is making something in the neighborhood of 20k a year? I'd love to play with one, but I just don't know what I'd do with it, apart from hold my phone numbers. My cell already does that. Anyone?

Re:Hmmm...

[AKnightCowboy]

I'd love to play with one, but I just don't know what I'd do with it, apart from hold my phone numbers. My cell already does that. Anyone?

Well then they're really not targetted at you. If you only make $20k/year then blowing $400 on a PDA isn't that great of a decision. These are for people that need the newest and greatest gadgets and have gads of disposable income. If you don't fit in there then stick with a paper day planner from a dollar store. I've still got a Palm M505 and hardly ever use it. Once in awhile I play Tetris on it or jot a phone number down, but I could've just bought a Game Boy and used a piece of scrap paper for the phone number (or programmed it in my cell phone like you said). I honestly don't know what people see in PDAs.. I'd prefer having a subnotebook like the old Toshiba Libretto that I can type fast on to take notes in class or something.

Re:Hmmm...

[vondo]

Well, a monochrome Palm can be had for $80 and a color Clie for about $150, so I don't know if that's something you'd want to afford.

The first thing a paper organizer can never do is beep to tell you were to go. Also, with Palms there is an amazing amount of software out there (www.palmgear.com) which will do all kinds of stuff. My two favorites are a great shopping list program (HandyShop) and a program to keep track of all my business travel (TravelTracker).

You'd likely find other things that were very useful.

Re:Hmmm...

[cnkeller]

What functionality does a PDA offer that makes it worth the price tag to someone who is making something in the neighborhood of 20k a year?

Money is relative I guess, but I use either a Palm or iPaq for my keeping track of my gym workouts. Yes, it's a little geeky, but I find that it works far better than paper for estimating goals and graphing history of bodyfat, weight lifted, reps, etc. They also make great places to hold grocery lists and generic shopping lists around holidays and birthdays.

Yeah, I know paper works wonderfully for that. But lets face it, for 99% of the world (me included) they are toys that you buy with disposable income. At 20K, you don't have any discretionary income if you live in first world....

Re:Hmmm...

[dustmote]

Well, yeah, I know they're not really targeted at my demographic. I could probably pick up an older model for very cheap, and have considered it in the past, but I don't see any difference in this and a good day planner except for battery failure and far more space in which to hold your organizational information. I'm looking for the "killer app" that justifies me shelling out 60-100 bucks for one. I probably won't get a PDA, killer app or no, but I'm curious to see if there is one.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be able to write down random thoughts, play minesweeper, schedule things for school/work etc... And you could h4x0r lunix onto it!

Re:Hmmm...

[dustmote]

More than you might think. I own my car outright, split rent three ways with roommates, am single and childless, and have only 100 dollars of outstanding debt. My expenses I estimate at around 430 a month, leaving me with a pretty hefty surplus for someone in their mid-twenties. I have the chance at some luxuries, as long as I do my own cooking instead of eating at restaurants, like most people my age, and don't spend all my money on alcohol, which I don't particularly enjoy and costs a fortune. Still, not the same folding cash Bill Gates carries around, I admit.

Re:Hmmm...

[JWW]

I think wireless changes everything. I have a tungsten C and the wireless is really cool, it changes the whole device.

Just the other day I did some troubleshooting on a network printer while standing in front of it with my PDA. I know, very geeky, but still cool.

Now the total dream application for this would be to be able to stream content from my Myth system at home over a wireless network to the PDA. I think thats still out of reach of the tungsten C, but if you squint hard enough its not hard to envision in a future PDA.

Re:Hmmm...

[iSwitched]

I love this question, and I'm hoping you get lots of opinion, and not modded 'offtopic'.

Here's my $0.02

For the average person, and even average geek, there is absolutely nothing to see here. I carried a PDA for years (Palms of gradually increasing fanciness). At first I would whip it out at the drop of a hat, take notes on it, etc. Kept all my calendars, addresses, the usual, even had some cool games, like a version of Galaxian with real authentic sound.

Over time - it started running out of charge more and more frequently, as i started ignoring it more and more. It was rare that I ever need to look up someones full address, and my phone has all the numbers. My calendar wasn't that busy, so I hardly ever referred to it.

I gave it to a friend - I simply didn't need another gadget weighing me down. Nowadays, I carry a good laptop in a nice backpack. The thing has decent battery life and wakes from sleep reliably, so if I really need to look something up I just open the lid. Not as convenient as the handheld, but quite a bit more powerful.

If you don't travel extensively, and work in a field where you're gonna carry a laptop and a backpack anyway (sounds like virtually every programmer I know), save the dough until you can afford a nice portable, something under 6 pounds or so, and just use it.

This works for me, as usual, your results may differ.

Re:Hmmm...

[bitflip]

For me, it's come down to how busy I am. When I'm doing the same ole thang, it collects dust. I don't need to be reminded to go to work in the morning.

But when my schedule is fairly tight (travel, for instance, or a new project), it is invaluable. I'm lost without it at those times: I not only forget what it is I'm supposed to do next, I forget to get the stuff I need to do it.

I could say the same of scheduling software, in general. If life is simple enough that you don't need to "schedule" things, then a PDA won't change anything. If it is, then not having to move stuff from the computer to a notepad is a big gain.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why dont you get off of welfare and make something of yourself, pantload?

Re:Hmmm...

[The Ape With No Name]

My two favorites are a great shopping list program (HandyShop) and a program to keep track of all my business travel (TravelTracker).

My two favorites are PieceOfStringAroundFinger and AlwaysHaveMyBearings.

Re:Hmmm...

[Saint Stephen]

I keep my todo/dates, todo/tasks, books/want, misc lists in a plaintext ascii file. I print it with a2ps -2. When I need to update it, I use a pen and update the file back at the PC (roughly same time as a sync). It costs me 11 cents per day (although I stopped printing it every day).

Moms, salesmen, and factory floor workers need PDAs. All I really need is a bit of a thing with a bit of memory and a bit of a screen, read-only, about $20, and syncs with Linux.

Re:Hmmm...

[Jestrzcap]

Speaking of cells, i've been drooling over the Treo 600[http://www.handspring.com/products/communicato rs/treo600_overview.jhtml]. It has got just damn near everything I _want_ (the emphasis on want as I dont _need_ a pda by anyones stretch of anyones imagination) in a pda, and its a cell phone which means that regardless of how much i use it I will still carry it with me and it will get used (as a phone). I figure I can grap a nice bit SD memory card and use it as an mp3 player as well. Now _THATS_ a useful device (great battery life too).

Re:Hmmm...

[martyn s]

Yeah I mean, I know this argument has been used against every piece of technology that makes thinking easier, all of which we've fully accepted, but do I really want my only sense of where I should be and what I should be doing to come from my palm pilot?

Re:Hmmm...

[homer_ca]

The older Palms aren't powerful enough for multimedia, but they're surprisingly useful if you happen to find the right apps. Things like Pocket Quicken to organize your finances, IP subnet calculators, offline web browsers like Avantgo and Plucker (I prefer Plucker myself, it's Free and Avantgo needs registration). You can read ebooks too, but the 160x160 screen is hard on the eyes. The PocketPCs and newer Palms have at least a 320x240 screen. Of course ebooks can mean a lot of different things, like novels to read on a long plane ride, reference books, or Linux HOWTOs. $50 to $80 for one of these is still a non-trivial amount for a starving student, but it's in the realm of affordability.

Re:Hmmm...

[The Limp Devil]

I replaced my Palm with my cell phone. Syncing address book and calendar through Bluetooth is effortless, and the phone is half the size and weight of the Palm... and I always bring the phone anyway.

The only advantage the Palm retains for me is that I can't use my phone as a PDA without turning it on - and that is not always appropriate (in class or at meetings etc.)

re: hmmm...

[ed.han]

funny you should mention the treo 600; i work for a korean-based company and want to check my e-mail remotely, but me and the 2 other users need support for display of korean fonts and korean input. i'm aware that there's stuff to display korean, but am unclear on whether there's a method to take a natively english device and make it also output korean.

i would have gone w/ a blackberry but was told the blackberry doesn't support non-roman alphabets.

does anybody have any ideas?

Re:Hmmm...

[jubei]

Mostly, if you can imagine why you use a desktop computer instead of paper, a lot of the same benefits apply.

You can backup your notes. You can easily send them to others (my wife beams shopping lists to me all the time). You can store lots of data in a compact form (recipes, novels, addresses, maps, etc).

There is also the multimedia and interaction stuff. I used to have a pocket pc. It had voice recording capabilities. I found it handy to use for dictating a little note to myself while driving.

A pda can beep to remind you of appointments.

Some can play MP3's (not big ones, usually, but perhaps your favorite NPR program you recorded to MP3).

Games, if you are into that.

Realistically, I don't use my pda a lot, since I am always around computers. However, if you are on a bus or a plane or waiting to meet someone, a pda can usually do a lot of what you would want from a computer.

Re:Hmmm...

[luisdom]

My calendar wasn't that busy...
Well, a busy calendar is about the main point of having an organizer, isn't it?
For the average person it may or may not be the case, but saying that there is nothing to see here because you don't need the PDA for its main purpose...

Re:Hmmm...

[luisdom]

You can buy a Tungsten E for $200, which is not that expensive. With a 256Mb SD card you can play some mp3, or even a 320x320 version of a movie. Some PDAs can connect to a GPS and use navigation software, I've seen packs below $500.
It, as allways, depends on how much are you willing to spend...

Re:Hmmm...

[lpret]

As much as I wanted to mod you down, here's my response instead:

The beautiful thing about PDAs are their flexibility. I'm a college student and I use one, my father is a systems administrator and uses one, and my mother is in human resources and uses one. My mom has a Zire71 and uses it for keeping her meetings planned out, all of contacts for people in her office (as well as the many family and family friends), and she keeps her recipes on a mobile database.

My Dad uses his (Toshiba e755) to do remote network administration and to give presentations in meetings (yes, full-blown powerpoint presentations) among the reasons my mother uses hers.

I use mine (Sony NZ-90) to take notes in class, take pictures (2 megapixel camera built-in), email/browsing with wifi, mp3 player for walking to/from class, and keep track of my diabetes, among the other things my mom and dad both use it for.

It's all up to you what you want to do with it. I have art friends who use it to quickly sketch ideas, finance majors who keep track of every expense on there, and my sister who's a nurse and keeps her drug dictionary on there. Get a cheap Zire, see if you use it at all, and go from there. It's not for everyone, but for those of us who use them, it becomes incredibly important.

Re:Hmmm...

[Gruuk]

I use it to write down whatever tasks I accomplish at work, I use it at the gym to write down weights/reps, I also take notes whenever I want to remember something (like an address, a list of hotel rates, etc), I keep my resume on it as well (I have beamed my resume to a potential employer once; note that I didn't plan to apply at that place, I was merely visiting a friend); of course, its phonebook is also useful (and can hold a lot of info and games are nice, but what really makes this old Palm IIIx useful to me is that it can hold about a dozen novels, so I can read during one of the many trips (bus, plane, train) I make each year. With sites like Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library, I always have books to read and carrying them around is a breeze.

Re:Hmmm...

[MightyDrake]

It's one of those things that grows on you.

When I first got my Palm 1000 about all I used it for was phone numbers. I put stuff in my To Do list, but rarely actually got any done. And my life was simple enough that I never needed to use the Schedule program.

Over time, I started finding more uses for it. I found a shopping program I liked (currently, Splashshopper.) When I first got it I never felt the need to schedule anything. More recently, I play a couple of different sports, and use Calendarscope (PC side, synchs with Scheduler) to keep track of and print schedules. It's also really useful for reminders of birthday and such with sufficient warning to do something about them. I have a password program, so I have all my passwords and other important info with me at all times. I also have found it's really nice to have a couple of two-player games on there, when waiting at a restaraunt or at a movie. Yahtzee and Backgammon are just about the right length of time. I used to use AvantGo for impromptu reading material.

All of these seem trivial, and none are strictly necessary. But it's surprising how useful they can be. For example, since I always have the thing with me, if I think of a grocery purchase or a computer purchase or an Home Labyrinth purchase, I can quickly jot it down in the appropriate category. And it stays there until I can deal with it. When I go on trips (not often) I copy&paste the itinerary from the email to a memo. When I get to the airport I add the parking lot info to it. Again, not essential, but very convenient.

I'm on my fourth device now. I went through a Palm 5000, Palm III, Visor Prism with Visorphone and just got a Treo 600. But I could justify the cost because I know I'm going to use the thing, and that I'm likely to keep it for at least a few years. For you, one of the entry level devices would be a much better choice. In addition to cost, there's now enough variety that it's impossible to recommend any particular model until you've tried one long enough to figure out which features are important to you.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

well i'm sure my case is rather different than your's, but being a diabetic, i use my PDA for my diabetic journal, and also i have a DB of the cards of common foods so when i am out shopping or eating i know what to advoid with having a big bulky book or laptop with me, also i have wifi so if i am in a ht spot i can get my email and or chat with others in the diabetic support group, also the calendar is nice to have to give reminders to check my blood and take my meds, along with Dr. appointments. Yeah i have a handspring visore before and all i really used it for was gps navigation in my car but after i got used to the SF area i didn't need it anymore. So PDA in my opinion are specialized devices that start off as general use product that the user turn into specialty devices which is what makes them really cool and fun devices to have. When wifi becoems more wide spread and the interface (such as voice recognition) becomes better i think you will see pda's become more a general use device, untill then they are best suited to those that have a special use for them.

Re:Hmmm...

[MissMarvel]

I own a Palm and use it a lot.... telephone directory, address list (a must for xmas cards), calendar, computer inventory at work, and the occasional game to keep me entertained when in a queue. The resident physician staff at the office use theirs to keep track of their procedural experience which must be reported as part of their training. The Palm fits nicely in their breast pocket, is easy to use, and is jolly-on-the-spot when needed.

Of course, I will admit to being forced to use one and that it took a long time to adjust to the non-paper method. Now I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Re:Hmmm...

[tyen]

...but are they really that useful to the terminally broke?

You don't say what you do for a living, but if you are learning how to sell, just a few tools can make you stand heads and shoulders above other salespeople in your field. A PDA is one of those tools. If your raw sales skills are about par, employing these tools with the savviness of a geek will set you apart. The really outstanding salespeople I've met had some things in common. A biggie I've seen is they follow up until they get a sale (then they keep following up to get the next sale), and they stay hyper-organized to do that. They also organize a systematic way of selling and marketing. Keeping track of hundreds, even thousands of sales leads and clients simultaneously is ridiculously easy when you are systematized and computerized.

If you are like most Slashdotters, you'll dismiss sales and marketing work. Before you do however, consider this. High end sales and marketing skills (that is, involving more than phone monkey work, and require domain knowledge of an industry) are the one set of skills that have never been outsourced. Ever. If you learn how to market and sell, and you are a geek in even a modestly-growing area, you will never lack for a job. Hell, you can always create your own job when push comes to shove. Remember, even during the Great Depression, the worst economic calamity the U.S. has experienced to date, there were still want ads in the paper...for sales positions. If you are a rainmaker, doors open. Geeks have natural talents that can be applied to sales and marketing tasks, with tremendous leverage. If you just have to get over the awkward social skills you currently labor under, there are coaches and mentors to help you with that; if it helps you learn how to market and sell, their fees are repaid orders of magnitude over.

So even if you only make USD 20K per annum right now, a PDA is appropriate if you are at the stage where you are applying your sales skills, and need a way to keep track of your contacts. I say this as a geek who eventually learned how to market and sell well enough to do it on my own. Believe me, it was worth it in spades.

Re:Hmmm...

[LS]

Two words:

Portable Porn

Re:Hmmm...

[torpor]

These are for people that need the newest and greatest gadgets and have gads of disposable income.

I dunno about that. I can see, in a few short months, that I won't need to spend $500 on a PC for my aging Mother to use to e-mail me and browse the web ... instead I could spend $300 and give her something small enough for her to take to the front porch so she can read my e-mails while the sun goes down ...

I don't think this is a 'rich persons' toy, at all. PDA's are getting cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper to make ... it won't be very long until you can buy them from vending machines in the streets of Tokyo, if you can't already ...

Re:Hmmm...

[Hylander]

Well, (and this might sound dumb but it's absolutely true) my memory sucks. I mean really sucks. Someone asks me to do something, or anything really, and it's straight out of my memory instantly.

If it wasn't for my palm I'd just be constantly pissing people off. Especially my wife ;)

Re:Hmmm...

[dustmote]

It's not a binary system, you jackass. I said I don't have a lot. I have a lot for someone in my income tax bracket, but that's nothing compared to someone who makes 30 thou a year.

Re:Hmmm...

[AKnightCowboy]

As much as I wanted to mod you down, here's my response instead:

BTW, WTF is up with that comment? You really need to read the moderation FAQ sometime and quit using moderation as a way to censor people who have differing opinions from yourself. Fine, you use your Sony NZ-90 a lot, I don't use my Palm M505 at all.

A guy making $20k/year who can't come up with a reason on his own why he needs one certainly shouldn't be blowing a couple hundred bucks on one just to satisfy his curiosity. The fact of the matter is, if you need a PDA you will buy one, if you don't then get a dayplanner, they're much cheaper.

As for using a PDA for network administration, why would I bother with a kludgy pen interface for debugging issues when I can just grab a laptop if I needed a mobile device (which I don't since we're sane and have everything on terminal servers). I can quite comfortably sit at home at my desk and bring the entire network up or down via a modem.

Re:Hmmm...

[Shipwack]

Killer app? For me it's Avantgo. This free news application has many channels to choose from. I synch it up in the morning, and spend all my former "dead time" (waiting in lines, commuting, etc) reading the latest news from The NYT, The Guardian, Wired, The Onion, etc. You can also add a web page as one of your channels. All of this is free.

Re:Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

How can this be off topic. Cell phone porn will be $791 million by 2006.

What do you think these guys use color screens on PDAs for?

Show me another marked that sized in the handheld space.

Re:Rumour

[Temporal]

Why would they build it off the Linux kernel when they already own BeOS? Yeah, I'd say that's a rumor alright.

text of article

[Anonymous Coward]

PalmSource today introduced Palm OS Cobalt, previously know as Palm OS 6. Cobalt is a new enhanced version of the operating system that is designed to enable the creation of new categories of devices for the communications, enterprise, education and entertainment markets. PalmSource also announced Palm OS Garnet, an enhanced version of the popular Palm OS 5, designed to accelerate the development of Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones.

"We believe Palm OS Cobalt will pave the way for new categories of smart mobile devices and solutions, for the communications, enterprise, education and entertainment markets," said David Nagel, president and CEO of PalmSource, Inc. "We have also reinforced our commitment to optimize our platform for wireless devices, by including wireless capabilities in both Palm OS Cobalt and Palm OS Garnet, designed to enable a wide range of smartphones and other wireless products."

Formerly known as Palm OS 6, Palm OS Cobalt is a complete rewrite of Palm OS designed to maintain ease of use and software compatibility while creating a foundation for next-generation Palm Powered devices and solutions tailored to the growing needs of the communications, enterprise, education and entertainment markets. Palm OS Cobalt improves compatibility with Microsoft Windows, while offering advanced features including:

Multitasking, multithreading;
Memory protection;
Support for more memory and larger screens;
Industry standards-based security;
Extensible communication and multimedia frameworks capable of handling multiple connections simultaneously;
In addition, Palm OS Cobalt provides rich graphics and multimedia features derived from the Be OS, which Palm(R), Inc. acquired in 2001.

Also announced today, Palm OS Garnet builds on the solid foundation of Palm OS 5 and incorporates new built-in technical features such as standard support for a broad range of screen resolutions, dynamic input area, improved network communication, and Bluetooth. Palm OS Garnet is designed to enable licensees to more efficiently bring Palm Powered handhelds and smartphones to market and reduce development costs.

New Software Development Tools
PalmSource also introduced new software development tools for Palm OS Cobalt and Palm OS Garnet. A technical preview of the new Palm OS Developer Suite is now available to Palm OS developers in the Resource Pavilion in the Developer Zone. The new Palm OS Developer Suite is based on the industry-standard Eclipse environment, an open-source, Integrated Development Environment (IDE) originally developed by IBM that supports software development in a variety of languages, including C, C++, Java and COBOL. The Palm OS Developer Suite provides one set of tools designed to assist Palm OS developers to create and bring to market higher performance wireless, entertainment and enterprise-grade applications that take advantage of the advanced functionality of Palm Powered smart mobile devices. PalmSource and its partners now offer a wide variety of development tools, including Metrowerks CodeWarrior, the Eclipse environment, Borland's tool suite and the Microsoft NET compatible tools from AppForge.

More About Palm OS Cobalt

Multithreaded, Multitasking -- Palm OS Cobalt is designed to enable multiple applications to run simultaneously, so users gain more productivity and a better user experience. For example, a user can listen to MP3 files, book a calendar appointment and take an incoming phone call. A background-processing model is designed to reduce most memory problems commonly associated with multitasking in mobile devices.

Expanded, Protected Memory Architecture -- With support for up to 256MB of RAM and 256MB of ROM, Palm OS Cobalt paves the way for the creation of more sophisticated communications, enterprise, education and entertainment applications. In addition, the new protected memory architecture is designed to protect against applications "hanging" the system or causing crashes.

System Wide Security Archit

Re:text of article

[trmj]

Maybe it doesn't need to be said, but that was really pointless.

They cut all but one of the ads out of the article and although they had a popup, everybody should have some kind of free popup blocker by now, so nobody can complain about that. There are no pictures on the main article, so nobody can complain about them not being on the slashdot version (not that you can post article pictures on slashdot anyway). They made a slashdot version of the article so their site doesn't get slashdotted. There is no subscription required for vieing the article, slashdot version or not.

Refresh my memory... what was the point?

Hairy Palms...

[highwaytohell]

SO they have added some BeOS functionality to this thing. I owned a Palm. I thought it was brilliant, but as i saw the prices of PDA's drop and the Palm price stay the same for less features, it didnt seem like such a good buy anymore. I wonder what they will charge for this. I think the resolution is a bit of overkill. I'm not gonna hook this thing up to a television to play Galaga on an emulator. My Zaurus does all the things this thing can and probably a hell of a lot more. The tungsten's werent too impressive, this one doesnt seem to be either. And why dont they gave us the names of the "industry leaders".

About the 32k pixel screen.

[MooKore 2004]

If you read the article properly, You would of noticed that it supports *upto* a 32000x32000, it dosent actually have one. So if you had actually had a 32000x32000 screen somewhere, it would work. If you looked at the Actual screenshots, it is only doing 320x480!

Re:About the 32k pixel screen.

[jks]

it supports *upto* a 32000x32000 [screen], it dosent actually have one

Well, yeah, that's because it's an OS, i.e., software.

dumb terminal

[SHEENmaster]

Those with network support can be used as terminals, effectively allowing you to keep any computer at your fingertips wherever you are. "Palmtop" operating systems always try to limit what you do, and a thinclient/dumbterminal design seems better for a phone, which is nearly always connected to the network.

the link.....

[johnpaul191]

There is an article on what Cobalt lacks...

Macrumors posted this toot hough:

While a 3rd party (Mark/Space, Missing Sync) is planning on providing this functionality for Mac users, a lack of built-in functionality is unfortunate.

Screenshots gone?

[DamienMcKenna]

Are the screenshots gone? I don't see them there now.

32K

[ColonBlow]

they better be able to support more than 256Mb of ram, since you'll need at least a Gb to represent that 32kX32K screen.

Re:32K

[Viking Coder]

Thank you. I was going to post the same thing.

Re:32K

[Anonymous Coward]

Mb == MegaBit
MB == MegaByte
Gb == GigaBit
GB == GigaByte

Re:32K

[stratjakt]

The 32k x 32k represents addressable pixels. You could manipulate such a screen directly, or through a framebuffer built into the display block. No need to do it in RAM.

Though of course no Palm will have such a display.

It's simply got two 16 bit words to represent an X/Y coordinate. (15 bits + 1 for something else?) Nothing magical there.

8 bit would have left it at 256x256 max, anything between is silly given conventional device design.

version naming

[maliabu]

there are some interesting discussions at the bottom of the page regarding the naming of "Palm OS Cobalt" instead of "Palm OS 6".

the CCO's reply was "As for the naming, numbers were a problem because in the PC world a higher number means the lower number is obsolete (Windows 98 immediately replaces Windows 95). Palm OS Garnet is just fine for many users and will persist a long time, so licensees asked us to move away from numbers."

so maybe the naming also implies the confidence in a product? the company sees no need for users to UPgrade unnecessarily in the future. eg Mandrake Almighty instead of Mandrake 1241.12.102

Re:version naming

[drinkypoo]

The problem with this is that one used to be able to say "works with PalmOS 3.x and up" and now one will have to say "works with PalmOS thiselement, thatelement, and thisotherelement". Unless perhaps they picked elements with ever-increasing atomic weights, and they provided a periodic table with each software package so you could determine your version compliance. I mean who's going to remember if unobtainium comes before or after adamantium?

Re:version naming

[mekkab]

I mean who's going to remember if unobtainium comes before or after adamantium?


You are obviously new here. Welcome to slashdot!

Re:version naming

[lpontiac]

From what people (Palmsource themselves regarding the application certification program, and Palmgear regarding distribution) are saying at the conference, the move will be towards saying that applications are compatible with specific devices. There are so many devices out there that a list of compatible devices would be unfeasible. It sounds like Palmgear's approach will be for users to register with Palmgear, and say "I own this device." Then Palmgear will filter the apps shown on their site to only those compatible with the user's device.

NVIDIA is going to enhance Cobalt devices

[queen of everything]

I saw this at the bottom of the article. NVIDIA is going to enhance the graphics for devices using Cobalt and Garnet. They're going to "bring advanced multimedia support to the OS". I thought it was pretty cool; although it makes my PDA sound so old and boring.

Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based?

[sjonke]

As a Mac user, extremely disappointed that Palm has decided to completely nix the Mac market with OS 6, I'd now seriously consider a linux based PDA. If I'm forced to buy a PDA that doesn't support the Mac out of the box I'd rather give my money to a company supporting open-source. The Sharp Zaurus line is appealing, but the last I heard there was no syncing solution at all for the Mac, even from 3rd party's. Has this situation changed yet?

OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[t0qer]

Is it me, or does there seem to be an overabundance of old CPU's floating around out there? I'm sitting on at least 6 pentium 1 class CPU's here in my garage with speeds varying from 75-200mhz.

Looking at these old CPU relics, I remember how nice BeOS ran on the machines of the time. PalmOS=(PalmOS + some BeOS IP)

I think it would be a neat idea if someone made an affordable, upgradable, palm like device that could use these old CPU's. I mean, I know there must be millions of these things being used in less usefull roles, such as doorstops and monitor stands. It's a shame that all these pentium CPU's have more or less been "retired" or tossed into a landfill.

Sure a p-200 isn't that powerful of a CPU by todays standards of P4's and Athlons, but they have enough power to decode mp3's, compose e-mail, and surf the web.

I don't think it would be that expensive either to build a socketed palm device. Sure it would be a bit bulkier than new palms, but for small form factor geeks or just guys like me that have 30 years of computer crap in his garage it would be a godsend. Something the size and dimensions of a 3.5" hard drive only slightly thicker would be perfect.

Now go ahead and tell me about pc-104 devices, blah blah... Yes I know they exist, but they're not a single integrated device in sleek packaging.

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[stratjakt]

Desktop CPUs were never designed with low power consumption in mind. You'd probably need to lug around a 10lb battery unit to have any sort of reasonable usage time in such a thing.

Besides, a dragonball cpu is probably cheaper than a ZIF socket these days.

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[Holi]

Wasn't the PII a slot based CPU, hence the CPU would be larger then the standard palm device. And those processors weren't designed to maximize battery life. I'd guess you would get to hear maybe 2 or 3 songs before your batteries crapped out.

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[Kenja]

I have a true blue (and grey) BeBox sitting in my closet. Dual 603e 133mhz without cache!

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[jackmakrl]

I keep a 486DX266 in my glovebox so I can tell people "my car has a 486 in it".

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[t0qer]

I wouldn't care too much about battery life though. I'm thinking just something that could be used for more embedded type applications, just in a nice neat package with a low res touchscreen lcd that could use the old hardware, maybe running PalmOS.

Network appliance file servers, in dash car Mp3 players, firewalls, or even thin clients for corporate use. Something that could be powered by lets say a brick or a cars electrical system.

Re:OT but BeOS & Old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

If you, or anyone for that matter, is looking for a worthy home for your old computer parts take a look here: http://www.freegeek.org This is a great cause that open source folks should be (and are) getting behind.

Screenshots are here...

[SkiddyRowe]

Here are the screenshots. But better open them in a different window 'Slashdot User!'

32k x 32k with only 256 MB?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that possible. You get only 1 bit per pixel
since you need some memory for OS too. I never
thought someone would even think of giga pixel b/w display.

Re:32k x 32k with only 256 MB?

[stratjakt]

Devices like that dont have framebuffers like a VGA card, the display *is* the framebuffer, you address and flip pixels directly on it.

Or, rather, they dont need one, but I'm sure many do to facilitate multimedia functions.

Re:32k x 32k with only 256 MB?

[memmel2]

Wow this is so wrong. The lcd controller is built into the cpu yes but its still a simple frambuffer controller with memory and refresh to the LCD. Sometimes there is a second memory cache on some lcd's between the cpu and the real lcd.

You don't need Missing Sync.

[Grincho]

You don't need Missing Sync. Just download Apple's iSync 1.2 Palm Conduit. Combined with Palm Desktop, it works great with my Clie PEG-SJ20. Clie, Palm, whatever--the only difference, as far as the desktop machine is concerned, is the logo on the front.

Re:You don't need Missing Sync.

[heychris]

It depends on the Palm. My old Palm (can't remember what it was, but it was the low-end grayscale Clie) didn't need Missing Sync, but my new one (TG-50) most assuredly does. I've read that it doesn't if you use Bluetooth to sync, but BT syncing is soooo slow. My fault for using Vindigo, I suppose.

CC

Re:You don't need Missing Sync.

[Elentar]

I've found that while some of the Clie models allow basic synchronization with the Palm hotsync manager (which iSync still requires), most of them do not. The PEG-SJ20 is one of the units that works, and I believe the older 6xx series may also be supported. None of the current in-production units work, though.

Cheers,

-Elentar

Coooool.

[josh glaser]

Sounds sweet! I think it's actually a good thing that they are switching to a non-numeric naming system because OS 5 isn't going to be outdated anytime soon. I mean, you can still get new OS 4.1 Palms, so why give people the impression that they're outdated right out of the box? (Well, in the 4.x case, they might be, but OS 5 will be around for a while, I think.) The only downside is that having two "modern" operating systems might confuse people...should they want people to know that the newest is the most advanced? But that's they're call, not mine, so I'll move on. 32Kx32K is overkill. I'll be accepting my Obvious award now. From what I've heard, you will be able to upgrade from the some of the Tungstens. The T3 seems likely, and the C is a possibility (that's just my - well, mostly other peoples' - speculation). Oh, and where are the screenshots?

OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[NotQuiteReal]

I think I saw this somewhere before, but can't remember the numbers...

What kind of dpi would I need to be looking at on a display before I couldn't tell it was a display? E.g. what is the resolving power of the typical person's eyes?

[Assume it is before beer-o'clock]

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[LowPoint SATA]

It's 1 dpi. That's right; 1 dpi.

Unless you are in space. That makes it 2 dpi.

YRMV.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[drinkypoo]

Somewhere between 300 and 600 dpi, closer to 600 than 300. This assumes that you have an infinite number of colors available to you, or at least you're "close enough", which is to say at least 24 bit color. (36 bit would be better.)

I don't know how many discrete imaging elements are in the eye itself, but it hardly matters because the eye moves (involuntarily) to make a smooth image out of a number of samples, or more to the point, a certain sampling duration.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[Alan Partridge]

Your question doesn't make any sense. If you look at a colouyr film slide, do you believe that it's a liuttle window into another dimension? Detail does not in itself confer realism.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think in terms of angular resolution rather than dots per inch.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[BarakMich]

If I remember correctly it's 1 arcminute, which is 1/60th of a degree if I remember right. This is at the center of your eye, where things are the most clear (and it degrades from there, toward your peripheral vision)

Whoever said "Think Angular" is right.

What this means is that it depends on distance. The farther you are for something, the less resolution it has. Try it -- have someone hold a ruler and walk away from it... pretty soon, you can't see the lines of demarcation. Yet up close, they are quite clear.

I played around with these numbers with a friend of mine for a whole class period once. It worked fairly well. Best way to re-figure these numbers is to assume a straight line out of the eye of length "l", and some height, "h", where the angle inside the eye from the top to bottom of H (along the triangle is 1/2 an arcminute (1/120 degree). So, therefore...

tan (1/120 degrees) = h/l (and l is given, find h)
h = l * tan(1/120)

2h = one dot. 1/(2h) = dots per unit of h. proper unit conversions then apply.

so, at 1 foot (12 inches)

h = 12 in. * tan(1/120)
h = 0.00175
2h = 0.0035
1/2h = 286

thus, at 1 foot, the eye has (at it's center) close to 286 DPI.

More than you cared to know, I'm sure. Interesting nonetheless.

(Sorry about the English units. I guess I'm just being an insensitive clod.)

Barak Michener

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more concerned that you used degress instead of radians.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[geschild]

thus, at 1 foot, the eye has (at it's center) close to 286 DPI.

More than you cared to know, I'm sure. Interesting nonetheless.

(Sorry about the English units. I guess I'm just being an insensitive clod.)

(emphasis on DPI mine)

Since you are talking about DPI, which means "Dots per Inch" I think that your use of english units can quite easily be defended, don't you think? Besides, if someone objects, they can redo your calculations easily since, like a good student, you included full calculation path. No need to appologize.

Re:OT: What is the dpi "resolution" of reality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand. "Since you use English units, your use of English units can be defended"? WTF is that supposed to mean? He apologises for using DPI and then you say "it's okay as long as you use DPI"??

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based

[mblase]

Palm's been lagging on support for Mac for a long time, and so have many Palm third-parties (AvantGo being the worst offender). Personally, I'm glad that mark/space has been working so hard to fill in the gaps Palm has left for Mac users.

Incidentally, as a "Linux-based PDA" advocate, I find it ironic that you haven't complained that Linux syncing isn't supported by Palm at all, nor has it ever been. Surely they've got it ten times worse?

32000 x 32000 -- not really

[Wateshay]

Well, they may be able to address 32000 x 32000 pixels (actually, I'll bet it's 32768 x 32768), but good luck getting it to actually drive that big of a screen. At 256 megs of maximum memory, you'd need 31 palms just to store that much screen real estate in memory.

Re:32000 x 32000 -- not really

[Xeger]

Right.

The cynic in me reads this statement as "The graphical subsystem on previous versions of PalmOS suffered from extreme lack of foresight and failed to allocate enough bits to device coordinates, thereby preventing PalmOS from supporting any reasonable screen resolution. We're not quite so myopic now, and we've allocated 32 bits for the same purpose."

Big whoop. By this metric, Windows (and X) are capable of supporting TWO BILLION x TWO BILLION resolution screens, because they use an entire 32-bit unsigned integer for the device coordinate along each axis!

Re:32000 x 32000 -- not really

[dreadlock9]

It would still be cool to be able to plug a standard monitor in your PDA, or maybe have a tablet size PDA. I'm developing a paint program for the PalmOS, I should look into making it support high res modes. If you've got a color or B/W Palm, check out SproutPaint :) at SproutWorks

MAC LOVERS! You will be OK...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Visit http://www.markspace.com/ the makers of The Missing Sync and you will discover they fully intend to provide sw to suppor teh new Palms on the mac.

Of course, with that said, if I have Chapura Keysite style syncing between my Palm and Entourage on the Mac, I would get rid of windows forever. Oh well.

perhaps the point of the high resolution

[way2trivial]

is to enable it to drive a projector..

I know third party hardware existed to allow powerpoint slides (no motion or sound) be carried and transmitted from a palmpilot.. this may have built in vga output for road warriors.

Re:perhaps the point of the high resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, hey genius. Projectors run a LOW resolutions. Like 640x480 and 800x600, if you're lucky. Apparently there's you plus about 4 mods out there stupid enough to not know that.

Re:perhaps the point of the high resolution

[Pike]

You don't need 32,000 x 32,000 pixels to drive a projector, only an output and cable that the projector will accept. Heck, you could project a 2x2 pixel source as long as your PDA can connect to the projector somehow.

When you use a projector off your laptop, those slides are showing at 1024x768, just as they would on your normal monitor. Increased size != increased resolution.

I'm still thinking that the 32,000 number is either a typo or a marketing goof.

Re:perhaps the point of the high resolution

[gl4ss]

the point of the high resolution is that there's no need to limit it at anything lower artificially, it's just two numbers.

have you thought about the memory amount or bandwith that would be needed to keep drawing on such resolution? unlikely to happen on that device, but they probably figured out that they would be better off if they didn't hardcode sume numbers into it that would be too small 3 years from now. they also might be hoping developers to not assume the resolution to always stay the same when developing.

It is funny!

[yudan]

Palm OS Cobalt is designed to enable multiple applications to run simultaneously, so users gain more productivity and a better user experience. For example, a user can listen to MP3 files, book a calendar appointment and take an incoming phone call.

wow! I really don't know how to listen to MP3 AND make phone call, AND GAIN PRODUCTIVITY! Can anybody tell me?

Re:It is funny!

[Registered Coward v2]

wow! I really don't know how to listen to MP3 AND make phone call, AND GAIN PRODUCTIVITY! Can anybody tell me?

Sure - now you can play music when you put a caller on hold on your cell phone while you answer as econd call...

Re:It is funny!

[eexlebots]

I know how future Palm users can listen to MP3s and take a phone call easily enough and still be more "productive"-the phone needs to be able to have push-to talk like a Nextel phone.

With THAT

the MP3 can still play while you diddle in Pocketword and talk in public about who is going to take the kids to practice or what drugs you are going to buy or something else inane. OH THANK YOU PALM, YOU HAVE MADE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS TECHNOLOGY EVER CREATED EVEN BETTER AT BEING OBNOXIOUS AND EASY TO ABUSE!!

/hates push-to-talk abuse

Treo 600

[Blimbo]

Take a look at the Treo 600, is smaller then it looks in the pic, very sweet device...
here's a link: http://www.handspring.com/products/communicators/t reo600_overview.jhtml

Re:Treo 600

[Alan Partridge]

the screen and speaker are so fucking bad they're kitsch

Porn Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

fuckwit

Security

[octal666]

Industry standards-based security; I wonder what is that security, I don't see much security as a standard on industry.

Complicated schedule & poor temporal orientati

[arsinmsn]

Since I've got many meetings in a day, and am only vaguely aware of the passing of time, a palm is crucial to allowing me to anger as few people as possible during the work-day by accidentally blowing them off.

Plus it plays MP3s; admittedly only a few at a time, but enough to get me home in a revised state of mind.

The eye

[autopr0n]

There are about 6-8 million color sensing neurons in the eye, and about 120 million brightness sensing neurons.

I don't know how many discrete imaging elements are in the eye itself, but it hardly matters because the eye moves (involuntarily) to make a smooth image out of a number of samples, or more to the point, a certain sampling duration.

Where did you hear this? That isn't how the eye works at all. You can test this yourself by writing a program to flash a word on the screen for a short amount of time. (like a 30th or 60th of a second. You should still be able to read it.

Re:The eye

[baxissimo]

the eye moves (involuntarily) to make a smooth image out of a number of samples,

Where did you hear this? That isn't how the eye works at all.

I think he's talking about saccades.

Re:The eye

[Shanep]

Where did you hear this? That isn't how the eye works at all.

I've heard this in a few documentaries about human sight. I was sceptical until I experimented with my own sight. I tried moving my head to a random location, while my eyes were shut and then opening them with the intention of not moving them after opening (Ha! that's funny! I think I can completely control my brain!). The image that forms seems instant and extends to my peripheral vision. I believe the eye needs to detect movement only in the peripheral areas to form an image there and the movement can be extremely small. So small that I do not notice and why would my brain allow me to notice anyway? BTW, this test is flawed because the act of opening ones eyes, causes an image change within the eye, which is the same as detecting movement.

I think when people hear this theory, their first thought is "small area of detection" and "large movement required", whereas I think the truth is "moderate area of detection" and "extremely small movement required to complete peripheral image".

Curiously, I see colour all the way to the peripheral edges using this method. Which goes against what I have learned about peripheral vision (no colour) and this image "build up" through movement theory (colour added by brain through what it knows is there).

To get a dramatic demonstration which adds weight to this theory... Ever tried staring at the same spot for an extended period of time (without even blinking)? You (well I do) get a flashing image (ring) where the peripheral vision is, which eventually blacks out completely. I find this state very hard to sustain. My eyes normally move a tiny little bit (seems to be horizontal movement) which causes the peripheral vision to suddenly appear again. This is difficult to do, your eyes will be stinging and begging for mercy because they have become dry due to no blinking and you will find that whether you like it or not, your eyes usually step from side to side ever so slightly, undoing the effect. The easiest way to do it is to lay down on your back with your head well supported so that movement of your head is less likely to ruin your chances of this working.

Based on this effect alone, I think the theory is correct.

I have been doing this since I was a child. I can also voluntarily change the focus of my eyes. Every person I have asked about this (bringing eyes in and out of focus), claim they cannot do it. Anyone else able to do these things?

It's as if our brain contains a frame buffer (the image we perceive) which gets updated by the eye as it moves around under brain control. I guess we are like this because using our entire retina as the frame buffer for our brain, would not be feasible due to the huge amount of information that would have to constantly traverse the optic nerve. It's like using a video card with local frame buffer to get around bus interconnect (PCI/AGP) bandwidth limitations (I am serious by the way).

You can test this yourself by writing a program to flash a word on the screen for a short amount of time. (like a 30th or 60th of a second. You should still be able to read it.

Hang on, there are far too many things at work here that might muddy the facts. There is persistence of an image on a CRT screen due to light emitted from the phospors slowly decaying after they have been switched off (perhaps slow LCD response could cause a similar effect) and then there is also the persistence of vision due to slow response of the human eye itself.

What's more, how big is this word you are flashing on your screen? The fact that it is flashing means that it will be detected as movement to the eye, voiding the test.

Re:The eye

[drinkypoo]

I have been doing this since I was a child. I can also voluntarily change the focus of my eyes. Every person I have asked about this (bringing eyes in and out of focus), claim they cannot do it. Anyone else able to do these things?

I can sometimes change the focus of my eyes deliberately, usually when I'm tired. I learned it by making the little "floater" dots forcibly separate and rejoin when I was a kid. I also have 20/10 vision (or is it 10/20? the best line on the eye chart, I can read off very reliably, even though they use a shitty font where C looks like G.)

Other stupid human tricks: I can stop the flow of air through my nose by flexing something in my head. I have no idea what I'm actually doing but the result is that my nose closes off. It doesn't work well when a dentist is shoving fingers in my face, but otherwise it can be quite useful (like, when someone cracks a rat and I'm in the back of a honda or something.

What's BeOS about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's distinctive about "BeOS like multitasking and threading"? I know Palm bought the BeOS IP, so presumably it's exactly like BeOS's, but what does that mean? Is it generally considered better than, say, Linux or BSD's? Better for certain purposes? Or what?

Re:What's BeOS about it?

[PurplePhase]

Some billed BeOS as a real-time multimedia OS. Using its strategies would help if Palm wanted to be available for any sort of media - audio (phone or otherwise), pictures(phone or otherwise), video(phone or... you get the idea...) - and it could prioritize threads or drop appropriate frames/ms of audio so it works as a continuous feed. Back on a BeBox (2x 133PPC) you could run/loop several video files simultaneously while doing other stuff. If you started enough apps it would drop a few frames to keep everything moving in real-time rather than buffering every screen and making things choppy or otherwise run time-unevenly.

It seems like a great thing for people wanting to do too much with too little CPU (or RAM) - and hey, isn't everything that way?

Probably many others more in-the-know who can give better explanations.

8-PP

It depends

[autopr0n]

On how far away you are. And unless it's 3d, you won't be fooling anyone.

Mirror of screenshots

[BRSQUIRRL]

Unfortunately, it is on Yahoo, so if anyone else has a better place to mirror, it would be appreciated.

Screenshots

Re:Rumour

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, BeOS is kind of long in the tooth. If you look around the embedded Linux world, you might be able to find that one of the companies is under contract to palm.

Welcome Slashdot visitor...

[advocate_one]

Welcome Slashdot visitor! You have been redirected to a ligher version of our article in order to conserve bandwidth and keep the site running smoothly for everybody. This is the whole text of the article, if you would like to read the story along with our reader comments, please click here.

at least they're picking up on the referrer tag... :)

Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based

[darrylo]

The Sharp Zaurus line is appealing, but the last I heard there was no syncing solution at all for the Mac, even from 3rd party's.

Even if there was a Mac syncing solution for the Zaurus, I'd strongly recommend that you take a good, hard look at the Zaurus PIM apps before making a decision.

I have both a Zaurus and a Palm (a Clie, actually), and the Palm is what I use, because I need a PDA with good PIM apps. After being spoiled by DateBk5 on the Palm, there's no way I could use the Zaurus. And, I'd be willing to pay US$100 for Zaurus PIM apps with equivalent functionality and usability (DateBK5 is soooo incredibly polished).

Here's a basic example: on the Zaurus, create an appointment that's five minutes long, and give it some descriptive text. On my Zaurus, this is displayed this as a completely unusable and unreadable line of pixels. On the Palm, it's just displayed as completely readable text.

(Oh, and don't even get me started on the fact that I have to use a #$%^&*()?%! dialog box to enter text. On the Palm, I just write or type. For the virgins out there, this is the difference between on-screen editing (the Palm) and using dialog boxes for all editing (the Z).)

Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based

[a1291762]

You can get Qtopia Desktop from Trolltech but it is not compatible with Sharp's "new" and incompatible syncing stuff. It is possible to sync with an "older" zaurus (it's the ROM that matters, not the hardware). It should be possible to setup OpenZaurus/Opie and be able to sync with Trolltech's Qtopia Desktop if you've got a "new" zaurus and you can't put an older ROM on it.

There is a USB driver somewhere that you'll need to connect your Zaurus to a Mac.

I've synchronized an A300 (older model zaurus only sold in Japan) and a SL5000D (really old "developer only" zaurus) with a Mac.

Link

Where's the Dev Suite?

[drmike0099]

Was anyone able to actually find the developer's suite they're talking about (the one based on Eclipse)? They don't seem to actually have it posted...

Re:Where's the Dev Suite?

[benguru]

I can't find it either, this is annoying me since I really wanted to see there Java support.

Re:Where's the Dev Suite?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is it? It's on the CDs they passed out here at the PalmSource conference yesterday.

At a guess, the future versions of the dev environment might be available on the "seeding" area of the Palm developer's web site.

Also, they are currently at version 0.1 of the IDE. They say they'll release 0.1.1 (bug fixes) in a week or so, and the 1.0 is coming in a few months. The one they have now is really a "technology preview" release and is not ready for prime time, or at least that's the word I've heard. So they may wait until they have something more stable and release that.

Re:Where's the Dev Suite?

[Inflatable Hippo]

They're giving away early versions on a disk here at PalmONE, but have updates ready to ship by the end of the week.

So I think it'll hit their website on Friday.

Re:Where's the Dev Suite?

[benguru]

Oh, I can't wait till it is fully released. Will it be free, also if you have it how well does it work with Java, and do they help you get started with programming Java on Palm? Hope you can help, thanks.

Re:Where's the Dev Suite?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will the new Palm IDE be free? Good question. They seemed to indicate that there would be a free version and a deluxe commercial version. Not sure what tools exactly the deluxe version would have that the basic version doesn't have, but I think they did say they are committed to making a very version that's very usable for building Palm apps.

From what they said, it seems that Java support will be coming along eventually, but it is not there yet. They seem to be moving that direction -- I think I recall them saying that J2ME might go in ROM at some point -- but they are not there yet. For now, if are wanting to do Java on the Palm, I don't think the new Palm IDE is the way to go. Instead, you should probably go with some third-party thing. (I think IBM has one, although I personally haven't tried to do Java on the Palm, so I don't really know.)

POSE on Linux?

[advocate_one]

I suppose there's no hope of them giving us a POSE client for running on Linux then if they've ditched palm desktop for the mac...

They're going to lose me to Linux based PDAs at this rate... I'm already p'd off at having to keep one box with windows on for running POSE and the OS5 development kit to develop OS5 apps on as it is...

Re:POSE on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

More news from here at the conference... Yes, actually they claim that they will at some point make the IDE (and presumably POSE) work on Windows, Mac, AND Linux. They specifically mentioned this; they asked how many people in the room were Mac users, and then the same question for Linux.

Probably, the Linux version will lag the Windows version. But, Eclipse is the IDE they're using, and it is written in Java. That will make it easy enough to port to other platforms. (However, Eclipse is just an IDE, and they have to port the compiler too. But compilers are generally not very platform specific, so that should be pretty easy, and they have said as much.)

Re:POSE on Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I need to revise my comment about whether the simulator will be available on Linux. On important aspect of the simulator, something they brought up during the conference, is that the newer devices have much faster CPUs. Doing an emulation of the device's CPU on the desktop machine is not ever going to be as fast as the real device, so that's one reason not to do it. More importantly, the 68k processor is a very simple processor. But emulating ARM is a much tougher task, because the processor has an MMU, etc., etc. The upshot is that the Simulator that Palm has for the PC works by building a version of your Palm app that contains x86 instructions rather than ARM (or 68k) instructions, and your app then runs natively on the PC inside the simulator.

So, what does this mean for the Macintosh and for Linux? Well, it means that only x86 systems will be able to run the simulator. So that rules out the Mac for running the simulator. But Linux running on x86 could probably do it. To summarize, the IDE and simulator are now available on the PC. They have said they wish to put the IDE onto the Mac and onto Linux, and they probably will. However, the other tools may not make it Mac and Linux, or it may take a while. The resource editor is a Windows app, apparently not designed with portability in mind. The Simulator requires an x86 processor to run. So basically, the Mac and Linux are unlikely to have full support for a while, if they ever do.

Having said that, I believe you should be able to debug OS 6 applications on your real actual hardware device with the debugger (rather than using a simulator at all), so you could potentially do development without much hindrance on Linux or Mac. That is, you may not have quite all the tools available, but you may not need them.

Re:POSE on Linux?

[pruss]

I thought POSE already worked just fine on Linux. It's open source, after all. It's the Simulator that needs Win NT/2K/XP (it runs VERY slowly on 9X). And one can certainly do OS5 development under Linux. Most of the members of the Plucker Team, say, do.

Re:POSE on Linux?

[advocate_one]

yeah... pose works fine on linux... it just doesn't support os5 though...

"The Emulator software does not include ROM images. It is like a computer without an operating system. Also note that the emulator emulates 68K devices and thus runs ROM images through OS 4.x. For testing on OS 5 based devices see the Palm OS 5 Simulator page."

For OS5 development purely in Linux, I have to synch my code into my own Zire71 and pray every time... thank heavens for programs like backupbuddyVFS

Mostly, I keep another box on my local network running win2k so I can load my code straight into the OS5 simulator. That situation really bugs me... and I hope that the OS6 simulator gets released in a Linux version.

It would probably pay me to get into java on the Palm as that would widen my market to include other devices that support the IBM J2Micro Environment.

8Gig CF

[bstadil]

Maybe you missed the 8Gig Flashcard story posted earlier today

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Lack of out-of-box-support a very negative message

[michaeldot]

As a longstanding Palm supporter and a Mac user, I too am quite disappointed at this "unfortunate" turn of events. So disappointed that I've felt it necessary to drop Larry a polite note:

Larry Slotnick (larry.slotnick@palmsource.com)
Chief Products Officer
PalmSource

Dear Larry,

I am extremely disappointed to read that you no longer intend to support the Mac OS with your future products.

As a Palm user since 1996, having owned six iterations of them up to my current T3 and recommended them to countless numbers of buyers (both Mac and PC users), I feel that my support of the Palm platform may now be drawing to an end.

I am aware that 3rd party solution(s) may be available to provide the missing synch support, just as they exist for using Pocket PC devices on a Mac. However, by not providing "out of the box" support for the Mac platform, you are sending a clear message to both the press and the Mac-using community that you believe the platform no longer worth your attention.

I strongly urge you to reconsider this short-sighted and potentially damaging move. You may not be aware that many of us Mac users do actually talk to PC users and influence their PDA buying decisions. To jettison the minority Mac platform because of its low marketshare is one thing, but to cause them to become disgusted advocates for competing products is another.

Please reconsider your strategy.

Sincerely,

Michael -------
Palm user since '96

No PDA has the form factor right except palm

[xtal]

Maybe I'm wrong, but all the wince/linux based pda's are all too big for a PDA. And too small for a clamshell computer, still missing my 100LX sigh. Does anyone know of a similar unit that runs linux.. perferably with clicky keys.. sigh, with that crazy woman running the show at HP that seems unlikely. Oh well.

Anyway, m500-sized units from Palm are the best. Mac support has and always will be sketchy I think, there are alternatives and options. Some of the new tungstens are getting light and skinny enough for consideration. The larger ones are too big to be useful.

exit Windows OS, exit Linux OS, exit Unix OS, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this finally an OS which will provide an end of life for Windows, Linux and Unix?

Can't the majority of users use something other than Windows, Linux, and Unix?

The Mac's OS is excluded too.

Thanks - That's about what I remember.

[NotQuiteReal]

Obviously there is more to it than that (3D, as others have pointed out), but from a practical point of view there is an upper limit, beyond which resolution is "wasted" on a display device.

But if I am a one-eyed man with my head in a vice I shouldn't be able to tell the difference between looking out a window or looking at a display 1 foot away, with, say 400 dpi. As well I shouldn't, I think I'd be much more woried about why my head is clamped down, than whether the view out the "window" is real...

So, I shouldn't be able to tell the difference between my 300 dpi and 600 dpi laser output - at 1 foot.

Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based

[tupps]

He is a mac user why should he worry about Linux users getting the short end of the stick compatibility wise. I am sure he comiserates with you (Mac users are used to find this or that device doesn't work perfectly) but he doesn't care because he isn't using Linux.

However this is where the power of open source will really kick some butts. If you are the developer of the device and you build the device open source and use open protocols to sync then it shouldn't be to hard for someone to build a mac/linux/freebsd/whatever sync application for your device. If it is all closed (and it is not like people are going to steal your ideas for syncing devices) then you have to do all the work yourself.

PS - It also explains why my 96dpi LCD...

[NotQuiteReal]

... looks "good", but not, wow! My eyes are shot, for distance, but I can still almost see the individual pixels on my display from 24" away.

Re:PS - It also explains why my 96dpi LCD...

[adrew]

My 17" Sony FD Trinitron will display 1792x1344 @ 60 Hz. Aside from a little flicker, ::grin:: the images from high-end digicams look outstanding. It works out to about 134dpi--almost twice that of a traditional display--and, interestingly, just about enough to get decent printed output in something like a newspaper.

It also supports 1920x1080 (same as the best HDTV) but won't let me smush down the screen image enough to correct the aspect ratio.

Re:PS - It also explains why my 96dpi LCD...

[adrew]

I just used the monitor's controls to resize the image to have an approximate 1-inch black border all the way around. The display is now effectively 11 inches wide...and when set at 1792x1344...gives an on-screen resolution of 163 dpi.

Man...it looks fantastic! The high-res OS X dock icons and all images > 2 megapixels look amazing.

If your monitor'll do it, try downloading some pix from a high-end camera like a Canon 10D from a site like www.dpreview.com. It'll blow you away.

Re:PS - It also explains why my 96dpi LCD...

[jsebrech]

If you really want improved resolution, you're better off with cleartype-like tech on an lcd (subpixel hinting, anti-aliasing on a subpixel level, only lcd's can do this). It triples horizontal resolution (the one we're most sensitive to). As a result, my 75 dpi laptop screen displays ebooks almost as if they were printed when using the ms ebook reader.

Avantgo Conduit

[beerits]

If you are looking for a replacement for the nonexistent official conduit for OS X check out MAL Conduit. It works great even with my old Palm IIIxe.

Will It Support Java?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will It Support Java?
How ironic that their development environment is an extension of Eclipse... which is written in Java!

(And is very very good, I might add).

Things a $100 Palm PDA can do that paper can't

[enkidu]

• Backup to multiple locations so you aren't screwed if you lose your PDA. How often do you photocopy your day planner?
• Encrypt passwords/PIN# private information.
• Search for all occurances of a string
• Store/index reference books
• Actively remind you of deadlines
• Cache content from your computer/web

Check out my journal entry on what I want in a PDA. Palm OS Cobalt seems like a sideways step at best.

Laser printer resolution

[notsoclever]

You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 300 and 600dpi for black and white stuff, but for grayscale there'll be a pretty big difference because of dithering.

Re:Laser printer resolution

[Shanep]

You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 300 and 600dpi for black and white stuff, but for grayscale there'll be a pretty big difference because of dithering.

Yes, but that is because a laser printer cannot show a single grey dot. To represent greyscale, a laser printer (as you know) must use an arrangement of many black and white dots in a given space, of varying ratio (dithering).

Because the dot is limited in size to start with, performing dithering causes effective pixel size to increase dramatically (because it must use multiple real pixels to represent one grey pixel).

On an interesting side note regarding deceptive marketing. Inkjet and bubblejet printer manufacturers use the word dot literally and distinctly from pixel, but never tell use because then their products wouldn't seem as good. They have a finite amount of colours that they can spit at the paper, so they use dithering to represent "true colour". When they state 7,000 dpi, they don't mean 7,000 pixels per inch, they mean 7,000 little dither dots per inch, of which a pixel is made up. It might take many of these little dots to make a real pixel dot.

This is why the printed edges of 600dpi inkjets never ever looked anywhere near as good as the printed edges from a 600dpi laser.

PS, I know they look pretty awesome these days.

History repeats itself

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Palm creates a system called "Cobalt"

2) Sun buys Palm for an amazing sum without knowing why

3) Sun Cobalt is slowly destroyed for a second time ...

4) non-profit!

Re:Was considering Palm, but now maybe linux-based

[Anonymous Coward]

> As a Mac user, extremely disappointed that Palm has decided to completely nix the Mac market with OS 6

Yes, but you migh have forseen that risk when you chose to run a niche platform. The Macs market share has been under 5% for years, and has not improved recently.

256MB? huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently 256MB memory

Last I looked, OS's did not have memory. Hardware had memory, and OS's ran on hardware.

Coments from nerd at PalmOne

[Inflatable Hippo]

I don't know where this stuff about lack of Mac support is coming from. I'm here at the PalmONE conference and everyone is going out of their way to say that there is/will be mac support at every opportunity.

While currently there are few gaps in the mac developer tools, they seem comitted to remedying this situation. It's eclipse based, but the resource editor and simulator are windows only. They talked about moving the resource editor into eclipse, but I don't see the simulator getting ported any time soon.

It's also worth remembering that it's going to be some time before there is going to be any Cobalt (OS 6) devices on the shelves, so it's a little premature to complain about hotsync when there's no hardware.

On the whole, Cobalt looks awsome. The demos of the multi-media capabilities are fantastic. This is a proper growed-up operating system that bests anything else on the market for the forseeable future.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the new OS, but I'm totally won over now.

The transition is going to suck a little for developers, but they've put a great deal of effort into making it as easy as it can reasonably be.

Re:Coments from nerd at PalmOne

[Anonymous Coward]

As a developer, I've got one question. Do you know if an ARM version of CodeWarrior for PalmOS is going to appear?

Re:Coments from nerd at PalmOne

[Inflatable Hippo]

I've heard no mention of a new OS 6 compliant version of Code Worrier, PalmSource are clearly pushing their eclipse based dev kit, and I imagine that Metrowerks might not be too interested in competing with "free". However I don't know what plans MW have. I'm sure that if they were planning OS 6 support that they'd be making loud noises about it now.

A mish-mash

[Grincho]

I use Palm Desktop (ugly but featureful) for calendaring and tasks but Address Book for contacts. iCal still has no support for repeating tasks, something which absolutely boggles my mind: how else is one expected to get the bills paid every month?

Some folks use MS Entourage, too. I can't render an opinion on it, myself.

Re:A mish-mash

[Moofie]

Address Book's inability to sync contact categories killed it for me. I love the idea, but the implementation...lacking.

And Palm Desktop is just fine, IMO. There are a few things I'd like to see, but by and large it's great. Too bad it's not going to continue on OSX.

What a lame excuse. "We're abandoning one of our core markets so we can be more buzzword compliant with our biggest competitor." Trying to out-Microsoft Microsoft is raw idiocy.

Bad blood or a case of industry karma

[saha]

I guess the ex-Be OS executives could be getting back at Apple for shutting out Be OS development beyond the 604 processors on the Mac. I'm a huge Be OS admirer and still refer back to Scot Hacker's columns on Byte magazine to understand the way a truly modern OS should run and be responsive under heavy workloads. I think its ironic that Be OS who's microkernel originated to run on the AT&T Hobbit processor (Newton PDA prototypes) will now end up going back into a PDA. Funny how that works right?

I'm also very disappointed with PalmSource decision to stop development for the Mac OSX platform. I've been a Handspring Treo 180 user for a while now and regularly use iSync and the Hotsync tools to back up my Treo and synchronize my Addressbook and Calendar with the Mac OSX built in apps. I couldn't be happier with the whole configuration and interoperability of the two devices. Personally I think its the best damn thing since slice bread and I pity the masses who still have a separate devices with addresses, numbers and calendars in their mobile phone, PDA, home computer, work computer with out a single button solution to synchronize all that data.

Depends on how you make your $20K, I guess.

[DivideByZero]

If your job consists of being handed a schedule for the week and showing up, then I can't see any use for a PDA.

If you've got the kind of work where you have to commit to something fourteen weeks in the future at the drop of a hat, that's the sort of thing these things excel at.

If you're looking for games/toys, buy a better cel phone. If you've spent more buying extra sheets for your DayRunner than you would on an eBay'd PalmIII($60), then I'd definately suggest a PDA.

(1000->Professional->TRGPro->Handera330)

Sign me up, I'll be their b*tch...

[Chordonblue]

I love my Tungsten T. I'll love a Tungsten even more with BEOS! Give me a 400+ MHz processor w/collapsable screen, wi-fi, bluetooth, and OS6 and I'll (once again) reach for my wallet.

I just hope that with all the doodads and gimmicks, they don't forget what keeps Palm in business - simplicity of operation. I start an app and it pops up immediately. Everything seems intuitive. Multitasking is great, but I still want the responsiveness.

I still have the piece of crap that is my Casiopeia CE PDA brick. It was the most unintuitive design (think Windows 3.1) I've ever seen and I cursed myself daily for giving up my old Palm Pilot. I ended up going for the 'T' when Casio refused to upgrade the version of CE on the thing.

One other thing Palm really needs to work on is corporate acceptance. It's currently a LOT easier to administer policies for CE PDAs than the various (and confusing) Palm incarnations across the network. Sounds like better integration with Outlook will help them in the Windows environment.

Re:Sign me up, I'll be their b*tch...

[yog]

I love my T|T, too. But, would love it even more if it

1) didn't occasionally crash, or fails to turn on, requiring a soft reset (about every month or two, usually when I'm showing it off to a non-Palm user)

2) didn't allow apps like Documents To Go to crash the system when editing huge documents, requiring a FACTORY RESET (yes, that means reinstall everything).

3) didn't have the gimmicky slider. I would be happy with the T|E form factor but with the T|3's feature set. I don't care if it sticks an extra inch out of my pocket.

4) worked great with Linux. I mean come on, guys, give people another excuse to dump Windows, dammit. Microsoft's your competition, you know. JPilot is a pretty good substitute, despite a few UI limitations (grumble).

5) had longer battery life. The effective life of the T|T in heavy use is about 3 hours, I've found, using a keyboard and minimal backlighting. Make it a bigger battery or whatever it takes. Making the battery replaceable would be nice, too. For that matter, make the indicator light show when the thing's finished charging (fixed in T|3?).

Not Happy

[Flyboy Connor]

I am not happy with new Palm OS versions arriving regularly. I developed several apps for the Palm, when it was on OS 2. Lots of people still use them. Then OS 3 and 4 arrived, and gave no problems. Then OS 5.0 arrived, and suddenly my apps broke, and took quite a bit of work to fix. Then OS 5.3 arrived, and again my apps broke. I haven't found the time yet to update them (yes, I released them as Open Source, but you know, only once I found someone willing to spend some time on them, out of millions of users).

When you write a new Palm app now, you have a choice: either develop it for the latest OS version and lose many users, or try to implement a cross-platform version and spend enormous amounts of time testing it on every possible configuration (if you can afford them - the emulators only help up to a certain point). Really, for me the fun has gone out of developing for the Palm OS.

Once, Palm had a philosophy that for handhelds simpler is better. Unfortunately, they have not been able to keep this up. Probably good for their bottom line, but they lost one advocate in me.

PocketPC

[Mr_Silver]

I'd buy a Palm again if:

• It supports continuious hotsyncing in the background. I like the idea that I can take my PDA out of the cradle at any time and it'll be up to date with my PC.
• A pretty today screen with the ability to install addition plugins for extra views and functionality. You can get today screens for the Palm but you're locked into what the developer wants you to see and how he/she wants you to see it.
• Better syncing with Outlook. All the fields (a la Chapura KeySuite - but without the need for a different database)

Yes, the PocketPC has them and it's also a little more unstable. But those three features are (for me), the killer things that I (in a non tech job) can't live without.

A general Palm rant

[kbw]

A bit off topic, but I had to get this out of my system.

I've been using Palm kit for some years now. They completely outdid themselves with the Palm Vx. It had a slick design, 3 week battery life and there were loads of apps for it.

It took them a very long time to decide what to do next. I guess over producing then ditching them didn't help.

Now they're competing with the Pocket PC which weighs a ton and has a battery time of a whole 2 hours. So they produced the Tungsten T of which I can't get a week between recharges, and can you imagine the T3. 2 days between charges is just not enough.

Has it not occurred to them that people actually use the things. To be fair, the dictaphone thing/mpeg player are cool. But some of the power sapping stuff really isn't needed on the road. The whole ethos of the product has slipped away in the face of some competition from M$

And what are they now doing? Producing more power hungry kit.

Well, at least they're putting BeOS to good use.

Palm OS 6 called Cobalt

[MadSweeper]

Hey, I was just wondering if Sun is going to get upset (read as: call the lawyers we wanna sue!) because of the use of the name Cobalt.
There used to be a Linux appliance company called Cobalt that was bought out by Sun a while back now.
I couldn't find a link on Sun's site to the Cobalt products but I did find one to their support site
Hmmm....

Re:exit Windows OS, exit Linux OS, exit Unix OS, .

[/ASCII]

Right... Did you look at the specs? Cobalt can handle a maximum of 256 MB of RAM. Also, it's a complete rewrite, meaning that it is a first generation product. Expect loads of bugs and crashes. While I hope Cobalt will be a good OS for handhelds, I don't see it taking over the desktop just yet.

Re:Hmmm... -- PDAs for low earners as ++ tool

[Alan_Peery]

Ask instead the opposite question:

Am I only earning $20k/year because I don't have the tools to keep required information to hand?

A Palm device that offers internal backup (like the Clie T-425 using MemoryStickBackup aka MSBackup) can be a very cost-effective way of

1) keeping information to hand even when walking long distances and biking to save money
2) looking organized and technical

The second point can matter in landing new possibilities.

You should be able to find one on ebay inexpensively. Make sure to get a 32Mb+ Memory stick for backups, and arrange access to a friend's PC for occasional software installs and extra backups. Keep the memory stick at home, not in the PDA -- that way you won't lose the data.

As far as getting value from it--check out one of those self-improvement books from the library. Put the date the book needs to be back into the Palm, and you won't have any library fines!

Re:MAC LOVERS! You will be OK...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been there, read their whitepapers, and they mention things that simply don't exist anywhere else on the web, or in any Palm environment.

We've been discussing this on a mailing list and on irc, and it seems companies are now coming up with some completely vaporous buzzwords, in an effort to try to sell more copies. "Full support for the 'Trusted Desktop API'"? Sorry, doesn't exist.

Talk to Palm themselves, they'll tell you. Emails to Markspace go unanswered, so we must be right.

Here's your screen shot.

[rickmccl]

2005 Chevrolet Cobalt

windows... icons...

[axxackall]

Where is the command prompt?

More Categories!!

[bjb]

What they need, and don't seem to address here, is the support for more than 15 categories! They use a 4-bit field for every record, which maps to a table of category names (i.e. Personal, Business, etc.)

For contacts, 15 is not a big deal. However, if anyone wants to make some serious use of the Tasks component, you can easily assign a category for every project you track, and that runs over 15 in no time. I know I'm not the only person who has complained about this before.

Just two words

[danila]

No DRM.

Let's not forget NCURSES

[axxackall]

... users gain more productivity ...

If they really care about user's productvity than they should think more about the data-model rather then GUI features.

I've got more productivity on a Linux box with well data-designed database applications using ncurses than with poor data-designed GUI-based apps.

I've been using Palm for 3 or more years and I've stopped it as found its data model too primitive for managing my personal information.

Now I have a database that keep my personal data much better as it is designed to manage categories through ontologies and like that. I sync it with my laptop from my home server, which I also access with ncurses applications through ssh, with GUI in GNOME, and just through Python-based command-line interractive interface.

I found that GUI doesn't realy bring a significant value per se, if you don't need charts. I am thinking to port my application eventually to a Linux PDA if I would have one, but having it on a laptop is ok for now.

I would use PDA again, if it would access to the information I have in my personal knowledge manager. And I am sure - GUI is really unnecessary, ncurses is more than enough.

If you don't know what ncurses is: it is a library making GUI-like UI on the screen from text-only (but still color) elements (inlcuding so-called ANSI pseudo-graphics). It can interface with mouse devises if presented. It has a very high level language called "dialog" for scripting new dialogs with ncurses from shell-like scripts. Also it can be used with Python and other scripting languages. It's very compact in terms of bandwidth - when it works through ssh it's fast.

The more I use my Newton...

[PowerMacDaddy]

...the more I realize how crappy the Palm is.

First off, the handwriting recognition is fabulous. And the assistant is just too cool for words. Write "lunch next Wednesday with Connie" and it'll ask you to pick which Connie is in your address book if there's more than one, then schedule an appointment next Wednesday from noon to 1pm with her. Make a long to-do list of things like "Call Jim". As you're going through your list ticking things off, highlight "Call Jim" and activate the Assistant, which will ask which Jim you want to call from your address book and dial the number through the built-in speaker or PCMCIA modem card, then pull up a call log app with call timer and notepad. Speech synthesis. Audio recording and playback. I've got my Newt MP2100 synced to OS X's iCal and Address Book already. (My wife has her's synced to Outlook at work.) I can connect it into any network (via ethernet or WiFi) and print directly to any networked printer, surf the net, or send an email. I can swap the network card for a modem card and fax or dial in to an ISP. The only problem with the Newton is its size: too big when you're not using it but just right when you are. I have a Palm Vx that I carry with me so I have quick access to phone numbers and (most importantly) my checkbook. But if it wasn't for the checkbook software, I would have ditched the Palm completely in favor of the Newt.

If anyone out there is looking for the best in PDAs, look into getting a MP2100 off eBay... they're only about $100. Once you add a WiFi card, ethernet card, modem card, large-capacity storage card, and a couple pieces of shareware, you'll spend about $250 total, and you'll never regret it. Matter of fact, you'll be wondering why the Newt -- which the last model, the MessagePad 2100, came out in 1997 -- can do so many things that Palms and PocketPCs can't, even today.

FWIW the Newton community is very active and passionate, and there's a lot of support for OS X and iApps, as well as loads of software. Oh, and if you want developer tools, there's plenty to pick from.

True, it's not easy being green. But after using both a Palm Vx and a Newton MessagePad 2100, while it's a bigger thing to cary around, there's no comparison... the Newton rocks.

drop the OS developed in 1999 and earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we know what modern hardware can do and know how to write decent system call api's, why don't we write a modern OS without all of the legacy baggage found in Linux, Unix, and Windows?

Uh, yes

[notsoclever]

You just took four paragraphs to summarize what I stated in three words. Aren't you clever?

Re:Uh, yes

[Shanep]

You just took four paragraphs to summarize what I stated in three words. Aren't you clever?

No you did not.

You stated the outcome, without giving the reason.

Am I not allowed to agree with you and ellaborate on the details?

I hope to God you do not teach or write technical documents.

Depends on software you find for it

[MrCam]

I think it all depends on the Apps you use. I use the calendar all the time to keep track of things I do for work and the address book , notes for different client info and such. The programs I use the most aren't included with the Palm,Showtimes, MyCheckbook and Diet and Exercise Assistant.

Showtimes is just cool, it puts movie times in a database you can search on your Palm for movies playing in any area you configure.

MyCheckbook has saved me a bunch of money because I actualy keep track of my ATM/Checking account and know exactly what I have and don't have to worry about keeping reciepts around and entering them in some spread sheet later.

Diet and Exercise Assistant has helped me lose weight, because it lets me do the one proven thing to loose weight, lower calorie intake. It makes counting calories doable, before the Palm it was a pain in the ass and I never when for more than a couple days before giving up.

P.S. This is all on an old Palm V with 4MB