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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."

5 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Special Slashdot edition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    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.
    Thanks, www.palminfocenter.com


    Full version is here with reader comments.

  2. Text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    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 Secu

  3. I aggree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    0 0 0 0 1 1 5 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 10 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 5.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5Please try to keep posts on topic.
    Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads.
    Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
    Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
    Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)

  4. Re:32,000x32,000? by craXORjack · · Score: 1, Redundant

    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.

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
  5. Code names? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Do dorkballs give software projects code names to make themselves feel like they are secret agents working on a super secret projects?