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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."
I'm sure glad they recently discovered three more elements! Now Palm can make three more versions of their OS.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Not Mac compatible (synch wise), I heard.
Finally, I can use my uber wall of flat panels monitors with my PDA!
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?
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?
-1, "1337" speak
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
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
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.
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
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.
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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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