What is the big deal about this? It is somewhat of note on PalmOS, where creating emulators is a lot harder than on WinCE or Linux, because of POS's architecture.
While there aren't as many, there certainly are a handful of emulators for PalmOS, although I have only used the good Liberty GB emu.
there probably isn't any reason to post this at all - of course, getting emulators up and running these days on PalmOS is a lot easier than the old 68k days (yay, someone remembers Liberty):P we had a nightmare of a time getting a gameboy emulator running, and then getting it fast enough!
C64 for PalmOS was bound to happen, as has a bunch of other emulators - when you have more memory and CPU power; it makes it very easy. there are of course still limitations to the design of the operating system - but, nothing you cannot code around.
we just recently finished up our new emulator engine - for the good old Atari 2600! but, its multi-platform *g*
http://atari.mobilewizardry.com/
Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone and Symbian Series 60 - using our SHARK development kit. gone are the days of dealing with a single operating system.
> But, I would play Snood [snood.com] (maybe even register it again!) SimCity, Lemmings > and some other games that work on any recent POS device.
um.. as the developer of Lemmings - it doesn't work on Tapwave Zodiac yet.
why? because to get around memory limitations (like, 46Kb dynamic memory on palmos 3.1) we coded the whole game in 16 color mode:) now, every device to date has allowed us to tweak 16 grayscale mode into colors; EXCEPT tapwave. i worked with tapwave extensively, specifically with their digital rights management; and, supporting 4bpp wasn't very high on their "we give a shit" list.
so, officially, Lemmings doesn't run on Tapwave.
of course, we are going to build a special version. its in our road map:) the tapwave device is very nice for games; that require keys. lemmings is really a stylus game. it would play just as well with a cheaper Tungsten|E:P
> Hell, even the new ARM-based b/w Zire could be used for playing > games with these emulators for a mere $99.
as a game developer for Palm OS, and other handheld platforms - i know first hand the issues with porting/writing emulators for the platform. we have written a GameBoy emulator (yes, to 16Mhz m68k) and an Atari 2600 emulator to multiple platforms - however, the processing power available, in addition to the memory constraints imposed by the operating system (4k stack), no global variables in ARMlets; make it very difficult or, virtually impossible to have emulators run on them.
based on our experience and understanding of the platform, emulation for stuff such as Atari, NES, SNES, GameBoy is definately possible; GameBoy Advance at a full 60fps is possible with high-end PDA's (ie: 200Mhz+) as will coin-op ports. however, something like MAME; with its generic engine - if ported will definately run, but maybe not full speed.
the bottom line is that porting to Palm OS is difficult; hence, why MAME/DooM et al have existed on Symbian, Pocket PC - but, not on Palm:)
the tapwave zodiac is a 200Mhz CPU; and, in our experience we have found the Tungsten|T3 cream all over it for pure CPU power (comparing FPS in our 3D engine). however, it does have a 2D accellerator; that some people may take advantage of - and, is actually more 'geared' towards gaming.
i own a Tapwave Zodiac (two actually), GameBoy advance and over 60 PDA devices (www.ardiri.com/pdas.jpg) - not one device suits my every day needs yet:( i am still waiting for that perfect device *g*
the tapwave unit supports both 8bpp and 16bpp graphics (developer can choose using API call). this means 256 and 64k colors. nothing new on this end - the device however is 480x320 in landscape mode.
it is no different from a Tungsten|T unit technically. however, it does use an accellerated 2D graphics chip and there is an API specifically targeted that uses the hardware accelleration = good. the device also ships with the X-forge engine (for those developers too lazy to write their own 3d engine), so, that brings a lot of developers who have already done X-forge projects over.
Palm games are not always simple - thats a mute comment. most are, but, not all. for example, a few hits/classics are ported to the platform such as Lemmings:
http://www.ardiri.com/palm/lemmings/
and, some 3D engines have been written as well - its not just gem-swapping games. there are some very addictive technically pushing games available as well. it is a small market for the big game developers tho, and, thats why it is mainly run by hobby based developers. thats solely because Palm has always been an organizer. tapwave is trying to push it as a gaming console, with the benefits of Palm. you will see more companies do stuff on this device. Palm is accepted as a standard - and, is very easy to use. dont think about 68k units, think ARM:)
In response, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows CE and opened the embedded OS to developers. This will not only allow developers to view and modify CE, but also distribute software incorporated to the modified code.
hmm.. does that model of software development sound familiar to anyone? open source? is Microsoft finally realising that someone outside of Microsoft may be able to write some better code/improvements? sounds like a step closer to Microsoft to move into open source - which, is what Linux is.
> Sorta funny that it took them 45 years to actualy get a patent and just recently enforce it.
maybe the original patenter isn't getting the super-annuation they expected?:) most likely bound to be on retirement plans now - suing a large chip manufacturer (any guesses who) might give a nice retirement package for the guy..
> SCO's approach seems to scare everyone that Linux is illegal dynamite
i wonder if Microsoft has any involvement with SCO to try to erradicate/bad mouth linux for the enterprise market? you never know these days - a direct attack without the direct approach?
> explore countries with even cheaper sources of technical labor,
this kind of thing haunts most developers - and, every company out there who needs to get something done is always seeking for the smaller cost/quick solution for all their projects. its also become common that a lot of developers are lowering their rates just to get work - its not looking good at all..
meanwhile, i perform consulting services - and, i simply refuse to budge from my standard rate for employment. they pay a little more - but, they will get what they pay for. i have had many clients do development in india, then, come to me - and, for a little bit more they get the product faster, of higher quality - and, are very satisfied.
the sooner these companies realize cheap labour has its down-falls, the better of they will be.
it wasn't a virus, so, you probably need to get your facts straight on this one.
if you ever saw it, it was actually labelled as "Crack 1.1" [i didn't label it like this - but, thats how it ended up floating on efnet irc channels]. eventually, it came down to "if you run this, you are 100% intending to crack the program, that is, do something illegal". if you got burnt, bad luck. the correct term for such a little program is trojan horse, and, it required the user to intentfully do something illegal before it did anything.
hang out in the Palm channels on EfNet and give it out to people looking
actually, i was banned from #pdawarez - and, i wasn't the messanger for passing this onto other warez kiddies on irc. the user who posted it went under the name "mac" (and, he doesn't do irc anymore - so, good luck finding him).
he told the media a different story
actually, i told the truth. it was one of my more 'evil' thinking friends who though the discussion to make it go further would be more entertaining.. trust me, being hoarded by reporters isn't entertaining at all. the whole ordeal was so upsetting for me i focused my efforts on a new PDA (vtech helio) for six months to let the whole issue rest. this made a lot of other pda users happy - palm still survives though.
Its not like he sent it to Palm or any anti-virus companies before giving it out.
wrong, Palm knew about it way before. i called personally, they said "dont worry about it". anti-virus companies wanted to use it to exploit people into purchasing their software; why would we want that? if they dont have it, how can they justify the anti-virus software? and, you have no idea what type of research projects i have been involved with directly with Palm and their licensee's (current and future). some of the projects are so contraversal, i cannot even discuss them publically. and, i wont ever disclose such information to anyone.
if any of you attended the Defcon 8 Palm security talk, the presenter gave a rather nice break down of the protection scheme.
so, i guess you never saw the paper i wrote for PalmSource 2000 the same year. it also goes into detail about how the system worked for Liberty, the gameboy emulator. it wasn't too bad, no-one could trust the warez community after they were the ones publically saying "download this, lets destroy ardiri - its the first virus" and, users were confused about what was a real crack, and, what was a trojan - so, they purchased the full version. (extra + points for us dont you think)?
anyhow, this whole crap was a media frenzy that went wild way over 2 years ago. what people also fail to realize is why i would personally do something so stupid to commit suicide professionally - if you were so smart, you would also realize my involvement in the palm community in regards to the development of PilRC. so, technically, if you boycott any product - maybe you shouldn't use PilRC. currently, over 85% of developers on the palmos platform depend on PilRC. life goes on. get over it.
i guess you dont even get into the concept of the |HaCkMe| program - which, i released them pulled. i must be so evil.
well, thats not really true. the screen is only 320x320 - so, your limited to that. the Zire 71 has the ability to take up to 640x480 pictures. infosync.no has some good examples of the pictures taken at day and night with the Zire 71.
the Tungsten|C is a nice unit - definately up there now with the Pocket PC equivalents. very fast.
ok, so a cam version comes out pretty quickly - and, you can download it within a matter of hours from any decent file sharing system.
but, really - have you ever see one of these? they suck. even if they were very high quality, they suck. the audio is bad, and, the lighting could be improved a bit.
i think these companies should be more worried about the DVD screeners that are ripped.. you know the ones that say "this movie is owned by XXXX recording studios.. blah blah", but, since they only appear for a few seconds, its enough to ignore and continue watching. consider it a subtitle. 2002 grammies was hard.. what was available while it was still airing in cinemas?
- 8 mile - lord of the rings (two towers) - harry potter (chamber of secrets) - the ring - xxx
i think there were a few more too. so much for CAMCORDER rips of the cinema.. it happens every day, just look at www.vcdquality.com or other 'movie' websites that advertise releases.
they were just demanding that I work 60+ hrs a week jebus, what planet are you on? do you only expect to work 40 hours a week? some of us put out 100+ hours a week in our jobs - thats part of the IT business. if you work less than this, your considered lazy and a threat to the company's existance.
i always felt sorry for Bill when he was a kid - just think, 'Master Gates'... or... 'Master Bates' *g* not to mention the decision for the company name 'MicroSoft'.. micro + soft? surely not two works you want to have described about your man hood now is it?
hmm.. doing the math, thats (1024*1024)/24/60/60 - 12.13k/sec (if its continuous). if you assume a working day is 8 hours (yeah rite), then, your looking at 36.39k/sec for the working day continuous. i think thats probably ample enough dont you? at 12.13k/sec - your looking at as 128k line, at 36.39k/sec - your looking at less than 512k line.
i am on 2.5Mbit line, and, even when bombarding with 300k/sec downloads - i barely reach 1Gb per day, i get close - but, it isn't really that un-realistic is it?
http://www.cliesource.com ran a contest that ended with no winner to see if someone could write a CF memory driver for the CF slot on the NZ series. the thread has moved, but, i am sure you can find more info about it on the website - maybe a nice little challenge if they were willing to re-open the contest?
> For many people, one of the biggest reason to buy Sony products is the memory stick.
actually, the biggest reason is the lack of support:) sony clie n710c users will remember the heartache of upgrading to the 4.0 rom from 3.5 - it just wasn't pleasant for sony users. support is their largest problem, memory stick is ok, its cheap, but, i agree - it would be nice to have a uniform memory card solution.
> of the user code is written as 68K and emulated on the device
damn.. i had moderator points - but, i figured my input in this story was better than moderating it:) as for how the OS5 devices run, i have posted a few stories in the past to/. and, a few of them are here in other stories:
as a developer, having 400Mhz is nice. we have a 3D engine (raycaster based) running on 68k units, and, we were able to seriously enhance it for arm units:
its been solely possible due to the extra processing power. while some may argue its only an emulated system - the extra Mhz means palmos can do pocket pc stuff:) - having 400Mhz would give us even more fun stuff to experiment around with. the real issue we are running into is the differences with ARM implementation, mainly OMAP and XScale. sony adopted XScale, Palm adopted OMAP. there are some slight issues between the two, which, gives different 'running speeds' for native arm code.
> There is a way to write some code as ARM, but it's pretty painful
it is not painful to write ARM code:) it just takes a bit of thinking and good design. we have been writing ARM code for palmos way before the pubic devices were available - it was fun figuring out how native arm code works and rebuilding cross compilers:)
> It looks like some phone companies have decided to charge for GPRS access based on time, not on volume of traffic.
thats bad. very bad.
first, it is important to understanding how GPRS works. telco's will put higher precedence over voice calls than GPRS calls - so, if the network is full, they will disconnect GPRS connections to allow voice connections to go through (this, depends on the network of course - but, when you understand more money can be made from voice calls - its obvious).
paying by the minute for a GPRS connection is stupid. the whole idea with GPRS was to stay connected at all times, and, receive data as soon as it was available; when i tested GPRS way back in 2000, it was cool to be able to ride the subway/bus to work, and, continue to icq my buddies (sad, i know; but it had a geek factor to it *g*).
the second problem with GPRS is that although there may be more bandwidth available - its a common misconception that in reality, you are actually sharing bandwidth with others. that means, if 10 people are sharing a 144kbps line, your connection may effectively be 14kbps. keep in mind that normal GSM phone call you pay by the minute, but, your guarenteed a connection of 9600bps. while doing tests with GPRS and GSM, i found, when in congested areas - i got better transfer rates with GSM (dialing isp) than GPRS. it isn't hard to do the math and figure out at which point GPRS actually becomes slower than using GSM.
the true fun will come when they can stablise UMTS. but, that is well overdue - constant delays, hmm.. i wonder why?
>> Seriously, 32MB? How hard would it be to put 64 or 128MB?
not hard at all - but, palmos applications dont need large memory footprints. the amount of available ram on palmos is very limited, from 20k on very early units, to 2 megabyte on the latest beasts. if your an application developer, you were lucky to have 256kb of dynamic ram available for use prior to os 5.0 (or, custom devices like sony for hires support)
32Mb on a palmos unit is plenty. ram on a palm is used for program storage, not data storage in many 'normal' situations. surely, storing an mp3 in ram is crazy. thats what expansion memory is fore. 32Mb on a palmos unit is comparing to 96Mb on a PPC unit. palm has a very low memory foot print, and, the applications are not bloatware (unless, of course, programs are written badly):P
i barely use the 16Mb in my T|T - and, my device gets pushed to its limits on a daily basis playing audio and - of course, being pushed by our own developments:) external memory is perfect, its just a simple swap to get new memory/data for alternative purposes.
now, first - i have to apologize to all those other John Howards out there (yes, even the multiple in australia) for having to share this name - i really cannot believe the guy is still in power.
oh.. and, how many guys will respond for a measy crate of coke and $100 or linux software? (isn't most linux software = free?). maybe someone at SMH just wants john to be spammed.
most australians have modem connections - like, how many users actually finish their downloads of the movies? (i know, i used to live there - and, ADSL is expensive as hell). now, if they decided to focus on a country that has higher speed connections where it takes around 20mins to download a full 700mb divx file between two broadband connections (ie: BBB 10Mb up/down link). maybe they are going after the wrong people here *g*
with that many lines of code, i feel sorry for the poor bastards that will buy the code to get the technology. could you imagine walking through that many lines of code to see what bits you can integrate/merge into your own project?
sounds a bit of a hoax personally - thats a lot of code to have written in such a small time. media players themselves to handle "everything" would take that long.. how much of the code is actually relevent to the 4x speed up tho?
Slashdot Mirror
What is the big deal about this? It is somewhat of note on PalmOS, where creating emulators is a lot harder than on WinCE or Linux, because of POS's architecture.
:P we had a nightmare of a time getting a gameboy emulator running, and then getting it fast enough!
While there aren't as many, there certainly are a handful of emulators for PalmOS, although I have only used the good Liberty GB emu.
there probably isn't any reason to post this at all - of course, getting emulators up and running these days on PalmOS is a lot easier than the old 68k days (yay, someone remembers Liberty)
C64 for PalmOS was bound to happen, as has a bunch of other emulators - when you have more memory and CPU power; it makes it very easy. there are of course still limitations to the design of the operating system - but, nothing you cannot code around.
we just recently finished up our new emulator engine - for the good old Atari 2600! but, its multi-platform *g*
http://atari.mobilewizardry.com/
Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone and Symbian Series 60 - using our SHARK development kit. gone are the days of dealing with a single operating system.
unfortunately, Frodo for PalmOS doesn't run on your Nokia 7650 - you most likely were playing with a version built for Symbian Series 60 :)
> But, I would play Snood [snood.com] (maybe even register it again!) SimCity, Lemmings
:) now, every device to date has allowed us to tweak 16 grayscale mode into colors; EXCEPT tapwave. i worked with tapwave extensively, specifically with their digital rights management; and, supporting 4bpp wasn't very high on their "we give a shit" list.
:) the tapwave device is very nice for games; that require keys. lemmings is really a stylus game. it would play just as well with a cheaper Tungsten|E :P
> and some other games that work on any recent POS device.
um.. as the developer of Lemmings - it doesn't work on Tapwave Zodiac yet.
why? because to get around memory limitations (like, 46Kb dynamic memory on palmos 3.1) we coded the whole game in 16 color mode
so, officially, Lemmings doesn't run on Tapwave.
of course, we are going to build a special version. its in our road map
> Hell, even the new ARM-based b/w Zire could be used for playing
:)
:( i am still waiting for that perfect device *g*
> games with these emulators for a mere $99.
as a game developer for Palm OS, and other handheld platforms - i know first hand the issues with porting/writing emulators for the platform. we have written a GameBoy emulator (yes, to 16Mhz m68k) and an Atari 2600 emulator to multiple platforms - however, the processing power available, in addition to the memory constraints imposed by the operating system (4k stack), no global variables in ARMlets; make it very difficult or, virtually impossible to have emulators run on them.
based on our experience and understanding of the platform, emulation for stuff such as Atari, NES, SNES, GameBoy is definately possible; GameBoy Advance at a full 60fps is possible with high-end PDA's (ie: 200Mhz+) as will coin-op ports. however, something like MAME; with its generic engine - if ported will definately run, but maybe not full speed.
the bottom line is that porting to Palm OS is difficult; hence, why MAME/DooM et al have existed on Symbian, Pocket PC - but, not on Palm
the tapwave zodiac is a 200Mhz CPU; and, in our experience we have found the Tungsten|T3 cream all over it for pure CPU power (comparing FPS in our 3D engine). however, it does have a 2D accellerator; that some people may take advantage of - and, is actually more 'geared' towards gaming.
i own a Tapwave Zodiac (two actually), GameBoy advance and over 60 PDA devices (www.ardiri.com/pdas.jpg) - not one device suits my every day needs yet
the tapwave unit supports both 8bpp and 16bpp graphics (developer can choose using API call). this means 256 and 64k colors. nothing new on this end - the device however is 480x320 in landscape mode.
:)
it is no different from a Tungsten|T unit technically. however, it does use an accellerated 2D graphics chip and there is an API specifically targeted that uses the hardware accelleration = good. the device also ships with the X-forge engine (for those developers too lazy to write their own 3d engine), so, that brings a lot of developers who have already done X-forge projects over.
Palm games are not always simple - thats a mute comment. most are, but, not all. for example, a few hits/classics are ported to the platform such as Lemmings:
http://www.ardiri.com/palm/lemmings/
and, some 3D engines have been written as well - its not just gem-swapping games. there are some very addictive technically pushing games available as well. it is a small market for the big game developers tho, and, thats why it is mainly run by hobby based developers. thats solely because Palm has always been an organizer. tapwave is trying to push it as a gaming console, with the benefits of Palm. you will see more companies do stuff on this device. Palm is accepted as a standard - and, is very easy to use. dont think about 68k units, think ARM
In response, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows CE and opened the embedded OS to developers. This will not only allow developers to view and modify CE, but also distribute software incorporated to the modified code.
hmm.. does that model of software development sound familiar to anyone? open source? is Microsoft finally realising that someone outside of Microsoft may be able to write some better code/improvements? sounds like a step closer to Microsoft to move into open source - which, is what Linux is.
> Sorta funny that it took them 45 years to actualy get a patent and just recently enforce it.
:) most likely bound to be on retirement plans now - suing a large chip manufacturer (any guesses who) might give a nice retirement package for the guy..
maybe the original patenter isn't getting the super-annuation they expected?
he'll die eventually - thats the good news.
> SCO's approach seems to scare everyone that Linux is illegal dynamite
i wonder if Microsoft has any involvement with SCO to try to erradicate/bad mouth linux for the enterprise market? you never know these days - a direct attack without the direct approach?
> I'm sure that's because you're American
actually, its because i am Australian - Italian and Polish parents; and, i live in Sweden. whats nationality got to do with this?
> explore countries with even cheaper sources of technical labor,
this kind of thing haunts most developers - and, every company out there who needs to get something done is always seeking for the smaller cost/quick solution for all their projects. its also become common that a lot of developers are lowering their rates just to get work - its not looking good at all..
meanwhile, i perform consulting services - and, i simply refuse to budge from my standard rate for employment. they pay a little more - but, they will get what they pay for. i have had many clients do development in india, then, come to me - and, for a little bit more they get the product faster, of higher quality - and, are very satisfied.
the sooner these companies realize cheap labour has its down-falls, the better of they will be.
author of the only Palm virus
it wasn't a virus, so, you probably need to get your facts straight on this one.
if you ever saw it, it was actually labelled as "Crack 1.1" [i didn't label it like this - but, thats how it ended up floating on efnet irc channels]. eventually, it came down to "if you run this, you are 100% intending to crack the program, that is, do something illegal". if you got burnt, bad luck. the correct term for such a little program is trojan horse, and, it required the user to intentfully do something illegal before it did anything.
hang out in the Palm channels on EfNet and give it out to people looking
actually, i was banned from #pdawarez - and, i wasn't the messanger for passing this onto other warez kiddies on irc. the user who posted it went under the name "mac" (and, he doesn't do irc anymore - so, good luck finding him).
he told the media a different story
actually, i told the truth. it was one of my more 'evil' thinking friends who though the discussion to make it go further would be more entertaining.. trust me, being hoarded by reporters isn't entertaining at all. the whole ordeal was so upsetting for me i focused my efforts on a new PDA (vtech helio) for six months to let the whole issue rest. this made a lot of other pda users happy - palm still survives though.
Its not like he sent it to Palm or any anti-virus companies before giving it out.
wrong, Palm knew about it way before. i called personally, they said "dont worry about it". anti-virus companies wanted to use it to exploit people into purchasing their software; why would we want that? if they dont have it, how can they justify the anti-virus software? and, you have no idea what type of research projects i have been involved with directly with Palm and their licensee's (current and future). some of the projects are so contraversal, i cannot even discuss them publically. and, i wont ever disclose such information to anyone.
if any of you attended the Defcon 8 Palm security talk, the presenter gave a rather nice break down of the protection scheme.
so, i guess you never saw the paper i wrote for PalmSource 2000 the same year. it also goes into detail about how the system worked for Liberty, the gameboy emulator. it wasn't too bad, no-one could trust the warez community after they were the ones publically saying "download this, lets destroy ardiri - its the first virus" and, users were confused about what was a real crack, and, what was a trojan - so, they purchased the full version. (extra + points for us dont you think)?
PalmSource 2000: Software Protection
anyhow, this whole crap was a media frenzy that went wild way over 2 years ago. what people also fail to realize is why i would personally do something so stupid to commit suicide professionally - if you were so smart, you would also realize my involvement in the palm community in regards to the development of PilRC. so, technically, if you boycott any product - maybe you shouldn't use PilRC. currently, over 85% of developers on the palmos platform depend on PilRC. life goes on. get over it.
i guess you dont even get into the concept of the |HaCkMe| program - which, i released them pulled. i must be so evil.
>> 640x480 VGA video playback
well, thats not really true. the screen is only 320x320 - so, your limited to that. the Zire 71 has the ability to take up to 640x480 pictures. infosync.no has some good examples of the pictures taken at day and night with the Zire 71.
the Tungsten|C is a nice unit - definately up there now with the Pocket PC equivalents. very fast.
ok, so a cam version comes out pretty quickly - and, you can download it within a matter of hours from any decent file sharing system.
but, really - have you ever see one of these? they suck. even if they were very high quality, they suck. the audio is bad, and, the lighting could be improved a bit.
i think these companies should be more worried about the DVD screeners that are ripped.. you know the ones that say "this movie is owned by XXXX recording studios.. blah blah", but, since they only appear for a few seconds, its enough to ignore and continue watching. consider it a subtitle. 2002 grammies was hard.. what was available while it was still airing in cinemas?
- 8 mile
- lord of the rings (two towers)
- harry potter (chamber of secrets)
- the ring
- xxx
i think there were a few more too. so much for CAMCORDER rips of the cinema.. it happens every day, just look at www.vcdquality.com or other 'movie' websites that advertise releases.
they were just demanding that I work 60+ hrs a week
jebus, what planet are you on? do you only expect to work 40 hours a week? some of us put out 100+ hours a week in our jobs - thats part of the IT business. if you work less than this, your considered lazy and a threat to the company's existance.
it could also be because of the introduction of the new bread of gay/homosexual dinosaurs - the megasoraus and the likalotofpus.
i always felt sorry for Bill when he was a kid - just think, 'Master Gates' ... or... 'Master Bates' *g* not to mention the decision for the company name 'MicroSoft'.. micro + soft? surely not two works you want to have described about your man hood now is it?
hmm.. doing the math, thats (1024*1024)/24/60/60 - 12.13k/sec (if its continuous). if you assume a working day is 8 hours (yeah rite), then, your looking at 36.39k/sec for the working day continuous. i think thats probably ample enough dont you? at 12.13k/sec - your looking at as 128k line, at 36.39k/sec - your looking at less than 512k line.
i am on 2.5Mbit line, and, even when bombarding with 300k/sec downloads - i barely reach 1Gb per day, i get close - but, it isn't really that un-realistic is it?
http://www.cliesource.com ran a contest that ended with no winner to see if someone could write a CF memory driver for the CF slot on the NZ series. the thread has moved, but, i am sure you can find more info about it on the website - maybe a nice little challenge if they were willing to re-open the contest?
> For many people, one of the biggest reason to buy Sony products is the memory stick.
:) sony clie n710c users will remember the heartache of upgrading to the 4.0 rom from 3.5 - it just wasn't pleasant for sony users. support is their largest problem, memory stick is ok, its cheap, but, i agree - it would be nice to have a uniform memory card solution.
actually, the biggest reason is the lack of support
> of the user code is written as 68K and emulated on the device
:) as for how the OS5 devices run, i have posted a few stories in the past to /. and, a few of them are here in other stories:
8 73 166
7 87 743d =4787 183
= 13 4
:) - having 400Mhz would give us even more fun stuff to experiment around with. the real issue we are running into is the differences with ARM implementation, mainly OMAP and XScale. sony adopted XScale, Palm adopted OMAP. there are some slight issues between the two, which, gives different 'running speeds' for native arm code.
:) it just takes a bit of thinking and good design. we have been writing ARM code for palmos way before the pubic devices were available - it was fun figuring out how native arm code works and rebuilding cross compilers :)
damn.. i had moderator points - but, i figured my input in this story was better than moderating it
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=35839&cid=3
and, some other postings specific to native code in the ogg/vorbis threads. [maybe of interest - more specific to development of native arm code]
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46474&cid=4
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46474&ci
as a developer, having 400Mhz is nice. we have a 3D engine (raycaster based) running on 68k units, and, we were able to seriously enhance it for arm units:
http://mobilewizardry.com/board/viewtopic.php?t
its been solely possible due to the extra processing power. while some may argue its only an emulated system - the extra Mhz means palmos can do pocket pc stuff
> There is a way to write some code as ARM, but it's pretty painful
it is not painful to write ARM code
> It looks like some phone companies have decided to charge for GPRS access based on time, not on volume of traffic.
thats bad. very bad.
first, it is important to understanding how GPRS works. telco's will put higher precedence over voice calls than GPRS calls - so, if the network is full, they will disconnect GPRS connections to allow voice connections to go through (this, depends on the network of course - but, when you understand more money can be made from voice calls - its obvious).
paying by the minute for a GPRS connection is stupid. the whole idea with GPRS was to stay connected at all times, and, receive data as soon as it was available; when i tested GPRS way back in 2000, it was cool to be able to ride the subway/bus to work, and, continue to icq my buddies (sad, i know; but it had a geek factor to it *g*).
the second problem with GPRS is that although there may be more bandwidth available - its a common misconception that in reality, you are actually sharing bandwidth with others. that means, if 10 people are sharing a 144kbps line, your connection may effectively be 14kbps. keep in mind that normal GSM phone call you pay by the minute, but, your guarenteed a connection of 9600bps. while doing tests with GPRS and GSM, i found, when in congested areas - i got better transfer rates with GSM (dialing isp) than GPRS. it isn't hard to do the math and figure out at which point GPRS actually becomes slower than using GSM.
the true fun will come when they can stablise UMTS. but, that is well overdue - constant delays, hmm.. i wonder why?
>> Seriously, 32MB? How hard would it be to put 64 or 128MB?
:P
:) external memory is perfect, its just a simple swap to get new memory/data for alternative purposes.
not hard at all - but, palmos applications dont need large memory footprints. the amount of available ram on palmos is very limited, from 20k on very early units, to 2 megabyte on the latest beasts. if your an application developer, you were lucky to have 256kb of dynamic ram available for use prior to os 5.0 (or, custom devices like sony for hires support)
32Mb on a palmos unit is plenty. ram on a palm is used for program storage, not data storage in many 'normal' situations. surely, storing an mp3 in ram is crazy. thats what expansion memory is fore. 32Mb on a palmos unit is comparing to 96Mb on a PPC unit. palm has a very low memory foot print, and, the applications are not bloatware (unless, of course, programs are written badly)
i barely use the 16Mb in my T|T - and, my device gets pushed to its limits on a daily basis playing audio and - of course, being pushed by our own developments
doing a search on yahoo.com (people search) is normally a pretty good start, and, a few interesting ones i found in the list of 200 or so are:
gstjohnny yahoo.com.au
john_howard_pm_2000 yahoo.com.au
pm_john_howard hotmail.com
johnhowardmp yahoo.com
nakedhornyguy yahoo.com (hahaha)
now, first - i have to apologize to all those other John Howards out there (yes, even the multiple in australia) for having to share this name - i really cannot believe the guy is still in power.
oh.. and, how many guys will respond for a measy crate of coke and $100 or linux software? (isn't most linux software = free?). maybe someone at SMH just wants john to be spammed.
most australians have modem connections - like, how many users actually finish their downloads of the movies? (i know, i used to live there - and, ADSL is expensive as hell). now, if they decided to focus on a country that has higher speed connections where it takes around 20mins to download a full 700mb divx file between two broadband connections (ie: BBB 10Mb up/down link). maybe they are going after the wrong people here *g*
with that many lines of code, i feel sorry for the poor bastards that will buy the code to get the technology. could you imagine walking through that many lines of code to see what bits you can integrate/merge into your own project?
sounds a bit of a hoax personally - thats a lot of code to have written in such a small time. media players themselves to handle "everything" would take that long.. how much of the code is actually relevent to the 4x speed up tho?