This brings to mind recent Doonesbury strips. That one guy (name?) has the web company that recently had a huge IPO. Some Microsoft guy was trying to buy him out at a party but he turned the offer down. A couple weeks later his daughter was surfing the web:
"Look Poppy, Microsoft developed a Thingamajig and released it for free."
"That's interesting. Wait a second, that's what we make, isn't it?"
Next thing his employees were on a witch hunt as the stock price plummeted:-)
So maybe the advice is "don't go public". Of course that can be a tough road. I work for a privately-held company and can testify how nice it is not to have minute daily fluctuations in stock price overshadow everything. "Stock is down $0.25. Fire 2,000 people!!"
The output is a normal VGA screen so there's no point in running stuff that's written for small, colorless palmtops.
I think one thing that is missed by this and earlier posts in this thread is that the Palm already supports low power consumption. Just pausing for a couple of seconds causes the processor to go to sleep. So yes, there really isn't much point in using Crusoe technology for the Palm. Maybe for the color Palms, but will Crusoe be making a Dragonball compatible chip?
PalmOS is like the DOS of the palmtops. It's hugely popular (mainly because it was the first palmcomputer OS with good developer support) and technologically imperfect.
Developer support is an important part of Palm's popularity, but how have they earned this support? Palm is hugely popular because they realized what people need in a handheld. They really don't need to play mp3s and watch movies. They want an easy way to manage their calendar and contacts. They want to scribble down a memo. They want effortless synching with the desktop. By enabling all these things and making a product that people want to buy, they gained developer support. Most people want to write programs for a platform that is used by the most people, which Palm has become because they did the job right. Imperfect? Absolutely. What is perfect?
If we're not careful enough it's going to stick around too long like DOS did. In my eyes the PalmOS already is obsolete, crusoe just raised the performance you can expect from such machines by 200-300%.
I still maintain that people can already do most of what they want to on the Palm. Is the Crusoe suddenly going to enable people to do large spreadsheets on their Palm? That would be like looking through a keyhole. There just aren't that many power apps that the majority of people are going to want to run on their Palm. They still want to manage their calendar and contacts, and maybe read a few emails. Something the Palm still supports very well.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Crusoe looks like great new technology. I just don't think it is that relevant to PalmPilots specifically.
Hmmm. It seems to me that the current calendar date is directly related to that "arbitrarily chosen" stuff from a couple thousand years ago, and therefore both are equally relevant. The current date is a milestone that only is significant in relation to the significance we place on the start of the calendaring system.
That said, I really don't care either, and agree that 1999-->2000 is more interesting a date change than 2000-->2001, even if the latter is the REAL millennium change.
"I wasn't here to see man land on the moon, or JFK's assassination. I don't really remember Nixon's resignation or the hostage crisis. This is undoubtedly the most important and memorable moment of our lifetime, and I'm trapped at my desk. It's just not worth it."
This is just sad. I hope there are more important and memorable moments in all of our lives than watching and celebrating the clock ticking over.
Was this open letter for real, or just an excessively whiney troll? Can you say, "wallowing in self-pity"?
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Kudos to you. However, what works for you might not work for everyone.
This brings to mind recent Doonesbury strips. That one guy (name?) has the web company that recently had a huge IPO. Some Microsoft guy was trying to buy him out at a party but he turned the offer down. A couple weeks later his daughter was surfing the web:
"Look Poppy, Microsoft developed a Thingamajig and released it for free."
"That's interesting. Wait a second, that's what we make, isn't it?"
Next thing his employees were on a witch hunt as the stock price plummeted :-)
So maybe the advice is "don't go public". Of course that can be a tough road. I work for a privately-held company and can testify how nice it is not to have minute daily fluctuations in stock price overshadow everything. "Stock is down $0.25. Fire 2,000 people!!"
I think one thing that is missed by this and earlier posts in this thread is that the Palm already supports low power consumption. Just pausing for a couple of seconds causes the processor to go to sleep. So yes, there really isn't much point in using Crusoe technology for the Palm. Maybe for the color Palms, but will Crusoe be making a Dragonball compatible chip?
PalmOS is like the DOS of the palmtops. It's hugely popular (mainly because it was the first palmcomputer OS with good developer support) and technologically imperfect.
Developer support is an important part of Palm's popularity, but how have they earned this support? Palm is hugely popular because they realized what people need in a handheld. They really don't need to play mp3s and watch movies. They want an easy way to manage their calendar and contacts. They want to scribble down a memo. They want effortless synching with the desktop. By enabling all these things and making a product that people want to buy, they gained developer support. Most people want to write programs for a platform that is used by the most people, which Palm has become because they did the job right. Imperfect? Absolutely. What is perfect?
If we're not careful enough it's going to stick around too long like DOS did. In my eyes the PalmOS already is obsolete, crusoe just raised the performance you can expect from such machines by 200-300%.
I still maintain that people can already do most of what they want to on the Palm. Is the Crusoe suddenly going to enable people to do large spreadsheets on their Palm? That would be like looking through a keyhole. There just aren't that many power apps that the majority of people are going to want to run on their Palm. They still want to manage their calendar and contacts, and maybe read a few emails. Something the Palm still supports very well.
Don't get me wrong. I think the Crusoe looks like great new technology. I just don't think it is that relevant to PalmPilots specifically.
That said, I really don't care either, and agree that 1999-->2000 is more interesting a date change than 2000-->2001, even if the latter is the REAL millennium change.
This is just sad. I hope there are more important and memorable moments in all of our lives than watching and celebrating the clock ticking over.
Was this open letter for real, or just an excessively whiney troll? Can you say, "wallowing in self-pity"?