Comments on: Discussion: Linux on a Springboard
Article Comments
(10 comments)
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.
Comments Closed
This article is no longer accepting new comments.
RE: Next stop... 1969 Ba-Beeeee... Groovy!
Almost as bad is having to read something I wrote 5(!; where'd all the time go?) years ago.
RE: Next stop... 1969 Ba-Beeeee... Groovy!
As to the main issue here----GOOD GOD, MIKE--that's an eerily prophetic article. Had you forgotten about writing it or had you been dropping references for the past half-decade to that article and your comments about Handspring being not wedded to the Palm OS/Palm devices just being one of HS's product lines? This timely (yet spookily prescient!) report should shut up all of the "MikeCon" flames for a while. Let the kiddies go back to their GameBoys...the other Oracle (sorry, TVoR) of PIC has spoken!
Finally, that's a finely written piece-nothing to be ashamed of there. Have you ever seriously considered pleading with Handheld Computing Magazine or Brighthand for a "paid" monthly column ala my other favorite grumbly curmudgeon, John C. Dvorak?
RE: Next stop... 1969 Ba-Beeeee... Groovy!
Kirvin makes an intriguing point:
>>>I don't know how soon PalmSource is going to make this available, but the sooner the better. Why? To retrofit Pocket PCs, of course. There's already an effort underway to port Linux (the Familiar distro, I believe) to the HP hx4705. I would love to get PalmOS for Linux on that thing.
http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/2004/12/is-that-penguin-in-your-pocket.htm
Hahahaha. Wouldn't *that* be hilarious?
In one fell swoop, PS manages to kill itself *and* its major licensee.
I can't say I'd be sorry.
I loved my Visor Prism...
Nokia 3650 bluetooth magnate
RE: I loved my Visor Prism...
Eventhough it's very outdated already (compared to others nowadays), it still does the job for doing the basic stuff for daily use. And like everybody out there that's been bitten by the Visor bug (w/ various springboard expansion stuff), I was enamored by the hardwares potential. But now that technology (sort of) has come of age (convergence), I'm going to eventually replace it (as my primary PDA) with a Treo 600 (should've been the Treo 650, but P1 failed to impress me with its specs!) this holiday season.
Retro stuff aside, so what happened really with the Linux thing on the Visor? Was it sort of an unfinished business back then, an experiment or idea worth pursuing by a licensee; but is now being pursued by Palm Source itself?
And now that Palm is split into two, does Hawkins (w/P1) got anything to do with the idea of Palm OS (w/PS), or the idea was more or less justified by PS only now because of its possibilities and possible competition to the Palm OS back then, and/or because of the delay regarding Cobalts release on any new hardware = no income for PS on its Cobalt efforts?
m505 > Visor Prism > Visor Prism + Visor Phone + EyeModule + FlashPlus > Treo 600 ( this holiday season! )
RE: Marketing Mouseketeers take note
I don't know what the hell a Linux Springboard module would actually do, but show me one and then I'll call Mike Cane a visionary.
Peace Out
Alan
As mikecane has said a million times
This seems to be the most fundamental message of the Palm OS story. Designs limited by original commodity hardware still plague the system, almost a decade later. PalmSource cannot fix these things without breaking lots of legacy stuff with third-party applications. New versions of the OS (namely, 5 and 6) are based on collosal hacks and emulation layers designed to maintain compatbility with the old OS 1 system while still boasting aspects of a "modern" OS with crap like multi-tasking and multimedia.
The brilliance of the original PalmOS, though, was that it was not a scaled down version of a desktop OS. This is the problem with Windows CE/Mobile, the problem with Linux-based PDAs like the Zaurus. And it's now the problem with the PalmOS.
I predict that the PDA will die, to be replaced by devices like the OQO. Smartphones will continue to gain popularity, but I think before long we will start to see dumbphones---devices that are little more than a bluetooth-GSM bridge and a headset which tie into a an ultraportable PC.
Palm has the chance to stop this, by leveraging the great applications out there (which is all that has ever kept them alive). Instead of buying Be and now CMS, they should have bought
DataViz, Chapura, and PocketTunes, and gave their apps away free with all the licensees.
I don't think PalmSource and PalmOne are dead, but the move to Linux is not going to breathe as much life into them as they hope. The whole PDA market will collapse, and Microsoft---who still owns Windows XP for the OQO---will declare themselves victorious.
Palm OS 6 is hard because
Palm Enthusiast since 1998
RE: As mikecane has said a million times
As for the OQO, I love it too. Will Nagel ever catch on to *that* running his "new" PalmOS?
http://www.handtops.com/forum/513/0//_quotPalmOS_for_Linux_quot_on_handto.html#
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
Next stop... 1969 Ba-Beeeee... Groovy!
Nothing revolutionary, here, Mike. A lot of us talked about hacking a Linuxed Palm, but PDAs are/were primarily about UI, speed and stability. And Palm already had all three in spades, even running on a slowpoke Dragonball processor.
The old devices were simple and just plain WORKED. The Zen of Palm is dead. I had hoped that Cobalt would bring the Zen back by removing all the kludges now necessary to get stuff done. Looks like the Be engineers couldn't pull it off.
Does PalmSource seriously think this little Chinese startup can save the platform? How naive. How sad.
******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.