08-20-2002, 09:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Pushing the barrier with PDAs
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020809S0008
Change in the computer world is par for the course. Always faster, more memory, etc. That is also true of the PDA world. Four years ago we were using a variety of MIPS/SHx processors running in the 60-80MHz range and tickeled to death with 16MB devices. (Ok, Palm-sized PC users anyway - all three of us.  ) Two years ago we had 206MHz iPAQs with bright color screens and 32MB of RAM on backorder. Now we have 400MHz machines with 64MB of RAM and integrated bluetooth and/or WiFi.
Well, Foo Fighter ran across this article at InformationWeek that goes over all of the changes that have happened and will be happening in the near future and what you should expect from the PDA platform in general. It is an interesting read, especially if you are considering a larger scale rollout in your organization.
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08-20-2002, 09:08 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Decent article, but...
"...and Palm OS 5.0 will provide greatly enhanced multitasking."
Augh! Damn talking head journalists. They just recite what Palm tells them instead of doing any fact checking themselves. :evil:
"...With microdrives from vendors such as IBM now offering 5 Gbytes or more of data in a Compact Flash format."
This 5 GB Microdrive from IBM is as mythical as the unicorn - it's like some strange urban myth that keeps going and going. I can find no real information on it, and since IBM has sold their hard drive business to Fujitsu (I believe) the Microdrive may simply be toast.
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08-20-2002, 09:20 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 106
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Well, it's not exactly a myth.
At one point, IBM had a press release about this thing called "pixie dust" that allowed higher density, so they claimed that by early 2003, they would have 400GB desktop drives, 200GB notebook drives, and 6GB microdrives.
That was in 2001 as far as I know, but it was "official" from IBM that it was going to happen. It may have changed since then, but plans for a 6GB microdrive were in place. It probably would have cost more than whatever item you can find to use it in, of course.
[edit] Here is that article.
http://www.ibm.com/news/2001/05/21.phtml
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08-20-2002, 09:32 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Yes, I remember reading that article, but until a product is shipping, it's irresponsible for a journalist (or anyone) to speak of a product like it's an option for users. 8O
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08-20-2002, 10:51 PM
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,998
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
"...and Palm OS 5.0 will provide greatly enhanced multitasking."
Augh! Damn talking head journalists. They just recite what Palm tells them instead of doing any fact checking themselves. :evil:
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Jason, can you elaborate on this? I know almost nothing about Palm OS5 but we are looking at all options in my company. I'm obviously PPC biased, but we need to look at what's coming down the pipe.
Thanks.
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08-20-2002, 11:06 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by JR
Jason, can you elaborate on this? I know almost nothing about Palm OS5 but we are looking at all options in my company. I'm obviously PPC biased, but we need to look at what's coming down the pipe.
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THe OS 5 ARM kernel technically will support multitasking, but the multitasking API will NOT be exposed to users or developers. In order to maintain maximum compatibilty with OS4 and below, they had to pass on this to get OS5 out the door. OS 6 (or whatever the next one is) will support it, or so they tell us, but I don't know if that requires new ARM apps or if you can multitask the old OS4x apps in the PACE environment.
Bottom line is there is no clear direction on when multitasking will be supported on PalmOS. Also, OS5 doesn't have native multimedia API's, no true file system (still) and custom fonts are not allowed. What is odd is native ARM apps are not allowed either. You can do some ARM dll's (or whatever Palm calls them) but full blown ARM apps are not supported on OS5.
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08-20-2002, 11:08 PM
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,998
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That's very interesting. It's also probably the most information I've learned about OS5 so far. Is it just me or is information on this sketchy at best? I've read palmos.com and all that, but it doesn't answer any "real-world" questions. How about some screen shots?
I mean, for the OS that's supposed to save this company, there certainly isn't much hype (so far at least).
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08-20-2002, 11:21 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by JR
I mean, for the OS that's supposed to save this company, there certainly isn't much hype (so far at least).
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That is the whole point. The screenshots look like a high res OS4. Whoopee. They have really downplayed the OS capabilities because it doesn't do much for the end user or average developer that OS4 didn't do. It is a big deal internally for Palm as it moves them towards a fully 32bit multitasking non-16MB constrained device. They don't want you to know that though.
Best analogy I can think of is moving from Windows 98SE to Windows ME. There is nothing there for the end user to care about. THe interesting stuff will be the hardware. I think sony will have some killer devices. But don't look for much under the hood.
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08-20-2002, 11:23 PM
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Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,998
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That's really too bad. As I think I've mentioned on this board before, I'm working to determine some level of mobile standards for our company. I have a 3870 and an m515. I don't use the m515 unless I'm given something specific to test. It's just plain dull compared to my iPAQ.
I was hoping that OS5 would close the gap. Doesn't look that way does it?
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08-20-2002, 11:31 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by JR
I was hoping that OS5 would close the gap. Doesn't look that way does it?
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Nope. Not to say Sony won't come out with a killer device that closes the gap, but Palm Source has no plans to make OS5+ device requirements standard like MS has done and OS5 itself is sorely lacking IMHO. Your best bet for a good comparison is wait and see what Sony does, but given their lack of non-Memory Stick slots, I think you may be limted in a corp. environment if WiFi/modems/mega-storage memory are desired.
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