Something Sad, Something Funny [Archive]

Ed Hansberry

04-18-2003, 09:00 PM

There are two things happening in the PDA world today that doesn't involve the Pocket PC - one is sad to see happen, the other just blows my mind. :roll: First, <a href="http://www.handera.com/press/palmos.asp">Handera is getting out of the PDA manufacturing business</a>. Handera was originally named TRG and they were the official hot-rodders of Palm PDAs. They took the Palm III, crammed 8MB of RAM into it then threw in a Compact Flash slot for good measure. This was when Palm was still saying external storage cards were too complex. Their most recent innovation, if you can call the summer of 2001 recent, was the Handera 330. It was still based on the Palm III formfactor but added some features you still can't find on a Palm OS device. It had a 320X240 screen (sounds familiar, huh?), dual expansion slots - one CF and one SD, soft input panel, swappable rechargable batteries and a voice recorder. I always thought the TRG/Handera devices were a killer hardware platform in search of an OS. I hate to see any power user's device like this go. There were rumors of a color 330 last year, but it wasn't meant to be. Handera PDA division couldn't survive on the low sales in a niche market. They will continue to do consulting work, which is where they got their start. It wouldn't bother me in the least to hear Handera had a hand in designing a future Pocket PC with one of the big Pocket PC OEMs. Now, for the headline that just stunned me. "<a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030417/sfth021_1.html">Palm Solutions Group Announces Memory Innovation</a>." Wow! What have they done now? Will Pocket PCs be forced to play catch up in the memory game? Well, no, not really. They have modified the PalmOS to address up to 128MB of RAM. Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet, but mods are available and the Pocket PC OS itself is quite capable of seeing all of this RAM and has been since its release in 2000. How this qualifies as an innovation three years after it was done in another PDA is beyond me. It just smacks of "you don't need it until we have it" again.<!> Now for the really funny stuff. Look at the bottom of that <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030417/sfth021_1.html">Palm press release</a>. • "...the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, which was condensed from a desktop OS..." - well, it sure sounds good in a press release despite having absolutely no truth to it whatsoever. • "A Palm handheld uses about one-fifth the storage to manage text or voice memos vs. a Pocket PC handheld" - Well, when your memos only hold 4k, it is easier to use less storage. • "A Palm handheld owner can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven steps required of a Pocket PC device owner." - Oh my, I never thought I'd see tap counts in a press release. Hey Palm, you <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,5971">check out this article</a> before putting this kind of thing in press releases. :lol:

Charles Pickrell

04-18-2003, 09:07 PM

Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet

The Toshiba e550C in Japan ships with 128 MB of RAM.

I agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up. I can just read the headlines in the NYT now.

"Innovative Palm CEO passes wind, company stocks soar!"

While Microsoft releases an OS that supports all sorts of cool technology and the press says nothing. I just don't get it. Maybe Palm employs a voodoo sorceress.

Ed Hansberry

04-18-2003, 09:16 PM

Granted, no Pocket PCs ship with 128MB of RAM yet

The Toshiba e550C in Japan ships with 128 MB of RAM.
Really? I didn't know that. I knew it was just an OEM issue and not OS related. Thanks Charles.

I agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up.
ROTFLMBO!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I want a bumper sticker with that slogan!

Duncan

04-18-2003, 09:53 PM

This has got to rank as one of the stupidest moves Palm has made for a while. Not only are they opening themselves up for widespread ridicule (even the Palm loving press are going to notice this 'innovation' is anything but!) but by effectively misrepresenting Microsoft's product in order to harm it they have broken the law (please tell me this is illegal in the US as well...). MS is hardly going to let Palm get away with brazen lies about their OS!

Where do they get a seven step process from anyway? Click - Calendar opens - enter appointment - tap OK. That's two steps for any Pocket PC?!

roberto_torres

04-18-2003, 10:42 PM

Ed Hansberry

04-18-2003, 10:52 PM

. I always thought the TRG/Handera devices were a killer hardware platform in search of an OS.

Killer hardware? compared to Sony and Garming palm os devices with their 320x320 and 320 x 480.
Remember Sony didn't do Hi-res until 2002, or maybe late 2001. Handera Had it in mid-2001 with a SIP and did more than just pixel doubling. Even after Sony's hi-res mode came out, it was months before there were any real apps to use it.

Handera was a pioneer in the PalmOS side. Of course, they didn't do anything that the 1997 Palm-sized PC hardware didn't do, but that is a whole 'nuther story.

Weyoun6

04-19-2003, 12:43 AM

If handera works on a pocketpc that is as innovative as the 330 was, I would buy it in a minute.

gfunkmagic

04-19-2003, 01:52 AM

The loss of Handera is sad and foreboding news to the PalmOS platform. Many people are going to argue that this isn't a big deal or that Handera was a niche player anyway. But aren't many of PalmSource's licensees niche players (i.e Handspring, Garmin, Sybmol?) The fact that Handera had every intention of releasing an OS 5 device but could not b/c of lisencing costs is very annoying. Palmsource should have been flexible enough to allow one of its earliest licensees to continue as an OEM in the industry (especially if market demand however small justified it). Sadly they didn't and now PalmSource has yet another licensee exit the main stand alone pda market (joining Handspring which decided earlier to abandaon its visor line). That leaves just PalmSG and Sony as the major OEM's (at least in NA) to lead the mantle for PalmOS. :? This becomes even more disconcerting when the likes of Toshiba and Fujitsu , once spurned from Palm, now turn out various PPC devices. I think PalmSource needs to add another major licensee to compete with PalmSG and Sony FAST. It could be Dell or Apple or whoever, but they need to get another big boy in the game badly IMO...

agree that it is funny how Palm can fart and the media world sucks it up. I can just read the headlines in the NYT now.

"Innovative Palm CEO passes wind, company stocks soar!"

While Microsoft releases an OS that supports all sorts of cool technology and the press says nothing. I just don't get it. Maybe Palm employs a voodoo sorceress.

This is simply b/c the media still identifies Palm with the pda industry. I dunno if this a leftover from the tech bubble days or what, but it's fact and quite frankly the market share still proves it. Also, if you're an analyst who covers M$, how high on the list is PPC in your opinion of priorites? The truth is that M$ itself doesn't promote or focus PPC as much b/c its only ancillary to their much larger business. Heck, its questionalble if even Bill cares too much for the pda segment. In the end its perception that often counts...

This has got to rank as one of the stupidest moves Palm has made for a while. Not only are they opening themselves up for widespread ridicule (even the Palm loving press are going to notice this 'innovation' is anything but!) but by effectively misrepresenting Microsoft's product in order to harm it they have broken the law (please tell me this is illegal in the US as well...). MS is hardly going to let Palm get away with brazen lies about their OS!

Where do they get a seven step process from anyway? Click - Calendar opens - enter appointment - tap OK. That's two steps for any Pocket PC?!

C'mon this is just marketing!! Again its all about perception and the perception is that PalmOS is much easier to use than PPC's. You can disagree with this (as most here obviously do) or not, but its still widely accepted among average consumers. In fact, the marketing of PalmOS's simplicity over PPC is one the consistant victories Palm/PalmSource has had IMO...

Jason Dunn

04-19-2003, 03:07 AM

I find it really hard to take anyone seriously if they can't find the "S" key and use a $ sign instead. :lol:

Deslock

04-19-2003, 03:19 AM

Man you guys need to get a grip. When WinCE first came out, Microsoft's marketing trashed Palm as being underpowered due to WinCE's superior hardware (40 MHz CPU, 4 MB memory). Microsoft totally ignored the OS overhead differences and the reality was those CE devices were so sluggish, they were unusable. So when I see PPC-zealots slamming Palm's marketing tactics, I just shake my head... for better or worse, all marketing departments do it.

Additionally, and as usual, the story presented here at PPCThoughts is filled with half-truths.

"...the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, which was condensed from a desktop OS..." - well, it sure sounds good in a press release despite having absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.
How revisionist of you. Time for a reality check... calling PPC a condensed desktop OS is more accurate than saying it was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld (which is how it's referred to here). PPC is based on and uses the same basic architecture as NT. DLLs, registry, same directory structure, similar APIs, and initially CE even had the same GUI. Microsoft rewrote much of the code, tweaking it so they could squeeze it into a handheld. There were advantages and disadvantages of that approach, which I can understand people debating... but being in denial about it serves no purpose.

"A Palm handheld owner can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven steps required of a Pocket PC device owner." - Oh my, I never thought I'd see tap counts in a press release. Hey Palm, you check out this article before putting this kind of thing in press releases.
Citing 7/2 ratio is certainly misleading because not all tasks take *that* much longer on PPC. But the fact is that many common tasks do take longer. In some cases, much longer. And the "Which is simple again" article is filled with many inaccuracies that were pointed out in the forums, but never corrected in the online or printed article. Honestly, I'm happy for you Ed... it's very exciting to have something published. But I would've included the corrections (many of which were made in the forum immediately after the article was posted here) when editing the article for the mag. Some of the corrections might of been posted too late to refer to during your editing, but surely not all of them were posted after you edited the article?

Remember Sony didn't do Hi-res until 2002, or maybe late 2001. Handera Had it in mid-2001 with a SIP and did more than just pixel doubling. Even after Sony's hi-res mode came out, it was months before there were any real apps to use it.
More revisionist history and time for another reality check: Sony had 320x320 in the first half of 2001, and there were several high-res apps immediately after it came out. Almost all existing apps looked better due to graphics and fonts being able to take advantage of the higher resolution. Saying Sony only double-pixelated makes both Microsoft's and Palm's marketing departments look honest. And, on a related note, here were are a full two years after PalmOS hit 320x320 and PPC is still stuck at 320x240.

I'm a big fan of PPCthoughts... it's always amusing and often informative. But sometimes this site makes me embarrassed to be a PPC user. :lol:

ppcsurfr

04-19-2003, 03:53 AM

Mwahahahahaha!

I think I came up with the fastest way to enter an appointment in a Pocket PC way back during the Jornada 548 days... And that is... with a 548 vs any Palm device...

and 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O 8O

what the.....

Has David Nagel been sleeping in a cave :!: :?: :!: :?: :!: :?: :!: :?:

Ohhh... I get it...

Of course it's Palm Marketing... It makes you wonder how much of it is true... Well, everyone has to agree to it too... I think what he is saying is true... so true!!!

The only thing is that in typical Palm fashion... they keep one half of the story away from you... the part that really counts...

-- A high-performance Palm Tungsten(TM) T handheld requires about one-fifth the storage space to hold identical calendar or address information compared to the HP iPAQ 3870 running the Pocket PC OS; Really now? So how much information does a Palm contact have when compared to a Pocket PC Contact? I distintly remember when running Peacemaker that I am always prompted to select only one address to beam because the Palm receiving my data can only handle limited data...

-- A Palm handheld uses about one-fifth the storage to manage text or voice memos vs. a Pocket PC handheld; Oh yes... specially when you embed a 1hr voice recording in a note for the Pocket PC...

-- A Palm handheld user needs to perform only one step to beam a business card vs. four steps on a Pocket PC device; Well... here is where he really gets the PPC...

-- A Palm handheld owner can enter a Date Book appointment with only two steps vs. seven steps required of a Pocket PC device owner;Hahahahaha... really now!!!??? Here is the part where I say... they better get a Pocket PC for themselves and really try it out... How he/Palm came up with that is beyond me...

-- Palm handhelds perform far better than the built-in software in Pocket PC devices for editing Microsoft Office documents. For example, DataViz's Documents To Go(R) allows Palm handheld users to synchronize and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with confidence, knowing that synchronization back to the desktop will retain the integrity of the original desktop- or handheld-generated document. Fonts and formats generally are preserved with integrity. (Use of Microsoft's own PocketWord and PocketExcel for the Pocket PC platform can result in lost fonts, degradation of image resolution and lost headers, tables, and charts.); Ohhh... and is he trying to say that Palm has a built-in Word and Excel app too... and made by Palm??? Dataviz apps need to be installed... so why pit them against built-in apps??? Built-in vs Built-in Palm can't match up to the Pocket PC... so what do they do? They ask a third-party to fill in. And you call that fair comparison??? I bet he hasn't even heard of Ptab and SpreadCE or even TextMaker...

and

-- Business and information-technology managers concerned about total cost of ownership can choose Palm OS products with confidence because they deliver a 41 percent annual cost savings vs. Microsoft's Pocket PC platform. (According to a May 2002 Gantry Group, LLC Study).
which should reflect 2001 data... It's 2003 already... I think that data is nearly 1 year old... and with today's more affordable Pocket PCs... things might look differently.

Oh well.... that's Palm for you... :roll:

They're happy in their own fantasy world... I guess we can leave them there to be happy... It would be mean to rob them of their happiness...

I can't believe I just wasted time on this... :?

Steven Cedrone

04-19-2003, 04:09 AM

Moving things back on topic:

What a shame! I can remember buying TRG Xtra-Xtra cards to boost mem on Palms to 8MB. They really had a great reputation, too bad they weren't able to capitalize on it...

Steve

04-19-2003, 04:16 AM

But sometimes this site makes me embarrassed to be a PPC user.

What a coincedence, I'm embarrassed that you are Pocket PC user as well... :roll:

JA

Jason Dunn

04-19-2003, 04:16 AM

How revisionist of you. Time for a reality check... calling PPC a condensed desktop OS is more accurate than saying it was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld (which is how it's referred to here).

Calling it a "condensed version of a desktop operating system" implies that it has a shared codebase in the same way you'd talk about Windows 2000 and XP being related. That's simply false - just because something uses a sub-set of Win32 APIs does NOT mean it's using the same codebase. Windows CE was written from scratch to be a mobile operating system - it can exist in as little as 500 KB I believe, which NT/2000/XP certainly can't do. And just because it LOOKS the same (directory structure, registry) doesn't mean it IS the same.

I won't debate your other points, because I don't know exactly when Sony did their resolution jump, but it's certainly true that Handera did it first - they were the real innovators. Sony is certainly pushing the envelope now, but back then it was Handera.

Please learn to differentiate between "truths" and "opinions" - it's very insulting to accuse one of my team members of deliberately lying and I suggest you apologize for doing so.

Unreal32

04-19-2003, 04:19 AM

HandEra's to blame for their own failure to succeed in this market. It proves you cannot have a great product and expect it to sell without marketing. It's one thing to have a good product people know and purchase. Quite another to have a good product no one knows about. They should have done more to work with retail sources and online sales instead of using the "build it and they will come" mentality.

ppcsurfr

04-19-2003, 04:46 AM

Man you guys need to get a grip. When WinCE first came out, Microsoft's marketing trashed Palm as being underpowered due to WinCE's superior hardware (40 MHz CPU, 4 MB memory). Microsoft totally ignored the OS overhead differences and the reality was those CE devices were so sluggish, they were unusable. So when I see PPC-zealots slamming Palm's marketing tactics, I just shake my head... for better or worse, all marketing departments do it.

Additionally, and as usual, the story presented here at PPCThoughts is filled with half-truths.

How revisionist of you. Time for a reality check... calling PPC a condensed desktop OS is more accurate than saying it was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld (which is how it's referred to here). PPC is based on and uses the same basic architecture as NT. DLLs, registry, same directory structure, similar APIs, and initially CE even had the same GUI. Microsoft rewrote much of the code, tweaking it so they could squeeze it into a handheld. There were advantages and disadvantages of that approach, which I can understand people debating... but being in denial about it serves no purpose.
Read the whole line and nderstand it... Giving it a description as a condensed version to a non-PDA person makes it easier for the non-PDA person to understand what Windows CE is... but if you say it as a technical reference... then it is purely inaccurate. The Pocket PC OS was written from the ground up... it's in the history books... research on it and it will be revealed to you. So David Nagel's comment as CE being a condensed edition of the desktop Windows is purely inaccurate...

Citing 7/2 ratio is certainly misleading because not all tasks take *that* much longer on PPC. But the fact is that many common tasks do take longer. In some cases, much longer. And the "Which is simple again" article is filled with many inaccuracies that were pointed out in the forums, but never corrected in the online or printed article. Honestly, I'm happy for you Ed... it's very exciting to have something published. But I would've included the corrections (many of which were made in the forum immediately after the article was posted here) when editing the article for the mag. Some of the corrections might of been posted too late to refer to during your editing, but surely not all of them were posted after you edited the article? Like which tasks? I think I've even gotten it to the point where a Pocket PC can handle faster than a Palm... :wink:

More revisionist history and time for another reality check: Sony had 320x320 in the first half of 2001, and there were several high-res apps immediately after it came out. Almost all existing apps looked better due to graphics and fonts being able to take advantage of the higher resolution. Saying Sony only double-pixelated makes both Microsoft's and Palm's marketing departments look honest. And, on a related note, here were are a full two years after PalmOS hit 320x320 and PPC is still stuck at 320x240. No matter what... I kinda remember HandEra as the first Palm device with a collapsible SIP... which makes mroe sense than the 320x320 res screen.

I'm a big fan of PPCthoughts... it's always amusing and often informative. But sometimes this site makes me embarrassed to be a PPC user. :lol:Well, this site makes me proud to be a PPC user... :lol:

heov

04-19-2003, 05:25 AM

it is my understanding that PPC OS is not designed to recognize anything more than 64MB of RAM (vs. 128MB palm).

I believe what times2tech and toshiba did was "get by" the OS and stack the ram chips, or something of that nature. I read somewhere that it can only natively support 64MB though... that's why you originnaly could only use it as a "storage disk" type of thing w/ the t2t upgrades. I'll look for the link.

BTW, the toshiba e550gx was actually the first PPC w/ 128 mb... I think it was released about 9 months ago.

UPDATE:
and what did you guys expect from a press release? Palm is competing against PPC here.... why on earth would they just lay down the straight facts. The point of the press release is the PRO palm. Apple does this all the time, as do most competing companies. Marketing is key- palm needs it too in the state they're in :)

UPDATE2 (about this site; ignore if not interested): i've noticed a lot of moderating going on in the front page posts about off topic, etc. (see below and above ;)) Is it possible to have a multithreaded comments section for front page posts like they have @ www.palminfocenter.com or slashdot? Then people can easily sift through the posts and they can there selves decide which "thread" is a waste of their time and which seems interesting. I don't if this is possible w/ phpBB, or if you guys even need to go there now, but just looking into the future as this site grows and you have more comments :)

Steven Cedrone

04-19-2003, 05:25 AM

Hmmm...

I realise it is tough to not turn this into a Palm vs. Pocket PC debate, but let's try to stay on topic: TRG/Handera and the "Palm 128MB memory announcement"...

Steven Cedrone
Community Moderator

Steven Cedrone

04-19-2003, 05:30 AM

it is my understanding that PPC OS is not designed to recognize anything more than 64MB of RAM (vs. 128MB palm).

Janak and I had a little dabate about this a while back: see this thread (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10213&start=10). and also take a look at this page (http://www.pocketpctechs.com/detail.asp?Product_ID=I39-064-128RAM)...

Steve

heov

04-19-2003, 05:48 AM

-- Palm handhelds perform far better than the built-in software in Pocket PC devices for editing Microsoft Office documents. For example, DataViz's Documents To Go(R) allows Palm handheld users to synchronize and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files with confidence, knowing that synchronization back to the desktop will retain the integrity of the original desktop- or handheld-generated document. Fonts and formats generally are preserved with integrity. (Use of Microsoft's own PocketWord and PocketExcel for the Pocket PC platform can result in lost fonts, degradation of image resolution and lost headers, tables, and charts.);
Ohhh... and is he trying to say that Palm has a built-in Word and Excel app too... and made by Palm??? Dataviz apps need to be installed... so why pit them against built-in apps??? Built-in vs Built-in Palm can't match up to the Pocket PC... so what do they do? They ask a third-party to fill in. And you call that fair comparison??? I bet he hasn't even heard of Ptab and SpreadCE or even TextMaker...

no, he did not say they were built into palm. infact, i wish ms didn't put pocket word in rom... it's a waste of my space. They should've made it RAM installable, and allow the user to use the extra flash space.
Palm has much better word processing apps that ppc. And although textmaker is great, it costs 50 bucks, and takes up 13mb out of the 64MB ram (i know they can be installed on cards, it can on palm as well). DocsToGo comes with pretty much every palm/sony nowadays... now if they started including TextMaker w/ ppcs, we might have a different story ;)

But again, as I mentioned, why is everyone picking this PR apart? it's from palm, to promote palm. yes they're going to twist the truth. go checkout apple's PRs or even MSs when it's competing directly.

Anyway, about Handera, although the 330 was cool, it still had same fallbacks, mainly rechargable battery (sold speratly, else use alkalines) and non color screen, and let's not forget that old palm3 form fact from five years ago. They did do a lot for palm, but I personally think Sony has done a lot more.

BTW, hi-res sony, i believe, came out before the handera... if not, the sony came out like in early 2k1.

kzemach

04-19-2003, 06:14 AM

Re: Handera

As a user who started off with a "US Robotics PalmPilot Professional," then the upgrade card, then a TRGpro, then a Handera 330, I am definitely sad to see them go. I used my TRGpro for over 400 hours (I logged all the time on a battery meter) on a 9 month trip in SE Asia. It rocked. And it used AAA batteries, that you can GET while traveling in crazy countries. And it worked.

The best part of TRG/HandEra (the latter being the stupidest name I've ever heard) was the support. Live, real person phone support. Email support that would give extensive, informative, personalized answers in under 24 hours. Most TRG users speak fondly of "Support Chuck" who rocked. No PDA company I know of has ever offered support like that.

The reason I used those Palm units at the time was that they 1. had a lot of available apps 2. Took CF cards (for use with digicam on the road) 3. Took AAA batteries instead of something proprietary 4. Had pretty stellar battery life. Now that PPCs have tons of good apps, and they always took CF cards (or at least SD), have more power to do what I want, and can even be recharged off AAs, I'm switching over. Most users of TRGpros used them because they were the best of breed at the time. Now Palms are no longer best of breed, PPCs are, so the power users are switching over, and I think that has contributed a LOT to the demise of TRG/HandEra. But I could be wrong.

Hanging in Kandahar, Afghanistan with my iPaq,

Ken

ppcsurfr

04-19-2003, 07:43 AM

Deslock

04-19-2003, 12:22 PM

Please learn to differentiate between "truths" and "opinions" - it's very insulting to accuse one of my team members of deliberately lying and I suggest you apologize for doing so.
My main criticizms are about incorrect facts being perpetuated by articles and posts here. What you guys write is going to be accepted by some as fact... you should research a little before posting. Everyone is obviously entitled to their own opinions.

Note: I put this quote at the top of my reply so my fact/opinion comments would make more sense below. So, anyone else reading should know that the above quote was originally after some of the next ones (in case that matters).

Calling it a "condensed version of a desktop operating system" implies that it has a shared codebase in the same way you'd talk about Windows 2000 and XP being related. That's simply false - just because something uses a sub-set of Win32 APIs does NOT mean it's using the same codebase. Windows CE was written from scratch to be a mobile operating system - it can exist in as little as 500 KB I believe, which NT/2000/XP certainly can't do. And just because it LOOKS the same (directory structure, registry) doesn't mean it IS the same.

I wrote that calling it a condensed version was more accurate than saying designed from the ground up, which is what "starting from scratch" (a term often used here) implies. I specifically explained what I meant, and never said it was "the same", but you ignored the rest of my post in your reply. Much of CE was based on NT, design-wise (fact). However, I never said Palm's marketing's description was accurate... my point was that it's not any worse than what Microsoft's marketing did when CE came out.

There were pros (faster development, easier to create tools for 3rd party developers, familar GUI, etc...) and cons (not as efficient or reliable as some other handheld OSs). Fitting CE in 500k was not impressive at all when compared to the Psions, Newton, and some other handhelds of the era (opinion).

I won't debate your other points, because I don't know exactly when Sony did their resolution jump, but it's certainly true that Handera did it first - they were the real innovators. Sony is certainly pushing the envelope now, but back then it was Handera.

Sony came out with 320x320 before Handera came out with 320x240 (fact). Handera deserves a lot of credit for innovating (which Ed's article does a nice job of summarizing, except that you can find all the features in one PalmOS device - fact) and the 330's soft-graffiti was certainly nice (opinion), but the 330 was not the first hi-res PalmOS device. The Sony Clie 700C was (fact). Jason, I think you and Ed are doing a disservice to the PPC community by refusing to post corrections to your stories (opinion).

What gets me about this whole argument, and others like it, is that few at at PPCThoughts actually appear to want to think about any of this stuff.

Deslock

04-19-2003, 12:25 PM

Read the whole line and nderstand it... Giving it a description as a condensed version to a non-PDA person makes it easier for the non-PDA person to understand what Windows CE is... but if you say it as a technical reference... then it is purely inaccurate. The Pocket PC OS was written from the ground up... it's in the history books... research on it and it will be revealed to you. So David Nagel's comment as CE being a condensed edition of the desktop Windows is purely inaccurate...

I've read CE's history. Rewritting can, but does not always, mean starting from scratch or even redesign.

Like which tasks? I think I've even gotten it to the point where a Pocket PC can handle faster than a Palm...
Do a search on it here or at Brighthand... there have been several comparisons about the number of taps it takes to do many common tasks. Why is it hard to admit that? Both OSs have strengths and weaknesses.

roberto_torres

04-19-2003, 01:19 PM

xCyJ

04-19-2003, 02:32 PM

it is my understanding that PPC OS is not designed to recognize anything more than 64MB of RAM (vs. 128MB palm).

i beg to differ, wince 3.0 can have a limit of up to 256mb internal ram
(read it from a WinCE developer book....from a reputable publisher too ;) )

heov

04-19-2003, 03:39 PM

sony announced the peg n710c May first 2001 (first sony w/ hi-res).
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=1861

rumors, and later on their website of the handera was apr. 20th 2001:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=1838&MODE=FLAT

however, I believe sony was first to ship it... handera didn't ship till mid-may.

Just in case anyone was wondering... Also, I believe samsung was the first palm os device to have virtual grafitti in their smartphone... the resolution was the same though, just extended for the grafitti.

Jason Dunn

04-19-2003, 04:07 PM

Calling it a "condensed version of a desktop operating system" implies that it has a shared codebase in the same way you'd talk about Windows 2000 and XP being related. That's simply false - just because something uses a sub-set of Win32 APIs does NOT mean it's using the same codebase. Windows CE was written from scratch to be a mobile operating system - it can exist in as little as 500 KB I believe, which NT/2000/XP certainly can't do. And just because it LOOKS the same (directory structure, registry) doesn't mean it IS the same.

I wrote that calling it a condensed version was more accurate than saying designed from the ground up, which is what "starting from scratch" (a term often used here) implies. I specifically explained what I meant, and never said it was "the same", but you ignored the rest of my post in your reply. Much of CE was based on NT, design-wise (fact). However, I never said Palm's marketing's description was accurate... my point was that it's not any worse than what Microsoft's marketing did when CE came out.

There were pros (faster development, easier to create tools for 3rd party developers, familar GUI, etc...) and cons (not as efficient or reliable as some other handheld OSs). Fitting CE in 500k was not impressive at all when compared to the Psions, Newton, and some other handhelds of the era (opinion).

:onfire:

WINDOWS CE DID NOT USE ANY CODE FROM NT. PERIOD.

Why is that so hard for you to grasp? You accuse us of being thick-headed, yet you can't admit that you are completely and utterly wrong on this one point. There's a WORLD of difference between re-using code and creating NEW code that works in a fashion similar to another OS. It's called DESIGN. Microsoft wanted to create an OS that a Windows developer could relate to, understand, and program for. The more you argue this point the less intelligent you look. Just admit you're wrong and leave it at that.

As for your other points about Handera and Sony, I'm sure you're quite right. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't following them closely back in 2001, so I don't dispute the facts.

BTS

04-19-2003, 04:57 PM

HandEra's to blame for their own failure to succeed in this market. It proves you cannot have a great product and expect it to sell without marketing.

I have to agree with this statement. I picked up a HandEra in June of 2002. Future Shop was carrying it as a limited release and you could only order it through their website.

That being said it is sad to see one of the most innovative Palm OS devices leave. It was the only Palm OS machine that came close to matching my PPC functionality at the time (dual slots, voice recording). The day that I slammed a Linksys CF 802.11 card in it was amazing (I'm looking forward to doing this in colour with a PPC!). You can't do that with any other Palm OS device! Many said that if they released a colour version of this device it may have saved them. Marketing their product and getting it into a retail store would have saved them, too.

Deslock

04-19-2003, 07:23 PM

WINDOWS CE DID NOT USE ANY CODE FROM NT. PERIOD.

Why is that so hard for you to grasp? You accuse us of being thick-headed, yet you can't admit that you are completely and utterly wrong on this one point. There's a WORLD of difference between re-using code and creating NEW code that works in a fashion similar to another OS. It's called DESIGN.

{snip}

As for your other points about Handera and Sony, I'm sure you're quite right. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't following them closely back in 2001, so I don't dispute the facts.
Woah... take it easy. I never said you were thick-headed and we're just having a friendly debate here. When I am wrong (and like everyone, I have been many times), I have no problem with admitting it. We all need to eat a little crow now and then. As I replied to pcsurfr, "Rewritting can, but does not always, mean starting from scratch or even redesign." In this case, new code is not the same thing as starting from scratch because Microsoft chose to keep several architectural atributes of NT4. I actually don't know if they did or did not use any NT4 code whatsoever, and I never claimed one way or the other. It doesn't matter because the fact is they used much of NT4's design (which is why CE wasn't efficient enough to run reasonably on a 40 MHz CPU and didn't include features like a spell checker. Other multitasking handhelds on the time period did it).

However, that is getting off topic... my point is that there are several inaccuracies in Ed's and your posts. Ignoring them and concentrating on the one item you think you're correct on doesn't make the rest go away. My opinion is that if you didn't follow these handhelds back in 2001, then you shouldn't have written things like:

I don't know exactly when Sony did their resolution jump, but it's certainly true that Handera did it first - they were the real innovators. Sony is certainly pushing the envelope now, but back then it was Handera.

The truth is the N700C came out before the Handera 330 and both Sony and Handera were innovative back then.

As I wrote, we all make mistakes. But you guys are running a site that many users refer to for news. It's your site, so do what you want... but if I had my own site, I'd post corrections when people pointed out mistakes in my articles. I'm just some schmuck posting on someone else's site... you guys run the place. That means your posts are given extra credibility.

Honestly, I think my only mistake in this thread is that my posts, though not really insulting, could've been more diplomatic. But let's be honest, my posts are not below average on the politeness scale (though that's not saying much around here).

Ed Hansberry

04-19-2003, 09:19 PM

Additionally, and as usual, the story presented here at PPCThoughts is filled with half-truths.

"...the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, which was condensed from a desktop OS..." - well, it sure sounds good in a press release despite having absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.
How revisionist of you. Time for a reality check... calling PPC a condensed desktop OS is more accurate than saying it was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld (which is how it's referred to here).
It was designed from the ground up to run on a handheld. Originally, in the early stages, they started with the NT4 kernel and started chisling away. Once it became clear that wasn't the right direction, they started from ground zero. Yes, they adopted some of the things in NT, and why not? It has a good memory model, true multithreading, etc. So grab those blueprints and then write an OS for a handheld device with the same concepts. To make development easier, keep the Win32 API calls where possible. And thus Windows CE 1.0 was born.

They did the same thing with the Smartphone. Originally, they took the Pocket PC OS and starting taking things away. Again, once it became clear that was the wrong way, they took core components of the CE 3 OS and started from scratch on the SmartPhone 2002 UI, apps, etc.

Ed Hansberry

04-19-2003, 09:42 PM

The truth is the N700C came out before the Handera 330 and both Sony and Handera were innovative back then.
I just don't equate pixel doubling in the N760 to what Handera did. 320X240, SIP, many apps work in the new mode and those that didn't Handera had two emulators - one was 160X160 in the center, again allowing the SIP and the other was 160X160 in the upper left corner for some very stubborn apps - again the SIP worked.

The pixel doubling in the 760 was not much more than a trial balloon that gave out some APIs that developers could use. It wasn't until 2002 that it really caught.

Yeah, Sony did do it just a bit before the 330 did, but it was lazy compared to where Handera was going.

Then there is the voice recorder & dual memory card slots - the latter of which no Palm had until the NV70 and NX70 came out, and even then it has a proprietary CF slot that only accepts the Sony WiFi card. :roll: I give Sony high marks for flash, color, great screens, etc. But they have done little more than take what Handera and the Pocket PC OEMs have been doing for years and apply it to a PalmOS device.

Ed Hansberry

04-20-2003, 01:50 AM

And the "Which is simple again" article is filled with many inaccuracies that were pointed out in the forums, but never corrected in the online or printed article. Honestly, I'm happy for you Ed... it's very exciting to have something published. But I would've included the corrections (many of which were made in the forum immediately after the article was posted here) when editing the article for the mag. Some of the corrections might of been posted too late to refer to during your editing, but surely not all of them were posted after you edited the article?

First Deslock, you have totally missed the point of the article. It wasn't meant to be a Palm vs. PPC blow by blow checklist. It was meant to dispel the silly myth that "Palm is simple" and "the Pocket PC is complex." Nothing more, nothing less. Had I wanted to compare the PalmOS and Pocket PC, I would have:
• Needed any 1 pocket pc
• Needed at least 2 if not 4 Palms since I would need a 160X160, 320X320, 480X320, SIP, various storage card file save methodologies, voice recording, MP3 capabilities, something that supports Real Player, etc. There is no 1 PalmOS device that does it all. Even the vaunted NZ90 does some stuff differently than, say the M515 or Tungsten T.
• Had to avoid doing terminal server comparisons for corporate folks
• Had to plunk down serious change for Sony's WiFi card just to get some online stuff going
• Figure out which browser would work best
• etc.

I have NO desire to go there. It doesn't interest me. I only wanted to dispel the myth. That is it.

As for errors.
• I didn't now about the secret tab function. As ScottR pointed out - "This doesn't bother me, but for those it does, it's worth mentioning that you can use the single-stroke down-up to move to the next field (or single-stroke up-down to move to the previous field)." Well, down-up is two strokes, you just don't lift. The fact that I talked to 3 Palm users when writing this article, two of which are serious users and none of them knew about it tells me two things. 1) It violates the "zen" philosophy when you have to crack out a manual to figure this out. 2) It is stupid. Tab is tab. And Palm has corrected this in Graffiti 2 with a decent tab stroke.
• uhm..... uhm...... er..... uhm...... :D

So, that's it. Now, Deslock, you started criticizing certain features and have called them omissions and errors. The fact is they are red herrings. I never said there weren't some things the Palm didn't do better than the Pocket PC. I highlighted some of those in my article. Are there things the Palm does better or easier that I didn't bring up? Sure. Again, it wasn't a blow by blow. It was (REPEAT AFTER ME) to dispel the myth that the Pocket PC is complex and the Palm is simple in everything it does. I could just as easily bring up things the Pocket PC does that is drop dead simple that the Palm falls flat on.

One more time. It was written to dispel the myth that Palm is simple, Pocket PC is complex. You can turn it into a PPC vs Palm debate all you want. It wasn't written that way and I'm not going to defend it on that premise.

Bosco

04-20-2003, 02:08 AM

HandEra was a great innovator that will be sorely missed. But let's get reasonable here, we all knew they weren't going to do much. Sure, they raised the bar for Palm OS (albeit way too early), but they never capitalized on it. They had a lead in the Palm OS innovation over two years in advance, and what did they do? Sat on it. It's a true shame, because if they would have stepped up and started coming out with reasonable release cycles for new Palms, Palm OS models might have CF slots as abundant as PPC models. HandEra saw CF as a viable expansion method. Palm and Sony did not.

As for who was more innovative in high resolution design or not, it's true HandEra did something incredible with the 240x320 design and how it ran the apps in the center of the screen or in a zoomed method (not 100% sure of this, I should reread Ed Hardy's review of the HE330, as he explains it very well), but they were unwise to have it like that. Had they made it a 320x480 screen, THAT would have been significantly better. HandEra's resolution threw things a little off balance for developers. At least 160x160 apps could run on the 320x320 N710c by having four pixels equal one pixel. The HandEra needs 1 1/2 pixels to do that. Virtual graffiti in the form of 320x480 would have been 20 times better, although the expense of such a screen back then may have made the price much higher.

and even then it has a proprietary CF slot that only accepts the Sony WiFi card. I give Sony high marks for flash, color, great screens, etc. But they have done little more than take what Handera and the Pocket PC OEMs have been doing for years and apply it to a PalmOS device.

I disagree. Once again, I'll point you to ClieSource for an update on the CF drivers, which now almost completely support the built-in apps, including Audio Player, Movie Player, Voice Recorder, and Movie Recorder, in addition to read/write capabilities. Many apps do, in fact, support multiple VFS volumes, so the CF card is very useful, it seems. Drivers will cost $27 and will be out soon. This includes free updates for life. AND this company is expected to start work on hardware CF cards soon. Go ahead, put the troll picture up again, JUST GO TO CLIESOURCE BEFORE DOING SO.

Do you honestly think they have done little more than what HandEra and PPC OEM's have been doing for years? Look at the NR and NX line. There is an example of true innovation. While long, the NR series wasn't thick, and it was a viable solution to get a thumbboard and huge screen with virtual graffiti into a Palm. Meanwhile, they put a camera in the hinge. In the NX, they took this, added OS 5 and a much faster processor, added wireless capabilities, and integrated the applications so nicely. After the release of the T series, Sony users complained about the lack of a universal serial port between devices. Now they all use the T series connector. After the NR series, users complained about the lack of wireless and how there wasn't as much support for the VG area. Sony revamped the built-in Palm OS apps to work with the graffiti area, and now the NX and NZ have CF slots, and the NZ and TG have integrated Bluetooth.

Believe it or not, Sony's Clie team is actually overly active in reading internet discussion forums. Directly after the NR series rumors when Palm Infocenter was getting flooded with comments and hits and they had to temporarily shut down, I believe, Sony called them and supposedly told PIC to put the site back up because they wanted to read the comments! Not exactly sure if this is completely true or not, but I'm about 75% sure.

Now, users are complaining about the RAM amount, proprietary CF slot, and non-disclosed sound API. Well, with these new NX80v rumors, more RAM is supposed to be included as well as Bluetooth, and who knows, maybe they'll use the standard Palm OS 5 sound API? We've already got the CF drivers.

Alright, well ANYWAY, the RAM issue for Palm is something a bit, for lack of a better word, off. In RAM, you can only install PRC and PDB files. Not even JPGs. That is junk. I can't imagine using all 128 MB of PRC and PDB files. That is what better VFS support is for. Make the card support more seamless, and add all file types allowed to be stored in RAM, and you'll have trully useful RAM, without the need to divide it up between storable RAM and RAM needed to execute programs.

One last point. M$ is the proper abbreviation for Microsoft. MS is the proper abbreviation for Memory Stick. GFunk was right!

Ed Hansberry

04-20-2003, 03:05 AM

and even then it has a proprietary CF slot that only accepts the Sony WiFi card. I give Sony high marks for flash, color, great screens, etc. But they have done little more than take what Handera and the Pocket PC OEMs have been doing for years and apply it to a PalmOS device.

I disagree. Once again, I'll point you to ClieSource for an update on the CF drivers, which now almost completely support the built-in apps, including Audio Player, Movie Player, Voice Recorder, and Movie Recorder, in addition to read/write capabilities.
"now almost completely..." As I said, Pocket PCs and Handera has been doing it for years. Sony, maybe months, weeks, days, or even in days to come.

Bosco

04-20-2003, 03:37 AM

Well, then again, the only application the HE330 had out of those four is Voice Recorder. Given PPC's have had CF functionality for years and Sony is just getting into the game, it's better late than never; wouldn't you agree?

xCyJ

04-20-2003, 01:08 PM

...
I disagree. Once again, I'll point you to ClieSource for an update on the CF drivers, which now almost completely support the built-in apps, including Audio Player, Movie Player, Voice Recorder, and Movie Recorder, in addition to read/write capabilities. Many apps do, in fact, support multiple VFS volumes, so the CF card is very useful, it seems. Drivers will cost $27 and will be out soon. This includes free updates for life. AND this company is expected to start work on hardware CF cards soon. Go ahead, put the troll picture up again, JUST GO TO CLIESOURCE BEFORE DOING SO.
...

ok it is not as though the drivers are written by Sony.
its like saying, oh this PPC comes with a SD and CF slot but the SD slot cannot be used for memory. and we are going to charge you 27 bucks so that you can just use the SD slot to read and write to mem cards. isn't it stupid?

Deslock

04-20-2003, 01:10 PM

First Deslock, you have totally missed the point of the article. It wasn't meant to be a Palm vs. PPC blow by blow checklist. It was meant to dispel the silly myth that "Palm is simple" and "the Pocket PC is complex."

I never interpretted your article as a Palm vs PPC "blow by blow checklist" (I made this clear in my posts, so your response puzzles me). You wrote a comparison attempting to show that Palm is not simpler. Your comparison contained mistakes and ommited several relevent facts (regarding simplicity, not just features) that were pointed out in the forums by many users. You've ignored many of the things pointed out by the users in your responses. The article was never corrected and you still cite it knowing this.

Ed Hansberry

04-20-2003, 02:02 PM

I never interpretted your article as a Palm vs PPC "blow by blow checklist" (I made this clear in my posts, so your response puzzles me). You wrote a comparison attempting to show that Palm is not simpler. Your comparison contained mistakes and ommited several relevent facts (regarding simplicity, not just features) that were pointed out in the forums by many users. You've ignored many of the things pointed out by the users in your responses. The article was never corrected and you still cite it knowing this.
Being that the list was never intended to be complete (it was already well over 6,000 words) of course there are omissions - on both sides. As for errors, I said the secret tab stroke was in error. You have yet to show me another error, nor could I find another one in the 128 or so posts that followed the article.

Deslock

04-20-2003, 06:02 PM

Being that the list was never intended to be complete (it was already well over 6,000 words) of course there are omissions - on both sides. As for errors, I said the secret tab stroke was in error. You have yet to show me another error, nor could I find another one in the 128 or so posts that followed the article.
Actually, I did point out other errors (like X requiring two strokes). And the omissions I'm referring to involve the specific features the article already mentioned (the article covered integration, alarms, word completion, etc but didn't mention some of Palm's key advantages and/or features with these specific topics... that's a bit misleading). I know the article wasn't intended to cover every single aspect of both OSs.

Anyway, this is getting a bit off-topic. I only brought up the article again because it was cited despite never having been corrected.

ppcsurfr

04-21-2003, 03:10 AM

I've read CE's history. Rewritting can, but does not always, mean starting from scratch or even redesign.

I've heard a number of times and from a number of sources that Windows CE is a cut-down version of Windows 95 or Windows NT. I guess this assumption exists because the UI of the first Windows CE devices was very similar to Windows 95, and also exposed Win32 as a programming interface.

This is, however, nowhere near the truth. Windows CE is an operating system built from scratch and specifically designed for the needs of embedded systems. - Mike Hall, Microsoft Corporation, Steve Maillet, Entelechy Consulting, November 6, 2001

Now what was that you were saying??? Don't tell me they were lying...

Do a search on it here or at Brighthand... there have been several comparisons about the number of taps it takes to do many common tasks. Why is it hard to admit that? Both OSs have strengths and weaknesses.

Yeah right... And what was I saying? I said that it is not much harder to do things on a Pocket PC since there are times... and a lot of it even that I can do things faster with a Pocket PC Than with a Palm... Ever heard of shortcuts? Well there are shortcuts to Pocket PC Handling and there are probably so many other shortcuts... It just so happened that the ones I use are much faster than the others...

ppcsurfr

04-21-2003, 03:20 AM

I'm a big fan of PPCthoughts... it's always amusing and often informative. But sometimes this site makes me embarrassed to be a PPC user.

I feel the same way. It was untill recently that PPC users accepted the superiority of Documents to go for Palm OS.

I don't get it first they complained that Palm OS programs where underpowered, now they complain that Documents to Go has too much features. (the thing here is syncronization not features). I hope Dataviz makes a Doct to go for PPC to see peoples opinions.

And about Pocket office being included in ROM:

1. This means you would not install Office in your desktop because Wordpad is part of Windows?

2. What's the big deal, Docs to go only occupies a mere 700kb. 8O

I love the PPC, but please be realistic when critizicing Palm. Both Platforms have their good and bad points.

No Pocket PC User complains that Docs to Go is too powerful... the fact is it is not as powerful as it should be... at least for Palm OS 4.x devices. Until recently, Docs to Go couldn't create real MS Word documents... they were always in DTG formats... unlike the Pocket PC which could natively produce *.doc in true MS Word format.

What I was saying was that they will hit Microsoft and its applications with "Palm is better because... (enter 3rd party app here)" lines. Hey! C'mon, If you are going to compare a third party app anyway... why not do the same for the Pocket PC? Why??? Well isn't it obvious, TextMaker outdoes DTG anytime.

If you want to carry it one more step ahead, let's see which device can actually produce... as in create, edit and present a PowerPoint Presentation rich in detail and animation/transistions?

Deslock

04-30-2003, 05:26 PM

I've heard a number of times and from a number of sources that Windows CE is a cut-down version of Windows 95 or Windows NT. I guess this assumption exists because the UI of the first Windows CE devices was very similar to Windows 95, and also exposed Win32 as a programming interface.

This is, however, nowhere near the truth. Windows CE is an operating system built from scratch and specifically designed for the needs of embedded systems. - Mike Hall, Microsoft Corporation, Steve Maillet, Entelechy Consulting, November 6, 2001

Now what was that you were saying??? Don't tell me they were lying...

I don't recognize their names... for all I know, they could be the same people responsible for the "CE devices are at 40 MHz with 4 MB RAM while PalmOS are only 16 MHz with 1 MB RAM" marketing campaign.

However, I suggest you read this book:

Title: Inside Microsoft Windows CE
Author: John Murray
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Date: September 1998
ISBN: 1572318546

It discusses the early days of Microsoft's attempts at embedded OSs. It covers varies projects (Pegasus, Winpad, Pulsar, etc...) as well as Microsoft's internal rivalry and competition.

Microsoft initially tried to port NT but the port was too big and they rewrote the kernal. So, CE has its own code base, but it was not redesigned from the ground up; it was considered a smaller version of Windows by the developers. They often talked about the misconception that CE was Win95 ported. However, that was mostly by users who thoght that because of the similar GUI. Under the surface, CE shared many design elements of other Win32 OSs. The biggest differences are that the code is tweaked to run on limited hardware and it's more componentized. But design-wise is very much like NT, mainly due to Microsoft's decision to use Win32 APIs. I already mentioned a number of similarities in this thread... here are more (from the above book):

- CE uses a multithreaded Win32 system, with the same file formats as NT and the same process and thread model as NT (but CE is limited to 32 processes... there is no limit to number of threads within processes)

- CE uses Win32 APIs... versions of Word, Excel, IE as we all know were included (but many components were left out). This decision was made to speed development. As of the book's publishing (5 years ago), 1500 Win32 API functions were used in CE. I dunno what that number is today.

- The CE registry uses Win32 registry APIs.

- CE uses standard Microsoft programming interfaces such as COM (including Active X), MFC, and ATL.

- CE uses the same virtual memory model as other Win32 systems

With the above choices came various advantages and disadvantages... but as you can see, CE's design was derived from NT.

Ed Hansberry

04-30-2003, 05:47 PM

With the above choices came various advantages and disadvantages... but as you can see, CE's design was derived from NT.
Good analysis. There was never any question that many designs in CE are from the NT kernel and API set. That is, I think, a good thing. Look at IPv6. That is in Windows CE 4.2. I'd wager the CE team didn't have to do much with it. THey got the source from the Windows team (I suppose Longhorn and Windows Server 2003 have IPv6 included - don't know about XP?), tweaked it a bit for the smaller footprint (things like IP routing in servers not needed on most embedded devices) or at least made parts of it separate and optional components, and compiled it.

Then things like the file system. It just works, avoiding the pitfals PalmOS is dealing with with storage cards.

That isn't to say there are too many things that are desktop oriented, but on balance, I think it is good. Just ask a developer that has converted an app from the desktop to a Pocket PC. .NET will make that even easier. :-)