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Handhelds Hardware

OpenGL for Palm OS Environment 124

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-graphics dept.
linuxguru wrote to us with the news that some wacky folks have ported OpenGL 1.1 to PalmOS. Current version is .2, and it's released under the LGPL [?] .
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OpenGL for Palm OS Environment More

OpenGL for Palm OS Environment

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  • Re:LGPL (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So I guess you're a "lesser" person if you use the "lesser" GPL. Sounds really lame on RMS's part if you ask me.

  • an idea (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know nobody's going to read this, but I just had this grand vision of a non-raster based PDA (maybe running PostScript?) that had really high resolution and you could "zoom" the text to a comfortable size. Hmm... Would it be possible/practical? Anyone?
  • there is a new craddle comming out so you can plug
    your palm directly onto your network :-)

    ---
  • Only a matter of time (And RAM)

  • Re:LGPL (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    It was, actually, until it got renamed the "Lesser General Public License", and RMS started telling people not to use it over the GPL if possible.

    Oh well, I like the LGPL, it's a good balance between the philosophies. TrollTech would have saved a lot of our time, anxiety, and developer cycles if they had used the LGPL over the QPL...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Once again, the Palm platform gets capabilities that were available 2-3 years ago on the Newton. (*sigh, brush away tear)

    Except for the fact that the Palm does it in a more reasonable palmtop form factor. The Newton was a pretty nice machine, but I never would have bought one, even if I had been able to afford one, because it was simply too large for me. My Palm III fits comfortably in my pocket and I can take it everywhere. A Newton would have sat at home, collecting dust, because I would have had nowhere convenient to transport it.


    --Phil (Happy Palm user for over half a year now.)
  • No TCP/IP stack in the palm? That's funny. I guess all of the BSD sockets-based networking stuff I have written for the Palm is running on magic. And every byte of it was written on a linux box. The only money i have spent on palm development tools was to buy the o'reilly title on palm programming. Try finding a BSD-style interface to a Psion! Furthermore, go to http://www.palm.com/devzone. As of mid-February, they are officially supporting the GCC-based toolchain.

    Mobile phone vendors have a vested interest in keeping their developmnet tool chain closed. why would you buy a new cell phone if you could go to freshmeat and get the features you want, or even roll your own?

  • everything.blockstackers.com [blockstackers.com] ? why not everything2.com [everything2.com] ?
  • I doubt it'll have anywhere near the capacity or processing power yet for Quake anything... GLDOOM would definetly be cool, though.

    - 8Complex
  • With this latest news, we (Quakeforge) have been goofing with this idea for about 10min now :) I doubt we will ever see Quake ported, unless the processing is done on a more powerful processor and just rendered on the palm, would also need a much bigger disk capacity.
    The only thing we have thought of that would be remotely possible is a PalmOS port, but it wouldn't be able to run on any current hardware , only in emulation :)
  • No... the 020 occured around the same time in evolution as the 286... It was more powerful, so maybe rank it in the 386 class. A 486 equivalent (in speed) it's not.
  • It has already been possible for over a year. Though I have only seen it in shareware from one company (with time limits which had passed when I downloaded them) there may be other games with this functionality. Remember folks, the PalmOS is a very robust and programmer-friendly OS so pretty much everything is possible. What I would be more interested in is the connectivity with Epoc, more preciesely a Psion 5/5mx. It is possible to transfer business cards (with the vCard standard; it rocks!) but I don't know how much more is possible.
  • OpenGL, used as a software renderer, is SLOW. It is much better when used on a 3D accelerator.

    That got me thinking. Would it be possible to make a (simple) 3D-accelerator in a Handspring module? What are the specs of it? What is the bandwidth?

  • Seriously, it happens, and there's nothing wrong with my Palms, unless you count the stylus holder being cracked on both of them. I'm not saying that it happens to me all the time, or that it's happened a lot -- just that it has indeed happened more than a handful of times. As someone who's been using them since the days when Palm HQ was about the only Palm download place on the map, and you could actually download everything from their site and try it in one night, I've probably done just about everything you can do to a Palm short of hardware modifications. (Hmm, didn't mean to make that sound like a "my dick is bigger than yours" thing, just trying to let you in on my personal experience.)

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • That's nice, but some of us who have actually been using Palm Pilots since the very beginning, and who actually use bleeding edge code on it, know better. Or maybe the authors of those apps just felt like informing their users that they better back up their data in case of a hard reset because they just loved to hear themselves type.

    Of course, it also sounds like you and the alleged "anyone else in your office" has absolutely no experience with the Cassiopeia. Your opinion has just fallen off the worthiness radar -- thanks for playing, though.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Wow, you really told me. Care to point out one single lie I've told? The fact that you say Slashdot is an audience that knows what it's talking about shows how laughably misinformed you are. I could point you to plenty of lies by Slashdotters, and I'd bet that you probably believed them all, hook, line, and sinker, like the gullible chimp you are. You have no higher thought process than to think that something must true if one million Slashdot monkeys say it one million times -- I can't wait to see you fall in line like a good little Slashdotter and post made-up things about Win2K.

    As far as anyone selling anything, ask yourself why you decided to get in on this conversation discussing something -- the Cassiopeia -- that you've never used, much less know nothing about. Little baby afraid someone might actually learn something around here? "Open Source, Closed Minds. We are Slashdot" was practically invented for you.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • OpenGL commands on windows are sent directly to your video hardware. Currently in Linux, the commands go through X, so there is an extra context switch. However, this all changes with XFree86 4.0 (due out later this month) so hold onto yer hat.
  • It'd be awesome on the new colour ones. 8mb of ram is enough to store a level if you leave out all the crap you don't need. You'd have to cut alot of it out anyways because a palm isn't much of a computer as far as computers go.

    It'd be sweet to be able to have deathmatches on palm/laptop/whatever. Someone'll do it soon (uh oh, I better patent it quick!)

  • z80? (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    Palm's use motorola dragonball 68k's, (are they 68k's?) not z80's. The z80 was the 8bit chip used in early nintendo and atari units. Palms are a lot more powerfull then that.

    [ c h a d &nbsp o k e r e ] [dhs.org]
  • it's been done [ibrator.com]

    --
  • given Moore's law, how long till I can do it? Seriously, I'm not sure about how much power my IIIx *really* has.

    --
  • Seriously, it happens,

    Oh, he's SERIOUS. Zippidy doo dah.

    Zico, you can't possibly come across as a knowing and sincere judge of anything in front of an audience which 1) knows what it's talking about, and 2) has seen you lie for MickeySoft again and again.

    Try selling that shit somewhere else, boy. We've had enough of it here.

    --

  • Sorry, Zico, but proof-by-anecdote doesn't work...especially when the tale-teller is a well-known Microsoft rectal osculator. I've not had such experiences with my Palm III, nor has anyone else in my office -- and we use Palm Pilots a lot.

    --

  • That's nice, but why not play it on a platform more reliable than Windows Caveat Emptor?

    --

  • PalmOS has had a TCP/IP stack for all of the 3.x versions of the OS. I think the stack made it's appearance with Palm Pilot Professional. Not being portable is kind of a hinderance, but it is designed around the hardware and has a more mind share than any other PDA OS. Epoc is nice, but there just aren't that many PDA's that use it.
  • "...the show title is tentatively titled Great Masturbators of the 1990s."

    I think you are recycling a horoscope from last week's The Onion.

  • AFAIC Epoc is a realtime OS, which is technically superior to the PalmOS. But overkill for my PDA-needs. I don't need multitasking, yet, I guess.
  • >> "If anything OpenGL is not a light API"
    What, no light? how about "glLightfv" ? =)
  • Long time ago I coded semi-true-color applications in 8bit colormode by using 3/3/2 bits for RGB.
    It's pretty ugly, but with some dithering and tweaks, you can at least develop in a true-color-way, right?
  • The homepage's roadmap talks about implementing gouraud shading etc. Wouldn't it be easier to port Mesa, which has already been ported to _lots_ of other platforms? What's the deal with re-implementing everything all over when it's just software?
  • I use the PalmOS daily to, and it does what it's supposed to very well. But it's not very interesting technically. So, you might call a slimmed OS which does just what is needed to be done superior, but not as funny. I haven't used the epoc32 for more than 5mins, only read som tech-specs, and I can bet on that creating a realtime OS is harder than a singleprocess one.
  • Not that I care a bit about DirectX, but doesn't it run on WinCE on Dreamcast?
  • i've been running bleeding edge code that i wrote on my palm (pro - os 2.x) and have never experienced data loss. palmos (at least 2.x that i have) has memory protection (even if it has no application protection) and the databases can last through most resets without loosing data. i've never experienced data loss myself although i crash it at least 4 times a day with bleeding edge code. im reasonably confident the pilots dont loose data - if yours does theres something wrong with it.
  • TREMOR? Surely 'wobble' would be more appropriate. (myself & friends have already reserved Tremor as a name for Quake running on low spec 486's etc :)
  • > Once again, the Palm platform gets capabilities that were available 2-3 years ago on the Newton.


    ... and small enough and at an affordable enough cost that the company could actually make a profit selling the things.

  • Now if I had a Palm I could port my wire
    antenna analyzer code to it that uses
    OpenGL to visualize the radiation pattern of
    the antenna. People working in the field
    could use that on a Palm to quickly sketch
    up an antenna and analyze/visualize its
    performance.

    Anybody want to send me a Palm? :)

  • Re:huh (Score:1)

    by Sleen ( 73855 )
    1. pocketchess
    2. Dopedealer
    3. quicksheet-excel spreadsheets for palm- my favorite sheet calcs download times at different rates from input filesize.
    4. Search all data by video or hotchick, and you get something like Jenna Jameson, or my ex-girlfriend.
    5. alarm clock- for when you sleep on airport floors and need to get up at 5:10am to see what gate your flight will be at THIS hour.
    6. Change the tv at the stupid sports bar from football to Star Trek.
    7. passwords.
    8. metronome and tuning fork.
    9. blackjack.
    10. Appointments.
    11. Neat little gimmick to make the non- yuppy losers on the bus really jealous of you.
  • and report on slashdot too..take that..no lgpl though


    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/03/06/1749228.sh tml

  • Like anyone who buys a pIII just to email and surf the web and play quake.

    Hey, I bought an Athlon + GeForce to play Quake!

    Only about 253fps in 640x480x32. :P

    Actually, I got it partially because my only computer at the time was a PII laptop and I wanted something to play Q3 on. So sue me! :P
  • Could someone please ungzip and tar this thing , zip it back up , and post it or email it to me This would be a big help to Newbies such as myself.
  • All of your ideas are good except one:

    -- a screen big enough to read more than a paragraph at a time

    I just bought a Palm V, and the biggest reason I went with the Palm instead of a Wince machine (the HP Jornada was my 2nd choice) was size of the PDA. The Jornada has a lot of sweet features (MP3 playback, color support, pocket word/excel, voice memo recording) but the bloody machine was too big. The same thing goes for the Newton and Messagepad -- I want something that I can easily carry around in my jacket pocet without it being intrusive or noticable. The Palm series (especially Palm V) are great for that -- even if you sacrifice color and features.
  • DirectX like many microsoft API have been ported (with limitations) to CE. Even IIS and SQL Server 7 have some support under CE.

    if you've even looked at MSDN you'll notice a table under each WinAPI section.

    Win16: no
    Win95: yes
    WinNT: yes
    WinCE: yes.

    looks a lot like that.

    -Jon
  • I can see it now! It'll be right up there with ascii quake, for practicality and popularity. Seriously, could you use the infrared ports on the palms to network and let two play a game?
  • Now that would definitely be cool (Of course it would demand a bit more processing power( and a keyboard)).
    But considering that the Palm IIIc has color, who knows what's next...

    Mikael Jacobson
  • Oh, and I also forgot that it might also need a NIC. =)

    Mikael Jacobson
  • Yeah, as the other post replying pointed out RMS renamed it. I personally don't like the bashing the LGPL gets. Releasing libraries under it can only help with standards. It is a license for libraries so that people who don't want to use the GPL can at least dynamically link with it. If commercial software had no means to take advantage of any of the libraries then you would not see any companies port proprietary software over to Linux. I know, I know... Screw proprietary software, but there are many apps that are pretty sweet that fall under this category. I know what RMS's points were but that doesn't mean I have to agree.


    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • You know, at first glance I thought this was cool just for the hack value. But with the introduction of the color PalmOS systems [palm.com], this might become really cool in practice too. Could be some extremely portable eye candy, at the very least.

    John
  • They actually have a multiplayer only version of Doom for the HP48GX that uses the IR port. Only problem is, you have to be about a half an inch away from the calculator you are playing against for it to work. A friend and I used to play that in the middle of calculus class though...made things a bit more interesting :)

  • Well, there's OpenGL... but thats only half of the equation.

    OpenGL, used as a software renderer, is SLOW. It is much better when used on a 3D accelerator. Software renderinng, on the other hand, can be 100% assembler, and manage to squeeze decent performance out of the little Z80 inside of the Palm 3 series.

    Now, if sombody started making PCMCIA cards with TNT2's on them, which would be awesome for laptops and doubly awesome for color Palms, we could get quake 3 running...

    ...seeing as how doom runs really slow on a palm anyways (I've used betas), 3D accelleration is a MUST.

    And that's all I have to say about that.
    --
    Talon Karrde
  • Hmm, you could use Pen Aiming and just tap the person you want to rail...

    ...you could use the keys at the bottom (left for left, right for right, and the up/down arrows for forward and backward, and the inner left/right for strafing).

    Hehehehe
    --
    Talon Karrde
  • What about building a little projector into these things. Of-course that means much higher power consumption. But if you have a power outlet close buy...

    I want a palm top with a 3D projector!!!

  • Somebody going to port Quake 3 to the Palm VII? Portable, wireless, networked Quake! Framerates might be a bit low, and I'm not sure how well Graffiti controls would work...
  • Palm VII + color screen + Q3 for Palm = wireless Quake
  • You can forget those Quake lightmaps for sure 8)
    I had to make a game that also runned in a window no matter what color depth. At 8 bit, surpisingly, one could tell what was going on.
    Now I wonder if there is a way to hack the Palm color display to flicker between two 256 color pictures (unless the Dragonball already does it to achieve 256 colors 8). That brings to 65536 combinations !
    Still you need more than 16MHz before the OpenGL API call becomes negligible for real-time use.

    bau
  • I really wonder how much of OpenGL has been ported.
    OpenGL doesn't do any lighting and color modulation unless it's running in hi/true-color, that rules out even the new color Palm (256 colors only). Maybe they emulate non palettized color by choosing a special palette, but at the price of an ugly sight. Also OpenGL transformations are totally based on floating point. That rules out real-time animation too (anyone ever used the floating point emulation library on the Amiga ?).
    I think this is cool, I wish OpenGL was everywhere, but on a 16MHz Dragonball CPU is not very useful.
    Hopefully one day we'll all have OpenGL on silicon !
  • AFAIC Epoc is a realtime OS, which is technically superior to the PalmOS.

    Does being realtime make one OS technically superior to another? I guess that makes QNX one of the greatest OS's in the history of computing.

    Now, if you are comparing Epoc32 to the PalmOS based on true technical merit maybe you'd like to back up your claim. I don't know much about Epoc32 but I've used the PalmOS on a daily basis for the last 3 years and it's a fine piece of software.

  • Sorry, had to get that off my chest. How many people actually use Palm Pilots etc. My boss would have no brain if he didn't have his... But I suppose that someone out there uses it and thier brain in combination.
  • Certainly not just for games... Silicon Graphics started work on IRIS GL in 1982 and, later, OpenGL in 1990. Mind you OpenGL is far from trivial to develop with, but it sure is portable--a molecular viewer made with OpenGL, for example, could very easily be ported from a Wintel PC to a Palm, or even an SGI 128-processor, 16-pipe Infinite Reality2! :)
  • That OpenGL isnt just for games. It wasnt even designed for that. One of the first things I thought of for this was a VRML browser. I'm sure you can think of other utils.

    Just because MS have demoted GL to screensavers only doesnt mean you have to!
  • It's totally a matter of preference. I have large hands, long fingers. The 2100 is just the right size for me. The fact that I can't get something with that much screen real estate any more without also getting a hard drive irks me to no end.

    And really, the 2100 can fit with just a little struggle into a jeans back pocket. More to the point, I have a pouch in the front-center of my bike-messenger-style bag that fits it _perfectly_, and that bag goes with me everywhere I go.

    I don't think the larger screen is for everyone, but I'm frustrated that currently if I had to replace my 2100, I'd have to get another 2100 somewhere, because getting a Palm or WinCE device would be like buying a 15" monitor to replace my aging 20" one....


    --

  • Well... (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    I guess we can go ahead with that Quake 3 port now, eh?
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Re:huh (Score:2)

    by Genom ( 3868 )
    At least for me, the Palm is a tool just as much as my desktop computer.

    It allows me to concentrate more brainpower on remembering important things, and less on things like dates, addresses, and phone numbers. I'd much rather fill my brain with things I need to use constantly, rather than mundane details.

    Of course, I tend to be extremely absent-minded about things like that anyway -- so the palm is a natural extension that makes up for that deficiency. Anything important enough that I might need it agaqin, but not important enough to spend time memorizing, goes into the palm.

    This isn't to say that I'd be lost without it. In fact, just recently, my Palm III took an overnight in a snowbank (the clip came off my belt, and in a bulky winter jacket, I didn't notice until I was home (and then thought I might have left it on my desk). It still worked once it dried out - but the screen was shot. So, for a couple weeks, I was without it. It was an inconvenience actually having to look up info on phone numbers and such - but I managed. The important stuff was in my brain, not the palm.

    Now, I've temporarily replaced the III with a new IIIe (only until the local shops start having IIIxe's in stock - then it gets handed off to my fiancee). It's nice to have it again, but I know I could definitely survive without it.

    Convenience is a virtue, but it's not an excuse for ignorance. Put the important stuff in your brain where it counts, and leave the rest to the palm. That's my philosophy anyway =)

  • -- an animation player for QT-style movies (these might exist fpr Palm, but I haven't seen them)
    Check [handango.com]

    -- a Web browser with GIF and JPG support
    Check [handango.com]

    (BTW, if the links are messed up, it's because /. kept adding a space in my </a>)

    --
  • would also need a much bigger disk capacity.
    Write it for the TRGpro's CF slot.

    IMO the biggest problem for Quake is the interface. The Palm buttons really should be a cross on each side with a wheel in the middle ( + | + ) - then non-stylus control would be much more powerful and (games) programmers could do directional stuff much more naturally.

  • OpenGL, used as a software renderer, is SLOW. It is much better when used on a 3D accelerator.
    That got me thinking. Would it be possible to make a (simple) 3D-accelerator in a CompactFlash card? What are the specs of it? What is the bandwidth?
  • Palm suceeded because it *DIDN'T* have those things.

    Newton failed because it did.

    If you want a full-function computer, buy a full-function computer.
  • I'm not sure where you guys are drawing your experience from. Mine is totally contrary.

    Most people who would only use a Palm for "the basics" don't buy a Palm at all, in my experience.

    Remember what we're talking about here; a gadget that fits in your hand, but is essentially a Mac SE without a floppy drive.

    I only know one person who bought a Palm and didn't use it for anything except the basics.

    She sold it to me before long.

    Half the people in my office have them, and they all use downloaded apps. 90% of the system administration teams have them, and they all use downloaded apps.
  • Yeah... I got one around CHristmas time, only to realize that pretty much every name, address, number, email address, etc is all permanently stored in my head... so the palm really acts as a backup, and for storing one-off things for places that i probably won't ever call again... For instance, pizza delivery in Dallas, a nightclub in San Francisco... Stuff i probably won't call again, but just maybe i will...

    I did find one AWESOME application for it though... GNUkeyring... Secure storing of all my passwords... That's it's killer app for me... It also generates completley random passwords, so i ended up using it to regenerate all my passwords, so they weren't just variations on the same theme.

    Plus, there's pocketchess!

    I don't know... I aspired to put my entire life into my palm pilot, but once i did, i realized it really wasn't all that i once hoped it would be.

    But back on subject... What in the world does opengl on the palm accomplish?!? Let people play quake on the train via a wireless connection? Will people controll themselves with Stylus'? I think i might be ready to dismiss this, and ask that maybe bored developers could create things of "real use" rather than doing things just to see if they can? I'm sorry.

  • More reliable? I've had to do many more hard resets, having to restore all my data on each of both my Palm Pilot and my Palm III, than the handful of times I've ever had to do soft resets on my Cassiopeia E-105 (which has never needed a hard reset). Give it a try before you speak next time.

    Combined with the fact that there is no decent Doom for the Palm, and that the color graphics, sound, and screen size on those machines is a joke compared to the Cassiopeia, I'll stick with my choice anyday.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Not sure what you're getting at. The program I mentioned isn't an emulator, it's Doom (Jimmy Software has also released their own free port of Doom, Doom4CE [jimmysoftware.com]). The only reason I mentioned the color GameBoy emulator is because the version of CE Doom that I mentioned is made by the same guy (guys?) who produced PalmGB. For anyone who's tried this amazing little piece of software, they know that these guys write some damn good code. (As does Jimmy Software, come to think of it.)

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • It's based on the original Linux source release from Id, and is brought to you by the same wizard (wizards?) who produced the greatest entertainment app of all time on any PDA: PalmGB, the color Gameboy emulator for WinCE. More info available here [eskimo.com], as long as you're willing to put up with the midis playing in the background. ;) (Actually, the one playing on the Doom screen is pretty cool, but I digress.)

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • I guess that this means microsoft will quickly follow suit with a Direct3D Port to WinCE?

    They're certainly planning something like that:

    CHICAGO -- Feb. 29, 2000 -- Today at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Spring 2000, Microsoft Corp. introduced its new DirectX® Platform Adaptation Kit (DXPAK) for the Windows® CE operating system. This new DXPAK enables OEMs to create Windows CE-based devices that take advantage of the latest multimedia capabilities, including accelerated graphics, and streaming audio and video with full playback capabilities, delivered via the Web to applications ranging from game consoles and set-top terminals to factory-floor HMI devices.

    Their full press release is here [microsoft.com].

  • I think, am not sure, that WinCE already has some implementation of Direct3D, but as most of the hardware it runs on is relatively low powered (handhelds) it's not taken advantage of or implemented in those low end devices. But I Think that the API itself is present or can be added easily if the developer needs it. Doesn't the dreamcast use WinCE and D3D for some applications?
  • This sounds like something that was done just to prove it could be done, so people could say "You know, they ported OpenGL to the palm pilot".

    But, surely as the palm grows in hardware and display, it could become useful. I'd bet a high-end palm probably has more CPU power then the 486 you played doom on, or at least more then the 386 you played wolf-3d on. I'd really like to see someone port (or develop) some games now. Perhaps the GPL'd quake engine? (How fast is the software rendering there using?)

    Heh, imagine being able to say, "You know, they ported GL quake to the palm pilot"...

    [ c h a d &nbsp o k e r e ] [dhs.org]
  • with the Quake sources already GPLed maybe we'll see a mini-quake soon. We could call it....TREMOR!

    A little IR networking and meetings would be fun again.:)


    --
  • WinZip [winzip.com] handles tarred and/or gzipped files just fine, if you're on a Windows box.
  • Sega Dreamcast hardware has two API's. One of these is a proprietary Sega one, the other is Windows CE. The idea is that bad PC games can be ported to DC easily (and the WinCE games are usually the ones with the worst framerate, BTW). But yes, there is Direct X for Windows CE!

    Daniel

  • Yeah, this is a very unfortunate situation for the Palm series. I don't know of too many people who are using them to their full capabilities. There is actually a lot of cool, interesting software out there for PalmOS, but most people just use the default software that comes with it for the simple things. This is OK, since this is what they bought it for.

    Of course, I think that they are missing out on a lot of cool things, and this is one of them.

  • That Jornada you were looking at was a Handheld PC

    Yeah, you're right, I was referring to the Jornada HPC not their Palms-sized devices. I looked at those too but I figured thatPalmOS was better than Wince straight up -- and a Wince would have to offer more for me to consider it. The HPC version did that by offering MP3 playback and memos etc -- but at the expense of size.

    My point again (more clarified this time): For me small enough to carry is the most important feature, everything else comes after. Other things like color, music, app compatibility, battery life, and voice support are secondary, but they also matter.

    In the end, for me the Palm V won out because (Small + battery life + compatibility) > (MP3+voice+color) but small was the most important factor!
  • Awesome. I'm posting this from my Palm IIIe. Really!

    --
  • Actually there is a guy working on a port of Doom to Palm.
    http://boris.qub.ac.uk/tube/doomling.html is his page with screen shots, but it seems down now.

    --
  • Summary? Sorry, no. However, Epos is a truly great operating system. I develop on it, and I am amazed at how well it supports developers.

    It's C++ from the beginning to the end, and it's very cleverly written for speed and low memory print. It also has a unique way of handling faults - especially out of memory conditions, which means that application very seldom crash at all - you have to use that one for a while to really appreciate it :)

    Epoc is also 32 bit all the way, and has low level support for everything you need to develop networking applications (everything is gonna be done wireless soon :)

    I think the rumours about Nokia and Motorola using the Palm UI ontop of the Epoc core says a lot - no matter if they're true or not.

    Psion began developing Epoc in the early 90's - this is not a new operating system. It's old, well understood, is written for low memory battery powered devices from the beginning - it's what we all want.

    At least I want a Quartz [symbian.com] device!

  • This can nicely be used for 3D navigation, and in the future even for 3D scanning. Beautiful.
  • Now that palm is the most favored PDA in my book I've found that it is the absolute best. Even though you can't run windows CE on it ... it has perfect windows and linux compatability.

    But it brings my next comment. Most people who have palm pilots aren't going to mess with them and run fancy software on them. For the most part all I've seen palms used for is email reading and playing games on. Ohh yeah and as a schedule book.

    So miniGL is out for the palm. Does this mean anything really to the average palm user? Not really. But it brings another question ... why isn't the palm being used to it's full potential. It's almost a waste of resources. Like anyone who buys a pIII just to email and surf the web and play quake.

    But the palm itself has the game planned quite well. It's easy for the average user to use, but also the power user can use it also. So yes developement for the palm shall and will go on.

  • (Of course it would demand a bit more processing power( and a keyboard)).
    Not to mention a CD-ROM drive. Heck, why not just hook up a DVD drive?


    =================================

  • Re:PalmOS vs Epoc32 (Score:3)

    by Joe Rumsey ( 2194 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @01:17PM (#1225989)
    PalmOS has had a TCP/IP Stack since 2.0. And even the oldest models (1000 and 5000) can be upgraded to that version of the OS. None of the builtin apps as of 3.0 actually support networking, but adding programs that do is trivial. You can even get a POP/SMTP client that interfaces with the builtin email app, though there are much better email apps out there. Multimail [actualsoft.com] is quite nice, supports plugins for viewing many kinds of attachments and generally does all the things you'd need from a mail program. There are also web browsers, telnet and ssh clients, etc. Even an IRC client.

    As for development environments, Metrowerks makes CodeWarrior for Mac and Windows, and there is a port of GCC available for any platform that can run GCC. Quite a few projects use GCC. You don't get the nice UI layout tools (though that may have changed since the last time I checked) but there really isn't anything you can't do with it that you can with the Metrowerks package.

  • Re:History repeats itself. (Score:3)

    by Zico ( 14255 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @03:11PM (#1225990)

    That Jornada you were looking at was a Handheld PC (HPC -- the type that have keyboards) model, though, wasn't it? There are also Palm-sized (PPC) Jornadas which have the features you mentioned, except for Pocket Word/Excel, although it does have Outlook. They're the size of non-V Palms -- the Compaq Aeros have that sweet Palm V size and shape -- so they're definitely made to fit in your jacket pocket. Not trying to make you think twice about your purchase or anything, just wanted to point out that the Jornada HPCs aren't really analagous to the Palms.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Utah Teapot... (Score:3)

    by delmoi ( 26744 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @09:16AM (#1225991) Homepage
    Did anyone else follow the teapot [airmail.net] Link on the page? It was pretty interesting reading, and anyone who's done any 3d modeling will probably get a kick out of it... Unfortunately, almost all of the external links (from the teapot page) were dead :(

    [ c h a d &nbsp o k e r e ] [dhs.org]

  • DirectX? (Score:3)

    by NiggaPet ( 32356 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @08:32AM (#1225992)
    I guess that this means microsoft will quickly follow suit with a Direct3D Port to WinCE?

  • Cool (Score:3)

    by noeld ( 43600 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @08:32AM (#1225993) Homepage
    Well I downloaded it and installed it on my visor deluxe and woooo.... It drew a box :)

    Actually I think this really is some cool first steps.

    For those that have a palm the Mathlib takes about 50K and the test app takes about 17k.

    Noel

    RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]

  • Internals (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @10:13AM (#1225994)
    Hey, does anyone know how the internals of this thing are arranged? If anything OpenGL is not a light API, so I doubt they used the standard openGL pipeline. If you think about it though, 3D on palmtops does stand a change, but OpenGL might not really be the best idea at this point. Back in the day, (386 days) you could acutally get a fairly non-complex, but usable 3D system on a 386-16. The dragon ball in the palm 3 is maybe slightly more powerful (20 MHz 68x00 I think) so it should be possible to get a decent API with OpenGL code interface to it. Also, does the dragonball have an fpu? Performance would die even more if it were using fpu emultation. (GL needs floats) Methinks a better target for this would be the CE machines as they are already coming in with 131MHz MIPS procs.

  • Amazing potential (Score:3)

    by Paolo ( 87425 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @08:27AM (#1225995) Homepage
    Now with the introduction of MiniGL and the Palm IIIc, it is conceivable that one could write a color 3d application for the Palm platform. The possibilities for development are endless, only marred by processing power. This may make OpenGL the only true graphics "standard", since it can now run on machines other than desktops!

  • There's also a 3D modeling tool for PalmOS: (Score:3)

    by Otis_INF ( 130595 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @09:02AM (#1225996) Homepage
    Edward Patel wrote a 3D modeling tool for the Palm OS which can export to VRML and OpenGL:

    http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm? sid=65968720000302182859&prodID=6263 [palmgear.com]

    With miniGL and this modeler as examples it's definitly interesting what's next. There's definitely a market for 3D apps on handhelds, there is just time needed to bring the render/calc power of a handheld more up to par :)
    --

  • PalmOS vs Epoc32 (Score:4)

    by nstrug ( 1741 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @10:02AM (#1225997) Homepage
    Can anyone post a summary of the major advantages and disadvantages of PalmOS compared to Epoc32? I've heard quite a few people in the industry saying that PalmOS is doomed due to it's lack of a TCP/IP stack and the fact that it runs only on Dragonball. Anyone have any comments? It really seems that all the mobile phone makers are leaning toward Epoc on ARM as their embedded OS of choice.

    However, it seems that Palm has a much more open development environment - I know you can get Palm SDKs for just about any platform - is the same true of Epoc?

    Nick

  • History repeats itself. (Score:5)

    by emerson ( 419 ) on Saturday March 04, 2000 @12:09PM (#1225998)
    Once again, the Palm platform gets capabilities that were available 2-3 years ago on the Newton. (*sigh, brush away tear)

    Now that there's rudimentary OpenGL, all Palm needs is:
    -- text-to-speech integrated with all text displaying widgets
    -- handwriting recognition that doesn't make you write in martian and that works all over the screen at any angle
    -- a screen big enough to read more than a paragraph at a time
    -- an animation player for QT-style movies (these might exist fpr Palm, but I haven't seen them)
    -- a Web browser with GIF and JPG support
    -- a 200+ MHz processor

    ...and then we'd have reinvented the MessagePad 2100, and we could start THINKING about improving on the state of the art, circa 1997.

    (*sigh) Newton, we barely knew ye... Although someone knew ye well enough to make an OpenGL port in '98 or so.

    --

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