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RePalm
11–20 of 151 posts
Re: RePalm
#12[deleted]
Re: RePalm
#13[flagged]
I hesitated to post the same question but guess the answer would be: "Why not?"
Re: RePalm
#14For people that do these kinds of projects, I always wonder how much progress is getting made in an average night of poking around. I'm only able to make big leaps on things by just eating up evenings. Are some people just really good at picking things up and making progress?
According to the main page of the linked article, this RePalm project has been ongoing since at least Dec 30 2018. How often and how much the author works on this particular project at a time I don’t know. But from this I think it is safe to assume that it takes time, and perseverance above all is key. Probably.
Re: RePalm
#15For people that do these kinds of projects, I always wonder how much progress is getting made in an average night of poking around. I'm only able to make big leaps on things by just eating up evenings. Are some people just really good at picking things up and making progress?
Some people are better than others. If you are single with no kids that leaves a lot of time. If you have a relationship that takes time (assuming you want to maintain it), and kids are a large time sink (well worth it, but not if you count time or money). Of course different relationships have different needs. And different people have different budgets, if you are born rich maybe you don't need to work and so this isn't an evening hobby. Retired people also have more time for projects like this.
If you make it a point though most everyone can find an hour every day to do something like this despite the above. However for most of us it is easier to turn on the TV/youtube/read books/.... Even the more productive things like learn a foreign language, politically support a candidate, and the like. There is lots of competition for your limited time and most people won't make projects like this a priority. Some of the things above are worth doing on their own, some are just a waste of time. (though if you are nearly burned out you probably don't have the energy to spend on more than TV)
Re: RePalm
#16Re: RePalm
#17I lack the wherewithal to do anything more than to appreciate the sheer scope in the most general terms, but nostalgia is kicking in quite hard. Bravo!
I'm with you on the nostalgia kick. What Palm did you have? I had a Palm IIIe SE in high school, didn't use it for much except sending sub7 to anything with an IR port and play dope wars, but still my fav computer I've ever owned.
The IR port could be used for remote control level interactions with a LEGO Mindstorms RCX. That was a major use case for my high school handspring.
Re: RePalm
#18PalmOS was killed by its design mistakes and technical weaknesses.
16 bits memory limitation, even at the time that was silly.
Armlets? Extremely hard to write simple native code or to port apps and games from other platforms.
No file system, a custom and rather slow database instead…
But they had tons of documents on how to follow their UI/UX guidelines.
Basically, they had no real kernel upon which building an OS, they tried anyway and it was a mess of epic proportions.
Re: RePalm
#19PalmOS was killed by its design mistakes and technical weaknesses. 16 bits memory limitation, even at the time that was silly. Armlets? Extremely hard to write simple native code or to port apps and games from other platforms. No file system, a custom and rather slow database instead… But they had tons of documents on how to follow their UI/UX guidelines. Basically, they had no real kernel upon which building an OS,…
All of that and also a lack of a compelling mass market story. I bought a couple of them and enjoyed playing with them, but they weren’t better-enough to change my habits.
Re: RePalm
#20For people that do these kinds of projects, I always wonder how much progress is getting made in an average night of poking around. I'm only able to make big leaps on things by just eating up evenings. Are some people just really good at picking things up and making progress?
I don't claim to be in the same league as OP but I can tell you from my experience. I have a demanding job (CTO of Cloudflare) and I have a partner with whom I like to spend time.
One of the projects I am currently working on is restoring an IBM ThinkPad 701CS (https://blog.jgc.org/2023/03/repairing-tiny-ribbon-cable-ins...) which has required a total teardown and rebuild. I started this project in early January and currently have a working machine that's in parts. I work on this when I have time. Which might be for two or three hours a week maximum. Basically, I decided to get satisfaction from small improvements. So, one time when working on this I just cleaned up the battery contacts, another time I replaced the CMOS battery and saw that it was retaining RAM size, another time I repaired the keyboard, another time I just sat down and figured out which parts of the case I needed to 3D print to replace, etc. etc.
I usually have two to three projects ongoing and just pick them up when I have time and inclination.