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RePalm

dmitry.gr

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Re: RePalm

#51

Post by wkat4242 »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #38
muyuu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadianfella's reply is dead so I'll reply here. Eventually Symbian (sp?) was better and when Sony killed their Zire division I just have Palm Treo one last chance. It was a bit laggy and the battery didn't last long enough. I always wanted to give Zaurus a try, but the Linux ones not the Palm ones.

Symbian OS was much better engineered than PalmOS, but was nevertheless full of idiosyncrasies. They had a very short stack limit that created tons of bugs and it was not possible to build software without their own customized toolchain that disallowed some standards C/C++ stuff such as static variables. The best kernel at the time was WinCE, good old Win32 API with basic POSIX capabilities for networking, filesystem…

WinCE was nice in terms of kernel but it was really begging for a decent UI. Palm and Psion did have that part covered.

Re: RePalm

#52

Post by dmitrygr »

dctoedt wrote: post #48

The linked article's title is pretty open-ended, so I looked at it with just a scintilla of hope that it might include a Graffiti emulator for iOS devices, especially iPad with Apple Pencil. Sadly, no joy.

Wrapping grafiti.prc into the bare minimum PalmOS api it would need to run isn’t hard. A few years back I made a wrapper for it that ran on Android Wear. But due to my employment I am pretty sure publishing anything for iOS would be a no-no

Re: RePalm

#53

Post by c-smile »

I think that porting WinCE in the same manner would be more promising.

That OS had was really a solid foundation, I have no idea why MS abandoned the project. To make modern UI layer on top of it and it may fly.

Re: RePalm

#54

Post by dmitrygr »

bioemerl wrote: post #5

This is amazing. I would leap at the chance to build a simple palm device with a 3D printed case, modern hardware that lasts an absolute eternity.

Working on it. Standby. Sadly might be months. Hobby project takes back seat to job and life…

Re: RePalm

#55

Post by ckz »

tgmatt wrote: post #31
ckz wrote: post #7

Side note: Dmitry (creator of RePalm) is a treasure and his impact on the Palm community cannot be understated. He has a world-class depth of knowledge of the inner workings of these things and is one of the key players in extending PalmOS device capabilities today (patching ROMs, new hardware, etc.). He also contributes regularly to apps the community is developing, teaching us hobby devs new tricks. :) As someone w…

Out of interest, and a genuine question, why do you use PDAs when smartphones exist? Surely they do everything the PDAs did but better?

A totally valid question! I did adopt the smartphone for many, many years. My father had a gen-1 iPhone which captured my imagination. At the same time, I've also never really let them run my life. I've habitually always maintained the old (Apple?) hub-and-spoke model where the PC is the core and everything else is a mobile extension of it.

I do own some, but they don't get used for much (browser-on-the-go, mostly).

Smartphones are definitely better all-rounders, but what I've come to adopt in recent years is a hobby of finding whatever tech/concept seems "best" to me (from any period in time) and then using that. Sometimes that means hardware from 1920, sometimes from today (e.g. I have a current-gen GPU to join the AI arms race). Sometimes that means a modern evolution of the concept without losing the spirit.

Easy examples:

* iPod -> Music player w/ FLAC + 1TB SD

* Gameboy -> Analogue Pocket (or sometimes original hardware)

* A modern standalone camera, etc.

It's sort of like living in the dream version of 2002 where tech stayed hopeful and fun (not sure if that's good or bad). Definitely brought me the most joy in tech I've had in years.

PDAs (and a _lot_ of tech from A PDA just wants to take good notes, manage the day's work, and be a simple extension of your mind. Most modern tasks (that don't require a network connection to be useful) have apps that still exist and don't spy on you: Food journals, encrypted notes, flashcards, project management, ebooks, cached news, Wordle, period trackers...

So, if your life today doesn't _depend_ on a specific vision of modernity, you don't miss out on much of it while benefiting from some forgotten UX benefits: Offline-first, great UI, week-long batteries (AAA if so inclined), Graffiti input, etc. :)

Re: RePalm

#56

Post by doublerabbit »

troad wrote: post #41

This is an incredibly cool write-up, demonstrating a level of technical skill far beyond me. Kudos! I am a little confused by all the "but why" comments here. Because it's fun! Because it's cool! Because it's full of weirdness, archaisms, and edge cases - working through those is a playful challenge, and conquering them all gives a wonderful feeling of mastery. It doesn't need to be any more 'useful' than any other h…

I do the same in my brain dumps when coding.

For me it stops my mind from wandering and describes to myself why I am writing that function.

Re: RePalm

#57

Post by ttctciyf »

ckz wrote: post #7

Side note: Dmitry (creator of RePalm) is a treasure and his impact on the Palm community cannot be understated. He has a world-class depth of knowledge of the inner workings of these things and is one of the key players in extending PalmOS device capabilities today (patching ROMs, new hardware, etc.). He also contributes regularly to apps the community is developing, teaching us hobby devs new tricks. :) As someone w…

> cannot be understated

Seeing this a lot recently[1]. I guess you mean the opposite of what this implies ("his impact is less than you could state"), but I'm curious how this has ended up being almost as commonly used as the "correct" form[2]. Is it an in-joke or reference I'm not getting?

1: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cannot+be+understated%22+...

2: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22cannot+be+overstated%22+s...

Re: RePalm

#58

Post by nerdponx »

troad wrote: post #41

This is an incredibly cool write-up, demonstrating a level of technical skill far beyond me. Kudos! I am a little confused by all the "but why" comments here. Because it's fun! Because it's cool! Because it's full of weirdness, archaisms, and edge cases - working through those is a playful challenge, and conquering them all gives a wonderful feeling of mastery. It doesn't need to be any more 'useful' than any other h…

I think there are two kinds of "but why" questions:

1. Derisive, insinuating that the project is silly or a waste of time.

2. Inquisitive, actually wanting to know what motivated the creator to do something that most people don't see a value for, and/or would never have thought to bother with.

We should discourage the former, but IMO we should encourage the latter.

Re: RePalm

#59

Post by selfhoster11 »

tgmatt wrote: post #31
ckz wrote: post #7

Side note: Dmitry (creator of RePalm) is a treasure and his impact on the Palm community cannot be understated. He has a world-class depth of knowledge of the inner workings of these things and is one of the key players in extending PalmOS device capabilities today (patching ROMs, new hardware, etc.). He also contributes regularly to apps the community is developing, teaching us hobby devs new tricks. :) As someone w…

Out of interest, and a genuine question, why do you use PDAs when smartphones exist? Surely they do everything the PDAs did but better?

They have a much better stand-by battery life on AAA batteries, and they are not as distracting because they are offline-first (or even offline-only, for the early models). Or, you can just use them if you find them neat (which I do). But ckz’s answer is a very good glance into the kind of mindset that I share for the most part as well.

Re: RePalm

#60

Post by nerdponx »

doublerabbit wrote: post #56
troad wrote: post #41

This is an incredibly cool write-up, demonstrating a level of technical skill far beyond me. Kudos! I am a little confused by all the "but why" comments here. Because it's fun! Because it's cool! Because it's full of weirdness, archaisms, and edge cases - working through those is a playful challenge, and conquering them all gives a wonderful feeling of mastery. It doesn't need to be any more 'useful' than any other h…

I do the same in my brain dumps when coding. For me it stops my mind from wandering and describes to myself why I am writing that function.

This is such a great idea for people who have trouble staying focused. It can help you decide whether to actually spend time on whatever you're doing, or to just dump some ideas to a scratchpad (or your Zettelkasten!) and get back to the actual work at hand.
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