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RePalm

dmitry.gr

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Re: RePalm

#111

Post by michaelhoffman »

MikusR wrote: post #83
michaelhoffman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use non-smartphone PDAs anymore, but I really miss: 1. Their ability to do absolutely everything offline. No need to worry that I won't be able to access something because somewhere without data service 2. The ability to have all the PDA features at my fingertips without being hooked up to the world's biggest attention-killing distraction network.

you just described an ordinary smartphone with wifi/data turned off.

I wish that were true, but unfortunately some apps do not seem to be designed well in the case of data being turned off.

Re: RePalm

#112

Post by hedgehog »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

PalmOS 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,…

Bad developer experience might have contributed but I think the primary cause was the same as what killed Windows Mobile and Symbian: The iPhone reset the bar for user experience and at the same time Apple changed handset + app distribution models, Palm failed to meet the situation. Google figured it out, scrapped the Android UX, and managed to be #2. With the high per-platform cost of mobile dev there's apparently not room for more than two so even Microsoft couldn't catch up.

Re: RePalm

#113

Post by ckz »

sho_nuff wrote: post #104
ckz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

> * iPod -> Music player w/ FLAC + 1TB SD Out of curiosity, which Music player did you settle on? I am in the market for one and looking for options (currently leaning towards a FiiO M11).

Currently a FiiO M3K and I've been super happy with it. Might be discontinued now, however.

The thought process for the purchase was that I wanted a standalone DAP without a touchscreen (iPod-esque), without wireless connectivity, with expandable storage, and not running Android. The M3K also has good Rockbox support including dual-boot, so I swap between that and the native Linux firmware at times.

I am considering getting a second device of some kind with Bluetooth because there are occasional but persistent times where it honestly would be nice. Ideally it'd still be running a pretty basic OS, though.

Re: RePalm

#114

Post by acyou »

nerdponx wrote: post #82
acyou wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "Motivation" section is the most important section of documentation. Why is this great and why should we keep reading?

Also true, but I don't think we need to enforce that kind of standard for personal hobby projects. You're not under any obligation to convince people that your project is worth being interested in, unless you specifically want other people to start using it.

You are right, it's not something that needs to be enforced or demanded on a personal hobby project.

You can write documentation and software for yourself, and share it for no particular reason, or write documentation/software for other people, and share it to help others. If it's the latter, you might care that other people read the documentation, because you think it will be useful and helpful and you want to help them.

As a non-expert, I like having the main and most relevant use cases and underlying motivations of authors and users made obvious. For me, having specific use cases in mind makes documentation easier to read and interpret. If I were an expert in a field and felt the motivation for the documentation was obvious and self-explanatory, I might not feel the need to have it explicitly articulated.

When I write documentation, I often need to refer to the Motivation to stay motivated and stay on target. What are all the great outcomes that are going to come about as a result of the documentation existing? If I didn't have those in mind from the outset, I might not want to write the docs.

Re: RePalm

#115

Post by stephc_int13 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #109
stephc_int13 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was creating software (mostly games) for a wide range of handheld devices at the time. When you're doing that you can quite easily get an idea of the weaknesses and strengths of the platform, and I can tell you that PalmOS was quite weak but almost OK at the very beginning but it quickly deteriorated and at the end they could simply not push it forward at all. Sony did a good job considering, but they simply bet on…

I never cared about mobile gaming in the era, so I can only go on what I used the device for: communication and personal information management. PalmOS was good at those things. To be fair to Sony, there wasn't really any other horse to bet on in that era. The problem was their hardware was fragile vs. Palm or Handspring devices.

Symbian and WinCE were relatively strong competitors.

And there was an attempt at Linux + Qt made by Sharp with the Zaurus and Qtopia.

Re: RePalm

#116

Post by troad »

rcarmo wrote: post #67
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.

Same here. I can still write Graffiti without thinking, and something I could use as a notepad would be great.

Could something like this be implemented as an iOS keyboard, I wonder?

Re: RePalm

#117

Post by troad »

muyuu wrote: post #68
selfhoster11 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeDOS brought MS-DOS back from the dead. Was it useless? In my opinion, far from it. Yes, Palm is useless and archaic of networked features are your #1 use case for a PDA (smartphone) and there’s little use reviving it. However, if you care about old Palm games, or about efficiently organising your life with minimum distractions, then IMO not many modern devices will beat a Palm OS device. Analogously to MS-DOS, th…

FreeDOS is exactly what I was describing. Makes sense to use that old software, but not to actually develop for these days. Because you'd be imposing weird anachronistic restrictions on yourself for no good reason.

> imposing weird anachronistic restrictions on yourself for no good reason

It's worth noting that this also describes virtually all poetry, the rules of all sports, etc. :)

Re: RePalm

#118

Post by rcarmo »

troad wrote: post #116
rcarmo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I can still write Graffiti without thinking, and something I could use as a notepad would be great.

Could something like this be implemented as an iOS keyboard, I wonder?

It was. Amazingly enough, there was one that did that, but it's gone.

Re: RePalm

#119

Post by ornornor »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #61
ckz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

I aspire to implement this vision of modernity on my life as well. Perhaps it’s time to dust off an old UX40/UX50 and finally make this happen.

Wait until you see the prices on these for a working one.

Re: RePalm

#120

Post by stephc_int13 »

hedgehog wrote: post #112
stephc_int13 wrote: post #18

PalmOS 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,…

Bad developer experience might have contributed but I think the primary cause was the same as what killed Windows Mobile and Symbian: The iPhone reset the bar for user experience and at the same time Apple changed handset + app distribution models, Palm failed to meet the situation. Google figured it out, scrapped the Android UX, and managed to be #2. With the high per-platform cost of mobile dev there's apparently n…

PalmOS was already dead when the iPhone was launched.

In fact most players had divested the market at this stage. The PocketPC team was a skeleton and Symbian was being eaten from inside by competing internal projects.

Apple had a highway.

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