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PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

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Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#21

Post by pushedx »

floating-io wrote: post #20
lxgr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did have the Treo line! Arguably, what ultimately brought Palm down was their early success and the huge library of existing shareware and freeware tools: They desperately needed to try something new (Palm OS was just showing its age as a single-threaded, in-RAM, non-virtual-memory-based OS), but couldn't, since it would have alienated long-time fans by stranding their existing software libraries. They could nev…

Wasn't that Handspring rather than palm? [edit: referring to Treo specifically, not the rest...]

Right, it was ex-Palm employees at Handspring that created the Treo.

Nice documentary about this with interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_Vh9h3Ohw

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#22

Post by classichasclass »

floating-io wrote: post #20
lxgr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did have the Treo line! Arguably, what ultimately brought Palm down was their early success and the huge library of existing shareware and freeware tools: They desperately needed to try something new (Palm OS was just showing its age as a single-threaded, in-RAM, non-virtual-memory-based OS), but couldn't, since it would have alienated long-time fans by stranding their existing software libraries. They could nev…

Wasn't that Handspring rather than palm? [edit: referring to Treo specifically, not the rest...]

Originally, but then Palm bought them.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#23

Post by MaulingMonkey »

jsheard wrote: post #5
verdagon wrote: post #4

This PumpkinOS project is pretty incredible. I can't imagine how much effort it would take to be compatible with all the system calls that the average Palm app would expect. I remember Palm did some truly weird things with memory: anything moderately large would need to be put into a special memory block that the OS could rearrange at will, and one would need to lock the block's handle to keep it stable while accessi…

> anything moderately large would need to be put into a special memory block that the OS could rearrange at will, and one would need to lock the block's handle to keep it stable while accessing it Didn't 16-bit Windows and classic Mac OS do something similar? If you're doing multitasking on a system without an MMU then I think that kind of live heap defragmentation would have been practically required.

> Didn't 16-bit Windows and classic Mac OS do something similar?

I assume this is what `{Local,Global}{Lock,Unlock}` were for when combined with `{Local,Global}Alloc({L,G}MEM_MOVEABLE)`

Similar idioms occasionally persist in modern code - e.g. when dealing with FFI in GCed languages (C#'s `fixed` statement pins memory in place.)

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#24

Post by asveikau »

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #23
jsheard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anything moderately large would need to be put into a special memory block that the OS could rearrange at will, and one would need to lock the block's handle to keep it stable while accessing it Didn't 16-bit Windows and classic Mac OS do something similar? If you're doing multitasking on a system without an MMU then I think that kind of live heap defragmentation would have been practically required.

> Didn't 16-bit Windows and classic Mac OS do something similar? I assume this is what `{Local,Global}{Lock,Unlock}` were for when combined with `{Local,Global}Alloc({L,G}MEM_MOVEABLE)` Similar idioms occasionally persist in modern code - e.g. when dealing with FFI in GCed languages (C#'s `fixed` statement pins memory in place.)

The lock/unlock metaphor is also used when sharing buffers with video or a/v apis in Windows.

And the "safe array" type from COM/OLE.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#25

Post by AstroJetson »

I was a Sprint customer from the start of the Palm phone era. Up until 2 years ago I was using colored Treo’s for my phone. I loved that mechanical keyboard it was so nice to use. ( I have slightly deformed fingers that make it hard for touch screens.). Merger with T-M killed the radio part. So sad to see it go.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#29

Post by grishka »

verdagon wrote: post #4

This PumpkinOS project is pretty incredible. I can't imagine how much effort it would take to be compatible with all the system calls that the average Palm app would expect. I remember Palm did some truly weird things with memory: anything moderately large would need to be put into a special memory block that the OS could rearrange at will, and one would need to lock the block's handle to keep it stable while accessi…

> It was also the last OS I've used where an app had a central event loop.

Windows is still like that if you use Win32 APIs directly.

All GUI toolkits ever made are like that, but in most of the modern ones, this queue and loop are usually internal and you can only infer their existence by looking at the stack in a debugger or when something crashes.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#30

Post by causality0 »

lxgr wrote: post #13
tensor wrote: post #9

I remember investing in Palm thinking that they'd eventually be the ones to build something like the iphone. Sadly, they didn't and when apple did that was it for them.

They did have the Treo line! Arguably, what ultimately brought Palm down was their early success and the huge library of existing shareware and freeware tools: They desperately needed to try something new (Palm OS was just showing its age as a single-threaded, in-RAM, non-virtual-memory-based OS), but couldn't, since it would have alienated long-time fans by stranding their existing software libraries. They could nev…

I'm going to blame it on Palm's flat refusal to move onto PalmOS 6. Every time a new device came out and it was still on PalmOS 5 the whole community was like "what the fuck are you doing?"
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