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PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

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Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#91
post #13
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…

Samsung SPH-i300, 7 years before iphone 1, and iphone 1 didn't even have apps.

I loved that thing. Audibl.com player app, 3rd party apps to integrate phone dialer and contacts db, internet... 14.4k internet but internet! email, browser, ssh and irc clients, even a vnc client, thousands of random apps for every little thing like today, color grid icon home screen, touch screen, sdcard, in 2000 or 2001.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#92
post #7
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.

Palm was started by ex-Apple people and borrowed a lot of ideas and mistakes from the Mac.

More saliently than that, Palm started out as a vendor of Newton apps, before it started making its own Newton-killer hardware.

Palm's Graffiti started out as an alternate text input system for the Newton. It was an Apple software vendor long before it was an Apple rival, and its design is influenced by the Newton more proximally than the Mac.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#93
post #46
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…

> They did have the Treo line! Thank you for mentioning it. It makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about how Steve Jobs invented the smartphone. I had a series of Treos starting with the Treo 270: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_270 As somebody who carried a Palm for years, it was so amazing to suddenly have the internet in my pocket. It still is, really.

Palm 5x with OmniSky modem!

I can't count how many useless WAP development conferences my company sent me to.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#94

So palm OS was an old mobile operating system, introduced around 1996, coded in C++... later extended to support smartphones? Can someone please explain more to me about this OS as it seems pretty interesting, and I have never heard of it.

https://gprivate.com/6ahva

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#95
post #37

Nothing made me feel older than going to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA and seeing a Palm Pilot in the display case. It should be illegal to show things which were an integral part of your life, a short 30'ish years ago, as if they were uncovered in the ruins of some pre-civilization. Not fair at all.

I still have my Visor with its VisorPhone module, the very first touch-only smartphone in existence, 5 years before the iPhone :) It was big, clunkly and relatively impractical (the Visor ran on 2 AA batteries, while the phone module had its own rechargeable battery) but the complete integration with Palm Desktop (later jPilot on Linux) was a breeze.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#96
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.

I had the whole Handspring / Palm smartphone line : Visor + Visor Phone, then Treo 270, then Treo 600, then the Treo 650, and finally the Palm Pré.

They were no iPhone, but they were extremely efficient work tools.

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#97

So hype to lose some hours playing Space Trader. I had a Palm Vx in middle school and I have some very fond memories of playing that game under my desk in class.

I have two Palm Vx in the garage. I love that game too.

For Android:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.brucelet.spacetrader/

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#98
post #14
post #10

Also of interest: CloudpilotEmu - Palm emulator in your browser https://cloudpilot-emu.github.io/ When I installed it and could play Vexed again... ahh, the happiness!

Cloudpilot is amazing, one of the most sophisticated PWAs I'm aware of! I haven't heard of Vexed, but for me, bringing back Space Trader made me very happy.

You can play it freely (as in Freedom) under Android:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.brucelet.spacetrader/

Re: PumpkinOS, a Re-Implementation of PalmOS

#100
post #2

Graffiti: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Amigueletto%2FPumpkinOS+gr...

I see downvotes on the code search for whether this includes Graffiti, the best pen/stylus input for writing ...

Other than "fitaly", which was even better:

https://the-gadgeteer.com/1998/08/22/fitaly_review/

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