Two Behind the Scenes PalmSource Interviews

Posted By: Ryan Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:40:01 PM

Two publications have recently published interviews with people heavily involved with the development of Palm OS Cobalt. The interviews go into the development processes and history behind the new OS.

eWeek recently published and interview with Larry Slotnick, PalmSource's Chief Product Officer. Mr. Slotnick talks about into the history and development process behind Palm OS 6 Cobalt. OSNews has another piece with Cobalt engineer, George Hoffman. George was one of the engineers that came to PalmSource from Be Inc. He discusses the architecture, capabilities and multimedia features of Cobalt.

PalmInfocenter's in-depth feature overview of Palm OS Cobalt can be read here.

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16 Mb of ROM

Sho-Bud @ 2/25/2004 3:26:07 PM #
Does that mean many current devices can't be upgraded?

RE: 16 Mb of ROM
bcombee @ 2/25/2004 5:00:34 PM #
Yes. For a device to possibly be upgradable, it needs to have 16MB of flash memory and a ARM9 or better CPU core with a memory management unit. I think all the CPUs used so far on Palm OS devices qualify, but its possible to build an OS 5 device without the full MMU needed to run Cobalt.

--
Ben Combee
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com
RE: 16 Mb of ROM
maven @ 2/25/2004 10:49:32 PM #
Perhaps OS 6 could be stored in a devices RAM. Of course, you will have almost no space for software then :P

Multitasking eye candy...

a3 @ 2/26/2004 10:04:15 AM #
I am anxious to see the multitasking in this OS. As a matter of fact I have not seen any picture to give me an idea of how is Cobalt going to allow the user to switch between apps. A launch bar, scrollable menu, pop-up menu, any other way. Maybe I just missed some photos at some site or something like that.

___________________________________________
Current fan of a 320x480 tablet shaped PDA with built in BT+Wifi for less than US$500
RE: Multitasking eye candy...
bcombee @ 2/26/2004 11:09:41 AM #
Cobalt only runs one application at a time, as indicated both in the threads here in the PalmSource forum and in George's interview on OSNews. Tap-and-hold on the home icon will pop-up a list of recent applications, and you can switch using standard methods like hitting hard keys or using the launcher. Cobalt does allow the current application to have multiple threads that share processor time, and it allows other apps to setup background threads that run concurrently with the main app. This is designed to let app developers build programs that do communication tasks in the background, but without adding the complication of application management into the Palm OS interface.

--
Ben Combee
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com
Evolutionary (NOT REVOLUTIONARY) PalmOS
;-) @ 2/26/2004 9:19:22 PM #
Cobalt only runs one application at a time, as indicated both in the threads here in the PalmSource forum and in George's interview on OSNews. Tap-and-hold on the home icon will pop-up a list of recent applications, and you can switch using standard methods like hitting hard keys or using the launcher. Cobalt does allow the current application to have multiple threads that share processor time, and it allows other apps to setup background threads that run concurrently with the main app. This is designed to let app developers build programs that do communication tasks in the background, but without adding the complication of application management into the Palm OS interface.

The lack of intrinsic (OS-level) multitasking shows the new OS is far from the quantum leap forward many were expecting. Evolutionary - not revolutionary. Then again, Palm usually thinks: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'll stick with PalmOS 5 (or even 3 or 4) and McPhling, thank you. It's still left to Sony to push the envelope for the platform. Not good.



It's just too big.

RE: Multitasking eye candy...
margerum @ 2/27/2004 7:26:13 AM #
<<

I'll stick with PalmOS 5 (or even 3 or 4) and McPhling, thank you. It's still left to Sony to push the envelope for the platform. Not good.>>>>

What are you talking about? What does intrinsic multitasking mean? The OS fully supports multitasking and threading, just not the dumb way that windows CE supports it. If your window isnt the active window, all you really want is your lightweight non gui threads running anyway. Whats the point of having your entire app in memory when you cant see it anyway? What are you planning on doing in the background with a gui thats so important?

RE: Multitasking eye candy...
bcombee @ 2/27/2004 2:15:07 PM #
Quote: Whats the point of having your entire app in memory when you cant see it anyway?

Also note that Palm OS Cobalt still uses the run-in-place execution model. This means the code for all non-card application is in memory all the time, so switching between apps is very fast. Data storage is allocated/deallocated during the switch, but no code has to be copied and relocated from another location. OS 5 and below already use this to let apps register for notifications, and OS 6 removes a lot of the restrictions on what an app can do when notified.

--
Ben Combee
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

RE: Multitasking eye candy...
a3 @ 2/27/2004 4:41:02 PM #
Thanks a lot Ben. I needed webopedia to figure out some of your phrases but I've got the main idea.

____________________________________________________
Current fan of a 320x480 tablet shaped PDA with built in BT+Wifi for less than US$500
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