Palm OS 6 Upgrade for T3

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Hello,

I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
any new development in that matter?

I have read that it isn't easy to make the upgrade from OS 5 to OS 6
but why doesn't PalmSource release upgrades for the earliest versions
of the OS 5 like 5.4 of the T5?

Thanks,
Fenix 999

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Fenix 999 wrote:
> I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
> the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
> any new development in that matter?

After reading an article in a TealPoint newsletter, I don't want PalmOS
6. The article states that the PalmOS 6 is for PDA and SmartPhone
manufactures and not really for the consumer. Hacks will not work,
period. Plus manufactures can limit what apps can be installed. Here
is the article:

http://www.tealpoint.com/cgi-bin/n [...] 9&mode=usr

I would much prefer an upgrade to PalmOS 5.4.

Later,
Steven

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Fenix 999 wrote:
> I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
> the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
> any new development in that matter?

My guess is it's extremely unlikely that palmOne will release an OS 6
upgrade for the T3 before they release their first OS 6 device. Since
we don't really know when their first OS 6 device is going to come out,
I don't think we have any clue when an upgrade for an existing device
will be available.

> I have read that it isn't easy to make the upgrade from OS 5 to OS 6

I don't see why it should be all that hard. The only thing that might
be an issue is that OS 6 has certain hardware requirements that OS 5
does not have. So, some existing devices will be unable to ever run
OS 6, which is worse than "isn't easy". But for the ones that do have
the right hardware, it doesn't seem like it would be all that tough.

> but why doesn't PalmSource release upgrades for the earliest versions
> of the OS 5 like 5.4 of the T5?

They have a history of not doing that. In practice, they just don't
make an upgrade available unless there are really significant
differences, and as far as I know there just isn't all that much
difference between the OS on the T3 and OS 5.4. So, not to say
you wouldn't benefit at all from an upgrade, but you wouldn't benefit
very much, and the cost to Palm to do something like that when they
already have a working version of the OS for the T3 probably just
isn't worth the small benefit. (Are you going to pay $25 or $50
to update to 5.4? What about another $25 or $50 to update again
to 5.5 if/when it comes out?)

- Logan

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Tony Clark wrote:
> Upgrading the Palm is not hard, per se, but one glitch and you've toasted
> your $400 PDA. I think Palm is too worried about the possible warranty
> returns and complaints so they avoid it whenever possible.
>
it's true but isn't that why you pay the upgrades, there is always a
benefit for the company.


> Clearly you can upgrade the T3 as Palm released a major upgrade several
> months ago to fix some serious problems and that required re-flashing the
> internal memory. I doubt that Palm will offer an OS6 upgrade for the current
> crop of models. There's no real benefit to Palm other than customer
> happiness which doesn't seem to be a high priority (for many companies not
> just Palm). One question I would have is if I did upgrade to OS6 and it was
> slow or buggy could I go back? That is probably another issue Palm doesn't
> want to deal with.

But a happy customer is always a good customer, and if palm doesn't
change this possible perhaps next time I will consider a Power PC.


> Cheers
> TC
>
> "Fenix 999" <Fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:ec6797ac.0411100146.4fb291c2@posting.google.com...
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
>>the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
>>any new development in that matter?
>>
>>I have read that it isn't easy to make the upgrade from OS 5 to OS 6
>>but why doesn't PalmSource release upgrades for the earliest versions
>>of the OS 5 like 5.4 of the T5?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Fenix 999
>
>
>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

In article <1100125872.68302@news.oninet.pt>, Fenix_999
<fenix999@gmail.com> wrote:

> Jim Anderson wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:44:09 GMT, Logan Shaw had this to say...
> >
> >
> >
> >>My guess is it's extremely unlikely that palmOne will release an OS 6
> >>upgrade for the T3 before they release their first OS 6 device. Since
> >>we don't really know when their first OS 6 device is going to come out,
> >>I don't think we have any clue when an upgrade for an existing device
> >>will be available.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > PalmOne has already stated, any OS 6 upgrades will appear a month or two
> > after the first PalmOne device is released, and hinted at T3 and TC as
> > targets.
> >
>
> But how do you know that, how do you support your claim? are you in
> touch with some guy in PalmSource? or would it be PalmOne?

Geez, all of this is gossip anyway, until an official announcement.
Gossip's not worth arguing over.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Thanks for your input. I'll take that into consideration when a PalmOS 6
device comes out.

Thanks,
Steven

Logan Shaw <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> I've used a Palm OS development device and played around with the
> Palm OS 6 simulator (on Windows), and from my experience it's not
> really like that.
>
> True, OS 6 does provide certain benefits to hardware manufacturers.
> For example, it's supposed to be easier to build a cell phone using
> OS 6 than OS 5 or OS 4. Which is good.
>
> And true, hacks don't work. But lots of hacks don't work on OS 5
> either. More importantly, OS 6 provides other avenues for doing
> similar things. For example, there are ways to put a button down
> in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen without having to
> resort to doing a hack.
>
> More importantly, OS 6 makes certain things much easier for developers
> than they were before. No longer do you have to go through great
> pain and expense to add native ARM support (via PNO) to your
> application; instead, when you build a native OS 6 app, it just
> makes all your code native ARM automatically. This is a good
> thing because it means people will be able to write more interesting
> applications that take advantage of the CPU power that your Palm
> device already has but which was unavailable (in a practical sense)
> to them before. But that is just one example, and there are several
> other things (like threads, a graphics library that makes all kinds
> of cool visual effects easy, and a networking API that encourages people
> to add network support to their app rather than frustrating them and
> making them give up) in there too.
>
> Bottom line is, OS 6 will not seem amazingly radically different
> to the user than OS 5 (although it certainly does not look and
> feel identical), but it will give end-users extra value because
> of the applications that OS 6 will make possible.
>
> Now if they'd only release a real device that actually runs it...
>
> - Logan

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In article news:<41925038$0$10438$a726171b@news.hal-pc.org>, Steven
Whatley wrote:
> The article states that the PalmOS 6 is for PDA and SmartPhone
> manufactures and not really for the consumer.

PalmOS 6 is an OEM product that PalmSource will sell to
manufacturers -- like PalmOne -- who will build devices around it.
Those devices *are* consumer products.

> Hacks will not work, period.

Hacks are ... well, hacks. They're a rather dirty and uncontrolled
way of injecting functionality into a device that wasn't ever
supposed to have that functionality. Palms have been around for a
long time, now, and I think we all understand a lot better what
functionality people want from their PDAs than Palm did in 1995, so
-- unless the guys at PalmSource are total dorks -- there will be
published APIs that support most of the things that used to be done
with hacks. That's a good thing because it will provide a more
controlled set of mechanisms for accomplishing this stuff, and that
should lead to a more stable system ... of course, it's also a bad
thing for the users because it means existing hacks will have to be
written again, and bought again.

> Plus manufactures can limit what apps can be installed.

It's not manufacturers who will do that. I'd expect manufatcurers
to sell devices that are pretty-much unrestricted. Cellphone
devices, though, may have restrictions put into them by the
cellphone companies. These companies are very worried about the
possible spread of viruses, etc., via mobile phone calls and mobile
internet connections and they want to be able to blacklist
applications that are known scumware.

[... there's another side to that in that the phone companies see
mobile digital rights as an important profit source, and they want
to be able to block applications that might be used to steal
ringtones, images, tunes, etc..]

This stuff generally works on cellphones by the phone companies
distributing blacklists, etc., over-the-air (e.g. in an SMS
message). You can't do that with a PDA that isn't phone, so none of
it should be much of a worry for users of vanilla PDAs.

Cheers,
Daniel.
Glossing over the surface of a complex field.

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Logan Shaw wrote:
> Now if they'd only release a real device that actually runs it...

I agree with everything you said. OS6 will indeed enable a whole new
class of applications. However, PalmOne has not committed to any
Cobalt-based devices for 2005, meaning that it is highly likely they'll
stick to OS5 for at least another year.[1] The earliest likely launch
window for a Cobalt device would then be in spring 2006.

In the worst case, we'll never see any Cobalt devices. I know this
sounds pessimistic, but the possibility is actually not that farfetched.


Regards
-Laurens

[1] http://www.brighthand.com/article/ [...] Until_2006

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In article <cn2fa1$dui$1@reader11.wxs.nl>, Laurens <spam@block.com> wrote:

> In the worst case, we'll never see any Cobalt devices. I know this
> sounds pessimistic, but the possibility is actually not that farfetched.
>
>
> Regards
> -Laurens

Except that Samsung is expected to release several Cobalt smartphones in
early 2006, announced apparently at a developers conference. And several
other licensees are rumored to be on board with early 2006 releases as
well.

FYI, PalmOne is not among the other licensees. But with so much public
opinion against their delay, PalmOne may be "encouraged" to work faster.

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In article news:<4193b8b9$0$12959$4d4ebb8e@read.news.de.uu.net>, U.
Lippke wrote:
> Not at all.
> Hacks are ... well, extensions.

Yes, but look at how they work. It's a dirty kludge.

It's accepted in PalmOS 3 & 4 because there's no other way to do
extend the OS and there is functionality that's needed and missing.
It's not acceptable for a modern OS to allow this sort of
indiscriminate patching of the OS internals -- quite apart from the
possibilities that provides for badly written or conflicting
extensions to destabilize the system it's a virus-writer's dream.

Let us hope that PalmOS 6/Cobalt will provide most of the things
for which hacks have been written for earlier PalmOSes as native OS
facilities, and a set of APIs for OS extension to cover the
remaining cases (and any new ones).

Cheers,
Daniel.

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Fenix999@gmail.com (Fenix 999) wrote in message news:<ec6797ac.0411100146.4fb291c2@posting.google.com>...
> Hello,
>
> I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
> the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
> any new development in that matter?

T3 cannot be upgraded to OS 6.

OS 5 is already taking up most of T3's ROM space, so there is no space
for OS 6 at all. T3 is an OS 5 only device.

Now, Tungsten T5 is all flash RAM......now that's piece of junk *is*
upgradeable to OS 6, unfortunately.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

On 12 Nov 2004 12:56:34 -0800, Chris had this to say...


> Fenix999@gmail.com (Fenix 999) wrote in message news:<ec6797ac.0411100146.4fb291c2@posting.google.com>...
> > Hello,
> >
> > I was looking for information on PalmOS 6 Upgrades for the T3, but all
> > the news are a little old, like from January our February, is there
> > any new development in that matter?
>
> T3 cannot be upgraded to OS 6.
>
> OS 5 is already taking up most of T3's ROM space, so there is no space
> for OS 6 at all. T3 is an OS 5 only device.
>
> Now, Tungsten T5 is all flash RAM......now that's piece of junk *is*
> upgradeable to OS 6, unfortunately.
>

The T3 has 16 Mb of ROM and has been reported by PalmOne as being able
to run OS6.
The OS will not reside in Flash RAM on the T5, but in ROM like all Palm
OS's.

Your statement is completely wrong on all counts.

--
Hope this helps.
Jim Anderson
( 8(|) To email me just pull my_finger

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In article <cn388m$eqt$1@reader08.wxs.nl>, Laurens <spam@block.com> wrote:

> Guy Bannis wrote:
> > Except that Samsung is expected to release several Cobalt smartphones in
> > early 2006, announced apparently at a developers conference. And several
> > other licensees are rumored to be on board with early 2006 releases as
> > well.
>
> Well, the only concrete bit of info we have is the announcement that
> Samsung is developing a series of OS5 and OS6-based SmartPhones. I would
> be very interested in a source backing up your claim that OS6
> SmartPhones are due early next year. Actually, PalmSource themselves
> have stated that Cobalt-based phones are unlikely to debut for another
> year.[1]
>
>
> Regards
> -Laurens
>
> [1] http://www.brighthand.com/article/ [...] 6_1_Debuts

Brighthand claimed the first Cobalt devices would appear by April of this
year, 2004 so I wouldn't put too much stock in what they say.
Nevertheless, 2005 is "another year" from now.

In one of the PalmInfocenter forums, Ben Combee, who works for PalmSource,
posted the information about Samsung. You can probably find his post
through a search.

I will admit that I drew the conclusion that Samsung would be releasing
Cobalt smartphones because Samsung hasn't made any PDAs that I'm aware of.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

Chris wrote:
> T3 cannot be upgraded to OS 6.
>
> OS 5 is already taking up most of T3's ROM space, so there is no space
> for OS 6 at all. T3 is an OS 5 only device.

One would suspect that the (hypothetical) upgrade process for the T3
would involve rewriting the entire flash with OS 6, so that OS 5 is
wiped out and no longer exists on the device.

That is, assuming that the flash on the T3 is *large* enough to
accomodate the OS 6 image. (Even if it's not, in theory you can
do a compressed image, although that'd be non-standard and extra
work. But performance wouldn't be a huge problem, probably, since
you'd only need to decompress the image when you do a hard reset.
You can say goodbye to 1MB or more of RAM, but with 64MB, I guess
that's OK.)

- Logan

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Guy Bannis wrote:
> Brighthand claimed the first Cobalt devices would appear by April of this
> year, 2004 so I wouldn't put too much stock in what they say.

Well Brighthand is just paraphrasing what PalmSource themselves have
said during the Munich conference. This is not a wild guess on their part.

> Nevertheless, 2005 is "another year" from now.

Yes, but the Conference was about seven weeks ago. Another year from
then is still summer 2005.

> In one of the PalmInfocenter forums, Ben Combee, who works for PalmSource,
> posted the information about Samsung. You can probably find his post
> through a search.

Well, the only relevant posting I can find from him is a statement that
Samsung is developing a Cobalt SmartPhone. No projected release date is
mentioned.

Don't get me wrong: like everyone here, I'd love to see an OS6 device,
and I think OS6 is absolutely necessary for PalmOS to survive. Logan
Shaw basically summed up all the technical reasons of why OS6 is
necessary. However, looking at the hard facts and the news of late (most
notably, PalmOne investigating the use of WinCE and Linux in their
products) makes me pessimistic. The T5 doesn't inspire confidence either.


Regards
-Laurens

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Tony Clark <curiousgeorge1964@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Fenix_999" <fenix999@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1100125639.635910@news.oninet.pt...
>> Tony Clark wrote:
>>> Upgrading the Palm is not hard, per se, but one glitch and you've
>>> toasted your $400 PDA. I think Palm is too worried about the
>>> possible warranty returns and complaints so they avoid it whenever
>>> possible.
>>>
>> it's true but isn't that why you pay the upgrades, there is always a
>> benefit for the company.
>
> It benefits the company if a) they can get a good price for the
> upgrade and b) the support costs don't eat into your profits.

Also, it's not good business if c) the upgrade prolongs the life of a
device, causing customers to not buy new devices.

On the other hand, never giving out any updates at all might cause the
customers to choose a competitor's product the next time.

I loved the Vx, and how I could flash it from 3.1->3.3->3.5->4.1, thus
prolonging its life quite a bit.

Regards,
--
*Art