My love and appreciation for Palm OS is somewhat obvious around these parts, culminating in the detailed Palm OS retrospective I wrote a little over a year ago. I consider Palm OS to be the shoulders on which all subsequent mobile operating systems are built, and I believe it would do the current technology press and users a world of good if they acquainted themselves with this prescient masterpiece.
That being said, with Palm OS being old and dead, the only way to experience it is to get your hands on a real device on eBay or its local equivalent in your country of residence. If you go down this route – which I strongly advise everyone to at least look into – try and go for the ultimate Palm device, the Palm T|X. It’s the most advanced PDA Palm ever built, and you can pry mine from my cold, dead hands.
Sadly, not everyone has the disposable income, time, will, desire, or any combination thereof, to go out and buy real hardware just to play with a dead operating system and all the hardships that come with it. Since I still want to spread the word of Palm OS, I’ve been looking into an alternative – namely, the Palm OS Simulator.
The Palm OS Simulator is the Palm OS recompiled for x86, so it runs natively inside Windows. It contains a device abstraction layer (DAL), the core Palm OS, libraries, and the Palm Application Compatibility Environment (PACE, for running Palm OS 4.x 68k applications as-is). PACE is also a core component of ARM Palm OS 5.x to allow for backwards compatibility with earlier Palm OS applications.
This simulator was available for registered Palm OS developers back when Palm OS still mattered, but it proved to be hard to find for me. In addition, finding the simulator would only be one half of the solution, since a device ROM is also needed. Finally, earlier today, I struck gold: PDAExpert.net offers several instances of the simulator for download, preconfigured with a ROM (you can opt for the LifeDrive, several Tungsten devices, the Zire, the Z22, and the T|X). Its manual is also available.
Illegal? Honestly, I don’t really know. I doubt they have permission to distribute the simulator, but considering I do own the T|X and several of the other listed devices, I personally may be good in the ROM part of it all.
Getting the simulator up and running is easy. I opted for the T|X package, and all you need to do is download it, unzip it, set PalmSim.exe to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP2, double-click, and you’re ready to go. You’ll be greeted by the Palm OS time and date setup.
Once that’s taken care of, you’ll end up inside the Palm OS settings applications Prefs, where you can mess around with the settings if you want. Open the Palm OS’ virtual input panel (the bottom-right icon with the arrow) and click the home button to go to the homescreen (you can also simply press F1).
While the most convenient text input method is your computer’s keyboard, the Palm OS input panel supports Graffiti II by mouse input, but also the virtual keyboard by clicking on the ‘abc’ (this virtual keyboard is built-in into real Palm OS devices too). You can change the screen orientation by clicking the button left of the input panel button, or enable screen-wide Graffiti by pressing the squiggly line button.
An important pointer for newcomers to Palm OS: every application has a Mac-like menubar. You open it by clicking on the tab in the top-left, or on the menu button at the bottom, next to the search button.
Networking works just fine too, and is incredibly easy to set up. Right-click anywhere inside the simulator’s window to access the simulator menu, and go to Settings > Communication and enable ‘Redirect NetLib Calls to Host TCP/IP’. After a hard reset, the simulated Palm OS will have full network access, so you can browse the web through Blazer or get mail via VersaMail.
Sadly, the simulator has one major drawback. As a consequence of the simulator essentially being x86 Palm OS, you cannot run Palm OS 5.x ARM applications inside the emulator as-is. For Palm OS applications that contain native ARM code, you will have to recompile that ARM code into a Windows DLL and place it inside the simulator’s directory. Because one, you most likely do not have the source code, and two, because you probably don’t know how to do that even if you did, you won’t be able to run most Palm OS 5.x applications.
Note, though, that this restriction does not apply to Palm OS 4.x 68k applications thanks to the inclusion of PACE. Installing applications on the simulator is easy, by the way: just drag and drop (or right-click and select Install > Database).
Despite the massive asterisk of not being be able to install any ARM-native applications, the simulator is still a very easy and fun way to get acquainted with the basics of Palm OS. Whether it’s in the simulator or on a real device, Palm OS is still fast and easy to use, and part of that appeal stems from its total lack of frivolity or pretentiousness – two terms that simply do not fit Zen of Palm.
There’s also a version of the simulator for Palm OS 5.4.9’s ill-fated successor – Palm OS 6.x Cobalt – from ACCESS. It’s the same simulator, but running Palm OS 6. Cobalt never shipped on any device, though, so it was, in the end, a wasted effort.
I’m very glad I managed to get my hands on several versions of the Simulator, even if I own like 10 real Palm OS devices. It’s a crucial piece of history, secured for the ages – legality be damned.
I think that most powerfull Palm is Centro. Smaller screen, but functional Google Maps out of the box it’s something that T|X cannot do. GSM module also helps.
Centro has a keyboard. Yuck.
I loved the keyboard on my Treo 650, my first smartphone, and in fact I still consider it better than any keyboard Blackberry released. I do wish there had been a phone version of the Sony Clie NX-73 with better keyboard buttons; that device put the keyboard on a base that flipped out of the way when not in use. That was probably the best non-Palm-produced PalmOS device out there.
i prefer psion over palm
but i like keyboards
I never had any problems running Google Maps on my T|X. I also remember it had a calendar app that’s still better than anything I’ve found for Android. The only drawback is that it was too slow to play video.
I would claim that the LifeDrive is the best PalmOS device, with the best CPU, GPU, Screen resolution, durability (metal casing instead of plastic), the best sound chip of any Palm device and can do accelerated video (codecs are downloadable from lonely cat or TCMP homepages for non-default video files).
It also boasts a CF slot that is populated by a Toshiba MicroDrive by default but can be replaced with a 64gb CF card along with a 32gb SDHC (and probably more) card as long as you have the PowerDrive and SDHC drivers from http://www.palmpowerups.com/index.php totalling about 100gb storage. The devices might be able to larger as mentioned on their site, but i have not tried any larger than those min my LifeDrives. But my guess is the 32bit adressing would make the absolute maximum 128gb CF+128gb SDHC at a total of 256gb.
It also allows for easy overclocking, and if you find the anniversary edition or pre-launch edition (the one i have) you also have a foldable full keyboard you can use for coding and the tripletelescopit stylus that is super lift in comparison to other models (i prefer the heavier model though, but it not as pretty).
Some software Designed for the lifedrive does not work on other Palm devices whilst all Garnet programs for other devices works perfectly on the LD.
Opera, Documents2Go, PocketTunes, and TCMP (the core media player) are my three favourite picks for using with the LifeDrive, and luckily licenses was included for all those programs (not pro version of D2G though, but the upgrade was rather cheap anyways.
If you look at the Lifedrive the right way, Palm did the iPod Touch before Apple.
That looks more like POSE (Palm OS Emulator) not the Palm OS Simulator. The Simulator ran on Macs back when Palm OS use CodeWarrior and prior to them acquiring POSE (originally called CoPilot.) The Simulator ran Palm Apps much like the iOS emulator does, compiled to native code. So, really, it’s completely different to what Thom found.
As the site seems to be in Portuguese, I’m guessing it’s a translation error?
Also – it’s not running x86 PalmOS, it’s running 68000 and some ARM under emulation.
Edited 2014-06-04 11:32 UTC
Actually it is the simulator, why do you think it is not? Simulator also had ROM file for resources, etc. which were not stored in the DLLs.
I think Thom did a great job describing how it worked. It is, as you described too, like the iOS simulator: it runs x86 PalmOS and x86 armlets, including x86 PACE, which emulates m68k.
Oh right… that does seem cool. But pointless. Same as with iOS, it’s only useful for basic testing, it’s not as good as having a real device.
This is 100% the simulator, and NOT the emulator.
The emulator only runs 4.x and below, not 5.x.
So, basically, they went back to non native development targets for testing. Interesting. I guess that’s okay, but my experience with iOS dev was that the simulator is only as useful as a general “pointer” to real behaviour.
The links are indeed pointers to the simulator, which is PalmOS precompiled for x86, with an emulator for the m68k stuff.
HOWEVER, there WAS a REAL emulator for PalmOS 5 devices.
It was mentioned on Palm’s developer website.
It was only available to those subscribed to Palm’s for-pay development program, so I never actually saw it.
It was code-named “Janeiro”, and that’s about the only thing I knew about this tool, although when I still cared, I really looked for this tool everywhere (never found it).
The main reason I wanted it was because it was the only way I could ever get Paragon’s localization software for Palm working. It was machine-specific, and never worked on the simulator.
While I share your love of Palm OS, that love would have stopped when Palm introduced NVRAM. From then on it was never the same: Palm OS was meant to run and be stored entirely in RAM.
NVRAM was introduced to satisfy users who would let the battery drain without a backup. Unfortunately, NVRAM also introduced instability and performance issues. The later devices were noticeably less responsive. Utilities sprang up to try to fix the cache problems but were not entirely successful.
If someone wanted to explore the actual hardware I can recommend the Tungsten 3 which also came with the fastest processor incorporated into a Palm: 400mhz. Unfortunately, the highest capacity SD card that could be used was 1.5gb if one could find it. I use a 1 gb.
Palm was never known for their screen quality but unlike the subsequent models, which suffered from a lack of brightness and were heavily blue tinted, the screen on the T3 (and the TC) was decent, even by today’s standards. None of these can come close to the resolution of today’s screens, but most could be easily read in the daylight due to their trans-reflective screen technology.
I can also recommend the ill-fated Tapwave Zodiac with a caveat. The Zodiac was meant to be a Palm OS gaming machine with its built in joy stick and shoulder triggers. Unfortunately for Tapwave it came out just before the Sony PSP was announced. It only came with a 200mhz processor (which the makers claimed was fast enough) but it did incorporate a separate gpu for very smooth graphics. Both versions had two SD slots that could take up to 2 gb each. The caveat was/is that the hardware, specifically the resistive-touch screen and the joy stick, suffered accuracy issues. Getting one without these issues might be difficult.
It should be noted that the applications for Palm were small in size so the devices did not need a lot of storage space or RAM to begin with.
Edited 2014-06-04 14:16 UTC
I have a T3, but I dislike the slider. Too clunky for my tastes.
Closest i came to a Palm device was running a Access offered emulator on my Nokia N800.
Yup,but it had many limitations. In landscape view it was too small and in landscape it scaled horribly. It is best forgotten.
The Simulator is the ARM/OS5 version of POSE, the Palm OS Emulator, which was the M68k/OS4 tool.
POSE ran on Windows, Macs, and Linux, with full source code available under the GPL. And now there’s a port to Android called PHEM (Palm Hardware Emulator M68k). They’ll run Palm OS 1.0 all the way to 4.1 (the last M68k version of Palm OS). PHEM integrates well with Android; shared clipboard, multiple sessions, software and hardware keyboard support, networking, even serial port and GPS access.
POSE and PHEM do need Palm ROM images, but that PDAExpert.net site also has those images. Or, you can download ROM images off a physical Palm and use them with POSE or PHEM.
Palm V (Quickly replaced by a Vx with my brother)
Sony Clie UX-50
Treo 680
Tungsten C (got it cheaply as 2nd hand)
Fossil Wrist PDA (bought at liquidation price)
Would it not be a better choice to use QEMU to simulate ARM ? then you can run the ARM-applications.
Similar to: http://xecdesign.com/qemu-emulating-raspberry-pi-the-easy-way/
During the day I loved Palm too but I’ll draw a comparison where Palm doesn’t look so good other than a past OS I used and romanticize about.
Girls haven’t gotten any cuter than they were back when I was growing up. Fashions may have changed and what people consider cute is in the eyes of the beholder but with the fashions updates on girls from back then they would still be cute.
Take Palm though. Palm is that same girl only now she is a grandmother and 99% of boys wouldn’t think that is hot. And today, compared to the newest cell phones out there, well the iPhone blew that kind of cell phone out of the water and Palm is gone after they got fat and lazy and kept their interface too long.
Again, I loved it at the time. It did amazing things for me like even being able to connect a modem to it and dialing up a desktop computer and being able to direct it to do what I needed it to do. As well as being my PDA.
Compared to today though. Sorry.