Hello Friends,
Today we will discuss about "Palm OS".

Introduction
==========
* Palm OS is a compact operating system developed and licensed by PalmSource, Inc. for personal digital assistants (PDAs) manufactured by various licensees. It is designed to be easy-to-use and similar compared to desktop operating systems such as Microsoft Windows. Palm OS is combined with a suite of basic applications including an address book, clock, note pad, sync and security software.

* Palm OS was originally released in 1996.

* History
+ Palm OS was originally developed by Jeff Hawkins for use on the original Pilot PDA by US Robotics. Version 1.0 was present on the original Pilot 1000 and 5000 and version 2.0 was introduced with the PalmPilot Personal and Professional.

+ With the launch of the Palm III series version 3.0 of the OS was introduced. Incremental upgrades occurred with the release of versions 3.1, 3.3 and 3.5, adding support for color, multiple expansion ports, new processors and other various additions.

+ Version 4.0 was released with the m500 series, and later made available as an upgrade for older devices. This added a standard interface for external filesystem access (such as SD cards) and improved telephony libraries, security and UI improvements.

+ Version 5.0 was introduced with the Tungsten T and was the first version released to support ARM devices. Described as a stepping stone to full ARM support, Palm apps are run in an emulated environment called the Palm Application Compatibility Environment (PACE), allowing great compatibility with old programs.

+ Even with the additional overhead of PACE, Palm applications usually run faster on ARM devices than on previous generation hardware. New software can take advantage of the ARM processors with PNO (PACE Native objects), small units of ARM code, these are also sometimes referred to as 'ARMlets'.

+ It was also roughly this time when Palm began to separate its hardware and OS efforts, eventually becoming two companies, PalmSource, Inc. (OS) and palmOne (hardware, now named Palm, Inc.).

+ Further releases of Palm OS 5 have seen a standardised API for hi-res and dynamic input areas, along with a number of more minor improvements.

+ Palm OS 5.2 and 4.1.2 (and later) also feature Graffiti 2. This is based on Jot by CIC.

+ For several years PalmSource has been attempting to create and license a modern successor for Palm OS 5. Palm OS 6 was shipped to licensees in January 2004. It allowed ARM native applications along with improved multimedia support. However, no licensees used the system in any release devices, and it is now generally accepted as dead.

+ The sucessor is ALP (Access Linux Platform) being developed by Access (who bought PalmSource).

+ In February 2004, PalmSource introduced names for the Palm OS families in an attempt to make it clear that 5.x development would not stop while 6.x development was ongoing. Palm OS 5 became Palm OS Garnet, and Palm OS 6 became Palm OS Cobalt.

+ In September 2004 PalmSource released Palm OS Cobalt 6.1. The new OS features extended support for a variety of LCD panel resolutions, redesigned telephony components, one-handed navigation and extensive use of scalable fonts throughout applications.

+ In late 2004, PalmSource announced that future versions of the Palm OS will support running on top of a Linux kernel. PalmSource said this would be in addition to the custom kernel[4].

+ In May 2005 at the PalmSource 2005 developer conference, it was announced that PalmOne had acquired full rights to the Palm brand name. For a period of four years, PalmOne will grant certain rights to Palm trademarks to PalmSource and licensees.

+ Backtracking on their late 2004 announcement that the PalmOS version to run on the Linux kernel would be in addition to existing platforms, in June 2005 PalmSource announced it was halting all development efforts on any product not directly related to its future Linux based platform.

+ Any future work done on PalmOS 5, or Garnet, would have to be done by the OEM's using the operating system, such as Palm, Inc., which continues to tweak the platform released in 2002 well into 2006. No one had picked up a license to use PalmOS 6, or Cobalt, so it would appear that platform will never be released.

+ In September 2005, PalmSource announced that it was being acquired by ACCESS. Later that month, Palm announced a new Palm Treo 700w running Windows Mobile OS, signaling Palm's diversification into two OSes for their handhelds.

+ In February 2006, PalmSource announced ACCESS Linux Platform, "the latest evolution of Palm OS® for Linux." This announcement provided more details on the Palm OS for Linux effort, and a new name. As of 2006 it is not known if this name is intended as a complete replacement for the Palm OS name.

+ As of 2006, only unreleased smartphones have been seen running Cobalt.

How to develop on PalmOS Platform
===========================
* Palm OS Garnet applications are primarily coded in C/C++.
* Two compilers exist:
+ a commercial product, CodeWarrior Development Studio for Palm OS, CodeWarrior is criticized for being expensive and is no longer being developed, whereas PRC-Tools lacks several of CodeWarrior's features. and
+ an open source tool chain called prc-tools, based on an old version of gcc. A version of PRC-Tools is included in a free Palm OS Developer Suite (PODS).

* OnBoardC is a C compiler that runs on the Palm itself.

*Palm OS Cobalt applications are also coded in a variation of gcc, but the Cobalt compilers have fewer limitations.

* There are development tools available for Palm programming that do not require low-level programming in C/C++, such as CASL, AppForge Crossfire (which uses C#) and Handheld Basic or HB++ (which uses Visual Basic).

* A Java Run time Environment is also available for the Palm OS platform, however it itsn't shipped as standard on non-Treo handhelds, and has to be obtained separately, as a result it is less popular with developers in general.

Useful links
=========
* SDK Download: http://www.palmsource.com/
* PalmOS Forum: http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/

Coming up
========
* I will Post Some more posts on Palm OS in coming days.

Do write comments about this post or write to me at [skumar.brewdev@yahoo.com]

Thanks.
Sunil Kumar