OpenGL for Palm OS Environment

linuxguru wrote to us with the news that some wacky folks have ported OpenGL 1.1 to PalmOS. Current version is .2, and it's released under the LGPL ^[?] .

Re:PalmOS vs Epoc32

PalmOS has had a TCP/IP Stack since 2.0. And even the oldest models (1000 and 5000) can be upgraded to that version of the OS. None of the builtin apps as of 3.0 actually support networking, but adding programs that do is trivial. You can even get a POP/SMTP client that interfaces with the builtin email app, though there are much better email apps out there. Multimail [actualsoft.com] is quite nice, supports plugins for viewing many kinds of attachments and generally does all the things you'd need from a mail program. There are also web browsers, telnet and ssh clients, etc. Even an IRC client.

As for development environments, Metrowerks makes CodeWarrior for Mac and Windows, and there is a port of GCC available for any platform that can run GCC. Quite a few projects use GCC. You don't get the nice UI layout tools (though that may have changed since the last time I checked) but there really isn't anything you can't do with it that you can with the Metrowerks package.

Re:History repeats itself.

That Jornada you were looking at was a Handheld PC (HPC -- the type that have keyboards) model, though, wasn't it? There are also Palm-sized (PPC) Jornadas which have the features you mentioned, except for Pocket Word/Excel, although it does have Outlook. They're the size of non-V Palms -- the Compaq Aeros have that sweet Palm V size and shape -- so they're definitely made to fit in your jacket pocket. Not trying to make you think twice about your purchase or anything, just wanted to point out that the Jornada HPCs aren't really analagous to the Palms.

Cheers,
[e-mail]

Utah Teapot...

Did anyone else follow the teapot [airmail.net] Link on the page? It was pretty interesting reading, and anyone who's done any 3d modeling will probably get a kick out of it... Unfortunately, almost all of the external links (from the teapot page) were dead :(

[ c h a d &nbsp o k e r e ] [dhs.org]

DirectX?

I guess that this means microsoft will quickly follow suit with a Direct3D Port to WinCE?

Cool

Well I downloaded it and installed it on my visor deluxe and woooo.... It drew a box :)

Actually I think this really is some cool first steps.

For those that have a palm the Mathlib takes about 50K and the test app takes about 17k.

Noel

RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]

Internals

Hey, does anyone know how the internals of this thing are arranged? If anything OpenGL is not a light API, so I doubt they used the standard openGL pipeline. If you think about it though, 3D on palmtops does stand a change, but OpenGL might not really be the best idea at this point. Back in the day, (386 days) you could acutally get a fairly non-complex, but usable 3D system on a 386-16. The dragon ball in the palm 3 is maybe slightly more powerful (20 MHz 68x00 I think) so it should be possible to get a decent API with OpenGL code interface to it. Also, does the dragonball have an fpu? Performance would die even more if it were using fpu emultation. (GL needs floats) Methinks a better target for this would be the CE machines as they are already coming in with 131MHz MIPS procs.

Amazing potential

Now with the introduction of MiniGL and the Palm IIIc, it is conceivable that one could write a color 3d application for the Palm platform. The possibilities for development are endless, only marred by processing power. This may make OpenGL the only true graphics "standard", since it can now run on machines other than desktops!

There's also a 3D modeling tool for PalmOS:

Edward Patel wrote a 3D modeling tool for the Palm OS which can export to VRML and OpenGL:

http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm? sid=65968720000302182859&prodID=6263 [palmgear.com]

With miniGL and this modeler as examples it's definitly interesting what's next. There's definitely a market for 3D apps on handhelds, there is just time needed to bring the render/calc power of a handheld more up to par :)
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PalmOS vs Epoc32

Can anyone post a summary of the major advantages and disadvantages of PalmOS compared to Epoc32? I've heard quite a few people in the industry saying that PalmOS is doomed due to it's lack of a TCP/IP stack and the fact that it runs only on Dragonball. Anyone have any comments? It really seems that all the mobile phone makers are leaning toward Epoc on ARM as their embedded OS of choice.

However, it seems that Palm has a much more open development environment - I know you can get Palm SDKs for just about any platform - is the same true of Epoc?

Nick

History repeats itself.

Once again, the Palm platform gets capabilities that were available 2-3 years ago on the Newton. (*sigh, brush away tear)

Now that there's rudimentary OpenGL, all Palm needs is:
-- text-to-speech integrated with all text displaying widgets
-- handwriting recognition that doesn't make you write in martian and that works all over the screen at any angle
-- a screen big enough to read more than a paragraph at a time
-- an animation player for QT-style movies (these might exist fpr Palm, but I haven't seen them)
-- a Web browser with GIF and JPG support
-- a 200+ MHz processor

...and then we'd have reinvented the MessagePad 2100, and we could start THINKING about improving on the state of the art, circa 1997.

(*sigh) Newton, we barely knew ye... Although someone knew ye well enough to make an OpenGL port in '98 or so.

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