Web site: www.access-company.com/products/platforms/garnet/index.html (not active)
Origin: USA/Japan
Category: Mobile
Desktop environment: GUI
Architecture: Motorola 68k, ARM
Based on: Independent
Wikipedia: Palm OS
Media: Install
The last version | Released: 5.4.9 | October 14, 2007
Palm OS – an operating system for palmtops. The first models of palmtops running Palm OS appeared in 1996 (Pilot 1000). At first, the Pilots were manufactured by 3Com. Later, 3com devices were called Palm Pilot, then, as a result of transformations, Palm Computing was spun off into 3com, dealing only with palmtops.
Palm licensed Palm OS to other companies and for a long time this system was the leading system on the palmtop market. Among the manufacturers of handheld computers running this operating system, we can mention such companies as Handspring (Visor), TRG, IBM (Workpad c3), Sony (Clié), Tapwave (Zodiac). Palm OS can also be found in other devices, such as mobile phones (Kyocera) or specialized devices from Symbol (logistics, warehouses). There was also a watch (Abacus by Fossil), which was essentially a miniaturized palmtop with the Palm OS system (version 4.1).
Palm (apart from a few exceptions such as Treo) does not have a keyboard, text is entered using a touch screen, stylus and a special patented handwriting recognition program Graffiti. Graffiti is based on recognizing special simplified alphanumeric characters resembling letters, but simplified enough to allow for fairly fast text entry.
External keyboards can also be connected to palmtops (via cable, infrared or Bluetooth), useful for entering longer texts. On the Palm casing, you can usually find four buttons for launching selected applications. By default, they launch the built-in applications: Date Book (schedule), Address Book (contacts), ToDo (tasks) and Memo Pad (notepad). After finishing working with the program, you can return to the Launcher by pressing the house icon on the touch screen. The remaining buttons are the cursor keys (up and down arrows) and the power button, which also activates the screen backlight when pressed for a longer period of time.
Palm OS has come a long way from the first versions in devices with Motorola processors to devices with processors compatible with the ARM architecture. Although it remains a relatively unmodern system, giving way to its direct and biggest competitor, the Pocket PC (e.g. lack of multitasking), it surpasses it in terms of speed and stability.
Palm OS manages memory in a specific way, there is no division into memory for storing data and memory for running applications. Thanks to this, with relatively small amounts of memory, Palm OS devices can operate very efficiently. The disadvantage is the lack of memory protection, which means that malicious applications can read sensitive data stored in other applications.
In the early 2000s, due to competition with the alternative Pocket PC platform, Palm OS became a fully multimedia system for its time, for which a large number of applications were created from practically every field, from games through office suites to specialized medical applications.
A significant feature of Palm OS is its high compatibility, even with the oldest applications, which may be important for people who do not want to part with their favorite programs when purchasing a new palmtop.
In September 2005, PalmSource announced that it was being acquired by ACCESS, the Japanase company, and then Palm OS was renamed to Gamet OS.
Garnet OS expands the solid foundation of Palm OS 5 by incorporating standard support for a broad range of screen resolutions and expanded support for wireless connections including Bluetooth®. It also includes enhanced multimedia capabilities, a suite of robust security options and support for a broad set of languages.
Garnet OS also offers flexibility for licensees to customize the software to build devices for different market segments such as phone, multimedia, educational or enterprise.
