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Palm OS overview

Palm OS is a compact operating systemdevices than on previous generation
developed and licensed by PalmSource,hardware. New software can take
Inc. for personal digital assistantsadvantage of the ARM processors with PNO
(PDAs) manufactured by various(PACE Native objects), small units of
licensees. It is designed to beARM code, these are also sometimes
easy-to-use and similar to desktopreferred to as 'ARMlets'. It was also
operating systems such as Microsoftaround this time when Palm began to
Windows. Palm OS is combined with aseparate its hardware and OS efforts,
suite of basic applications including aneventually becoming two companies,
address book, clock, note pad, sync,PalmSource, Inc. (OS) and palmOne
memo viewer and security software. Palm(hardware, now named Palm, Inc.).
OS was originally released in 1996.Further releases of Palm OS 5 have seen
Versions historya standardised API for hi-res and
Palm OS was originally developed by Jeffdynamic input areas, along with a number
Hawkins for use on the original Motorolaof more minor improvements.
DragonBall-based Pilot PDA by U.S.Palm OS 5.2 and 4.1.2 (and later) also
Robotics. Palm OS 1.0 was present on thefeature Graffiti 2. This is based on Jot
original Pilot 1000 and 5000.by CIC.
Palm OS 2.0 was introduced with thePalm OS 5.4 added the Non-Volatile File
PalmPilot Personal and Professional.System, and used Flash for storage
Palm OS 3.0 was introduced, ith theinstead of DRAM, preventing data-loss in
launch of the Palm III series.the event of battery drain. However,
Incremental upgrades occurred with thethis fundamentally changed the way
release of versions 3.1, 3.3, and 3.5,programs were executed from the
adding support for color, multipleExecute-in-Place system that PalmOS
expansion ports, new processors, andtraditionally used, and has been the
other various additions.source of many compatibility problems,
Palm OS 4.0 was released with the m500requiring many applications to have
series, and later made available as anexplicit NVFS support added for them to
upgrade for older devices. This added abe stable.
standard interface for externalIn December 2006, Palm (Hardware) paid
filesystem access (such as SD cards) and$44 million to ACCESS for the rights to
improved telephony libraries, security,the source code for Palm OS (6.0)
and the UI. Version 4.1 included aGarnet. With this arrangement, a single
series of bug fixes.company is again developing palm
Palm OS 5.0 was introduced in Novemberhardware and software. Palm can modify
2002 with the Tungsten T and was thethe licensed software as needed and it
first version released to support ARMneed not pay royalties to ACCESS over
devices. Described as a stepping stonefuture years.
to full ARM support, DragonBall PalmPalm OS 1.0 to 4.1 were based on top of
apps are run in an emulated environmenta small kernel licensed from KADAK
called the Palm ApplicationProducts Ltd. While these versions are
Compatibility Environment (PACE), makingtechnically capable of multitasking, the
the device capable of running software"terms and conditions of that license
written for older versions. Even withspecifically state that Palm may not
the additional overhead of PACE, Palmexpose the API for creating/manipulating
applications usually run faster on ARMtasks within the OS."



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