On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Fawcett, Mitch wrote:
> I'd like to contribute my two cents to a certain non-technical discussion
> ongoing about the Palm versus CE merits. I have been a part of the
> computing revolution since the first pc's came out (Altair, Sinclair, TRS
> 80, IBM PC, Apple II, etc) back in the late 70's early 80's. and one
> observation that can be made is, that no platform, no matter how sweet it
> seems at the time, lasts very long if it doesn't aggressively and constantly
> reinvent itself. That means more features, more power, greater complexity,
> more room for bugs, more newbies trying to program it, in short, more of all
> the things that tend to drive developers crazy.
Creating a counterculture move. Welcome back to "That '70s OS", as Linux
and FreeBSD make inroads because they were based on a consistent paradigm
and worked very, very, well. All it took was cheap VM chips like the 386
to ignite this.
Were you correct, the Japanese would have had meter long fins on their
land yachts in order to compete with American companies. They were smart
enough not to play by someone elses rules.
Complexity causes breakdowns whether you are GM in the '70s or MSFT in the
'90s. WinCE is like the first downsized cars - physically smaller, more
fuel efficient, but clunky from being designed by a land yacht maker. A
Dinghy with a sail is not a sailboard. But you can cross a body of water
in either.
> I'll complain along with everyone else about the effort it takes to keep up
> with all the changes MS (and other platform vendors including 3COM) throw at
> us, but it's not their fault... it simply is the price of success in a
> highly competitive environment. My fervent hope is that 3COM will
> aggressively exploit and build on the current Palm device platform and blow
> our minds with new API's, greater power, more complexity, more room for bugs
> and encouraging more newbies trying to program for it... in short do all
> the things that drive us crazy, because it is the only way they will
> survive.
Greater power and greater complexity are incompatible. You have something
complex because of weak, not powerful API design. Mac wasn't complex, but
had a better UI (and still has - Windows keep adding filigree in place of
functionality). But the Mac API/Paradigm/whatever was also consistent.
Even though the palm is flashable, the hardware isn't upgradable (as WinCE
people will find out). I can't put a 3d video card in my PDA as I can in
my PC - upgrading to new technology. The software does what it should.
Evolutionary changes are welcome (e.g. I think the 7 can do fields with
bold and italic as part of the pqa handling). Revolutionary ones are not
needed, especially to make it a desktop instead of a datamanager.
> Maybe the Palm VII is the key, but one thing is for sure, Palm has to base
> it's success on something more than battery life, which is what a lot of
> these discussions boil down to. If Duracell comes out with a battery that
> lasts 3 months in a CE device... well, I don't want to think about that.
Won't happen. Unless nuclear power becomes legal. (they have considered
plutonium based batteries for heart pumps since changing batteries is very
difficult). The problem is the energy density of chemical systems is too
low. (nonrechargable Zinc-Air wins by weight, if not space).
Actually you can already get that much battery life for your CE device -
with a motorcycle battery :).
Cycles take power. Windows (even the Castrated Edition) takes a lot of
cycles to plot a pixel. Color takes more power and more bits per pixel.
Cycles also take time, and I think power goes up with the square of the
clock speed, so the sluggish performance can only be solved by making
battery life worse, not better.
So even if they are able to do this for a CE device, the next palm could
shrink to the size of a REX and run on one of the coin cells. Even now
solar power for the Palm is thinkable! (And a panel I have attached to
the hardcase of my 3 can run everything in full sunlight and trickle
charge in office lighting).
