Ron Nicholson's Palm OS Computing General Information Page
PalmOS/PalmPilot FAQ,
HotPaw
Software for
Palm OS handhelds,
PalmOS Handheld General Information,
and
PalmOS Application Development resources
for
Palm and
Sony Clie ,
Handheld Computers and Connected Organizers.
Ron's Unofficial Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) regarding PalmOS Handhelds
HotPaw Software
- For more information on the latest
software for
Palm OS devices, please see the new
HotPaw Web Site
-
HotPaw Basic (or yBasic, formerly cbasPad Pro) -
a Basic programming language environment which
allows you to write and run Basic programs
directly on your Palm OS handheld.
  -  
Download HotPaw Basic ,
Register HotPaw Basic at
Handango ,
PalmGear HQ ,
or
pdassi.de (European distributor).
  -  
Buy
The Essential Palm Programming Guide
, a book by Christian Immler
which covers HotPaw Basic programming in detail.
- yLexiSpell -
HotPaw's newest word game.
Unscramble 6 letters to see how many words you can find.
- Try the
AeroTuner Guitar Tuner - developed by HotPaw Productions
A visual strobe tuner for guitars which runs on the
Palm Treo 650 & Tungsten T/T2/T3/C -
(Release Version 1.0)
 
( Guitar Tuner
README.txt
&
screen shot
)
*
Some of my Newer Experimental Palm OS Applications
Applications for new Palm OS 5 handhelds (Tungsten T/T2/C, NX70V) :
Some Older Experimental PalmPilot Apps
Palm OS and Palm handheld General Information
Useful Software for your Palm OS handheld
Web Sites:
-
Handango (formerly Ray's PalmPilot Software Archives)
-
PalmGear H.Q. (very popular Palm software & accessories site)
-
PDAGreen (Palm Software, News, Etc... (Some Adult Ads))
-
FreewarePalm (freeware files for PalmOS handhelds + PopUp Ads)
-
pdassi.de (European PalmOS application distributor).
-
EuroCool (European Palm application software archive)
-
Memoware - books and documents in Doc format.
Applications:
Palm OS Computing Platform Application Development Resources
- PalmSource
Palm OS Software Development web site
Official Palm OS Developer Documentation
PalmSource Knowledge Base - search engine
Palm Computing Platform
Development Mailing List Archive (searchable)
- Motorola
MC68328 DragonBall
,
MC68EZ328 DragonBallEZ
and
MC68VZ328 DragonBallVZ
Integrated Processors
(users manual (pdf) and chip specifications available)
- TI OMAP Technical Reference (OS 5 ARM chip, pdf)
-
PalmOS Development FAQ - wiki
 
-
PalmOS Programming FAQ
-
Combee on PalmOS - Metrowerks and PalmOS developer hints
article on
Developing PACE Native Objects or armlets
-
Wade's Pilot Programming FAQ
-
PalmPilot Software Development - Alternatives to C
-
developers.com PalmOS page
Mainstream Palm OS Programming/Development Tools
(Mac, linux or Win32 hosted IDE's):
-
Metrowerks WorldWide
Codewarrior for Palm Computing Platform (Compiler/IDE)
(
Codewarrior for Palm System Development Kit FAQ)
-
GCC PRC-Tools
(Open Source development tools for PalmOS applications)
-
MathLib 1.1 - shared math library (for PalmOS 2.0 and later).
*
Original SunSoft/Sun
fdlibm
math library C source (non-GPL open source license)
The following programming environments are actually hosted on
the Palm OS handheld itself:
-
PocketC - tokenizing C-like language
compiler and bytecode runtime interpreter for PalmOS (shareware)
*
-
OnBoard C - small C compiler and 68k assembler
that runs directly on a PalmOS handheld -
(Yahoo discussion)
*
-
HotPaw Basic - Basic interpreter for PalmOS
*
-
iziBasic - an easy Basic compiler for PalmOS
*
-
SmallBASIC - Free BASIC for PalmOS 3.1+ and Linux (GPL/source)
*
-
PalmBASIC - A BASIC Interpreter for PalmOS (2003)
-
picoBASIC Integer - Integer BASIC for PalmOS 3.0 or later.
-
Rexx for Palm OS - IBM's Rexx programming language + applets
*
-
PP ISO standard Pascal compiler - compiles from DOC files
*
-
Quartus Forth - Forth language interpreter/compiler for PalmOS
(interpreter shareware, compiler commercial)
*
-
Dragon Forth - ANSI Forth 94 translator for PalmOS
-
ppforth (a public domain eforth/lpforth derivative)
-
LispMe - Scheme language compiler/interpreter (open source)
*
-
Poplet Kit - tiny-JavaScript/WMLScript interpreter (from Handwave,
replacement for Action Pad)
*
-
Pippy - Python scripting language port to PalmOS (OSS)
-
Plua - Lua scripting language port to PalmOS (OSS)
*
-
TinyLogo - Logo interpreter for Palm
-
EZAsm for the Palm Pilot - Assembly language tools
The following Palm OS development tools run hosted on a desktop system:
-
NS Basic/Palm
- commercial MSWindows based IDE with visual designer
-
CASL - commercial MSWindows hosted IDE + Palm p-code interpreter
-
HB++
- commercial MSWindows-hosted IDE & compiler for a "VB-like" language
- AppForge
MobileVB
- commercial MSWindows-hosted IDE for PalmOS and PPC devices
-
OrbForms
- commercial MSWindows-hosted IDE with C-like language
- Puma
Satellite Forms
- commercial MSWindows-hosted Palm IDE with forms designer
-
MobileBuilder
- commercial MSWindows-hosted IDE for cross-platform PDA develepment
-
Pendragon Forms
- commercial MSWindows hosted Palm dev IDE with forms designer
*
-
B2C4Palm
- MSDOS-hosted Basic-to-C(cygwin gcc) Translator
targetted for PalmOS applications
*
-
Pocket Smalltalk
- free MSWindows hosted compiler + PalmOS virtual machine
*
-
Palm Tcl - Tcl 7.6 cross development system
-
Visual Form Designer - MSWindows hosted IDE for Palm development
-
mobileStudio - C++ framework & MSWindows hosted IDE for PalmOS
-
PocketStudio - Pascal (Delphi-like) development system for PalmOS
-
HSPascal - High Speed Pascal cross-compiler for PalmOS apps
-
PDA Toolbox
- freeware MSWIndows hosted Form application generator for PalmOS
applications
*
-
Jump - Java class file to 68k asm compiler/translator
-
IBM VisualAge Micro Edition - Java IDE + PalmOS JVM (new)
The following Palm OS development tools run hosted on the web:
-
AppArtist - web-based PalmOS application creation utility
(by subscription)
Virtual Machines:
-
Sun MIDP for Palm OS - Sun Java runtime
-
Sun Spotless - experimental Java(tm) system for PalmOS
-
Sun KVM - Sun Java JVM for PalmOS
-
KVM on the PalmPilot - independent KVM info
-
Ghost - older Java Virtual Machine for PalmPilot
-
Wabasoft - Java-like subset virtual machine for PalmOS & winCE
-
SuperWaba - Alternate Waba virtual machine (GPL)
Languages Benchmarks:
-
Benchmarking of different PalmOS development languages
(by Michael Winikoff)
-
Bench2 - a newer PalmOS Development Language Benchmark
(by Laurent Duveau)
Palm Emulation:
-
POSE - official PalmOS Emulator
(MacOS, linux, MSWindows ports, source code)
-
Copilot (older Emulator)
Other Palm OS Development Tools:
-
RsrcEdit
(formerly Onboard RsrcEdit, edit icons and forms on your Palm)
*
-
IcoEdit - an icon editor, by MapleTop software
*
-
PalmPilot 68k disassembler, hexdump and memory patch util
- palmopensource.com
many open source PalmOS applications
- several
Applications with source code
- more
open source Palm apps (GPL'd mostly)
-
miniGL for PalmOS
(mini-OpenGL 3d lib source, Digital Sandbox, LGPL)
-
httpd - a web server that runs on a Palm handheld (with source code)
-
Experimental Pilot Unix Tools (mailing list archive)
-
ftp dir of pilot-link utilities for unix systems ,
alternate ftp site
-
Pilot Software Development (DOS & Homebrew)
Some Data Formats
-
Palm Computing Platform Data Structures - see track 212 (pdf)
-
The Pilot Record Database (pdb) Format (by bobf@ilx.com)
-
pdb file format man page
-
The .prc file format
-
Doc file format man page
-
Original PilotDoc compression description
- Another
Doc Format description
-
Pilot user.dat format
-
Pilot MemoPad.dat format
- More
Palm Desktop data format descriptions
-
68k microcontroller Linux for the Palm handhelds
Hardware info:
-
Palm Evolutionary Tree - list of all models, by Dan Royea
-
Some Palm Vx/IIIc/m505/NX70V hardware details (by Peter Strobel)
-
TCL Emergency 9V Charger Tiny travel charger for Palm V/Vx
-
MELD Data Acquisition System
an analog data acquisition system supporting HotPaw Basic
-
Inside of Zire 71 - photos + text in Japanese
 
-
Steve's Pilot Tech. Page (memory card pinout & pilot internals)
-
Info on the Pilots power supply and low voltage behavior
-
Some info on PalmPilot power consumption and backlight power bug
-
Duracell AAA data sheets
-
Rayovac AAA technical data sheets
-
PDA Panache Styli (custom stylus upgrade)
-
Inards of a Palm IIIc (Till Harbaum's page)
-
What's inside a Palm IIIc (hardware pictures, mikew's page)
-
What's inside the Pilot (hardware pictures)
- More
inside the PalmPilot and Palm III (pictures with a clear case)
-
GetHighTech.com - source for replacement displays and other parts
- PalmPilot cradle to cable pinout
Application Creators/Signatures
Old Software Archive
Palm HotSync(tm) Cradle and serial port information
Palm Vx HotSync(tm) Cradle Pinout
Pinout (left to right, facing the front of the cradle) seems to be:
cradle cable Palm III,V,Vx or PalmPilot
------ ----- -----
pin 1 DE9.6, DB25.6 Palm DTR (GPIO output) -> PC DSR
pin 2 N/C +3.3V on PalmPilot and Palm III handheld
(current limited by 330 Ohm series resistor.)
not connected on PalmPilot cradle
(+4.1V) (or +4.07V measured on my Palm V cradle)
pin 3 DE9.3, DB25.2 Palm RxD <- PC TxD
pin 4 DE9.8, DB25.5 Palm RTS -> PC CTS
pin 5 DE9.2, DB25.3 Palm Txd -> PC RxD
pin 6 DE9.7, DB25.4 Palm CTS <- PC RTS
pin 7 N/C GPIO input pin for detecting hotsync, contacts
with pin 2 when the hotsync button is pressed.
pin 8 N/C GPIO (input only, not connected in cable)
(+5.5V) (or around +5.5 on Palm V cradle only)
pin 9 N/C N/C (spare?)
pin 10 DE9.5, DB25.7 Signal Ground
N/C DE9.4, DB25.20 (PC DTR not connected to Palm)
N/C DE9.1, DB25.8 (PC DCD unconnected to Palm)
(Cradle uses single sided gold PCB edge connector with 2mm contact spacing.)
Or see 3Com/Palm's
Hardware Development page.
Here's a Pilot
Cradle (or HotSync cable) to Modem Cable Adaptor wiring diagram.
Palm m500/505 Universal Interface
... unverified prelim ...
When viewing front of unit, pins are numbered left to right.
1 GND (power)
2 USB D+
3 USB D-
4 USB VBUS
5 HotSync IRQ (+3.3 V for button push)
6 reserved (N/C)
7 GND (signal) (to DE-9 pin 5)
8 ID (pheripheral type detect: 7.5KOhms to GND for serial)
9 Vout ~ 3.3V @ 100 mA max
10 Rxd (input) (to DE-9 pin 2)
11 Txd (output) (to DE-9 pin 3)
12 Attach Detect (gnd)
13 CTS (input) (to DE-9 pin 7)
14 RTS (output) (to DE-9 pin 8)
15 DTR (output) (to DE-9 pin 6)
16 charge Vin (+5.0 VDC 5% @ 1.0 A )
Information on the Sony Clie T-series serial port
(by Peter Strobel)
This page has been named a
Links2Go key resource on the Pilot topic
Legal MumboJumbo: Palm(tm), PalmPilot(tm) and HotSync(tm)
are registered trademarks of 3Com Corp., Palm Inc., or subsidiaries
thereof.
Pilot(tm) is probably the registered trademark of some pen company.
Mario64 is a registered trademark of Nintendo.
This page is always under construction.
Mail to Ron Nicholson at
rhn@hotpaw.com
.
Ron's Home Page
Copyright © 1997-2004 Ronald H. Nicholson, Jr. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Last Modified 2004-Dec-02