On late September 2005, Microsoft and Palm agreed to sell new smart phones with Pocket PC rather than the Palm OS. On November 2005, PalmSource (the developer of the operating system) was acquired by Access. On June 2006, Access decided to drop Palm OS in favor of ACCESS Linux Platform (Linux). I am afraid to say that Palm OS is a dead technology.

Nonetheless, Palm OS is an operating system for hand-held computers that is very easy to use and to share data with other machines, compared to the installation procedure of the synchronization utility for Pocket Mobile (formerly known as Pocket PC and known before that as Windows CE).

Palm OS was originally developed by a division of the Tandy Corporation (now RadioShack), which was an IBM clone with a touch sensitive display in 1989. The division of Tandy became Palm Computing in 1992. Around 1995 US Robotics acquired Palm as a subsidiary, which was later acquired by 3Com. Palm became an independent company again years later and some of the developers formed Handspring. Palm and Handspring were part of the original developing team behind the operating system. Both Palm and Handspring promoted the development and marketing of software and compatible hardware. To make the relation of that these two companies have with each other more confusing, Palm acquired Handspring in 2003 giving the operating system new life under the name PalmOne, which was later dropped in favor of the original name, Palm.

With the changes in the Palm OS 4 and 5, some vendors were forced to change hardware configurations. One of these vendors was Handspring, which dropped Springboard modules from their newer models. These modules were interchangeable units that gave extra functions to any Handspring unit, from modems to cameras.

Installing The Palm OS, Not Really

Unless you are upgrading, there is no access to Palm OS. There is no way to format anything. Palm OS devices have no hard drive. Palm OS is hard-coded to a ROM chip. All operating system upgrades (Palm resource file or .PRC) are available free at the Palm website. Operating system upgrades are layered on the version of Palm OS that the unit is running. Therefore they have to be re-installed if the unit is reset (powering the unit completely off).

If there is no way the end user (geek or clueless) can install the OS, you might wonder why I wrote this in the first place. First, clueless end users are dangerous. Some users understand that a virus can destroy a system, but they are unwilling to scan a miserable file or floppy.

Second, any unit running any version of Palm OS is the perfect way to introduce people to the field of computers. The end user has nothing to destroy or corrupt. Pressing the reset button on the machine will bring the OS back to its proper state.

Suggest this site on Twitter!