Palm Ramblings

Last Tuesday
I'm writing this in graffiti on my pilot. I've been mostly trying ouy the huge amount of software palmOS, but sadly it seems to be mostly shareware. Granted often only 5-15 UKP, but that can add up in a big way. I'm currently 50 UKP in debt, so all my software will time out soon :-(

As I briefly mentioned last time, my port of gcc appears to work well. Of course it's not very well tested. It does mean that the Amiga is a viable dev platform now, which IMHO is a Good Thing ™. Strangely, even though two or three people asked me to prove the cross compiling binaries no one has given any feedback. Tell me if you use my efforts please, it's the only way I know what to work on further.

Other things that works so far ;

• Lan between Amiga/Palm (MiamiDx)
  • Gateway to Internet
  • Graphical Web Browsing
  • Sending Email direct from Pilot, and working on ;
    • syncing with Yam 1.3.5
• Making Doc files on Amiga
• Backing up/installing
• memo import/export

Tuesday 12-Jan-99 07:39:06
I bought a PalmIII Wednesday 6th, which is why no updates until now ;-)
I've been testing and playing with stuff :-) I don't have time to write it all up now, but just thought I'd let people know things are still happening.
GCC appears to work just fine, as well as the pilotlink set of programs. PalmLink (Amigaised Palm-transfer library) appears very buggy :-( I'd like to see it get cleaned up, and an API for external conduits written.
I've decided that I'm going to develop TCP/IP based software for the PalmIII.

Tuesday 05-Jan-99 20:14:49
Told the Amiga/Palm mailing list where they can find the prc-tools binaries. Once they are verified working, I'll redo the port writing down everything as I go, and check to make sure I fully understand why everthing had to be fiddled in this way and that. Then I'll talk to the prc-tools people.

I'm 15 UKP short for the PalmIII on Saturday. I'm in negotiations with the elders.

Monday 04-Jan-99 22:33:04
Created a page for binaries etc.

Monday 04-Jan-99 19:29:24
This time marks the first (?) gcc binaries that can generate code for the PalmOS platform from the AmigaOS :-)) Woo ! That took long enough. I've learned loads about GCC and compilers in the process though :-)

I'll either work with the author of the PalmOS patches to integrate the AmigaOS changes into the main patches, or branch. Not sure which yet :-) I'll talk with him, then decide.

I will of course post the binaries here soon. I promised someone on the Palm/Amiga mailing list that I'd post the binaries to my (completely untested) port of pilot-link. I'll post them along with the GCC suite binaries if thats ok, in a few days. I'd really prefer to at least run them before I let them into the world ;-)

Monday 04-Jan-99 17:29:01
I think I've located the code that the bug is in. I've learned that the systrap __attribute__ isn't standard stuff, it's added by the PalmOS patches. The reason that if I change the "__attribute__" section to something else, is that the systrap __attribute__ code doesn't get called. I've ripped out the code in question from c-common.c, to see if cc1 still crashes. If it doesn't, I'll look close at it and see if I can spot anything amiss....

Sunday 03-Jan-99 21:30:06
Ok ! I've got a GCC that clean compiles, and a binutils package that clean compiles. Wow, that took AGES. More than 4 days just about solid work, and I've got nothing else done. Damn. School tomorrow also.

Now, I think I'm approching the last problem. My cross compiling cc1 crashes on the following code (extracted from the temporary *.i file that is passed to it) ;

typedef enum {

sysTrapMemInit = 0xA000 ,
sysTrapMemInitHeapTable,
sysTrapMemStoreInit,
sysTrapMemCardFormat,
sysTrapMemCardInfo,
sysTrapMemStoreInfo,
sysTrapMemStoreSetInfo,
sysTrapMemNumHeaps,
sysTrapMemNumRAMHeaps,
sysTrapMemHeapID,
sysTrapMemHeapPtr,
sysTrapMemHeapFreeBytes,
sysTrapMemHeapSize,
sysTrapMemHeapFlags,
sysTrapMemHeapCompact,
sysTrapMemHeapInit,
sysTrapMemHeapFreeByOwnerID,
sysTrapMemChunkNew,
sysTrapMemChunkFree,
sysTrapMemPtrNew } SysTrapNumber;

int MemChunkFree(void *chunkDataP) __attribute__ ((systrap ( sysTrapMemChunkFree ))) ;

I've reduced this down to the same crash/hang/reset at ;

enum {false, true};
void* ResLoadForm (Word rscID) __attribute__ ((systrap ( true ))) ;

If I change the __attribute__ text to something else, it doesn't crash. I need to find someone that knows what the problem is :-)

Wednesday 30-Dec-98 20:51:43
Bug
missing sbrk() function
Description
sbrk is a low-level UNIX call which is inappropriate on the Amiga as it assumes a memory heap growing in one direction only.
Reported
by Steve Kaye stevek@phonelink.telme.com (19-Jul-96)
Work-around
Use the GNU `dbmalloc' package if you can live with preallocating a fixed size "sbrk pool" or see if there is some #define not to use it.

Ah.

Wednesday 30-Dec-98 16:52:16
[19·2] Zippy:PalmPRC/binutils-2.7>make

[snip]

gcc -O2 -g -o size size.o bucomm.o version.o filemode.o -L../bfd -lbfd ../libiberty/libiberty.a ../libiberty/libiberty.a(xmalloc.o): In function `xmalloc_set_program_name': /Zippy/PalmPRC/binutils-2.7/libiberty/xmalloc.c:54: undefined reference to `sbrk' ../libiberty/libiberty.a(xmalloc.o): In function `': /Zippy/PalmPRC/binutils-2.7/libiberty/xmalloc.c:72: undefined reference to `sbrk' /Zippy/PalmPRC/binutils-2.7/libiberty/xmalloc.c:74: undefined reference to `sbrk' ../libiberty/libiberty.a(xmalloc.o): In function `xrealloc': /Zippy/PalmPRC/binutils-2.7/libiberty/xmalloc.c:103: undefined reference to `sbrk' /Zippy/PalmPRC/binutils-2.7/libiberty/xmalloc.c:105: undefined reference to `sbrk' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status make[1]: *** [size] Error 1

:-(
Not sure what to do about this.

Tuesday 29-Dec-98 21:37:51
Wow. I've discovered the huge amount of books that can be, or already are compressed into the PilotDoc format (see Yahoo). To do the compression from ascii to the pilots format, you'll need some tools. I've compiled the txt2pdbdoc-1.2.1 suite ready for myself. It's covered by the GNU GPL. You can get the binaries I have compiled for AmigaOS , to save you doing your own. A Doc reader is need on the Pilot side too, you don't get one with the OS. J-Doc looks good, it has some good screen flipping stuff... so you can view the text in landscape, rather than the normal Pilot way. CSpotRun is a freeware reader.

Tuesday 29-Dec-98 17:52:47
Yay, libc.a has printf() :-) To build myself a set of gcc-based tools to do PalmOS C coding I'll be needing the source to gcc, binutils and gdb. Ouch ! A specific version too. GG (The project that ports unix tools to AmigaOS) will have all these sources fixed for AmigaOS, but maybe not in the correct versions... and there could be conflicts with the PalmOS/AmigaOS patches. I'll have to go look in about 10 minutes.

Tuesday 29-Dec-98 17:29:02
I'm looking into which languages I'd like to actually use on my PalmIII. (Expected ownership is 4/5th January, current lowest price is 200 UKP at PC World and Dixons (same company, I believe)).

Waba looks to be a very nice choice. I like Java, and Waba apps would run not only on the Pilot, but also WinCE and all other Java VM's with the Waba classes. The negatives are that Waba doesn't include exceptions (nor threads), the tools to create files suitable for the Pilot/WinCE don't clean compile on AmigaOS (no windows.h). Linux has a port though, so maybe I can get hold of the source to that. What else ? Oh -- as Waba seems to support no Std-IO (I suppose that's reasonable, given the nature of the device. But I live for console IO. Bugger), and my Amiga JavaVM supports no graphics, I can't test my Waba apps on my Amiga. This is a major downpoint, as I loose that nice compatability that is Waba's main advantage, over the fact Java is just nice to work with. Waba does seem to make handing the UI on the Pilot pretty easy though, so maybe I could still live with it. I'll have to see if gcc can use stdio on the PalmOS... I really don't feel like writing GUI code every time I want a small tool. I suppose for small non-gui tools I'd use the Basic, Forth or Lisp. I feel homesick already. I want ARexx for the PalmOS !

I'm going to go look at the GCC options now. I want to find two main things ;

• Can I get the prc-tools to work on AmigaOS ?
• Can I do normal text IO with it ?

The choices seem to be between three styles - the Psion range, (itself containing either the 3 or 5 series), the Windows CE machines and the PalmOS platform. The Psion 5 would be nice, but way to expensive and the hacking possibilities appear limited, after a quick scout of the web. The 3 series are a bit cheaper, but will soon be turning obsolete and the supply of (free) software will dry up I think. The Windows CE palmtops are both expensive and limited. I assume Microsoft charge a lot for the SDK (I've not looked into it), so software would be costly. Also I simply wouldn't hand over cash for one on principle :-)

That leaves the Palm, which is obviously my choice given the graphic to the left. The Palm range are reasonably priced (about 150 UKP to 230 UKP depending on model and supplier), with apparently massive hacking opportunities. Not only is the SDK free, but the OS source code can also be viewed for free ! The CPU (Motorola DragonBall) is well documented, and shares a lot with my trusty Amiga. This gives lots of fun software and hardware projects :-) The batteries seem to last a long time (from Ron Nicholson's Short and Completely Unofficial PalmPilot FAQ) ;