Registered: May 2000
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 49

Is anyone else concerned about upgrading the Visor's OS?

I realize the version we have is enhanced, but if Palm goes takes a development left turn, and Visor continues to go right?

Just curious, since Palm fanatics brag about their ability to get software upgrades.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: McLean, VA USA
Posts: 216

quote:

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Originally posted by bnjacobs:

Just curious, since Palm fanatics brag about their ability to get software upgrades.

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That's because that's all they have to brag about!!!!


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Have Visor Will Travel!

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Baltimore MD, USA
Posts: 717

I wouldn't worry about it.
Historically, it seems that most PalmOS upgrades were hardware driven.
In other words, what Visor owner would care that they couldn't upgrade to the new OS that had support for colored screens? The Visor doesn't have a color screen.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: bright side of the moon.
Posts: 996

and rumour has it that OS 4.0 is coming this fall to take advantage of the new StrongARM processors....so all of this stuff will be obsolete by the end of the year (I hope). Others complain about this point but i prefer to see advancement in technology and the option to toss my visor for the next 'wave'.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Redwood City CA
Posts: 472

I'm not terribly concerned about the the lack of FLASH ROM in the Visor, and agree that most Palm OS changes are to support new hardware.

Except, of course, for the curious release of a new OS by Palm right after Handspring began to offer a device which couldn't use it. Pure coincidence, I'm sure.



[This message has been edited by John Nowak (edited 05-12-2000).]

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

I can't get excited about StrongARM handhelds. I may be enough penguinhead to get the Linux-based Yopy, but I'm even ambivalent about that. Even with the Palm OS, you'd wind up recharging your PDA once or twice a week, and I'm too lazy to even do HotSynchs that often. I'm hoping the rumors are true about Handspring casting its lot with Transmeta's Crusoe chip, which can morph to different processors' instruction sets, can cruch multimedia, and maintain a good battery life.

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 434

An exception to the rule of OS upgrades being tied to new hardware is that of the IR port. The Visor's IR port is capable of all the things that any Palm III or V are, but the Visor's OS fails to support IR HotSyncing. Yes. IS/Complete has partially fixed this deficiency with IrLink, but it appears to only work for local IR HotSyncs (Visor -> PC or laptop). A cool feature of Palm OS v3.3 is that it also allows for network IR HotSyncs (Visor -> IR Ethernet transceiver -> network/Internet -> PC or network sync server). So far, I've had no joy getting the Visor to perform this trick; but I haven't given up . . . yet. Even if I do get this to work, it would be better by far to have the OS upgrade . . . so there are instances where the lack of OS upgrades can hurt.