Developed by Palm Computing, which was originally part of U.S. Robotics and later 3Com and is now independent, the PalmOS is an operating system (OS) based on a preemptive multitasking kernel. The OS is designed for small, portable computers based on the Motorolla DragonBall processor.

PalmOS is now undergoing porting to other chipsets than the dragon ball, notably the StrongARM chips. Currently the PalmOS is chip specific for the Dragonball 68328 and 68328EZ. Nokia is developing a new HAL (see Hardware Abstraction Layer) such that PalmOS can run on their phone-like gadgets.

When this is completed, we should expect to see a speed increase of about 1000%, to start.

The main problem with PalmOS to date is the ridiculously small stack and heap space, which limits to some degree ultimate complexity. This is coupled with the fact that all programs need to be broken into 64K or less segments. This needs to be improved in the next version of the OS, or we may be stuck with a DOS situation all over again..

The main advantages to the PalmOS is that it has become a relatively stable target, unlike other PDA OS's i could name. Almost 4 years and 95% of all applications are still compatible with all ROM and hardware versions. Hell, unix can't even do that.

The other part of PalmOS that is at the same time a burden and a blessing is that everything is stored in a database... so we have databases inside databases inside databases... it's a neat idea, but I can't see how it could be very fast...

Don't get me wrong. I love my PalmV. It'll be even better with 8mb of RAM and OmniSky...