[REBOL] Re: Build this and they will come...
From: mat:eurogamer at: 28-May-2001 14:59
Heya Holger,
>> I'm afraid I'd have to seriously disagree here. Bluetooth is a
>> horribly broken standard.
HK> Agreed. The fact that it disrupts communication of computers using an
HK> existing standard, and an IEEE standard even, is bad enough. The specs
HK> are worse.
I think it may still not be approved in France?
HK> Yes. Still, Bluetooth may win though. Marketing power often wins over
HK> reason and technology...
I think there's a good sense for common sense prevailing here. After
all, Microsoft refuse to support Bluetooth!
>> You know, the Psion Revo would be a really really nice Rebol platform
>> but unfortunately with RT being American they can't be bothered with
>> porting to it :(
HK> Huh ? What gives you that idea ? The fact that there is no Psion port
HK> for REBOL yet has nothing to do with nationality.
I assumed it was a market share thing in the domestic market. After
all, Rebol is ported to some shades of WinCE with far less market
share than Psion has... Perhaps I'm just bitter because indirectly you
forced me to buy a WinCE PDA :)
HK> Personally I like Psion palmtops a lot. I have a Psion 3c at home that
HK> I use a lot for travelling.
I remember it fondly.
HK> At RT we looked at Psion ports several times. Porting to Series 3 is not
HK> feasible (too slow, too small etc.).
Yes, of course.
HK> Porting to Series 5 and EPOC 5 is a possibility, and we do have
HK> the development environment. Last year we spent a few weeks on
HK> getting Core ported, and we made some progress, but eventually hit
HK> some road blocks. Basically, their development environment is
HK> horrible -- fundamentally different compilers, behavior,
HK> functionality etc. in the PC-based "simulation" compared to the
HK> real thing, making development very slow and tedious. We
HK> eventually had to stop because the EPOC port was taking too much
HK> time, and we had other priorities.
I see. I had no idea the EPOC dev environment was so poor. I'm amazed
really, given that it is the basis for Symbian and them trying (and
succeeding) at getting several companies onboard as a result. I wonder
if it has improved?
I'm kinda surprised you take a dim view of PC-based simulation, I
thought that is a fairly good environment for developing on PDAs?
HK> AFAIK EPOC is up to version 6 now. Do you know if Psion uses it in
HK> Series 7 or Revo ? What OS is Revo running anyway ? Their web site is
HK> all marketing and "organizer hype", nothing else...
As far as I know, those are version 5 or at least that's what they
shipped with initially. There's been a fair bit of movement on the
EPOC/symbian front in the last few months so I hope the development
environment has improved in that respect.
HK> In any case though, with a 480x160 display the Revo seems more like a target
HK> for Core than for View. It might be possible to port View as well, but with
HK> that low resolution most existing View scripts would not work.
That is a completely fair point as well. I don't actually have a Revo,
only a series 5. I mention the Revo as I think it's an excellent mass
market keyboard-equipped PDA. Larger display on the series 5 of course.
Rebol may not be very fast on them though, the CPU is fairly weak even
in the MX (current) versions compared to WinCE devices.
--
Mat Bettinson - EuroGamer's Gaming Evangelist with a Goatee
http://www.eurogamer.net | http://www.eurogamer-network.com
