The Digest Fri, 13 May 2005 Volume02 : Number 742
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Sent to: 745 subscribers
In today's The Digest 07 messages
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- Re: OPL at Nokia 9500
- Re: Engineering level of the 9500 (and the future ofOPL)
- OPL/Rolf
- Irrelevance
- Software
- CF card partitioning - WaHaY!
- Self-contradictory?, Hebrew etc,
Date: 12 May 2005 02:52:39 +0000
From: Martin Maxwell <address truncated>
Subject: Re: OPL at Nokia 9500
From: Martin Maxwell<address truncated>br>Subject: OPL at Nokia 9500 [sic]
Answer to: Rolf Vonau
>Each time I run a translated OPL program - even the simplest one(PROC A: : PRINT "HI" : GET : ENDP) - the Nokia bootsfrom >scratch, it means it shuts down, shows the pictures"NOKIA" AND plays the starting melody. After that noapplication is running. >What I installed wrong??
Please check that you have installed the correct OPL runtime. The OPLruntime for 9210 will not work on 9500 and 9300. There is a specialruntime for the latter two.
Kind regards
Martin Maxwell
Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
Date: 12 May 2005 05:13:44 +0000
From: Martin Maxwell <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Engineering level of the 9500 (and the future of OPL)
Date: 12 May 2005
From: Martin Maxwell<address truncated>br>Subject: Engineering level of the 9500
Answer to: Simon Jeffree
Re: Engineering level of the 9500 (and the future of OPL)
Dear Simon,
Whereas I understand your sentiments, I think it looks slightly more positive.
First I think there is ample opportunities in specialised applications. While I understand your worries about scattered audience over S60, S80, S90 and UIQ, take note that each of the Symbian UIs - perhaps with the exception of S90 - has a significantly larger addressable market on its own than ER5/Eikon ever had.
1. Regarding: porting to permutations of OS version/manufacturer/UI in comparison to porting SIBO to EPOC.
SIBO vs EPOC is not the same as EPOC vs Symbian. EPOC is a *different* OS compared to SIBO. Symbian, however, is *the same* OS as EPOC. EPOC was *renamed* to Symbian. The only major difference between ER5 and later versions is the shift from 8-bit to 16-bit character representation. But as you might know, this was only a matter of changing a flag in the build process. Support for Unicode was there already in ER1. For these reasons, it is significantly easier to port an OPL application from ER5 to a Symbian Phone than it was to port from SIBO to EPOC. Sure, there are new features in all the new versions of Symbian OS as well as the vendor specific UIs which OPL might or might not be able to access. But because the different UIs are based on the same OS porting is significantly easier than one would expect. The SendAs.opx is a good example. It behaves the same way regardless of whether it's S80, S60 or UIQ.
Then again, firstly, you have to ask yourself the question: what are you trying to do? If your goal is to develop specialised applications similar to the ones we've been doing for Psion, then OPL will give you more than enough support and porting between UIs will be easy.
Secondly, if you develop in OPL for, say, S80, there is nothing which forces you to port to the other UIs. Staying on S80 will still provide you with an addressable market larger than the Psion market ever was. My personal preference at the moment is to develop for Eikon, UIQ and S80. Moving applications between those three platforms is quite a lot easier than you would expect and with smart design of your event handling and clear separation of device-related procedures from others, it gets even easier. I would of course have wished for #ifdef type commands in OPL compiler, but really setting event-handling flags or doing REM and un-REM is still workable.
I have done a few applications for S80. All of them were prototyped on the Psion netBook first and then moved to a 9210. I've also started to try out UIQ. I just move the code and with minor changes (usually setting of flags) make it run on S80 and UIQ. (Note: there are still too many bugs in OPL for UIQ to make this 100% no-tinkering-needed but there is good hope these will be fixed very soon).
2. Regarding: OPL "dropping dead"
Actually OPL never dropped dead. It was excluded from the device, yes (as it also was for the Revo) but Phil Spencer had OPL on 9210 out as a free download very soon after the release of the device. Not only did he make OPL available as is. He also provided several new OPXs which are relevant to Symbian and smartphones, e.g. AppFrame.opx, Convert.opx and SendAs.opx.
The issue was rather a matter of awareness in combination with shortcomings in the first generation Symbian devices generally. Neither the 9210 nor the P800 were good enough to replace even the Revo. Prominent OPL developers, Kevin Millican is the first one that comes to mind, commenced developing for the 9210, got disappointed, and went back to Psion again. Now with the P900/910 and 9500/9300, it's a completely different situation. With people like Steve Litchfield all fired up on the 9500, and Al Richey on UIQ, my take is that the OPL community is back on track again. Some OPL forums have been sleeping for years, but suddely you see a stream of new postings.
3. Regarding: "that particular window in time has now closed, never to be re-opened."
I don't agree with this conclusion, though I can understand the sentiments. I think the situation is very much more positive than perhaps has been communicated, and thanks to Ewan, Rick Andrews, Arjen Boese, Phil Spencer etc, OPL is live and well. The addressable market for OPL applications has never been larger even with each UI looked at individually.
This means that even if you stick to S80 only, you will still have a potential audience larger than the Psion audience was. The eventual size of the audience, of course, depends solely on your application and how you communicate it's existence.
Kind regards
Martin Maxwell
Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
Date: 12 May 2005 07:05:00 +0000
From: Steve Litchfield <address truncated>
Subject: OPL/Rolf
The OPL runtime is very stable, so it sounds like you have a corrupt file somewhere. Try reinstalling the runtime and devpack. If you still have problems, it's something else in your System folder that's causing the problem.
..........................
Steve Litchfield, 3-Lib, http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/
Software and features for Psion/Symbian handhelds and smartphones
Also PocketInfo, useful files - http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo Journalism: sub-editor and/or senior contributor to:
Palmtop User - http://www.palmtop.co.uk/
PDA Essentials - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pdaessentials.html
PC Basics - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pcbasics.html
Pocket PC columnist, Computer Shopper - http://www.computershopper.co.uk/ Reviews editor, AllAboutSymbian - http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/
Date: 12 May 2005 10:04:21 +0000
From: Phil Aypee <address truncated>
Subject: Irrelevance
Hi Folks,
Itamar, I imagine you and I agree on what *we* think is immoral. Where we probably disagree is in believing or not believing that there even *can* be an absolute morality.
But in a practical sense it's almost irrelevant, isn't it? : • )
Happy days,
Phil.
http://www.philaypee.co.uk/index.html
Date: 12 May 2005 10:04:24 +0000
From: Phil Aypee <address truncated>
Subject: Software
Hi Folks,
Bernard (Hill), maybe I don't make my living writing software, but I'm not talking specifically about how copyright affects bought software. I'm talking about how copyright affects *all* software and specifically software released as freeware.
I think the copyright rules *need* to be overhauled for software but I'm no advocate of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". Software that can be bought, whether commercial software or shareware, needs new copyright rules as does freeware, whether needing registration or not. 70 years or so is a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g time in the computer world - it has existed for less than 70 years (if you exclude Babbage & co.). But undermining the commercial basis of software publishing should not be the aim and I think there should be no *practical* effect either.
After all, no computer operating system has yet lasted 70 years and, if Bill Gates gets his way, 3 years will be a long time. It is considered normal for software suppliers to abandon software when Micro$oft bring out an incompatible OS and it is a year old. Support is *withdrawn*. Psion themselves have withdrawn support for EPOC though ER5 is less than 10 years old. ER5 and below are old hat now and we're dinosaurs but the software copyright will not expire for well over 50 years.
I think that is probably immoral but surely it is stupid? Perhaps any new rules should nod towards patent law, I don't know. But 70 years, in your case Bernard, 70 years after your death (which I hope is a l-o-n-g way away)? Is that reasonable?
Happy days,
Phil.
"A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes.
This may be the purpose of the universe."
http://www.philaypee.co.uk/index.html
Date: 12 May 2005 13:04:41 +0000
From: Phil Aypee <address truncated>
Subject: CF card partitioning - WaHaY!
Hi Folks,
Marek, I followed your advice using my HP 4 MB CF - and it worked!
Thanks, Marek.
As my 256 MB cards are Transcend I imagine that'll work too, but I want a much bigger CF - possibly 2 (or even 3) as my PC only has a 1.4 GB hard disk. If anyone wants to know, RPM (Ranish Partition Manager) 2.40 can only define 4 partitions. It's not exactly a serious limitation but it is a limitation.
Happy days,
Phil.
"A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an intellectual -
find out how he feels about astrology."
http://www.philaypee.co.uk/index.html
Date: 12 May 2005 13:41:20 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: Self-contradictory?, Hebrew etc,
Answer to: Phil Aypee
Re.: Self-contradictory? - In the Jewish Law there is a concept of "lifneh mesurat hadin", freely translated into "before the letter of the Law". It means that while according to the Law something might be allowed, it is highly advised not to do it. Due to the religious origin of the Law morality and law can be mixed. Not so in the civil courts of the UK or other Western countries where something is either allowed or forbidden. To answer your question, if inside trading would be allowed by Law it would be acceptable behaviour.
Answer to: Axel Moberg
Re.: Hebrew etc - You don't write whether you mean the EPOC or Symbian one. The Symbian Hebrew version comes from www.psiloc.com. The EPOC one was written by Dr. Shane McKee and I tested it for him while he was writing it. The Symbian one is more developed and you can actually enter Hebrew in diary, SMS, word, etc. The EPOC one was only a reader for Hebrew texts prepared originally for the Palm platform (.pdb files). I know that Psiloc have Arabic as well, but I have no info on other languages.
Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK
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