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An Overview of Palm OS: Designed For Special Hardware

The document provides an overview of the Palm OS, which was designed for hardware with limited resources like small screens and memory. It describes the system architecture, including the memory organization with dynamic RAM for temporary data and storage RAM for persistent user data. The memory manager and data manager are responsible for allocating and managing memory chunks within different heaps. It also discusses how applications are structured in the Palm OS as single-threaded and event-driven.

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37 views20 pages

An Overview of Palm OS: Designed For Special Hardware

The document provides an overview of the Palm OS, which was designed for hardware with limited resources like small screens and memory. It describes the system architecture, including the memory organization with dynamic RAM for temporary data and storage RAM for persistent user data. The memory manager and data manager are responsible for allocating and managing memory chunks within different heaps. It also discusses how applications are structured in the Palm OS as single-threaded and event-driven.

Uploaded by

Vidushi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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An Overview of Palm OS

 Designed for special hardware


– small screen ( 160 x 160 )
– less processing power than desktop PCs
– quick turnaround expected
– limited memory ( 512k ~ 8MB )
– no disk drive or PCMCIA disk
The Appearance of a PalmPilot
System Architecture
Memory Orgnization

 Motorola 68328 uses 32-bit addresses


 External data bus is only 16 bits wide
 ROM - stores the main suite of applications
( the OS itself)
 RAM - stores additional and replacement
applications & system extensions
 RAM - dynamic RAM & storage RAM
Dynamic RAM

 Served as temporary space for allocation


 Analogous to the RAM installed in a typical
desktop system
 Is cleaned after reboot
 Implement a single heap that provides
memory for dynamic allocations( TCP/IP,
IrDA, …)
Storage RAM

 Holds nonvolatile user data ( appointments,


to do lists, memos, address lists, … )
 Is accessed via calling the database manager
or the resource manager
 Analogous to the disk drive of a typical
desktop system
Memory Chunks and Heaps

 A chunk - contiguous memory between


1byte ~ 64 KB that has been allocated by
the Palm OS memory manager
 Each chunk resides in a heap
 Memory manager allocates memory in the
dynamic heap
 Data manager allocates memory in the
storage heap
Memory Heaps

 Each heap has a unique heap ID


 The heap with heap ID 0 is the dynamic
heap
 Only the dynamic heap is reinitialized
through soft reset cycles
Movable / Nonmovable Chunks

 Each chunk is referenced by a local ID


 The local ID of a nonmovable chunk : the
offset of the chunk from the base address of
the card
 The local ID of a movable chunk : the
offset of the master pointer to the chunk
from the base address of the card
The Memory Manager

 The functions of the memory manager:


– allocating new chunks
– disposing of chunks
– resizing of chunks
– locking and unlocking chunks
– compacting heaps when they become
fragmented
Heap Structure
Heap
 Master pointer table Heap Header
stores 32-bit pointer Master pointer table
to movable chunks
Movable chunks
 Movable chunks are
allocated at the
beginning
Non-movable chunks
Chunk Structure

 Each chunk begins with an 8-byte header


followed by that chunk’s data
 Flags:sizeAdj flag:
– high nibble : set for free chunk
– low nibble : reqSize = size - 8 - [this value]
 size field( 3 bytes)
– the size of the chunk, which is larger than the
size requested by the application , including the
chunk header itself
Chunk Structure(cont.)

 Lock:owner byte
– high nibble : the lock count, which is
incremented when being locked
– low nibble : the owner ID of the memory chunk
 hOffset field( 3 bytes)
– the distance from the master pointer to the
chunk header, divided by two
The Data Manager

 The database is analogous to disk


 A database is a collection of records
 A record is mapped to a memory chunk
 A database accesses its records by storing
their local ID’s
 An application requests a particular record
in a database by index
The Resource Manager

 Resources : store the UI elements of an


application, such as images, fonts, dialog
layouts, …
 Resource manager : Data manager with the
additional ability of tagging each chunk of
data with a unique resource type and
resource ID
Application Structure

 Single threaded
 Event-driven
 PilotMain() corresponds to main() in C
 PilotMain -- Response to launch codes
 An event loop in response of a normal
launch
Flowchart of event handling
Developing Apps on Palm

 Various development tools:


– Code Warrior for Palm OS
– Palm SDK (header files, documents, examples)
– GCC
– POSE - An open source Palm emulator runs on
Windows, Mac and UNIX
Conclusion

 The Palm OS provides a good platform for


developing Palm apps
 The Palm OS provides various libraries for
communicating with PC’s
 A good OS design is not necessarily having
the most advanced feature, but having the
best integration of the hardware
The End

B86506053 龔律全
B86506025 卓聖堯

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