Development Systems:

Apple Newton:

NS BASIC -- Newton Script BASIC

A couple of years ago I review an early version of NS BASIC for "Mobile Office". BASIC is well known and the easiest language for casual programmers. Many pen type computers are used for data gathering. You've probably seen them used for surveys, or for other "form" based functions such as inventories. NS BASIC works quite well for this sort of application.

NS BASIC: BASIC for the Newton!
[1997/01/17]

Synopsis and Motorola Introduce Wireless Solutions

Mar. 24, 1997, Business Wire reports that Synopsis Inc. and Motorola Inc. announced system-level design kits for wireless devices based on Motorola DSP56300, DSP56600 and DSP56800 processors.

http://www.synopsys.com/
[1997/03/30]

Metrowerks Release Plans for 1997

Mar. 6, 1997, Canadian Corporate News reported Metrowerks Inc., second quarter financial report, but what I found more interesting was the list of release dates for new products:

CodeWarrior(R) for OS-9(R) 3rd Quarter, Fiscal Year July 97
CodeWarrior(R) for PalmPilot(TM) 3rd Quarter, Fiscal Year July 97
CodeWarrior(R) for PowerPC(TM) Embedded, 3rd Quarter, Fiscal Year July 97
CodeWarrior(R) for MIPS(R) Embedded 4th Quarter, Fiscal Year July 97
CodeWarrior(R) Latitude, 4th Quarter, Fiscal Year, July 97
[1997/03/11]

Geoworks, Geos:

Having recently mentioned Geos as the OS in both the HP-OmniGo 100/120 products and the Casio Z-7000, this is a good time to look at the Geoworks Website. Apparently Geos is being used in some telephones now. Also they show a Brother wordprocessor/typewriter.

Geoworks Home Page
[1997/01/24]

Development Systems for MagicCap:

Metrowerks Codewarrior for MagicCap

Metrowerks development systems are best known for their MacOS target compilers, but other targets are MagicCap and the Palm Pilot as well as MS-DOS/Windows, making them the development environment with the greatest coverage in the mobile world.

Metrowerks WorldWide
[1997/01/21]

Development Systems for Palm Pilot:

Metrowerks Ships CodeWarrior for PowerPC Embedded Systems and New Version for PalmPilot, and Announces Future Support for MacOS 8

Aug. 4, 1997, Canadian Corporate News reports that Metrowerks has is shipping Windows 95 and NT based CodeWarrior for PowerPC Embedded Systems including the MPC821 and MPC860 target processors. Also reported is Release 3 for the Palmpilot target based on MacOS, Windows 95 and NT based systems.

Metrowerk also announced future support for features in MacOS 8 including Java 1.1.3.
[1997/08/06]

Metrowerks Codewarrior for PalmPilot

Metrowerks development systems are best known for their MacOS target compilers, but other targets are MagicCap and the Palm Pilot as well as MS-DOS/Windows, making them the development environment with the greatest coverage in the mobile world.

Metrowerks WorldWide
[1997/01/21]

Microsoft Windows CE:

Metrowerks CodeWarrior for PowerPC Supports WindowsCE

May 12, 1997, Canadian Corporate News reports that Metrowerks has agreed with Motorola to support WindowsCE with a version of the CodeWarrior development system for the PowerPC(TM) 821 Embedded Microprocessor. Versions costing $699 (US) will be available on Windows 95, NT and MacOS host platforms.
[1997/05/19]

Microsoft Announces Visual C++ for Windows CE

Apr. 1, 1997, PR Newswire reports that Microsoft announced Visual C++ for Windows CE. This is an add-on to Visual C++ 5.0. It includes the "software development kit" (SDK), "device driver kit" (DDK) and an emulator of a Windows CE target platiform.
[1997/04/04]

Microware Systems:

Microware's OS-9 operating system was one of the first multitasking operating systems designed specifically to deliver fully ROMable applications in a pre-emptive multitasking environment. The earliest versions of the OS go back to the early 1980's. As a platform to develop embedded applications it's well suited for use in mobile information technology devices.
Microware Systems Corporation
[1996/12/21]

General Hardware Development:

Motorola and Ampro Support EBX Development System Standard

Mar. 10, 1997, BusinessWire reports that Motorola and Ampro support of the EBX standardized form factor for single board computers (SBC) commonly used in embedded applications. This 5/75" * 8" standard size and packaging includes recommended placement for PCMCIA , PC/104-Plus and IO.
[1997/03/15]

Miscellaneous Software Development

Motorola Announces Flex Suite of Application Protocols

Aug. 27, 1997, Canada News Wire reports that Motorola has announced the initial release of the FLEX(TM) Suite of Application Protocols for creation of applications for sending and receiving messages through FLEX based paging networks.
[1997/09/02]

Sun's EmbeddedJava Has Flaws

Aug. 11, 1997, Alexander Wolfe writes in Electronic Engineering Times that Sun's EmbeddedJava is not being well received in its target embedded application field. It is being criticized for deficiences in garbage collection and guaranteed context switching, as well as speed. Sun officials respond that they are aware of the problems but are focussing on getting the size down first.
[1997/08/15]

Nortel Announces Companion Applications Toolkit

June 23, 1997, Canada News Wire reports that Nortel has announced their Companion Applications Toolkit open interface for wireless communications and computer-telephony integration (CTI). The toolkit software includes libraries, DLL's and associated files for Microsoft Windows targets, from Visual Basic, Visual C or C++ environments.
[1997/06/28]

Book Index

Send messages to jimomura@pathcom.com or call (416) 652-3880.

Last update 1999/03/15.