Updated Garnet VM for Nokia ITs Released

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by pathfinderca

But isn't n800 screen too small to do serious reading?

Not necessarily. We have a number of members who use a screen this size.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by pathfinderca

But isn't n800 screen too small to do serious reading?

I have a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm Os device with a 320x480 screen. I have about 3,500 ebooks on it. Most (about 3,200) are HTML format converted for use with the Plucker offline HTML reader, but I also have an assortment of titles in MobiPocket and eReader format, both of which have versions for Palm OS.

I have no problem reading on it.
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Dennis

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I have a Tapwave Zodiac 2, which is a Palm Os device with a 320x480 screen.

I also do most of my reading on a Zodiac, either with PalmFiction or PalmReader (old version of EReader). In landscape mode I find that the lines are long enough for a very comfortable reading experience. The n800 is even better than the Zodiac in terms of screen size and resolution, but in my opinion is less comfortable to hold and use.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

I also do most of my reading on a Zodiac, either with PalmFiction or PalmReader (old version of EReader). In landscape mode I find that the lines are long enough for a very comfortable reading experience. The n800 is even better than the Zodiac in terms of screen size and resolution, but in my opinion is less comfortable to hold and use.

There's no effective difference between the older PalmReader and the new eReader save a prettier interface and the ability to use custom fonts. I like the prettier interface enough to use eReader rather than PalmReader, but never bothered with the custom fonts. I use an OS5 port of Fonthack to modify the fonts used in any case.

PalmFiction is sweet for text files and things like RTF files and Word docs (which it displays as plain text).

I've also been accumulating a fair number of Mobipocket texts, courtesy of conversions by the fine folks at MR. Mobi 5.3 for PalmOS runs well on the Zodiac for the most part.

Oddly, I tend to use eReader, Mobi, and PalmFiction in landscape mode, but still prefer portrait mode for Plucker. It's a matter of font support. My preferred Plucker font (a 12 point Bitstream font with an embedded mono space font included) reads better in the shorter line lengths.
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Dennis

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

There's no effective difference between the older PalmReader and the new eReader save a prettier interface and the ability to use custom fonts.

There's one big difference on the Zodiac - my battery life drops by about 50% if I use hard buttons for paging in Ereader, as opposed to the Tapwave-tweaked Palmreader version. Screen taps and autoscroll work OK, but I've never liked using either.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

There's one big difference on the Zodiac - my battery life drops by about 50% if I use hard buttons for paging in Ereader, as opposed to the Tapwave-tweaked Palmreader version. Screen taps and autoscroll work OK, but I've never liked using either.

<blink>

Weird.

I use eReader seldom enough that I hadn't noticed. Sounds like eReader is polling the buttons. instead of waiting for an event. I use the Tapwave joystick for movement and navigation, not the shoulder buttons.

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Dennis

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Sounds like eReader is polling the buttons. instead of waiting for an event.

I dunno... if it were polling the buttons anyway, why would it make a difference whether I used them or not?

It definitely is bizarre. I'd certainly like to know exactly what modifications Tapwave put into the "1.2.8t" version that came with the Zodiac. It's the only version I've tried that does not have the button problem.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

I dunno... if it were polling the buttons anyway, why would it make a difference whether I used them or not?

<shrug>

Good question. I don't know.

It definitely is bizarre. I'd certainly like to know exactly what modifications Tapwave put into the "1.2.8t" version that came with the Zodiac. It's the only version I've tried that does not have the button problem.

As mentioned, I don't use the shoulder buttons for paging. I did make them active in Mobipocket using SharkBtn, and defining them as Previous and Next, but that was mostly to see if I could. I don't use them in practice.
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Dennis

[wayrad]

BTW, I see the same problem in Ereader when I use the joystick for paging. Bam, 50% drop in battery life compared to autoscroll...

PalmFiction is just fine no matter how I turn pages.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

BTW, I see the same problem in Ereader when I use the joystick for paging. Bam, 50% drop in battery life compared to autoscroll...

Blink indeed. As mentioned, I seldom use eReader, and never noticed battery level impact.

PalmFiction is just fine no matter how I turn pages.

It seems to be no longer in development, but what's there works fine. I was delighted when the developer fixed the problem that orevented it from seeing both Zodiac SD slots.

And PalmFiction is the only major app I'm aware of written in a Palm version of Pascal. (I grabbed the source to see if it was possible to merge a few features into tejpWriter, which is written in OnBoard C. Hmmm. No...)
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Dennis

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by pathfinderca

But isn't n800 screen too small to do serious reading?

For me, no, not really. I went from Palm Vx -> HTC Wizard (2.8") -> Nokia N800 (4.3") -> Bookeen Cybook Gen 3 (6" E-Ink) as my main ebook reader.

Not that I'd like to go back, but an N800 + FBReader works just fine as an ebook reader. Better than just about any non-dedicated device in my opinion.

YMMV, of course.

[wallcraft]

There is a new teleread post: Garnet 5 Virtual Machine (and eReader) for Nokia Tablets, by Chris Meadows. One of the advantages of eReader Readers seems to be that they work better under emulation than MobiPocket Readers (e.g. under Wine and now Garnet).

[BBRags]

Anyone try this on a 770 yet? How fast is it? Is this Garnet a virtual machine that sits on top of the Nokia's OS200x?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BBRags

Anyone try this on a 770 yet? How fast is it? Is this Garnet a virtual machine that sits on top of the Nokia's OS200x?

Yes, the Garnet VM is a virtual machine running on top of Linux. Access essentially broke it out of their ALP smartphone OS offering and ported it to Maemo. This lets them beta test the Garnet VM while they shop ALP to smartphone manufacturers, and demonstrate the modularity of their offering. while they develop ALP targeted at a Linux kernel they got when they acquired China Mobile, it's Linux version agnostic, and I saw a report that an Access engineer got it running on a different Linux kernel in a day.
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Dennis