Palm Treo 650 boots into Android, lives a fulfilling life (video)
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 13th 2009 9:44AM
posted Nov 13th 2009 9:44AM
[Thanks, Andrew]
posted Nov 13th 2009 9:44AM
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I traded my 650 in to Palm for a discount on a 700p. Can we get this on a 700p perhaps too?
The Treo lives a fufilling life, until being cut down by . . . .
JASON! JASON! JASON! JASON!
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!
I miss the old 700p and Palm. Sure it was ugly and kind of clunky - but damn was it efficient.
The form factor and build quality of the 700p was amazing...
I meant 755p!
The 700p was crap!
i don't see jason... ball dropped or am i missing something?
I agree with the 755p comments; nice keyboard, built like a tank but the software..so out of date. I've got a pre and there are a couple of things that I wish it had in common with the 755p: keyboard, calendar, memos, and tasks. I've found the pre's PIM functionality to be pretty lacking, all things considered.
@ Jeff
That's because he's RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
Awesome. Is it usable?
At that pace? Probably not.
That's the question.
Speed is one thing, but I wonder how many of the features actually work on the phone. Booting is major impressive though.
This is why Android will rule all one day...
Google is slowly taking over the world, yet I don't seem to mind.
You seem to be the only one that doesn't. A Google ruled world means everything you do is reported back to the homestead...sounds a bit too much like the U.S.S.R. if you ask me.
Seems Googlism is slowly killing off Christianity. A Sad Day Indeed.
i wonder is avail for the 755p...
eih cool! IT BOOTS!
I wonder if Palm would embrace this as a way to sell more hardware seeing as they have so much invested in WebOS? Nah...They're probably cranking out the cease and desist documents as we speak.
C&D over the old Treo? I doubt it, b/c Treos and Tungstens were loading Linux for quite some time now. If they suddenly found a way to load Web OS on the older devices, then it will be a different story.
@F. C.
"If they suddenly found a way to load Web OS on the older devices"
You mean like this?
http://www.tealpoint.com/softos.htm
Not really. I actually had Teal OS running on a Tungsten. It really wasnt bad - even though I had to oc the device a bit.
I meant the Linux core and its UI. Then again, that would spell disaster for Palm.
Very interesting, are there any old overpowered palms out there that this would be useful on? Obviously speed is an issue.
It loaded from the Launcher so Palm OS is likely still running in the bkgnd. That would tie things up a bit. There are a few options to overclock the PXA chips; maybe that would help, along w/ some optimizations.
Linux on ARM Palm OS devices typically works like this:
The Linux bootloader launches within Palm OS. This bootloader consists of a 68k stub (all Palm OS programs must have at least this) that launches an ARMlet.
ARMlets have complete and total control of the system, as they actually run "outside" of Palm OS. (Most of Palm OS is 68k code. The ARMlet has to thunk back into the 68k code to actually interact with the OS.)
Anyway, this ARMlet has drivers to load the Linux kernel from an SD card. It relocates itself in memory where appropriate, and then begins loading the Linux kernel from the SD card. When doing this, it overwrites the Palm OS kernel in memory - Palm OS is now no longer able to run until the device is rebooted, and is not stealing any memory or clock cycles.
Once the Linux kernel is loaded, the ARMlet jumps to the Linux kernel to start it.
Convoluted, yes, but it's a proven approach - it's been done on everything from PDAs (for that matter, Android on WinMo devices does the same thing, except it's all native ARM code involved) to desktops (remember UMSDOS format and loadlin.exe?)
PalmOS can run Native ARM apps without ARMlets. You let them pull the wool over your eyes!
How about the Treo Pro, MSM7501A - 528Mhz
you know the funniest thing? it still boots faster than my storm 1...
And my hero :/
This is cool, I hope they make it work on all platforms.
There's Android ROMs for a number of 'unofficial' devices.
Damn, I just gave my old 650 away too... I would have tried this for sure!
I haven't found a "To Do" replacement that's as simple, as fast and as usable as Palm's.
Hmm, the fastest palms, if you go by clockspeeds, were the Tungsten T5, the LifeDrve and the Tungsten T3 (probably in that order), with 416MHz Intel XScale PXA272 CPUs in the T5 and Lifedrive, and a 400 MHz Intel XScale PXA261 cpu in the T3. Though I don't know about the others, the CPU in my T3 can be overclocked to 600 MHz.
Now the newer PXA272 cpus probably have architectural benifits compared to old PXA25x and PXA26x CPUs, meaning they're faster on a clock to clock basis. But seeing as palmos never really took advantage of that, a 400 MHz PXA261 was faster than a 312 MHz PXA272. This is probably not the case in Android
Of course, older palms stored apps in the Ram (like pre-WinMo 5 PPCs), so anything older than a T5 is probably out anyways. Hmm, that leaves a bunch of 312 MHz treos, the Lifedrive, the T5 and (if you push it) a 200 mhz Tungsten E2, though I highly doubt that would be fast enough.
Yes, I knew most of this by heart, and Yes, I am a Palm geek.
Oh yes, I forgot about the centro. That should work as well.
Yes... and due to the lack of NVFS and the PIA Db cache, the T3 ruled them all where speed was concerned. Android on a T3 though... W/o a mobile radio, it amounts to little more than an experiment.
wonder if I can use this for a TX.
I've booted a version of linux off it before using a 2GB sd card and cocoboot, but it's been a while.
Probably, as they've got close to the same innards. Might be a cool weekend project for me to mess with...
Everything on the 650 and Centro on the Google Android forums seems to have died out at the end of December 2008. Did they all get hit by an asteroid or something?
Thats around the time a Linux-based 'newness' was announced. Nothing else mattered since.
slooooooow diiiiiial uuuuuup....
Palm needs to hire anyone and everyone who can help them convert to Android, and then do it.
They can keep the best parts of Palm OS and implement them on top of Android.
Although, if Palm does just completely go under then it can just happen then, whoever ends up owning the rights and brands associated with Palm will inevitably want to re deploy them again in some way, and there will only be more Android models on the market as the time goes by.
Android is just such an incredible cost saver for any OEM. It frees them from having to re invent the wheel with each new handset.
Try handspring's. i never understood why palm never folded Handsprings improvements back in to the platform once they reacquired them.
But will it play DOOM?
Have they ported DOOM to Linux yet.....
@Brad Green I was running DOOM on Linux in 1996.
HELLO
I AM NOT TECHNICAL SAVEY.
I HAVE THE FOLLOWING::
1- TREO 680.
2- GOOGLE G MAIL
WILL THAT PROGRAM WORK ON MY 680?
IF YES WILL SOME ONE EXPLAIN HOW?
THANK YOU.
AMIN
lol u
I wonder what the performance on Treo 650 would be. It would be sad it it runs smoother than the current hardware.
Anyone able to dig up anything else on this yet? My 700p is burning to be revived, and my HTC Hero is begging to be returned! (Until something significantly more powerful is available on sprint, ala the DROID w/ its ARM CORTEXA8 series Processor)
Geez, that thing boots ALMOST as fast as my Palm Pre!
LOL That's my Google Groups post. We were working on it a long time ago and I gave up when I got my Palm Pre.
Going to try and get this going on my old Centro now. :)