Yes, you read it coming from me – the idiot who practically worshipped Java because of its easy structures and I used to be convinced that its almost up for every task… “ALMOST”….
I found a tool called PalmOrb which allows me to use my PDA – Palm Tungsten T3 – as a matrix display for my computer while its in the cradle. Useless but cool – non?
Anyway, the guy maintining this piece of brilliance is dropping the project because he has so many real lcd’s hooked up he no longer needs to (ab)use a pda for the task.
Ofcourse this code is written in C and I have more experience with Java at this point. So I decided to try to do this in Java.
1 hour later I got a working IDE for Java midlets set up, debugging and documentation in 4 browsers totalling over 60 tabs of information (yes – I manage to retreive stuff from all that).
Another hour later we’ve got a simple matrix renderer which uses a byte array to determine which character goes where and at 50+ fps for a quarter of the top of display it sounded promising – after optimising it could become even more so slower PDA’s can render it as well.
Now all I need is a link to the PC…. Lets use the USB cable… no good – JSR-80 has been written but appearantly thats all there is – paperworks.
Well, lets use bluetooth! My PC has a dongle and it runs the serial port service – instant serial communication!…..
Unfortunately it appears that once again JSR-82 (thats the secret CIA code name for Bluetooth) is a paper only implementation. After debugging it at my PC I uploaded to my phone to be greeted by a “ClassNotFound” exception.
6 hours later I’m giving in – there is one company claiming to have a working Java bluetooth stack driver for PalmOS but guess what – you have to buy it… along with 500 megs of SDK for lord-knows-what and actually.. I JUST NEED THE DRIVER.
So I’m giving in – Java on PalmOS 5 is worthless, besides the J9 IBM version you have the Sun version and both suck equally. Bluetooth on a T3 using Java ain’t gonna happen. Or rather Sun does as they appearantly don’t rush development (last correction was years ago which means they had even more time to build the stuff).
If you used Google to search for clues on Bluetooth on Java using PalmOS – go home and start crying. If 9 hours of my misery ain’t gonna deter you from trying – be my guest and if you succeed let me know, you’ll be my new best friend. 🙂