Python for the Palm(tm) Computing Platform

[Ben Darnell]

In article <p5n1t3n0as.fsf at sstdw013.bbn.hp.com>, Markus Kohler wrote:
>bgdarnel at my-deja.com (Ben Darnell) writes:
>> Unfortunately, Palm devices have an unfairly small amount of memory.  On
>> a Palm III, a running application gets 4k of stack space, and 36k of
>> dynamic heap (i.e. what malloc and free operate on).  The rest of the
>> device's memory is protected, and can only be accessed by calling the
>> Data Manager functions.  I'm not familiar with CPython's internals, but
>> it seems that it would be very difficult to fit within those
>> constraints.  On top of that, you've got a 16 mHz m68k processor, so
>> performance is not going to be very good.
>> 
>
>As far as I know there is a trick to get around this limitation. 
>Look at PocketSmalltalk an implementation of Smalltalk for the
>Pilot :
>http://www.tiac.net/users/ajb/pocketst/index.html. 

Yes, PocketSmalltalk uses the Data Manager functions I referred to
above.  I don't think it is possible (it's definitely not easy) to
graft this functionality onto the existing CPython.  You'd have to
basically start from scratch.  As cool as it would be to have Python
available on my Palm, I don't think it's a worthwhile effort
considering the current processor and memory available, but it could be
useful as the Palm platform expands.

-Ben
-- 
Ben Darnell              bgdarnel at unity.nc su.edu
http://www4.nc su.edu/~bgdarnel/thoughtstream/