From: Joshua Penix <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Using a Palm last night it occurred to me that it's a pretty good example of a widely used computer with a "persistent" OS. You boot a Palm device once, and from then on the OS stays running. You turn it on and off, but when it comes back on it's always where you left it. There's no concept of loading programs - everything is available all the time. You can switch between apps all you want without worrying about overloading memory or having to save and close when you're done. You can switch back to any app you left and find it right where you left it.
But, as Stewart said, no one can ever say "we'll just make it so reliable it won't need to be reset." And Palms can surely be crashed or locked up by software bugs. That's why there's a little hole in the back that you poke with a paperclip to cause an actual OS (and hardware) reboot. Your data is still there, but the state of the OS gets reset and you're off and running again.
I don't own a Palm, but I techs upport my mom's. Its OS is absolutely shitty, I have yet to see it go a software update without a complete recrash. I've had to reset it multiple times, and send it back to the factory a few when reset didn't work to completely restore things. To me Palm is a good example of why persistant OSes are BAD.
Gabe
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