The issues you talk about battery, delay, ... are optimization issues. What I
have is code that will run on any box with an internet connection (PalmIII, PalmV,
Windows, UNIX, VMC, Mac, Windows CE, Tandy 1000SX, ....), but will not run on a
PalmVII. Why don't I get an error when loading in the NetLibrary if it is not
supported? If the web clipping architecure is using UDP could I use UDP?
Earl Johnson
David Fedor wrote:
> >I have a TCP/IP program that works on PalmIII and PalmV via their modems, but
> >when I try it on the PalmVII wireless modem the socket will not connect.
>
> The wireless radio in a Palm VII can't be used as a generic tcp/ip
> connection - there are severe battery life and latency concerns that make
> it unreasonable to do so. And even if you had money and time to burn, the
> infrastructure isn't set up that way.
>
> As an example: I believe I remember that making a socket connection over
> tcp/ip requires 5 or 6 back-and-forth packets between the client and
> server. Latency is high in wireless nets like the one that the Palm VII
> device uses right now, and so just making a connection would take, oh, 30
> or 45 seconds? Bad user experience. And with that chatty protocol, the
> users bill will be much higher too. The web clipping architecture does
> lots of tricks (including using UDP instead of TCP/IP) to make it fast,
> cheap, and power-conserving.
>
> You might want to do a bit more research into the tradeoffs and options
> before just writing the code :-)
>
> FWIW, there are other radios which do function as more of a conventional
> tcp/ip stack and connection. This just isn't the right tool for that job;
> it is designed for something different.
>
> -David Fedor
> Palm Developer Support
