My intention, from the P900 Zx Spectrum emulator up to date, is to
convince all that the P900/P910 platform can be used as a classic
computer.
First, it has a true 32-bit processor running at 156MHz. You have 32-
bit operations (arithmetics and pointers) at native speed (it's not
emulating 32-bit operations on an 8- or 16-bit machine: the ARM9 is a
true 32-bit machine).
Second, it has a good resolution display with fast access: write two
bytes to lit up a pixel, like in the old-style VESA modes, without
page-flipping (no 16-bit limitations). You can use it as 208x320 or
320x208, as if you had two real screen resolutions (I won't discuss
using the 208x208 mode in "flip-closed (and no touchscreen function)"
mode).
Third, it has a true filesystem, where you can open/read/write/close
and copy/remove/rename files. Yes, your program resides its own
directory, and can write there or access some other directory.
Fourth, it has some sort of keyboard and mouse: the jog-dial (cursor
keys), the flip (common keys), the camera/internet keys (function
keys); and also the touchscreen (mouse, except for "mouse move"
functions).
Fifth, an application can have decent memory usage (it's not
impossible to have an executable of up to 1Mb code which uses up to
1Mb data; may be even more on the P900; surely more on the P910;
there are some extra limits on the available stack for common
functions, but you can allocate on the heap instead of the stack, as
I did in the P900 Zx Spectrum emulator).
Finally, it has an operating system (that will close your files at
exit, free memory, etc) with memory protection (that is: your program
will be stopped if tries to access other tasks memory). While you can
use all of the remaining available CPU, the Symbian operating system
will continue to run (your program will be interrupted every 1/64sec,
the system will check for incoming calls, SMS messages, calendar,
alarm, etc).
-- alf
