Paco's Blog

Mono and the Nokia 770

My house has over 8 hand held devices that have accumulated over the past 9 years and range from casio units that run the earliest versions of Windows CE to Kyocera SmartPhones that run Palm OS. These mobile units were acquired most often as part of some software development project that required it.

I will admit that my last three phones have always been a smart phone type capable of some mobile computing for pim and even web browsing. I can program on Palm OS, Windows CE C/C++ and even did some development using MS Compact Framework on Pocket PC 2002.

Here is my revelation to you. I had given up on carry a separate personal digital assistant (PDA) and a phone. It just did not make sense to have your agenda, contacts and todo list on a device but still have to carry another piece of equipment to make phone calls.

One day I got a hold of the Kyocera 6035, a palm powered CDMA cell phone that to this date has come closest to the ideal device. In fact, my wife and I got matching his and hers units – she still uses hers. However, I am nothing short of clumsy and abusive with my cell phone equipment and eventually broke it (only after having it for 2 years!). Have any of you ever programed a Palm OS application? How about a Windows 16 bit application with a nice segmented memory model? Well, suffice it to say that I am not into self flagellation.

Then came a couple of Pocket PC devices. I am an old MFC programmer so programming for it was both easy, fun and very well documented. There were two reasons why I never really felt I had reached Nirvana. First you still needed to have a separate set of development tools to write these applications and the second problem was that I could never find or at least afford decent hardware.

So, for the last year and some change I have settle for a Treo 600 to get a good phone and PDA features (although some clown decided not to include a digitizer for hand writing grafiti). This also meant that I gave up on programming for my mobile unit.

A NEW ERA

I had read Paolo Molaro's September 2005 blog entry when he heralded mono running on the Nokia 770. I did very little homework then and only knew that it was a PDA (or something like it) that use Linux. Hey, for all I knew, it was just a Nokia made Zaurus. More than once I picked up Sharp Zaurus units and took them as far as the cash register over at Fry's Electronics, but would always chicken out when I had to shell out the $500. My Zaurus stalking period was at a time when I was impressed with Qt and had not yet fallen in love with the back then “new born” mono project.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I asked lupus while conversing on the #mono channel, if he found himself using the 770 beyond just programming. He told me that he really liked it. Well, I bought one and finally had some time in my hands to install mono and a few other niceties like a Bluetooth keyboard and some additional apps.

As you can see on the picture below, you can run Gtk# 2.0 applications. The picture shows the same PeditGtk application I have been bundling with the Mono Combined Installer for Windows (samples directory).

If you don't have a Nokia 770, buy one or two. I have a feeling that I will be making a few more blog entries in relation to this awesome device.

Posted by martinf at January 26, 2006 07:50 PM