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IMAX emulates PalmPilot software to power Oppenheimer’s 70 mm release
- Nellyz 3y ago[dead]
- waihtis 3y agoYou can find all kinds of interesting emulator implementations out there. I’ve personally seen a large manufacturing shop run some of their core business processes inside DOSBox.
- PaulWaldman 3y agoIndeed. I worked with a large factory running all their lines and processes off an emulated, embedded controller. It was running on a desktop PC using NT 3.51 interfacing directly with real-world I/O.
- jhallenworld 3y agoCheck out the "automatic fabric punching system" running on cassette tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJZFQHklBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWJZFQHklBg No need for emulation when the original equipment is still working.
- nuclearazure 3y agoSo cool. Imagine having a portable computer you could program and take with you in your pocket. The iPhone future we have is disappointing compared to how I thought things would turn out.
- WhyNotHugo 3y agoLinux on Mobile was pretty much that. The movement kinda died when Nokia died, but has been seeing a lot of activity again the last couple of years. It's mostly community-maintained projects like postmarketOS. I find a few things are missing for such an OS to be a daily driver, but there's definitely hope, and there's definitely a place where anyone interested can contribute.
- inconceivable 3y agoyou can do this already. look up rpi based cyberdecks.
- eddieroger 3y agoI don't follow - there are apps on my iPhone right now that I wrote and put there. What am I missing? This functionality could probably be done with an iPhone or iPad and MFi today, if not a small form factor computer of some sort, or a Pi or Arduino.
- codetrotter 3y agoThe disappointing thing about my iPhone is that I cannot locally author and compile apps for iOS on iOS itself.
- dbcurtis 3y agoTrue enough. I have Pythonista installed on my iPhone, but to be honest I don’t play with it a lot.
- admax88qqq 3y agoI don't think you could do that on PalmPilots either. You're taking a cool story about use and history of the PalmPilot and turning it into Yet Another iPhone Complaint Thread.
- codetrotter 3y agoNot trying to start an iPhone complaint thread. iPhone has been my preferred phone for many years, and continues to be so. I am still disappointed at having such a powerful piece of hardware in my pocket and not being able to write and run a native application for the device, on the device. Many years ago, when smartphones first became a thing, I had certain expectations about what would be possible and yet here we are over a decade later and it’s still not possible to do that thing, simply because Apple doesn’t want us to be able to do it. I think we should continue to talk about this until the day comes where it becomes possible.
- admax88qqq 3y agoI too am disappointed at having a computer in my pocket I don't truly own. But I'm also disappointed at how HN seems to only have like 5 topics people want to discuss and the comments on every submission find their way back to those topics no matter how tenuous.
- zymhan 3y agoJust jailbreak it any be done. Yes, it's potentially less secure. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
- layer8 3y agoBanking apps will refuse to work on a jailbroken device.
- ultrarunner 3y agoYou can often tweak those apps to stub the jailbreak detection (if you're jailbroken)
- layer8 3y agoThe workarounds often lag months if not years behind new versions, and sometimes no workaround is available. It’s just not practical.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y agoI'm enjoying eating my own cake on my non-rooted GrapheneOS mobile.
- Saris 3y agoYou pretty much can with android devices since you can pull up a shell and install packages, and you have access to a filesystem.
- necubi 3y agoBack in the day if you wanted to develop for PalmOS you had to pay Metroworks (IIRC) $~300 for their CodeWarrior C++ compiler, so the fact that XCode is free is a pretty big improvement.
- gigel82 3y agoXCode is free? Where can I download it for my Linux PC? XCode is not free, just like macOS is not free; you just pay for them when you (over)pay for your mac hardware.
- donio 3y agoWe also had prc-tools, a free GCC based toolchain. I used it to build a tweaked version of pssh and some other stuff. It was a lot more straightforward than modern Android or iOS development. https://prc-tools.sourceforge.net/ https://prc-tools.sourceforge.net/
- ornornor 3y agoDoesn’t it cost 99/year to have a special apple account that lets you develop for iOS?
- reverius42 3y agoOnly to put things on the App Store.
- fsflover 3y ago> portable computer you could program and take with you in your pocket This is exactly what Librem 5 is. It runs desktop an FSF-endorsed OS (Debian-based). My daily driver btw.
- dale_glass 3y agoNice. Digital IMAX is disappointing. Hardly "MAX" anything. It's just 2.9K, which doesn't even measure up to my at this point mundane 4K monitors. I hope they come up with a better digital one. 4K is great for home use but in a cinema it's not quite there.
- failTide 3y agoThat 16K Sphere in vegas could be worth checking out
- xdennis 3y agoBut this is about the film version, though. Digital IMAX is pointless, but it is still technically "MAX" as the max is for physical size, not resolution. The original reason IMAX uses 70mm film (8.3x the area of 35mm) is because projecting onto a larger screen required a more powerful lamp, which would produce more heat and burn 35mm film, so they had to place it farther away from the lamp, meaning the film had to be larger.
- dale_glass 3y ago> But this is about the film version, though. Yes, I meant "Nice" as in "it's nice that they went through the extra effort to release it in the rare, high quality medium available, and not a format that's worse than what I can watch at home". > The original reason IMAX uses 70mm film (8.3x the area of 35mm) is because projecting onto a larger screen required a more powerful lamp 70mm is also much higher resolution. Modern digital can compete with 35mm, but to my knowledge there's nothing out there that competes with 70mm yet.
- Yhippa 3y agoYou sent me down the rabbit hole. It turns out there are only 19 theatres that are serving up the film version: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/07/20/oppenheimer-70mm-imax-theaters-locations/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/07/.... This image near the bottom of the article shows the comparisons of the formats: https://gfx-data.news-engineering.aws.wapo.pub/ai2html/Croppen-resolutions/KAZEQ5HDIFCDNB6M2DZHTMUOEE/Croppen-resolutions-medium.jpg?v=6 https://gfx-data.news-engineering.aws.wapo.pub/ai2html/Cropp.... Now I have huge FOMO and don't have a city close to me to see it. I haven't seen a movie in theatres in years and it would have been nice to treat myself to this one.
- KMnO4 3y agoThe word used should be “simulates”, not “emulates”. The software is designed to mimic the look and feel of the old projectionist software (which ran on PP). It does not in any way emulate PalmOS or the PP hardware.
- xeromal 3y agoYeah, when a child emulates their parents, they are running their brain.
- gzalo 3y agoAre you sure? If they took all the trouble to write software to simulate how palm form inputs are rendered, why wouldn't they just create a new UI?
- KMnO4 3y agoFrom the article, the design “mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film projectionists”
- iwanttocomment 3y agoYeah, and the article also quotes IMAX as stating "IMAX Engineering designed and manufactured an emulator". You can certainly have a true emulator that also "mimics the look and feel" of the thing it's emulating. If you have any actual evidence that the IMAX tool is not truly an emulator other than conjecture, we'd all be very interested.
- rkagerer 3y agoThere are PalmOS emulators out there, wouldn't make sense for them to roll their own instead of licensing one of those. I had one on my last Android phone that was a treat for using my beloved old Palm apps. I suspect the HN crowd's interpretation is correct that they merely replicated the look and feel. Which makes sense - Palm is still the best GUI I've ever been fortunate enough to use.
- sillywalk 3y agoI wonder why they chose Palm, but then why not, and what else would they use? Ipaq? It's not clear, but I assume it sends commands to the actual film hardware, and its not doing some real-time control. "The software shows a handful of controls for the projectionist to queue up the film and control the platters that feed film at six feet per second. " [0] [0] https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/imax-using-20-year-old-palm-software-to-project-oppenheimer https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/imax-using-20-year-old-pa...
- photoGrant 3y agoI'm making it up, but want to say it had a serial port. Also, fun fact - they emulated instead of redesigned literally for aesthetic reasons.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- snotrockets 3y agoPalmPilots used a serial port to connect to a computer, modem, or the infra-red module.
- formerly_proven 3y agoThere was also a folding keyboard that used the serial port in the dock connector.
- sbarre 3y agoI think it's a bit unfair to say "for aesthetic reasons". The article says it's because projectionists are familiar with the Palm Pilot UI (because to them it's just another tool), and rather than get them to re-learn a different UI, they used emulation to provide the same familiar UI on newer hardware. We (technology/digital experts) take for granted our level of comfort in sussing out how a new UI works.
- 3y ago
- veave 3y agoWhy haven't they gone digital?
- wiseowise 3y agoUgly.
- wmf 3y agoIMAX has been digital for years but digital projectors haven't caught up to IMAX film resolution so they are keeping the film projectors around.
- mips_r4300i 3y agoIMAX 70mm is still the absolute benchmark for film quality, and has been so for decades. A really rough estimate is you'd need a 15-20k digital projector to approach the resolution of the film. However, IMAX tried to go mass-market around 2008 and that's why you see so many supposedly-IMAX theaters now. They typically use 2K DLP projectors. Yeah, basically the same res as a gaming PC from 2011. My theater has the crummy 2k digital, and let em tell you, you can DEFINITELY see the pixels. I would call it passable but it's not really great at all. The only benefit of these IMAX locations is that normal digital cinema can be even worse! There are newer 4k laser projectors that some theaters are retrofitting into their old huge IMAX locations, but these still aren't going to hold a candle. 4k still isn't even enough to really come close to 35mm. The digital tech just isn't there yet.
- grumpyprole 3y agoConsider also that resolution is only one factor. Bandwidth is another. Digital movies are often full of compression artefacts, especially when there's a lot going on in the scene.
- CobsterLock 3y agoAs far as I know, movie theaters do not compress video. Its seems like they have a digital surrogate for movie reals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Package
- bredren 3y ago> Motherboard contacted IMAX about the antiquity Is “anachronism” a better fit here?
- tiffanyh 3y agoSeeing that PalmPilot emulator is how I feel using Instagram on an iPad.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[Dupe]
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoBunch of posts and discussion last few days: 1 day ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643 3 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724
- archo 3y ago-- Related -- IMAX movies still need a Palm Pilot to work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800223 - 2023-07-20 (9-comments) Original Article : https://www.theverge.com/23801118/imax-movie-palm-pilot-oppenheimer https://www.theverge.com/23801118/imax-movie-palm-pilot-oppe... IMAX Still Runs on PalmPilot Operating System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789643 - 2023-07-19 (6-comments) Original Article : https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x5gb/imax-still-runs-on-palmpilot-operating-system https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x5gb/imax-still-runs-on-pa... IMAX projector motors are controlled using an emulated PalmOS app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36781724 - 2023-07-19 (3-comments) Original Article : https://twitter.com/LudyLotad/status/1681341878476718097 https://twitter.com/LudyLotad/status/1681341878476718097
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mkl 3y agoWhy does a biopic need "the highest quality imaging format ever devised"?
- riffraff 3y agoChristopher Nolan likes it.
- gambiting 3y agoWhy does anything need anything. It's a film, a piece of art - if they want to record it in 80K resolution for the fun of it, the question should be - why not?
- failuser 3y agoTo feel like you are actually witnessing the first nuke test.
- mkl 3y agoThat may be the best answer (it was a serious question). The explosion in the film is layered small-scale petrol explosions [1], but more visible detail may help sell it as bigger. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-christopher-nolan-oppenheimer-atomic-bomb-trinity-test-no-cgi-2023-7?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-christopher-nolan-oppenh...
- atoav 3y agoIt doesn't. And humanity doesn't need a biopic. There is a saying by German film maker Alexander Kluge: He who wants to express something has to in turn impress something. And having the resolution of 70mm film certainly helps with the impeession part. Whether artistic expression is actually needed is a different more philosophic question. I'd say yes, but I studied art, so I am biased.
- tehnub 3y agoImmersiveness. Maybe it's intriguing to look at the human face in extreme detail?
- 3y ago
- meghan_rain 3y agosubmarine article
- toast0 3y agoYep, Palm PR is almost certainly still out there pushing good vibes.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoIf only the inventor of the PalmPilot could reckon with the destructive force he brought upon the world.
- Reason077 3y agoBFI IMAX in London still has a real, physical Palm Pilot running their reel unit as of 2023. You can see it clearly in this video, around 1:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apkOZrgueLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apkOZrgueLQ "PALM PILOT MUST BE ON ALL THE TIME"
- dctoedt 3y agoBreaking orbit and sailing off on a tangent: I miss the Palm Pilot's Graffiti text-input system — I'd much rather have that than any of the various keyboards and swiping systems on the iPhone / iPad.
- Reason077 3y agoGraffiti was neat for it's time, but quite slow compared to text entry on modern predictive, autocorrecting touch-screen keyboards.
- spiffytech 3y agoBased on my memory of Graffiti input speed, it was faster than modern smartphones once I account for all the time I spend correcting typos on virtual keyboards.
- Reason077 3y agoBack in the Palm era, virtual keyboards were indeed very prone to typos. But now days the autocorrect is so good on modern devices, it’s rare for it to make mistakes. Of course, the same autocorrect tech could be applied to Graffiti on a modern device[1] But fundamentally, making a stroke gesture to enter a character will always be slower than tapping a keyboard. [1] and it is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.access_company.graffiti_pro&hl=en_GB&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.access_com...
- vlmutolo 3y agoThe iPad now has handwriting recognition in arbitrary text fields. You can just pick up the Apple Pencil and start writing somewhere. It’ll fill in with text as you write.
- dosman33 3y agoI miss using my Palm Pilot III. I still keep an emulator with the rom and my last data backup around, once in a blue moon I need to pull something off of it still. The graffiti input system worked great, I could enter data way faster than with any smart phone. I used to take lots of notes on the spot with it for work and personal use, but now I'm reduced to taking photos of any text data I need to save for later. I've used Palm and Blackberry through the years, and somehow the input devices that survived are the worst possible that could have survived. Everything that came before smart phone keyboards was better. The Palm Pilot was a more civilized tool for a more civilized time.
- rajnathani 3y agoNoteworthy point: > Meanwhile, 70 mm IMAX film releases like Oppenheimer don't come often, and when they do, only 30 theaters in the world can support them, CNBC reported, and not necessarily all of them will (Tenet's 70 mm release, for example, was limited to 11 theaters due to pandemic restrictions, CNBC said). That makes any need for upgrades and overhauls less urgent.
- Avlin67 3y agoi thought it was 16K fp64 120Hz..... actually it is poor analogic stuff I go back enjoy my x265 vids
- analog31 3y agoI developed some PalmPilot applications, though they never went anywhere. I used Pocket C, which was a simplistic but workable environment that was interpreted on the device. I was also using IBM ThinkPads for factory controls around the same time period. The PalmPilot had nice tiny form factor, probably its primary asset. A second benefit is that it had no fan. It was pretty typical for fan / heat / dust problems to bring down long-term software installations, along with the lifespan of CRT displays. Something like an IBM PC clone, if un-maintained, was good for at most a few years. The PalmPilot hardware port was conventional RS232, so it was easy to mate it with outboard hardware. On later PP's, when they went to USB, I was able to interface them through the IR data port.