Android Running on Old Palm OS Hardware, Where Will it Show Up Next?

by Kevin Krause on September 15th, 2010 at 7:21 am

android-palm-tungsten-cAs a testament to the portability of Android, it has once again made its way to a device many would have thought unlikely: the Palm Tungsten C. This device ran the original Palm OS (not webOS) and was released way back in 2003. Dmitry Grinberg slapped Android 2.1 on the antiquated equipment by means of a dual-boot SD card. This, of course, does bring up some technical issues. With the OS running off of the SD card due to a lack of internal flash storage, any sort of media requiring additional external storage won’t quite work up to par. The size of the screen also creates some jumbled graphical interpretations as seen in the image to the left.

Throw in a lack of functioning WiFi, Bluetooth, and audio and you have yourself one of the less useful versions of Android 2.1 we have seen, but we will let it slide since it is running on a seven year old Palm after all. Grinberg promises a future iteration optimized for the device with increased performance, and also plans to expand the project to support other Palm OS devices.

[via PalmInfoCenter]

  • http://www.baywebdesigns.co.uk/ Sharon

    I have a couple of Sony Clies lying around – wonder if Android would run on them? Any ideas where to start?

  • Kevin

    Um, this device does have wi-fi.

  • Kevin

    Pulled the trigger too fast. It looks like they were not able to get the wi-fi working when it was ported?

  • pimpstrong

    this stuff is always cool to hear about. Old old tech working with new tech. I think my favorite has been the iPad stuffed into an old school Mac.

  • thefatrat

    Where can i find this guy. I have a 755p that I’ve been trying to get android on for a while. I would love to see this happen.

  • Brian

    Same here. Treo 700p needs this.

  • Ash

    it would be interesting to see Froyo on the Pre.

  • matthews

    Was wondering what I’d do with my old Palm Tx, this is great!

  • Mark

    I still own a centro, and I wish i had it, but my screen is bust….

  • JaylanPHNX

    And yet Motorola can’t seem to squeeze 2.1 onto the Cliq and Cliq XT. I know their version has to be perfect, while this is just a there-I-did-it, but come on!

  • Dave

    get android running on the iPad

    now that would be sweet.

  • http://cybersoftstore.wordpress.com fhasai da-nga

    Palm will return famous again?

  • Another Jim

    I know of Dmitry from Palm Power-ups. I have his SDHC driver on my TX. He does amazing stuff. Some of the Android machines I’ve seen specs for don’t have much more than the 128Mb on my TX. Oh but they have additional ROM, right? But I agree it would not be very useful.

  • Tungsten T5 User

    I have a Tungsten T5 palm running with PalmOs 5… Is there a chance to have the android running better in my device??



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