treocentral.com >> Stories >> Commentary >> Treo Communicators have Flash ROM

treocentral.com >> Stories >> Commentary
Treo Communicators have Flash ROM


Mon Jul 15, 2002 - 1:49 AM EDT - By Michael Ducker

What does it Mean?

Sounds exciting, right? So the big question is why would Handspring put Flash in all of its Treo's, yet not advertise it? It is a great selling point, and for some, is one of the most important features of a PDA.

The consensus of the TreoCentral staff and others from the industry is that Handspring will only use Flash ROM in the first generation of Treo devices. Handspring probably put the flash chip into the Treo so that they could fix critical bugs after its release. Once the Treo bugs are gone, it is likely the Flash will also go.

Flash chips can cost Handspring up to $5 more per device. If the Treo doesn't have any more bugs, they don't need it right? $5 per unit is a big cost-cutting saving. So they switch to Masked ROM and save money.

This would be a good reason for Handspring not to advertise the availability of the Flash ROM in these early models. Plus, dealing with customer support issues regarding the Flash ROM would add unnecessary support issues to deal with.

Having Flash memory can be very helpful for backing up critical data and apps. And now that it is known, if it were to disappear in a later version, this could possibly cause a backlash against Handspring.

I ask all these questions for a reason: I want to know what you think. Please discuss this on our boards, email me your thoughts, or whatever. Let yourself be heard.

And for those who are still doubting - Handspring partly acknowledges the Flash's existence in one of their knowledge base articles.

"Treo communicators may become compatible with these programs but the use of these applications is not supported in any way by Handspring. "

I have been told that a broken Flash chip is an out of warrenty repair. VisorCentral.com and TreoCentral.com also take no responsibility for whatever you might do to your Treo. Make sure to make proper backups of your Flash.

The last question is of the Treo 90. The unit that I had for review did indeed have flash, but there are two things to consider here. One, the Treo 90 I had was a pre-production unit, which means it probably had flash on it so that Handspring could put final code in the reviewers hands. Secondly, as referenced in the Treo 90 SDK, it has a 2 MB compressed ROM. This means that Brayder would have to de-engineer Handsprings compression, and find a way to recompress to make things work. A standard Palm OS ROM is 4 MB, so with a 2 MB compressed ROM, it would be impossible to use the Flash on a Treo 90, if it was even there.

Thanks so much to the anonymous email that started all this thinking, Brayder Technology, and the rest of TreoCentral staff for help on this article.

References
Links

>	Handspring
>	Brayder Technology
>	Toshiba

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