Symbian OS Kernel (2010)(github.com)
github.com
Symbian OS Kernel (2010)
https://github.com/SymbianSource/oss.FCL.sf.os.kernelhwsrv
85 comments
The software quality was also absolute dogshit. Your phone would ring, you would click on the button to answer, and the phone app would just crash.
It was nice having irc and a good ssh client on my phone, but the phone was simply not stable enough for a daily driver.
It was nice having irc and a good ssh client on my phone, but the phone was simply not stable enough for a daily driver.
Didn’t own the E90, but I’ve had several Symbian smartphones and don’t think I’ve ever seen the “phone” app crash. In fact I remember that they were generally stable compared to computers.
Only the browsers would run out of memory and crash, hence why Opera mini (which compressed and slimmed down websites) was so popular at that time.
Only the browsers would run out of memory and crash, hence why Opera mini (which compressed and slimmed down websites) was so popular at that time.
That's weird, the E90 was the last phone I had with reliable phone features. The N900 could be buggy, but I've had iphones and pixels since then and I give answering a phone that is ringing in my pocket to be very often a miss, even now. More an issue with a touchscreen I think.
N900 was a mighty beast, I only moved off it when its power port tore away.
Too bad Nokia did not have the focus to stick to one platform (Maemo vs. MeeGo vs. Windows Phone)
Too bad Nokia did not have the focus to stick to one platform (Maemo vs. MeeGo vs. Windows Phone)
Have you ever tried to code any non-trivial application for Symbian / S60?
If you ever did, the business opportunity to build a mobile platform with any sort of half-sane API will immediately scream very loudly at your face - and that's exactly what Apple did with iOS. The rest is History.
A real sad story - the hardware was quite capable for the time.
If you ever did, the business opportunity to build a mobile platform with any sort of half-sane API will immediately scream very loudly at your face - and that's exactly what Apple did with iOS. The rest is History.
A real sad story - the hardware was quite capable for the time.
The thing is Nokia was not a software first company. It was a phone/electronics company so that's where the decision making was biased. Someone here posted that the Symbian repos were in such a mess that compiling the OS would take over 2 days and nobody in management saw a problem with that.
It's easy now in hindsight to say they could have won the market with a software ecosystem but back then that was not clear for them.
It was clear for Apple since they had the experience monetizing the iTunes ecosystem and they were a software focused company.
It's easy now in hindsight to say they could have won the market with a software ecosystem but back then that was not clear for them.
It was clear for Apple since they had the experience monetizing the iTunes ecosystem and they were a software focused company.
It was very clear then for me!
I had to professionally code an image processing application for Symbian in 2008/9, and that's when I formed this opinion. Apple & Android seemed to agree :)
What's surprising is that there weren't more attempts at a sane mobile platform/API - and earlier.
I had to professionally code an image processing application for Symbian in 2008/9, and that's when I formed this opinion. Apple & Android seemed to agree :)
What's surprising is that there weren't more attempts at a sane mobile platform/API - and earlier.
2008/2009 was pretty late in the game for such a large ship like Nokia to change course. Their financial situation back then was still good enough to no bother with a massive change of course.
Sure, you saw it, but Nokia management was out of touch and more preoccupied with the next quarter rather than with the next 3 years, as it the case in many large old companies.
Sure, you saw it, but Nokia management was out of touch and more preoccupied with the next quarter rather than with the next 3 years, as it the case in many large old companies.
The sad part was that they had the platform that could have competed with ios and android. A linux based platform that they had worked on since 2005. (Or 2004 even).
For som reason the not-so-visionary mgmt decided to cut it, right when it should have started to scale up.
For som reason the not-so-visionary mgmt decided to cut it, right when it should have started to scale up.
Was it that Nokia was run by engineers or more actually MBA-types?
I think so too.
Nokia was still a hugely profitable company when they closed down the maemo/meego platform.
I think they all recognised the threat from Android/iOS at the time. Just that closing it down was a way to continue showing good profit margins.
I think it could have been the right platform at the right time, and I was very surprised they didn't at least give it an honest try.
Nokia was still a hugely profitable company when they closed down the maemo/meego platform.
I think they all recognised the threat from Android/iOS at the time. Just that closing it down was a way to continue showing good profit margins.
I think it could have been the right platform at the right time, and I was very surprised they didn't at least give it an honest try.
> What's surprising is that there weren't more attempts at a sane mobile platform/API - and earlier.
It's all about leadership, vision, and courage. Leadership that doesn't push new boundaries, has no vision, and lacks the courage to try new risky things, are doomed, unless they are monopolies. Nokia didn't have the market power to succeed in a changing world with its lackluster leadership.
It's all about leadership, vision, and courage. Leadership that doesn't push new boundaries, has no vision, and lacks the courage to try new risky things, are doomed, unless they are monopolies. Nokia didn't have the market power to succeed in a changing world with its lackluster leadership.
Nokia owned TrollTech (Qt), so they had all the chances to become a software company, it baffles me still why they didn't.
Yes. I made a game for S60, in 2004. I agree the SDK and the API were poor. But I think the real mistake they made was failing to build an app store. IIRC I think they might have had some kind of rudimentary app store but it wasn't accessible to mere mortals. The only way I could figure out how to distribute my game was to post it as a freely downloadable file on the web, which I did. I have no idea whether anybody ever downloaded it. If they had just made it easy for developers to distribute their apps then I think history might have been quite different.
Nokia had Ovi which was an attempt at an app store.
all of it was a late reaction to iphone changing the market. Initially they didn't have any of it, and at the time when they got to a N9(an actually competitive device), their leadership already decided to do windows shenanigans(and alleged forced merge by microsoft executed by steven ellop as a Nokia ceo).
Over the past decade I've purchased several Chinese cheapo keypad phones, and they all seem to run a very similar java-based OS. Does anyone have any information on what OS that is exactly, and if it's open source?
I recently ordered and researched the cheapest feature phones (and some smartwatches), looks like half of that market is occupied by Unisoc with the SC6531(E/DA) chipset (from the Spreadtrum company they bought). It uses Mocor OS. The second half of this market is occupied by Mediatek MT6260/MT6261 chipsets. I wrote tools to run my code on these chipsets.
There are also phones on Mocor5 OS, a little more expensive, it's actually Android 4.4 on the Spreadtrum SC7715 chipset.
I didn't find any Java here, but these CPUs have a Jazelle ARM extension to run Java bytecode.
P.S.: There's an old project based on reverse engineered MT6260 firmware: https://github.com/xobs/fernly
There are also phones on Mocor5 OS, a little more expensive, it's actually Android 4.4 on the Spreadtrum SC7715 chipset.
I didn't find any Java here, but these CPUs have a Jazelle ARM extension to run Java bytecode.
P.S.: There's an old project based on reverse engineered MT6260 firmware: https://github.com/xobs/fernly
I wanted to run Doom on one of them. So far I have LCD control for SC6531E (with 9306 LCD panel), USB control for SC6531E/SC6531DA and USB control for MT6260/MT6261 (using API from bootloader).
I load the code not while the OS is running, but through boot via USB.
SC6531DA is similar to SC6531E, but some constants have been changed, so additional research into its firmware is required.
I have enough knowledge to run some game on the SC6531E, but a lot of work still needs to be done.
Anyone want to cooperate with me?
I load the code not while the OS is running, but through boot via USB.
SC6531DA is similar to SC6531E, but some constants have been changed, so additional research into its firmware is required.
I have enough knowledge to run some game on the SC6531E, but a lot of work still needs to be done.
Anyone want to cooperate with me?
I've been curious as to the Unisoc T117 RTOS in the Nokia 225 4G- it is Mocor RTOS, but I have no info on what its origins are. Could it be an EKA2-based Symbian? The UI looks somewhat similar https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_us/nokia-225-4g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UNISOC_processors -uses only 1 cpu
https://web.archive.org/web/20220704160232/https://www.uniso...
It's probably Nucleus, which is what Mediatek uses a lot on their low-end phones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleus_RTOS
It's not open source per se, but the phones themselves tend to have very little modification from the reference EVK, which means if you can find the BSP you can usually build a firmware image that will work on a device.
It's not open source per se, but the phones themselves tend to have very little modification from the reference EVK, which means if you can find the BSP you can usually build a firmware image that will work on a device.
From the ones I got, I found MAUI in the name of the firmware, and on Wikipedia I found these notes:
> MAUI, a feature-phone operating system used with MediaTek-based shanzhai devices, also used on Motorola phones and some Samsung feature phones.
> MediaTek developed an embedded operating system named MAUI Runtime Environment which is based on Nucleus RTOS.
So it's not raw Nucleus.
> MAUI, a feature-phone operating system used with MediaTek-based shanzhai devices, also used on Motorola phones and some Samsung feature phones.
> MediaTek developed an embedded operating system named MAUI Runtime Environment which is based on Nucleus RTOS.
So it's not raw Nucleus.
I don't know if the Mediatek chips have overridable pins, but the Spreadtrum does. There are also different LCD panels that have slightly different interfaces for which you will need to write a driver (and find it from the original firmware). The button mapping also may vary.
So writing firmware that will work on most phones on a particular chipset will not be so easy.
So writing firmware that will work on most phones on a particular chipset will not be so easy.
Nucleus? How's its Weissman score?
Symbian is not Java-based.
In my opinion it's the best phone first os .
Tried it a few years ago and it was perfect
Happy it's been opensourced
interesting forks out there as well www.github.com/squaklabs/miraicat-kernel
Tried it a few years ago and it was perfect
Happy it's been opensourced
interesting forks out there as well www.github.com/squaklabs/miraicat-kernel
I worked at Nokia when management stubbornly kept flogging the dead horse that was Symbian. It didn't work. It just wasn't good enough. Android, even in it's early versions was hardly perfect but still ran circles around Symbian. Android at the time had issues with stability, features, performance, etc. But it was a breath of fresh air compared to Symbian devices which had even more of those type of issues. And of course the iphone redefined what a smart phone should be around the same time.
Nokia actually opensourced it around that time as well. Symbian has been open source for well over a decade. This looks more like the retirement of what remains of that effort, which included the Symbian Foundation. Presumably, by now there are very few; if any, commercial users of Symbian left. So, they are parking the source code at Github for whomever still has some use for it. As you can see from the commit logs, development has been dead since 2010. I seriously doubt that is going to change.
Nokia actually opensourced it around that time as well. Symbian has been open source for well over a decade. This looks more like the retirement of what remains of that effort, which included the Symbian Foundation. Presumably, by now there are very few; if any, commercial users of Symbian left. So, they are parking the source code at Github for whomever still has some use for it. As you can see from the commit logs, development has been dead since 2010. I seriously doubt that is going to change.
Symbian was not in a dictating position as Google or Apple are. Symbian was a complex company structure with major handset manufacturers having their separate agendas. People at Symbian had to walk a very tight rope catering to the demands of everyone. Not an easy task.
I was on the Networks business unit during those days, and even today, trying to use Android NDK still makes me miss Symbian C++ despite its warts, it is incredible how Android team has managed to make a mess out of it.
I don't know, Nokia C7 was pretty good in 2011, Android was nowhere near it.
Granted, I never tried developing for it.
Granted, I never tried developing for it.
Yeah, I had a Nokia E65 (2007) and with Opera mini I was able to browse the real web normally. That's why I never quite understood what was all the "revolution" around iphone (except the touch part, but that seemed to me to be a really bad idea at the time, as someone could not stand fingers on screens ^^)
Nokia's problem was their UI, which was not controlled by Symbian, not the underlying OS. Hundreds of Symbian-OS based phones were on the market from 2001, including in the Japanese market which had the most testing. The p800 and p910 had a UI similar to iPhone and Android in 2003, 3 years before the iPhone, on 3G networks. The second version of the Symbian OS kernel from 2003 was real time i.e. a comms stack could be run together with the apps off the one CPU. Are the Linux kernel or iOS kernel real time now even?
Android OS and iOS are hacks of desktop OSes so are optimised for performance rather than battery life or memory usage; Symbian OS was designed as a mobile OS from the beginning optimising power and memory management.
It was the timing of Google's IPO which scuppered Symbian. Google were able to spend billions getting Android in place to capture Symbian's market share and customers as iPhone buzz grew the market.
Android OS and iOS are hacks of desktop OSes so are optimised for performance rather than battery life or memory usage; Symbian OS was designed as a mobile OS from the beginning optimising power and memory management.
It was the timing of Google's IPO which scuppered Symbian. Google were able to spend billions getting Android in place to capture Symbian's market share and customers as iPhone buzz grew the market.
No, the OS was a mess. The UI split was the root of the nightmare.
Nokia were "running" (perhaps should read ruining) Symbian well before they bought it. They were only one of the four or was it five co-owners, but they ran rings around the others when pressuring Symbian leadership. They were the only phone manufacturer with a dedicated product support org, and their pre-prod devices were available in core engineering teams unlike Moto et al. Nokia were the key players to create a Symbian OS core without a coherent UI (Techview lol), no TCP/IP stack, no telephony stack. They helped reduce Symbian OS to swiss cheese because they were so concerned with with recouping their investment from gen 1 SOS products and terrified their competitors at the time got a tiny leg up.
Nokia were "running" (perhaps should read ruining) Symbian well before they bought it. They were only one of the four or was it five co-owners, but they ran rings around the others when pressuring Symbian leadership. They were the only phone manufacturer with a dedicated product support org, and their pre-prod devices were available in core engineering teams unlike Moto et al. Nokia were the key players to create a Symbian OS core without a coherent UI (Techview lol), no TCP/IP stack, no telephony stack. They helped reduce Symbian OS to swiss cheese because they were so concerned with with recouping their investment from gen 1 SOS products and terrified their competitors at the time got a tiny leg up.
Techview was a barebones UI used by Symbian devs on the x86 emulator and ARM reference boards (TI OMAP H2 and H4). It never appeared on any phone.
Indeed. So imagine doing performance profiling on a 90s UI framework from Psion and then getting feedback from S60 three months later after an integration cycle that you have a core perf or latency problem.
You are right that there were lots of Symbian manufacturers. Notable is that most of those were gone from the market by 2010. Windows CE eroded the market share and Nokia being so dominant meant most of its competitors did not want to be second in line for OS updates and influence. When Ericsson gave up being a phone manufacturer (they had their own UI platform for Symbian), the rest of them disappeared quickly.
By the time Nokia took ownership of Symbian, it was effectively the only company left still depending on it. The complex ownership of Symbian was one of the reasons it took many years to get operating system releases to market. Because first Symbian had to release a new version, which would only happen every few years or so and featured a lot of design by committee style decision making. And then it's users/owners would design products around that, which also took years.
It did not help that Nokia was a hardware company ran by electrical engineers that did not realize it was being bottle-necked on software. So, you would get new S60 products featuring bugs that had been fixed in other S60 products because they literally forked the same code base those were based on but before the bug had been patched. It was beyond stupid. And S60 was indeed a dumpster fire. One of the (many) issues with it was that it did not actually have any touch screen capability because Nokia killed that off around the time the rumors about the iphone started swirling. They then rushed out a version of S60 (v5.0) to "compete" with the iphone that re-created some of that. But then they also still had lots of v3.0 S60 products in the market for several years. Which did not help the messaging.
5.0 was a rush job and the initial products tanked hard. First there was the tube and then the N97. Both were products with lots of software issues. And subsequent efforts to fix it did not improve things. Most of the fixes amounted to too little too late.
By the time Nokia took ownership of Symbian, it was effectively the only company left still depending on it. The complex ownership of Symbian was one of the reasons it took many years to get operating system releases to market. Because first Symbian had to release a new version, which would only happen every few years or so and featured a lot of design by committee style decision making. And then it's users/owners would design products around that, which also took years.
It did not help that Nokia was a hardware company ran by electrical engineers that did not realize it was being bottle-necked on software. So, you would get new S60 products featuring bugs that had been fixed in other S60 products because they literally forked the same code base those were based on but before the bug had been patched. It was beyond stupid. And S60 was indeed a dumpster fire. One of the (many) issues with it was that it did not actually have any touch screen capability because Nokia killed that off around the time the rumors about the iphone started swirling. They then rushed out a version of S60 (v5.0) to "compete" with the iphone that re-created some of that. But then they also still had lots of v3.0 S60 products in the market for several years. Which did not help the messaging.
5.0 was a rush job and the initial products tanked hard. First there was the tube and then the N97. Both were products with lots of software issues. And subsequent efforts to fix it did not improve things. Most of the fixes amounted to too little too late.
Nokia did their best to kneecap other vendors using Symbian by fragmenting the base OS, which was a terrible strategy in retrospect.
But somehow they also managed to do it internally. The Series 90 Symbian UI could have been a real contender. This is a touchscreen smartphone from 2004:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7710
But Nokia canned this advanced Symbian UI as soon as it shipped, and instead they started bolting features onto the already terrible keypad-driven S60 UI. Oh, and they also spun up a Linux touchscreen effort seemingly to ensure a total lack of focus and clarity about Nokia’s software strategy.
But somehow they also managed to do it internally. The Series 90 Symbian UI could have been a real contender. This is a touchscreen smartphone from 2004:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7710
But Nokia canned this advanced Symbian UI as soon as it shipped, and instead they started bolting features onto the already terrible keypad-driven S60 UI. Oh, and they also spun up a Linux touchscreen effort seemingly to ensure a total lack of focus and clarity about Nokia’s software strategy.
Karma.
I was so disppointed (as a customer) at the trajectory at the time. It could have been so much more and I was willing it on.
I was so disppointed (as a customer) at the trajectory at the time. It could have been so much more and I was willing it on.
I imported a Panasonic x800 from japan to Canada in 2005.
Ran Symbian 2.0
I didn't even know Symbian was available on non nokia
Was very advanced for the time, everyone was impressed here as there werent any similar devices locally available.
This was my last phone before moving over to blackberry to get on the BBM bandwagon(after the x800 fell, and hit the push button opener and popped open the screen and cracked... With no locally available parts wasn't worth it to fix....).
Never had to do anything from the dev side, but the usability/functionality was steps ahead at the time
Ran Symbian 2.0
I didn't even know Symbian was available on non nokia
Was very advanced for the time, everyone was impressed here as there werent any similar devices locally available.
This was my last phone before moving over to blackberry to get on the BBM bandwagon(after the x800 fell, and hit the push button opener and popped open the screen and cracked... With no locally available parts wasn't worth it to fix....).
Never had to do anything from the dev side, but the usability/functionality was steps ahead at the time
And we know now that Google wanted its own OS so it could scrape all the data it could from phones. That wouldn’t have been possible with Symbian.
I had Nokia E71 (?) with Symbian, worst phone I had, I replaced that with Palm 650 (not sure I got model numbers right).
The Symbian UI was extremely clunky. I am not sure it even had touch screen. They had whole keyboard, but you had to navigate menus with arrow keys. Why not give user the full power of the keyboard, like Emacs or Vim? Why can't I have menu options on hotkeys?
I think people forgot about how bad phone UIs were before Steve Jobs' heavy focus on UI. And I am no fan of touch-based controls, still want a proper keyboard.
The Symbian UI was extremely clunky. I am not sure it even had touch screen. They had whole keyboard, but you had to navigate menus with arrow keys. Why not give user the full power of the keyboard, like Emacs or Vim? Why can't I have menu options on hotkeys?
I think people forgot about how bad phone UIs were before Steve Jobs' heavy focus on UI. And I am no fan of touch-based controls, still want a proper keyboard.
> I think people forgot about how bad phone UIs were before Steve Jobs' heavy focus on UI.
And years later they are still terrible. At least Android looks like an interface designed by people who have never seen GUIs before: GUI elements (warning) obscuring other GUI elements with no possibility to move them.
And years later they are still terrible. At least Android looks like an interface designed by people who have never seen GUIs before: GUI elements (warning) obscuring other GUI elements with no possibility to move them.
You think Android is bad... try Phosh
"Hey let's take GTK3 with all it's problems and love for empty space and put that on a phone..."
"Hey let's take GTK3 with all it's problems and love for empty space and put that on a phone..."
well considering that phosh has 0.000000000000000001% of the people working on it that android has…
Symbian never had a UI. Phone manufacturers were expected to build their own.
There were several; Nokia’s Series 60 would be the one most are familiar with. That sucked a lot. Nokia were terrible at software.
There’s probably a business lesson in there somewhere about how your biggest customer can become synonymous with your actual product, and you get ruined by association.
There’s probably a business lesson in there somewhere about how your biggest customer can become synonymous with your actual product, and you get ruined by association.
Nokia actually bought Qt to help them make a modern GUI, and had Qt/QML ported to Symbian S60. I was fortunate enough to develop a few apps on it back in the day and surprisingly - it didn't suck.
QML remains to this day superior framework to native Android UI development. Only Jetpack Compose, and SwiftUI on iOS, are starting to come on par with what Nokia had with Qt/QML over a decade ago.
Nokia actually had all the right pieces (Qt, Maemo/MeeGo, Symbian for feature phones, unparalleled engineering and manufacturing talent) for continuing their world domination, but their management was just laughably bad. It was all lost to in-fighting between teams and an inefficient middle manager heavy corporate culture it seems.
QML remains to this day superior framework to native Android UI development. Only Jetpack Compose, and SwiftUI on iOS, are starting to come on par with what Nokia had with Qt/QML over a decade ago.
Nokia actually had all the right pieces (Qt, Maemo/MeeGo, Symbian for feature phones, unparalleled engineering and manufacturing talent) for continuing their world domination, but their management was just laughably bad. It was all lost to in-fighting between teams and an inefficient middle manager heavy corporate culture it seems.
In some way they did. UIQ was a subsidary owned by Symbian that made the UI stack for Sony Ericssons P800, P900 and a few Motorola devices.
What?? The E71 was the best phone i ever had!! I loved that thing until it was "stolen" at dehli airport...
Agree, blew me away as a step up from e61 - I did so much in both phones, loved 'SportsTracker' on them, and using proper turn by turn GPS satnav.
I missed that phone when it died, but Android on the Dell Streak was great step onwards for me.
I missed that phone when it died, but Android on the Dell Streak was great step onwards for me.
Hard disagree. I really loved candybar phones. I just wished that Nokia/Microsoft had picked up android for their feature phones. IMO, the best OS is the one that has access to banking applications and lots of vendor support.
There’s no license though, right?
What is surprising is that Symbian did not manage to pivot to embedded market in any way, to compete with VxWorks and its likes. It was a fairly advanced RTOS at it's heart afterall, and proven to work well on ARM platforms.
Symbian started as an embedded platform “OS for toasters.” It was independent, used by mobile phone manufacturers like Sony, Ericsson, others. It was also used in non-mobile phone applications.
Nokia bought the whole Symbian in-house in attempt to compete against Android and iOS. Others non-Apple brands had already switched to Android in this point.
Steven Elop joined Nokia had a had management bonus incentives to sell the Nokia Mobile Phones (not Networks) to Microsoft. Which he did.
It was good for Nokia shareholders. Few years later Microsoft had screwed up things even worse and wrote Nokia purchase value from $7B to zero.
In this point, Symbian was buried long ago. Microsoft had never incentive to spin it out or make it a success story. Their only goal was Windows dominance.
Nokia bought the whole Symbian in-house in attempt to compete against Android and iOS. Others non-Apple brands had already switched to Android in this point.
Steven Elop joined Nokia had a had management bonus incentives to sell the Nokia Mobile Phones (not Networks) to Microsoft. Which he did.
It was good for Nokia shareholders. Few years later Microsoft had screwed up things even worse and wrote Nokia purchase value from $7B to zero.
In this point, Symbian was buried long ago. Microsoft had never incentive to spin it out or make it a success story. Their only goal was Windows dominance.
> Symbian started as an embedded platform “OS for toasters.”
Nope. Symbian started as an initiative to get Psions palmtop OS to cellphones; larger embedded market was never a consideration.
Nope. Symbian started as an initiative to get Psions palmtop OS to cellphones; larger embedded market was never a consideration.
I wonder what was the rationale for their formatting rules. No spaces around "=", "==" or "," but there're spaces around "?" and "||".
Are there rules? Nothing is consistent even within single function.
There were definitely rules, but as the company grew it seems they were not followed all that strictly.
The best thing about Symbian is that "it was never actually Symbian, it's S60 or whatever".
Interesting source dump. I see a lot of utility scripts written in Perl; they even have the documentation as well-formatted POD.
I wonder if there are any references to its progenitor the PSION. A cursory glance revealed none, at least not in the copyright headers.
I wonder if there are any references to its progenitor the PSION. A cursory glance revealed none, at least not in the copyright headers.
The e32 prefix used in the source is for EPOC32, Symbian’s original name, so you can count that as a reference. But books about Symbian say it was a complete rewrite of the original 16-bit, C-language EPOC, there probably isn’t any code that comes from there verbatim.
(The Psion was the brand of computers, the EPOC was the OS.)
(The Psion was the brand of computers, the EPOC was the OS.)
Ah, I knew they were related but I wasn't sure of the precise nature of the relationship. Thanks for gratifying my curiosity.
another copy, in the original Mercurial, and with mediawiki dumps too: https://archive.org/details/SymbianOpenSource
So, how can we build this thing?
No documentation/README etc
You've ever been to a junkyard? If you pick up a broken amplifier, it's not going to have a user manual taped to it. You're going to have to figure things out. This is essentially code junkyard. 13 years old and rusting.
You will need to find a development kit somewhere.
The documentation on this random website seems accurate
https://docs.huihoo.com/symbian/nokia-symbian3-developers-li...
The documentation on this random website seems accurate
https://docs.huihoo.com/symbian/nokia-symbian3-developers-li...
OP Here. Found that there's a previous thread, with more info SDK tools: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31492447
I'd try to build a textshell image, maybe the emulator or the beagleboard https://github.com/SymbianSource/oss.FCL.sf.adapt.beagleboar...
In an attempt to learn more, I accidentally misspelt Symbian as Sybian on Google search. The world truly is er wondrous. Cough.
How to begin to start understanding a codebase like this? Where does one start
Depends on your interest. It is an operating system, so has lot of different parts. It is a microkernel with other parts as servers e.g for graphics there is window server, for filesystem there is file server etc.
Start from the server for the area you are interested in and then move down to the related drivers and finally the kernel. You will need to understand some of the design patterns used in Symbian though, which are bit unique.
Start from the server for the area you are interested in and then move down to the related drivers and finally the kernel. You will need to understand some of the design patterns used in Symbian though, which are bit unique.
I see why it was so slow - there are DELAYs sprinkled everywhere.
saved up in high school to buy P1i (sony ericsson) and remember the feeling of being blown away when installing the first third party app, I think a weather app.
Does anyone know what license this is under?
They don't state explicitly, so it's basically source-available software, not Open Source (nor Free Software).
https://www.theregister.com/2011/04/06/nokia_confirms_symbia...
https://www.theregister.com/2011/04/06/nokia_confirms_symbia...
What did they use Obj-C for?
You can click through to view matching files: https://github.com/SymbianSource/oss.FCL.sf.os.kernelhwsrv/s...
In this case, it seems the answer is nothing. It’s just a bug in the GitHub language detection code.
In this case, it seems the answer is nothing. It’s just a bug in the GitHub language detection code.
I moved onto the N900 when my E90 slipped out my linen trousers in a taxi in Morocco.