Last week, Aceeca, a New Zealand PDA company, announced the availability of new 64-bit Windows drivers for the Garnet OS. If that doesn’t mean much to you, you probably don’t have a Palm PDA. The Palm PDA line has a long, nearly murderous history of acquisitions and licensees. Suffice it to say that Palm, which was acquired in 2010 by HP, hasn’t been doing a lot of development for its older (yet highly popular) stuff. ACCESS, which got the rights to the Palm OS, changed the OS’s name to Garnet, and here we are.

Hardware Drivers Hold The Line Against Obsolescense
Enter Aceeca. Aceeca licenses the Garnet OS from ACCESS and has just released USB 64-bit drivers that will work for products that run either the Garnet OS or the Palm OS, versions 4.x or 5.x. This development now makes it possible to sync older Palm PDAs with computers running newer versions of Windows. Without the Aceeca drivers, Palm users would need to sync with a computer running a 32-bit Windows OS, like Windows XP.

Although Aceeca didn’t specifically write the driver for Palm OS products, the compatibility between the two licensed versions of the Palm OS illustrate neatly the problems that hardware users may have when manufacturers don’t make updated hardware drivers available. Users can either choose to be stuck in the past, maintaining older (sometimes non-supported) equipment and software to preserve functions, or they can find a newer (and perhaps less desirable) replacement for otherwise good, working hardware that no longer has the ability to talk to an updated computer.

Don’t assume that only older hardware finds itself in this position. Hardware manufacturers can easily decide to stop supporting even their most popular product lines. Often, the reasons are complex, but relate more to the cost of future development rather than the size of the “installed” user base. Future development can be frustrated by major changes to the primary operating systems – such as the switch from 32-bit processors to 64-bit processors.
In other cases, future development for existing products may rest on business decisions like acquisitions and mergers. It’s not unheard of for a competitor to purchase a rival to extinguish it.

In the mean time, the emergence of 64-bit drivers that work with Palm 4.x and 5.x devices is good news, at least for Palm users. Perhaps the availability of drivers will spur interest in the older Palm devices, or maybe even inspire others to produce drivers that will help re-acquaint orphaned hardware with the latest operating systems.

Photo Credit: re-ality, via Flickr

Last week, Microsoft said that its research shows that nearly half of all Windows 7 installations are the company’s 64-bit version of the OS. That’s up from just 11% for Windows Vista installations and less than 1% of Windows XP installations. What’s the reason for the shift? The cost of compatible hardware, the cost of RAM, and the availability of 64-bit drivers are being credited for enticing users to make the switch.

What Makes The 64-Bit Version Of Windows Different?

Is there a substantial difference between the performance of a 32-bit system and a 64-bit system? The short answer is yes. The big advantage of the 64-bit system is that it can address more RAM. The more RAM you have available, the faster your computer can work (to a point) and the more simultaneous tasks it can manage (to a point). You may also benefit from having a 64-bit system if you use very computation-intense software, like engineering design software, graphic software, or gaming software.

The downside of running a 64-bit system is that you need to have 64-bit drivers for your hardware. If the manufacturer of a piece of hardware makes a 64-bit version of the driver you need, you’re in luck. Carry on!

On the other hand, if the manufacturer of a piece of hardware has made only a 32-bit driver, you’re pretty much out of luck. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers aren’t interchangeable. They’re not even a little bit compatible, either. 32-bit is 32-bit and 64-bit is 64-bit, and “never the twain shall meet,” so to speak. Microsoft does maintain a compatibility list, which has a comprehensive (though probably not exhaustive) list of 64-bit compatible devices. You can find this list at The Windows 7 Compatibility Center.

The site is divided into two tabs: Software and Hardware. The Software tab contains major functions (e.g., gaming, communications, graphics and printing, etc), so you may have to do a bit of guesswork to figure out how Microsoft views the software you’re looking for. Each major group also has a dropdown menu that activates when you “mouse over” the category heading.
The hardware tab, which is where you’d be looking for device drivers, is divided into major device types. You can also search the site using keywords, and limiting your text searches to hardware or software. You can also filter your search results by system type (64-bit or32-bit), and manufacturer. Microsoft even has some information on devices that are not currently 64-bit compatible, but will have a 64-bit driver in the near future. If your device isn’t on the list and Microsoft has no information about the device’s future 64-bit status, check with the manufacturer to see if they have a 64-bit driver, or if a 64-bit driver is in the works.

Photo Credit: Trekyandy, via Flickr