PalmOS Wiki

PalmInternals utility was written to discover PalmOS internal information like alarm list, notification list etc.

Alarm list is the first screen you see on PalmInternals start. You can refresh it with screen button “Alarm”.

PalmOS application can activate only one alarm. At alarm time PalmOS calls application. If application (like DateBook) want to manage multiple alarms, it can do it with internal alarm queue and adding the earliest event to PalmOS alarm list. So there are no way to check internal queues, you can explore only one alarm per application. Alarm list cleared at each reset, so the applications add own alarm to list on reset. There are no reason to remove alarms manually: applications re-insert it at reset.

There are three kinds of alarms: sublaunch alarm, arm procedure alarm and m68k procedure alarm. Sublaunch alarm is the most common kind of alarm. PalmOS launches application with special command code. Procedure alarm is a light kind of alarm. Procedure alarm activation doesn't wake up screen and executes 100 times faster than sublaunch one. Procedure alarms require more programmers efforts and used for fast system tricks. arm and m68k points to processor type: arm alarm executes by native arm app and m68k alarm executes in user app, written for motorla 68000 processor. 90% of applications for PalmOS are written as m68k apps, arm apps usually are system applications.

How to read alarm list entries:

• 27.7.05 03:00:00 'BackupMan'

  - is a sublaunch BackupMan alarm at 3:00. It's a usual backup launch. Such entries can help you to answer question: “Who wake my palm up at 3:00?”

• 27.7.05 11:57:08 'GSMLibrary' m68k 4037253E

  - is a m68k GSMLibrary procedure alarm. It's a low-level Treo system alarm, you can ignore it.

Notification is a system mechanism to broadcast information. Each application (and PalmOS itself) can broadcast notifications and can be a notification subscriber. You can list notification subscribers with “Notif.” button. Notifications are marked with four-letter code.

This list can be useful in resolving system conflicts. Notifications are handled in background, independently to current application. So when your device crashes on power off or after hotsync, you can detect buggy app by checking notification subscribers for known code.

Check the list of common notification codes: * crdi - Card inserted. * crdo - Card removed. * volm - Volume mounted. * volu - Volume unmounted. * hots - Hotsync started. * sync - Hotsync finished. * slpq - Ack about sleep. Notification subscriber can reject an attempt to go into sleep mode. * slp! - Before sleep. * worm - Early wakeup. * lazy - Late wakeup. * hede - System event occurs. * hvch - Virtual char was posted. * cbar - Command bar handler. * hapl - application start * hapq - application finish

How to read notification entry

---hapl---
* 45 'Uninstall Manager'
* 46 'SdioSpiOmap' arm 402FFC37