What You Need to Know About Pegasus, Microsofts Upcoming Handheld Device October 1. What You Need to Know About Pegasus, Microsofts Upcoming Handheld Device. Jeffrey Richter. Jeffrey Richter wrote Advanced Windows Microsoft Press, 1. Windows 9. 5 A Developers Guide M T Books, 1. Jeff is a consultant and teaches Win. He can be reached at v jeffrrmicrosoft. I have become completely dependent on my computer for all sorts of things. Obviously, I use my computer to develop software, but I also use my computer for banking, email, my personal phone book, my appointment schedule, playing games, and so on. I am not quite at the point where I leave my machine on 2. I will be able to carry a computer in my pocket during those rare hours my desktop machine is not at easy reach like when Im flying back and forth between Seattle and San Francisco. This computers official name has not been announced yet, but its codename is Pegasus. Its being created by Microsoft with six hardware partners. HTB1l2USKVXXXXbfXVXXq6xXFXXXD/D99-Home-TV-font-b-Video-b-font-font-b-Game-b-font-Console-Classic-font.jpg' alt='Pegasus Game Console' title='Pegasus Game Console' />Ill start by showing you the Pegasus hardware from the users perspective. In the second part of this article Ill dive into the details of the software platform and discuss the programming issues you need to understand to write cool Pegasus apps. What is Pegasus Microsoft has been trying for years to come up with a hand held computing device. First, there was Win. Pad. The Win. Pad machine ran on x. CPUs only and had a stripped down version of 1. Windows 3. 1 as its operating system. The system didnt have a keyboard, but instead used handwriting recognition as its input method making the machine a poor input device. Its estimated price was 7. Pegasus Game Console' title='Pegasus Game Console' />For Kingdom Hearts on the PlayStation 2, FAQWalkthrough by A 2 1. We Open Review the New Inside Out Console and Figure Light Up Set All 5 Emotions Light Up Subscribe http We review the New Toy from. The GameBreaking Bug trope as used in popular culture. The dark side of Good Bad Bugs though not necessarily mutually exclusive and a Griefers favorite. Seguendo la serie di successi dei giochi arcade nei primi anni ottanta, Nintendo pianific lo sviluppo di una propria console a cartucce removibili. Mega Man Star Force, known in Japan as Shooting Star Rockman, Rysei no Rokkuman, is a realtime tactical roleplaying game, and the first. After extensive research, Microsoft felt that consumers would not pay the high price for this limited system and abandoned the project. Next, Microsoft embarked on Pulsar. It was designed to be a super pager a wireless product with a very small screen and no keyboard just a few buttons. Microsoft hoped the simplicity of the device would interest consumers who had never even used a computer before. Again, Microsofts research told them that the world was not ready for such a device and Pulsar was also scrapped. At this point, Microsoft went back to the drawing board and came up with something totally new Pegasus. What makes the Pegasus project different from Win. Pad and Pulsar Microsoft reduced its intended consumer base and defined a product to meet their needs. Pegasus can be a standalone device, but this is not how Microsoft intends it to be used. Pegasus is a companion device that will most likely be used with a Windows 9. Windows NT based desktop machine. Download Treasure Cove Flash Game more. As of mid 1. 99. This means the Pegasus audience is restricted mainly to Windows users not everyone in the world who uses a Day Timer or some other paper information manager. In fact, the two most important features of Pegasus are that it looks and feels like Windows and that it connects very well with a Windows based desktop machine. Ill discuss these features in more detail shortly. Lets first look at the actual Pegasus hardware platform. The Pegasus Hardware Platform. The Pegasus project consists of two parts hardware and software. Because Microsoft does not want to get into the hardware business for the moment lets forget that they make mice, keyboards, and joysticks, they signed up six partners Casio, Compaq, HP, LG Electronics, NEC, and Philips to create the hardware based on a reference platform defined by Microsoft. A Pegasus machine is guaranteed to have an embedded keyboard, including alphanumeric keys, standard punctuation keys, a Control key, an Alt key, and two Shift keys. Infrequently used keys like Insert, Pause, Scroll Lock, Print Screen, function keys, and the new Windows Start key are optional. Note that some international versions of Pegasus, like Japanese and Chinese, may not have keyboards due to the complexity of the character set. These versions will use handwriting recognition as their main source of input. Also, since Pegasus is going to be marketed worldwide, all Pegasus machines use Unicode. Pegasus will also have an embedded touch screen 4. A docking cradle will recharge the machines batteries and connect the Pegasus to your desktop machine more on this later. It must feel like it can be worn on the body rather than being lugged around, so the device must not exceed 7. The Pegasus will include one PCMCIA slot, one serial connector, one infrared port Ir. DA, at least 2. MB of RAM for the file system and running applications, and 4. MB of ROM. The Pegasus Operating System. Pegasus introduces a new operating system from Microsoft that is super lightweight. The good news is that the Pegasus OS is a Win. OS, which means that you already know how to develop software for it. The bad news is that this new kernels functions have many little nuances and implementation details that are yet to be discovered by poor unsuspecting souls like you and me. To keep the kernel small, many of the Win. While this lightweight kernel is making its debut in Pegasus, it is not specific to Pegasus. Microsoft intends to incorporate this kernel into other devices. In the not too distant future you can expect to see this lightweight kernel used for the global positioning system in your automobile, in your television set, and in other household appliances. The software opportunities are enormous. Since memory is limited, the Pegasus OS is small. It requires about 1. KB of ROM and about 4. KB of RAM to run. The system is also portable. Currently, versions exist for the Hitachi SH3, MIPS, and x. Since each of these processors use different instruction sets, Pegasus app developers will need to produce binary images for each of these processors. The Pegasus SDK does this for you see the sidebar for more information on the Pegasus SDK. The Pegasus Shell and User Interface. Figure 1 shows the Pegasus desktop. As you can see, there is a striking resemblance to Windows 9. Windows NT 4. 0. The shell includes the desktop, the taskbar, and a recycle bin. The taskbar is always visible and is the quickest way for the user to switch from one application to another. A nice feature of the Pegasus taskbar is the ability to minimize an active window by clicking on its button in the taskbar. The Start button offers the same features as seen on Windows NT and Windows 9. One big difference is that Pegasus does not support cascading menus menu options that normally display a hierarchical menu now open a window that allows the user to go to the next level. The taskbar also supports those little icons, which are used quite frequently to notify the user of various events. Figure 1 Pegasus desktop. Pegasus does support shell links, but the normal way of creating and interacting with them using the IShell. Link COM interface is not supported because Pegasus does not currently support COM. Instead, Pegasus offers two new functions, SHCreate. Shortcut which creates a shortcut and SHGet. Shortcut. Target which returns the thing that the shortcut refers to. You can use Explorer to locate files, drag and drop files, and execute applications. From the Start menu you can start applications, work on recently used documents, get help, visit the Control Panel, and suspend the machine. Programmers can write Control Panel applets to run under Pegasus. Unlike Windows 9. Windows NT, Pegasus has some limitations in its windowing subsystem.