Pocket Smalltalk

A Smalltalk System for the PalmPilot

Pocket Smalltalk is an implementation of the popular programming language Smalltalk for the PalmPilot. It consists of a development environment which runs on Windows 95/NT along with a cross-compiler which can generate "executable" .PRC files from Smalltalk source code.

Pocket Smalltalk makes it easy to develop applications for the PalmPilot. You have the full power of the Smalltalk programming language along with a complete class library. Best of all, Pocket Smalltalk creates small, standalone executables. No runtime libraries are required.

Please visit the Pocket Smalltalk discussion forum for the latest news about this exciting new system!

Pocket Smalltalk has been used to create several deployed applications. See my Products page for some examples. I have also prepared a simple demo of some of Pocket Smalltalk's features which you can run on your PalmPilot.

Version 1.5 beta available!

The version 1.5 beta release is now available. With this version, you can develop complete applications from start to finish totally in Smalltalk! The documentation has also been updated and now features a tutorial and a complete class reference. This version will now work in the PalmOS Emulator version 2.1, and eliminates the need for the build-prc utility and cygwin.dll.

Download the version 1.5 runtime distribution. 1.2 MBytes. Includes documentation. Make sure you unzip this package with an extractor that supports long filenames, such as WinZip.
Download PilRC from Wes Cherry's WWW site. You need this (along with build-prc) to create resources for your Pocket Smalltalk applications.
Download the version 1.5 source distribution for the Pocket Smalltalk development environment. You do not need this if you only want to build PalmPilot applications. Requires Dolphin Smalltalk version 2.1.
Download the version 1.5 source distribution for the Pocket Smalltalk virtual machine. You only need this if you want to modify the VM or add new primitives. Requires the PalmOS port of GCC.
Browse the documentation for Pocket Smalltalk.

Older papers on Pocket Smalltalk; these may be somewhat out of date:

Read the introduction to the Pocket Smalltalk programming system.
Read the whitepaper about the design and implementation of Pocket Smalltalk.
Technical: The Pocket Smalltalk instruction set.
Technical: Structure of objects.
Technical: Structure of generated .PRC files.

Andrew Brault (ajb@tiac.net)