Bitmap Family Stripping?
I thought of a new tool for Palm OS users, but I've not yet written it. Before I did that, I was going to wonder aloud here and see if anyone has done this already.
Here are two postulates:
(1) Monochrome devices tend also to be the devices with the least main memory. The m100, with its 2MB, was a really big seller, and all of the original sub-8MB devices were monochrome.
(2) Modern Palm OS programs tend to use bitmap families where most of the size of the family is taken by the 8-bit color bitmap.
My program idea is a bitmap family stripper that would open an existing program and remove the bitmap family members above a given bit depth. This might let monochrome users eek a bit more space out of their device, since they would never be using the color family members.
If this program existed, I think it should set the copy-protection bit on any program it altered; while I support a user's right to alter his or her own bits, I don't think altered programs should be spreadable to other devices.
So, has anyone done this? Are the savings here so small that its not worth doing, or are the developers that could write this just too lazy, with their 16MB CLIEs with the 128MB memory sticks?
Send feedback to combee@techwood.org
Copyright © 2004 Benjamin L. Combee
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qwertYAK / frobnovich
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