Android on a Palm Tungsten C!

(image courtesy Dmitry Grinberg)

Yes, Android has been ported to iPhones, but what about older devices? If you’ve got a Tungsten C, you can (theoretically) run Android 2.1 on it! Yes, a Tungsten C can run a higher version of Android than some official Android phones!

This upgrade (if you can call it that) was done by Dmitri Grinberg, possibly the last major hacker/developer of the Palm OS platform. He’s claimed for some time to be working on “DGOS”, a pseudo-upgrade to Palm OS. Either to not endanger his DGOS project or because the Android port is so unstable, it doesn’t look like Dmitri has posted any step by step instructions, so don’t dig up your old Palm quite yet.

Still, it’s fascinating that you CAN run Android on such old and underpowered hardware, even off an SD card and with resolution issues. Heck, if it can run Android WELL, it almost justifies spending $385 on a new TX. Almost. 😉 It does make me sad I gave up my Tungsten C years ago. It was such a cute device, and while it was missing many useful features, having a keyboard and wi-fi was revolutionary at the time!

Are there any devices you’d like to see run Android? Do you ever hang on to old devices in the hopes you can hack them later? Or do you just see them as fun proofs of concept? Most importantly, did seeing a TC run Android make anyone else miss Palm OS big time?