Palm Pre to get Palm Classic emulator

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Palm has essentially rebooted itself with the new Pre handset and, more poignantly, the WebOS powering it, though fans of the rock sold PalmOS will be glad to hear their huge collection of old applications might still be of use.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 conference, Palm’s Michael Abott revealed that third party developer MotionApps will be providing an application called Palm Classic, which will operate

as a ‘card’ within WebOS to emulate the previous operating system.

Apparently Palm Classic will run software twice as fast as a native application on a Treo 700p. The emulator will also function in the same way as it previously did for installation of software connecting to the PC as mass storage device with drag-and-drop installation of applications.

Although WebOS specific programs are what users will be most interested in, Palm Classic should help to ease the transition into the new era in Palm’s technological life by providing access to over 30,000 applications already built for PalmOS.