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Palm handhelds were something of a revelation when first launched in April 1996 — small, nifty computers that did a great job of organizing personal data and ran for weeks on a single set of batteries. 

Yet the very thing that let Palm succeed where others had failed — a simple, stripped-down operating system — is what’s been holding it back in recent years. 

The operating system and antiquated processors it runs on simply doesn’t have the muscle and the flexibility to support wireless network cards, cameras and stereo music. 

Palm’s new operating system, called OS 5, attempts to remedy that.