# Palm OS Interface (Palm OSインターフェース)

> Palm OS turned a tiny monochrome screen, stylus and strict memory limits into a consistent pocket work tool through the Title, Category menu, Command Bar, hardware buttons and Graffiti writing area.

- IndexStyle No.599 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/palm-os
- Kind: Style · Family: Platform Screen Languages · Era: 1996–2009
- Mood: Technique, Trust, Nostalgia
- What this family collects: Design languages written down for a platform and published, from the vendors that shipped an operating system to the governments that had no reason to hide rules paid for with public money, every one of them recognisable at a glance.

## Defining characteristics

- A roughly 160 by 160 low-resolution monochrome screen
- Title at upper left and Category pop-up at upper right
- A Command Bar rising from the lower edge and four application buttons
- Thin one-bit icons, rules and the Graffiti input area

## Best used for

- Handling calendar, contacts and notes quickly with an extremely small display and few inputs
- Reconstructing an early PDA from its stylus-centered sequence, not only its pixel surface

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Use a sturdy bitmap face that separates letters at small sizes and reduce labels to one word.
- Layout & structure: Fix Title and Category above, the list in the middle, and commands and input below to reduce screen changes.
- Material & texture: Work in one-bit black and white, using thin rules, reversed selection and roughly 16-pixel icons for state.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #E8E6D8
- The colour it is remembered by: #7D8277
- Text and outlines: #161916

## What to avoid

Monochrome pixel UI alone is not Palm OS. Preserve the division of work among stylus, hardware keys, Graffiti and on-screen commands.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: A roughly 160 by 160 low-resolution monochrome screen
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Title at upper left and Category pop-up at upper right
- [ ] Visible in the piece: A Command Bar rising from the lower edge and four application buttons
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Thin one-bit icons, rules and the Graffiti input area
- [ ] The layout follows: Fix Title and Category above, the list in the middle, and commands and input below to reduce screen changes.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Use a sturdy bitmap face that separates letters at small sizes and reduce labels to one word.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Work in one-bit black and white, using thin rules, reversed selection and roughly 16-pixel icons for state.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #E8E6D8 as ground, #7D8277 carrying the style, #161916 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Apple Desktop Interface (アップル・デスクトップ・インターフェース)** — This is the design language Apple named itself, in the 1987 guidelines book whose subtitle reads The Apple Desktop Interface. Working with one bit of black and white, it wrote down a house style: halftone dot patterns standing in for gray, rounded window corners, a title bar of stacked horizontal rules, and a heavy bitmap face. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/apple-desktop-interface
- **Holo (ホロ)** — Google's design language for Android, introduced with 3.0 and pushed so hard that carrying it unmodified became a compatibility requirement for every 4.0 device. It rules a black ground with hairlines and lets a single cyan blue carry selection, focus and progress. It arrived as a guarantee as much as a look, since an app that asked for the theme by name would be drawn the same way even on a phone wearing a manufacturer's skin. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/holo

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=palm-os+apple-desktop-interface

## Further study

- Palm OS User Interface Guidelines
- Graffiti input area
- Title, Category and Command Bar

## Reference works

- Palm OS — User Interface Guidelines — https://cs.uml.edu/~fredm/courses/91.308-spr05/files/palmdocs/uiguidelines.pdf

## Source of record

- Palm OS — User Interface Guidelines — https://cs.uml.edu/~fredm/courses/91.308-spr05/files/palmdocs/uiguidelines.pdf

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/palm-os
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/palm-os/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)