# Windows Mobile 5.0 support?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 10, 2006, 7:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735 "2006-07-10T07:24:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regularfry)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 7:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735/1 "2006-07-10T07:24:21Z")

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Windows Mobile 5.0 support? Why don’t work?

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**Author:** ![regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regularfry)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 6:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735/2 "2006-07-10T18:21:09Z")

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Hi Alex,

A few things off the top of my head:

- No console, thus no STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR (but then, neither does  
rubyw on win32)
- No concept of current working directory, I think this would need to  
be emulated for compatability
- Need a window manager to do anything useful like user interaction,  
has Fox or any other Ruby WM been ported to WM5?
- Differences in API between Windows NT and Windows Mobile – lots of  
little things in the ruby source would I’m sure change
- File paths, for instance, are quite different.

I’m sure there’s other things as well. I’m not saying it’s an  
insurmountable problem, but it’d be a lot of work and I guess there  
just hasn’t been the interest yet.

Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this, I haven’t been active in the  
Pocket PC world for a year or two.

– Brian P.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regularfry)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735/3 "2006-07-11T19:01:25Z")

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Hmm, I’m not really sure I see your point. As I said, none of those  
difficulties are impossible to overcome, there just hasn’t been  
anybody interested enough yet to actually do the work and get Ruby  
ported to WM. Python faced the same issues, and somebody did the work  
to make a patch addressing those issues. Though it doesn’t look like  
there’s any window manager, just a virtual console. I’d be great if  
somebody did port it, I certainly wouldn’t mind having Ruby on my  
MDA 🙂 But not so great that I’m willing to spend the time myself, I  
guess.

– Brian

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@regularfry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/regularfry)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 7:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/windows-mobile-5-0-support/97735/4 "2006-07-11T07:33:04Z")

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Brian P. wrote:

> Hi Alex,
> 
> A few things off the top of my head:
> 
> - No console, thus no STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR (but then, neither does  
> rubyw on win32)
> - No concept of current working directory, I think this would need to  
> be emulated for compatability
> - Need a window manager to do anything useful like user interaction,  
> has Fox or any other Ruby WM been ported to WM5?
> - Differences in API between Windows NT and Windows Mobile – lots of  
> little things in the ruby source would I’m sure change
> - File paths, for instance, are quite different.
> 
> I’m sure there’s other things as well. I’m not saying it’s an  
> insurmountable problem, but it’d be a lot of work and I guess there  
> just hasn’t been the interest yet.
> 
> Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this, I haven’t been active in the  
> Pocket PC world for a year or two.
> 
> – Brian P.

But how about [Python Windows CE port download | SourceForge.net](http://sourceforge.net/projects/pythonce) ?  
Work’s good on my Acer n300 with WM 5.