Develop Bugs

Making our own ATi Imageon driver...

Well, if HTC won't do it, someone needs to... I want to see if it can be done. Can we create our own ATi Imageon Drivers for the MSM7200/7500?
step 1: Find out which Imageon is in there...
Here's the official list
I just hope it's not some custom job!
Think it's worth a go?

^^Bump^^
This definitely needs to be done. I wish I had the know how to develop this but unfortunately I don't.

you should really try posting this somewhere else, like maybe in the development and hacking forum, since the vogue is not the only device that suffers from this.
this is really a great idea in my opinion, and im sure there are those out there that know how to get it done!

Would be awesome, but it seems like it would be a huge undertaking. I'd imagine that Qualcomm has it locked in some way, preventing it's use if the license to use that component wasn't purchased as part of the hardware platform. I really have no idea though. I'll keep hoping : )

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step... we have a ton of talent here, HTC and Qualcomm don't seem to want to release it... I think that it might be time to start building our own.

Post copied to development and hacking but I quoted first post of this thread to give proper credit for the idea.

I remember reading somewhere that there is actually a $2000 (and growing) cash prize for the msm 7xxx drivers. Totally support the idea.

yep... I think it's up to 7 grand now.
I'm going to wait until the end of March before I start anything.

Draiko said:
yep... I think it's up to 7 grand now.
I'm going to wait until the end of March before I start anything.
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Click to collapse
well if anyone could point me to link i willing to offer 200 to play quake on my phone

problem is that writing device drivers is the hardest program one can get into
the driver is limited to a very tiny mem footprint and must never be alowed to crash
even if the memory it's using is lost on the heap
and one needs access to alot of whitepapirs from the hardware maker
which is prob why htc did such a poor job writing then driver themselfs
because they were too cheap to pay qualcomm for it

Rudegar said:
problem is that writing device drivers is the hardest program one can get into
the driver is limited to a very tiny mem footprint and must never be alowed to crash
even if the memory it's using is lost on the heap
and one needs access to alot of whitepapirs from the hardware maker
which is prob why htc did such a poor job writing then driver themselfs
because they were too cheap to pay qualcomm for it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not supposed to rain on parade day...

I used to write assembly language device drivers for embedded real-time systems. Doing so requires a high level of knowledge, experience and documentation WRT:
1. Dev & testing tools and environment
2. The target hardware (detailed doc)
3. The target OS kernel and driver hooks
4. System-level programming mind-set (different from app dev)
Quite interesting and rewarding if you have the above - quite difficult, bordering on 'not gonna happen' if you don't.
Sincere best wishes to those who give it a shot!

My entire impetus for this thread was to start gathering people with the skills and talent needed to tackle driver construction. If open-source maniacs can do it, we can too. I have some experience with assembly... the tricky part is going to be finding out the specific commands, paths, and function calls for the embedded hardware. There's going to be a LOT of trial and error involved.
I'm starting to look for the Windows CE DDK right now. Come April 1st, if there is no word from HTC, Qualcomm, or Sprint on this driver issue, I'm going to round up as many capable people as I can and try to hammer this out.
Something that might shed some more light on the entire driver issue... Uh oh
Big Uh oh...

if this ever comes together fully it will be really cool but i still dont get why SE didnt include drivers in the first place??

comeradealexi said:
if this ever comes together fully it will be really cool but i still dont get why SE didnt include drivers in the first place??
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Click to collapse
As posted before, they probably bought it at a cheaper price by having the drivers restricted. If they were to pay full price then maybe the driver would have been included. It's kind of what Palm did back in the day when they could have spent the extra $.05 for a higher quality speaker but didn't on the Palm III series. I'm pretty sure this is a cost cutting technique used by most electronics manufacturers.

if im paying £500 for a device why not stick $0.5 on the bill! thats a shame

Damn right. I agree with all you guys.
The fact that I cannot get graphics hardware acceleration from a 500 USD+ device is absolutely ridiculous.
I love my Xperia X1, but in hindsight, I would've NEVER supported any product like this had I known it was the case.
Shame on HTC and Sony for swindling their customer from the "rich, multimedia experience" they promise so much.
Bastard Sony/HTC.

well boot android and youll have more qualcomm support..since they own the gpu chip msm7xxx devices uses now, thats what chipset all official android handsets use, even non htc android phones.

ajclai08 said:
well boot android and youll have more qualcomm support..since they own the gpu chip msm7xxx devices uses now, thats what chipset all official android handsets use, even non htc android phones.
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Click to collapse
and thus, there is driver support natively in android for us?
If that's true, what's stopping us from reverse-engineering the android driver and building a WinMo driver?
If we had a starting point, it's feasible--but without a starting point (or white papers), it's impossible.

i completely agree with this we have waited enough for the garbage companies to put out. Ive gone through three HTC phones already with graphics Acceleration turned OFF... WTF!!!

Windows Phone 7 – Released To Manufacturing

Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7! While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete.
Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released. We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes. We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.
I last posted on this blog when we reached the Technical Preview milestone, and we’ve received some great feedback since then which we’ve been able to respond to and improve the smart design throughout the OS. For example, folks loved the Facebook integration in the People Hub, but they also wanted ways to filter their contacts so only the Facebook friends they really know will show up in their contact list – we’ve added support for that. We’ve also made it easy to “like” a post right from the People Hub, or quickly post a message to someone’s Facebook wall directly.
This has been one of the most incredible product development efforts I’ve ever been a part of. Today’s milestone is exciting not just because of what we’ll deliver to customers later this year, but how it sets us up for success over the long term in the mobile space… we’re really just getting started.
We reached today’s milestone because of the tremendous efforts of the entire team including our partners, early adopters, and independent software developers providing feedback. I want to send a huge THANK YOU to this extended team– we couldn’t have done it without you!
by Terry Myerson
Windows Phone Blog
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_...indows-phone-7-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

To general!
~~Tito~~

They're listening, that's great news by itself.

If they want to get this right they better be listening.

I wonder how long it will take them to move to silverlight 4 so they can get the clipboard support. Also I wonder how long before we'll see ie9 integrated into there as well.

Here's what I want to see:
1. HTML5
2. Silverlight/Flash in browser (I know flash is planned)
3. Copy/Paste
4. 3rd Party Multitasking
5. Thumb Drive Support even if it's restricted access to what's viewable.

Kloc said:
1. HTML5
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Click to collapse
I don't understand why people want this so bad recently. I can't think of a single site that even has a html5 version yet alone HTML5 only. Not that I'm saying they shouldn't use it...but it's hardly on my radar of things to care about.

Just because it's the newest standard and it won't be long before sites are implementing it. I've looked at the docs and it has some pretty cool stuff built-in. I'd just like to see MS stay up with the lastest and greatest.

Kloc said:
Just because it's the newest standard and it won't be long before sites are implementing it. I've looked at the docs and it has some pretty cool stuff built-in. I'd just like to see MS stay up with the lastest and greatest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it'll be a rather long time (5-10 yrs) before anyone major decides to really make a site really dependent on HTML5/CSS3. The reality is it takes a long time for people to migrate to newer technologies ie. a decade later and we're supporting IE6 and XP. I can see using it as an enhancement for people capable of viewing that content. But you still want your site to be designed for non-HTML5 content if you want to appeal to everyone.
From a web development point of view, you're also stepping into a mindfield as browser compatiblity is concerned.

gom99 said:
I think it'll be a rather long time (5-10 yrs) before anyone major decides to really make a site really dependent on HTML5/CSS3. The reality is it takes a long time for people to migrate to newer technologies ie. a decade later and we're supporting IE6 and XP. I can see using it as an enhancement for people capable of viewing that content. But you still want your site to be designed for non-HTML5 content if you want to appeal to everyone.
From a web development point of view, you're also stepping into a mindfield as browser compatiblity is concerned.
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Honestly I don't really care all that much. It's just because the iphone has it

Kloc said:
Honestly I don't really care all that much. It's just because the iphone has it
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Click to collapse
lol yea, it's never a good idea to give Jobs something to make a snarky comment at one of his conferences. He's such a whiney brat . I don't think I've seen a single conference where he hasn't had some kind of underhanded remark to make.

I still want to know what the MS excuse de jour is for making WP7 incompatible with existing devices, especially since their site pushes some pricy Windows phones. If this oversight can't be fixed, they ought to give away or discount replacement phones.

piaqt said:
I still want to know what the MS excuse de jour is for making WP7 incompatible with existing devices, especially since their site pushes some pricy Windows phones. If this oversight can't be fixed, they ought to give away or discount replacement phones.
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Click to collapse
It's not really an excuse. If you sat down and thought about it you'd come up with the answer. If you made it for the devices today you'd be making it for older hardware and you'd have to limit what your OS could do based on the crop of current windows phones (aside from the hd2 they're pretty slow).
By setting it's requirements MS ensures that they provide a certain baseline experience to their end users. By having a standard for minimum buttons you're making it easy for consumers to pick up any wp7 regardless of what maker and have a consistent experience.
It's not an oversight. I don't see why they need discount replacement phones, this would be a carrier decision anyway...kind of like a cash for klunkers program.

piaqt said:
I still want to know what the MS excuse de jour is for making WP7 incompatible with existing devices, especially since their site pushes some pricy Windows phones. If this oversight can't be fixed, they ought to give away or discount replacement phones.
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Click to collapse
It's a fresh start and they really needed it. They decided to make a baseline and all the window's phone out today don't meet the requirements. I think this is a good move by MS. If you can't afford to buy a new phone then just used your 6.5 device until you can. If they had made them all upgradable we would still have the bad fragmentation that Windows Mobile has today. I'm sure there will be cheaper model, heavily subsidizes devices that will hit the market so you'll have your chance.

wwweeeeee.
Singing ....
gimmi gimmi gimmi my phone after midnight, plz wont somebody give me there Win Phone 7 away.
Gimmi gimmi gimmi a 5 inch display, duel core and without a delay" =)))
*gaahh*
...i just got to sing again =)
....and they where singing, by by foul fruit goodbye, calld on Jobs but the call got hanged up lost connection somehow...

definately a good sign for microsoft...as of right now the road seems bright
we shall see though...

HD2?
So do I understand it correctly? Even no windows mobile 7 for the HD2? I'd assume that the HD2 does meet the hardware requirements.

msportel77 said:
So do I understand it correctly? Even no windows mobile 7 for the HD2? I'd assume that the HD2 does meet the hardware requerements.
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Click to collapse
Nope the HD2 does not have the right hardware buttons. It's probably the only device that may be possible to get ported to WP7 by us here though.

msportel77 said:
So do I understand it correctly? Even no windows mobile 7 for the HD2? I'd assume that the HD2 does meet the hardware requerements.
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Click to collapse
No it doesn't... it has 5 buttons in the front of the device ... not the 3 standart displacement required by MS...

Kloc said:
Here's what I want to see:
1. HTML5
2. Silverlight/Flash in browser (I know flash is planned)
3. Copy/Paste
4. 3rd Party Multitasking
5. Thumb Drive Support even if it's restricted access to what's viewable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I consign all of those things lol.

[q] a little hope for rhodium

i have been around xda for awhile now (owning the Tilt 2) and found that many people have lost hope in the Android project. Some say that the internal hardware is just to "old" to play decent games on the android marketplace. But when i look at the tech specs for the Rhodium and see a 528 mhz processor with 512 mb of ram, i question myself. Obviously not as impressive as other phones now a days, but lets take the Ipod touch 2nd generation for instance. The hardware inside both devices seem to replicate one another (i mean acccording the tech specs the ipod touch is clocked at 533 mhz but isnt the Blazn android clocked at 700 mhz or plus!) maybe its a graphic card issue (correct me if im wrong), but i dont find this hardware that "old." I personally own a Ipod touch 2g and it runs games beautifully, but then again, it could be the os. Tell me if my thinking is totally off, or is there hope in the Rhodium android dev.
Also, it seems like the HTC leo (HD2) android dev went up quick and works 99% perfect (or should a say evo status without the front facing camera?). The possibilty for the Rhodium is greater than what people actually think.

I tend to agree. If you look at the specs on the device, you cant replace all the features it has with anything on the market yet, till the TP3 is out. Its a Saphire on steriods. I wont give this phone up till it breaks. My only wish was a front camera. If we get the camera going, what cant you do with it that a saphire will do

accilies45 said:
i have been around xda for awhile now (owning the Tilt 2) and found that many people have lost hope in the Android project. Some say that the internal hardware is just to "old" to play decent games on the android marketplace. But when i look at the tech specs for the Rhodium and see a 528 mhz processor with 512 mb of ram, i question myself. Obviously not as impressive as other phones now a days, but lets take the Ipod touch 2nd generation for instance. The hardware inside both devices seem to replicate one another (i mean acccording the tech specs the ipod touch is clocked at 533 mhz but isnt the Blazn android clocked at 700 mhz or plus!) maybe its a graphic card issue (correct me if im wrong), but i dont find this hardware that "old." I personally own a Ipod touch 2g and it runs games beautifully, but then again, it could be the os. Tell me if my thinking is totally off, or is there hope in the Rhodium android dev.
Also, it seems like the HTC leo (HD2) android dev went up quick and works 99% perfect (or should a say evo status without the front facing camera?). The possibilty for the Rhodium is greater than what people actually think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, the RHOD has 288mb of RAM.... Second, the specs on the HD2 are ridiculously better - similar to most Android phones, hence the porting job for them was a breeze. Plus, they had a dev that was really, really good at disassembling WinMo dll's, so that made the porting job easier for them as well.
We might be able to get it up to a level of the Vogue... but your iPod Touch is a very, very different device from your RHOD. Lot less for your iPod to worry about then your RHOD...
Devs are makin great progress tho, I feel confident we can get it to a level where it would be comparable to a native Android device with similar specs - like the G1.

arrrghhh said:
Plus, they had a dev that was really, really good at disassembling WinMo dll's, so that made the porting job easier for them as well.
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Click to collapse
Maybe some donation (if there is more than >400 euros for overclock tool, we could get more for fully working android) for him would make necessery progress?
I would donate 15 euro, if there are more ppl, we could ask if he is interested.

Raul^ said:
Maybe some donation (if there is more than >400 euros for overclock tool, we could get more for fully working android) for him would make necessery progress?
I would donate 15 euro, if there are more ppl, we could ask if he is interested.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The legendary dev I speak of has helped us immensely already... he doesn't want money.
It's just he doesn't have the device himself, and it's not worth his time working on the RHOD... Already tried to get him a device, he wouldn't have it
Either way, he's a very helpful individual - we just have to go to him with very specific questions/problems, which is being addressed. We're getting there, progress is flying lately.

arrrghhh said:
The legendary dev I speak of has helped us immensely already... he doesn't want money.
It's just he doesn't have the device himself, and it's not worth his time working on the RHOD... Already tried to get him a device, he wouldn't have it
Either way, he's a very helpful individual - we just have to go to him with very specific questions/problems, which is being addressed. We're getting there, progress is flying lately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ahh yes.. the infamous dev has helped us many times. BUT if you read the logs far back enough we did help them plenty of times as well. I guess it was exciting for me specially since having gone through it with the tp2 it was nice to lend a helping hand when the project was in it's infancy stages. The HD2 apparently is far easier to program according to those devs.. they look at the tp2 and wonder why htc made such a beast. It really is a weird device compared to the others we see.
We also went through a rough time losing some key devs this year. Thats never easy for such a small team that has never even met.
still .. we are getting close cheers

It has come a long way in the last 2 months, you guys are doing great! Keep up the good work
Other techies have taken double takes a few times when im playing angry birds on a wimo phone.. Its always entertaining.....
Tech: "Who's playing that darn game"
Me: "Dont look at me, im a wimo guy"

Interest in hacking the kin

I think that we really need to build some interest in hacking this kin phone. It appears that there are very few who post but there are a lot more viewing. I decided to create this poll so that maybe we can show it to some skilled mobile hackers letting them know that this phone is not dead and has amazing potential. I encourage everyone who reads this to vote in the poll. without every single person showing interest we may never get anywhere. So don't just read this but sign up and vote. Show your support!!! Lets generate some interest. Vote now and then go spread the word.

I'm interested in seeing the phone get hacked so that all its minor annoyances can be fixed but:
1. do not have the kin twom phone (eyeing to get one)
2. suck at programming
I tend not to post because I am letting the experts (who have the phone and skills to hack the phone) post their progress and such.
I been preying/stalking former Kin phone developers out on LinkedIn as johnkussack suggested but no one has replied back to add me as a contact so that I could send them private msgs asking for their help.

Maybe if we could also start calling Microsoft/Sharp/Verizon. If we have enough interest maybe we could persuade them. Maybe one of us could just get lucky with talking to a "certain" individual who is willing to give some information out. Someone mentioned on another post that Verizon was willing to give out the rom with permission from Sharp. It might also help to remember the person you talk to so that you can call them often and develop somewhat of a "friendship". Any convincing people here?

theres actually some good progress in ideas, but no progress in actually succsesfully hacking it. We just need time.

Modestmuse said:
theres actually some good progress in ideas, but no progress in actually succsesfully hacking it. We just need time.
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Click to collapse
Time and Information to be exact.

I would love to see this thing hacked
It has such great hardware for (now a feature phone). 8mp camera, 720p video recording, 600mhz Tegra processor, 256mb of RAM, and 8 gb of storage. Those are low-end (atleast on the processor and ram side of things) smartphone specs. If someone got android or hacked the actual Kin OS, it would be amazing. Honestly, I have to wonder if Microsoft (since they gave up on the phone) would hand over any info on it. I highly doubt it but eh you never know.

10...
I think this is why we dont have any serious phone hackers helping out.

http: // w w w.crunchgear. com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Zune-HD.png
Has anyone tried this?
Hook up your kin and see if it is recognized by windows phone connector?
it can recognize zune HD so why not kin?
and if it doesnt recognize kin we could make a driver...
any thought?

kintwom said:
10...
I think this is why we dont have any serious phone hackers helping out.
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Click to collapse
If no one makes if for "fun", no one makes it for recognition, and if no one does for money, you are allowed to begin to suspect what the Kin status is.

Why would you want to hack the Kin2. this guy i work with has one. He absolutly hates it. I would have to agree with him. I tried to use it for a couple mins and gave up.

jwalts27 said:
Why would you want to hack the Kin2. this guy i work with has one. He absolutly hates it. I would have to agree with him. I tried to use it for a couple mins and gave up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason we want to hack it is because the only that sucks about it is the OS. It has great hardware and could be an excellent feature phone if it were programmed better. Just one thought, look at the how smooth the interface and touch movement is in the zune portion of the phone. It is much smoother than the actual OS. Basically, Microsoft did a poor job with the OS and so the hardware is not being utilized to its full potential. That is why we are trying to optimize it.

mcdietz said:
The reason we want to hack it is because the only that sucks about it is the OS. It has great hardware and could be an excellent feature phone if it were programmed better. Just one thought, look at the how smooth the interface and touch movement is in the zune portion of the phone. It is much smoother than the actual OS. Basically, Microsoft did a poor job with the OS and so the hardware is not being utilized to its full potential. That is why we are trying to optimize it.
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Click to collapse
exactly, the poor OS development ended up it not using its full processor potential, its like they had a deadline to make it, and they werent finished....

Reminder: Don't expect the 8.1 Preview to behave.

It's a beta! It's buggy, it's slow (at least on a Surface RT).
If you use your tablet daily, stay away from this thing. Wait for the full release.

SilverHedgehog said:
It's a beta! It's buggy, it's slow (at least on a Surface RT).
If you use your tablet daily, stay away from this thing. Wait for the full release.
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Click to collapse
expecting bumps. so far it's good and I am not experiencing any hiccups yet. I very much like the changes.
cheers

Well, I found it rather buggy - though considering how I use it, I'm rather surprised how well it works in 8.0. Still, a warning might be a good idea - I'm sick of people attacking companies when beta software is behaving like beta software.

It's also so limited in terms of the number of devices and regions it will actually install in, I rather get the impression it was a real rush job to try and show that improvements are at least coming at some point.

SilverHedgehog said:
It's a beta! It's buggy, it's slow (at least on a Surface RT).
If you use your tablet daily, stay away from this thing. Wait for the full release.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don`t stand by you .I think the RT 8.1 is perfect。The experience on my surface RT is nice

seven7xiaoyang said:
I don`t stand by you .I think the RT 8.1 is perfect。The experience on my surface RT is nice
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Click to collapse
I second that.. My Surface is faster and smoother now. Especially with IE11. I have no more lags or getting the Browser to freeze. I love it!

I have the 8.1 Preview on my Surface RT and it seems fine. I wouldn't caution anybody against it based on what I've seen so far.
Tk

ToddKlindt said:
I have the 8.1 Preview on my Surface RT and it seems fine. I wouldn't caution anybody against it based on what I've seen so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jailbreak. 'Nuff said.

Using Spotify crashes the browser - worked perfectly in 8.0.

A reminder to all who find bugs: PLEASE report them to MS! This is our last chance to ask Microsoft to fix things while the software is in development. Once it ships and gets handed off to a maintenance team, changes will be much slower to arrive.
Note: while the continued restriction on running our own desktop apps is not strictly a bug, this is also a good time to complain to MS about that; it's a very easy policy for them to change, if they decide it would be worth it!

So far my experience with windows rt. 8.1 is very nice. I like the outlook 2013, the keyboard and the response time of the tablet.

GoodDayToDie said:
A reminder to all who find bugs: PLEASE report them to MS! This is our last chance to ask Microsoft to fix things while the software is in development. Once it ships and gets handed off to a maintenance team, changes will be much slower to arrive.
Note: while the continued restriction on running our own desktop apps is not strictly a bug, this is also a good time to complain to MS about that; it's a very easy policy for them to change, if they decide it would be worth it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to read up on win32 vs. RT as well as some basic application architecture, then you will see why your complaint isn't valid.
Just because it has a pretty desktop and a run box doesn't mean apps magically work... Code for winform apps has to be compiled for arm vs x86/x64 to function and that just isn't going to happen. Explorer is there for a shim/stopgap.. By win9, will likely be gone for good.
This is like winnt on alpha and 2008 on titanium all over again... Except its now in the hands of consumers that don't understand what's going on under the covers.
MS should have never put a traditional desktop/explorer in RT and just finished the port of apps to modernui because its confusing to the average user.
Just think if apple had a shortcut in iOS to give you a macosx desktop that didn't run Mac apps..
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

@libbycm: Despite being here even longer than I have, you appear to have no idea who you're talking to *or* what you're talking about.
I maintain the Ported Apps thread for RT, and have ported a few of them myself (and should get back into it with something more realistic than Chrome, which I still hope to get working Some Day Soon Now). I am quite *personally* familiar with the requirements of porting, the difficulties of working around missing functionality (almost all of which, it should be noted, is missing by design and not neccessity), and the realities of what an ARM processor can and cannot do.
First of all, .NET apps (including WinForms ones and even once that use COM or P/Invoke to system libraries) work just fine, no recompile needed. That's a pretty small portion of the overall Windows software ecosystem, of course, but it's a growing one and also it's one that would be seen as worth targeting by more developers if they saw an actual benefit to architecture-independent toolchains on Windows.
Second, and related to the first, .NET is far from the only architecture-independent language. Java (though IKVM, though .NET) kind of works on RT already; it wouldn't take much to make a serious platform worthy of an official port. Same for Python, and we already have Perl. Yeah, that's still miniscule next to the bulk of legacy x86 code, but it would nonetheless make RT a far more popular platform (for example, many of the Windows bittorrent clients are either Java or Python code, and some very popular games are written in those languages).
Third, even with the crippled tools that we have cobbled together to do our porting, and despite the fact that it's all done on our own time, we've managed a fair number of native ports already. There'd be far more if it weren't for the fact that we can't port closed-source programs (and many open-source ones don't happily compile under MSVC, which is the only RT-targeting compiler we have right now). Already, a growing number of programs are natively available on x64 - after all, it's just a drop-down selection and another click on "Build" in Visual Studio. Well, the same is true of RT. It wouldn't get legacy software, but there's no reason that *new* software released in the last half year - even proprietary commercial stuff - couldn't support RT. After all, it's more customer base for almost no additional work (supporting x64 is sometimes actually more work than supported ARM; at least ARM uses the same-width pointers as x86).
Fourth, legacy code is - by its very nature - older code and generally suitable for running on less-powerful systems. You mentioned Apple... but you failed to mention that when Apple went from 68k CPUs to PowerPC CPUs, and then from PPC to x86, they used mostly-transparent emulation layers to bridge those gaps. Yeah, the code ran slower, but it ran well enough for most purposes. Yeah, ARM is *less* powerful than x86, not more powerful (although you could argue that the same is true for some use cases when going from a G5 to a first-gen Core Duo), but we've also gotten better at this emulation thing. When Apple did it before, they hired the best folks in the business, and pushed the entire field of CPU emulation forward with their need to make it work. When Microsoft declined to do that, one guy on XDA took it upon himself, in his free time, with only a partial toolchain and no access to Windows internals, hacking on open-source pieces, and built a transparent emulation layer for RT. Microsoft's Windows application compatibility team almost certainly loses more man-hours in one day's bathroom breaks than @mamaich has been able to spend on that project to date, and yet some of those very same people who pushed the whole industry forward at Apple, doing things like inventing what is today called dynamic recompilation, now work at Microsoft. They have the expertise to make it work if they'd wanted to.
Fifth, Windows on Itanium failed (mostly; it's still being used, just not developed) because Itaniums were targeted specifically at the enterprise market but weren't very good even there; there's plenty of software for that instruction set in the aforementioned market. Alpha (never mind Windows on Alpha, which I actually know people who used and worked on) failed because DEC wanted outrageous sums of money for it, seeking high-end margins instead of embracing the commodity market. Had they done otherwise, they might even still exist as a company today. NT on MIPS and PPC was similarly niche, targeting brand new (and poorly-merketed) segments that didn't have great penetration in the ecosystem (NT for PPC was a server/workstation OS, not a MacOS alternative). Unlike all those achitectures, though, ARM is well established in the consumer market for commodity computers, and its market share there is growing. If Microsoft is serious about succeeding with RT (and I think they are), they should look at the success story in that market... and it's not Apple anymore. Despite Apple's huge first-mover advantage with the consumer market, Android is rolling over them. Yet Microsoft seems determined to repeat many of Apple's mistakes, despite having precious few of its advantages. They need to make themselves a better Android, not a me-too Apple clone.
Sixth, while Microsoft has made no secret of their desire to move to WinRT, I don't really forsee them having much more success with that than with their prior effort to move people to .NET; lots of small developers will go, but the big programs that are the movers and shakers of the Windows world will stick with the vastly more powerful, flexible, and (frankly) useful Win32 API. Porting an app to RT is a hell of a lot harder than porting x86 native code to ARM, though...