PersianTree PalmOS Emulator

b/Consoles publicado por u/guicrith July 09, 2016, 10:12:14 PM

PersianTree PalmOS Emulator

This is not a release!

This is a new palm emulator I started and have been working on it on and off for about a year and now need some help,so I posted it on github.

It can currently only run 1 game (zap2016) and the speed is off and any popup dialog will crash it.

All the apis so far have been done by hand so no palm os rom is required.

Heres the link:https://github.com/meepingsnesroms/PersianTree

Currenly it is very messy and uses QT as the gui.

With help I would like to switch it to retroarch and clean it up a little.

If you dont want to work on it maybe just look at it and tell me if you see a bug.

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u/Dream of Omnimaga July 09, 2016, 10:43:47 PM

Hi Guicrith, nice to see you again

So I assume this is an emulator that can emulate a PalmOS pocket computer and not an emulator that runs on PalmOS? For which platform will it be? I assume Android but I was curious about the others, since the topic was in the consoles section.

u/Yuki July 09, 2016, 10:47:24 PM

Oh that's nice. I don't really know anything about PalmOS, so I can't really help but if you want testing I can gladly help out. I have a working install of RetroArch on my Raspberry Pi if that helps, for the libretro port.

@DJ Omnimaga I assume it will theorically work on everything that has a libretro frontend, like RetroArch. As in, everything.

Last Edit: July 09, 2016, 10:49:12 PM by Juju

u/guicrith July 09, 2016, 10:53:53 PM

Yes it emulates palm os.
It runs on everything. (Android,Linux,Windows,Mac,IOS)

I don't need testers yet because the only thing to test is why it crashed,and the retroarch port hasent even started,that would be after it can run at least a few games without crashing.

Thank you for offering though.

u/gameblabla July 10, 2016, 12:09:21 AM

ah, very interesting.
Eventually, this might become a Zodiac emulator, as it is PalmOS based, only with a 2D Radeon accelerator.
This console had some... interesting games. (much like the Gizmondo actually)

u/guicrith July 10, 2016, 12:12:39 AM

Quote from: gameblabla on July 10, 2016, 12:09:21 AM
ah, very interesting.
Eventually, this might become a Zodiac emulator, as it is PalmOS based, only with a 2D Radeon accelerator.
This console had some... interesting games. (much like the Gizmondo actually)

That is the main goal after converting to retroarch and fixing all the bugs.

u/gameblabla July 10, 2016, 12:15:43 AM

Quote from: guicrith on July 10, 2016, 12:12:39 AM
Quote from: gameblabla on July 10, 2016, 12:09:21 AM
ah, very interesting.
Eventually, this might become a Zodiac emulator, as it is PalmOS based, only with a 2D Radeon accelerator.
This console had some... interesting games. (much like the Gizmondo actually)

That is the main goal after converting to retroarch and fixing all the bugs.

Ahaha, i should have looked at your github page...
Why converting to retroarch though ?
Why not just use SDL so we can port it to platforms like the TI Nspire ? :p

I personally find SDL much easier to use than libretro which is even more bloated and complicated.

u/guicrith July 10, 2016, 12:23:42 AM

Because libretro takes care of all input and output,I just need to read the palm buttons/keyboard keys and provide a framebuffer and audio buffer.

Also SDL doesn't work very well with android and iOS.

For calculator ports just run it in kernel mode and make a simple I/O driver,it only needs those 3 things.(2 here since calcs don't have speakers)

u/Dream of Omnimaga July 10, 2016, 04:59:13 AM

Thanks for explaining which platforms this is for by the way. I'm glad to see it will have such compatibility.

As for the games did it have a lot of them? Or did it go the way of the Gizmondo or VirtualBoy?

u/guicrith July 10, 2016, 05:08:49 AM

It has lots of games,there hard to find now since they where downloads and the original websites are down,but anyone could develop for it so theres a lot.

Palm os went from 1997-2008,it is dead now but the best palm (the palm tx) had a 200mhz arm so it is more powerful than a GBA.

u/Dream of Omnimaga July 14, 2016, 04:27:10 PM

And no one archived those games on Abandonware or archival websites? That's a shame...

u/guicrith July 14, 2016, 04:32:36 PM

Most have been archived somewhere but there harder to find than most ROMs and some have been lost or arnt cracked and there's no where to buy a licence.

The best ones are the astraware games and most of them can still be found along with keys or cracked.

u/Dream of Omnimaga July 14, 2016, 06:14:05 PM

Ah I see. It reminds me of the Videoway games in the 90's.

u/gameblabla July 16, 2016, 04:15:09 AM

I archived some Zodiac and Palm OS 5.x games and some of them like Meteor Asteroid are pretty rare.
https://zodiac.gameblabla.nl/files/

I even got my hands on an online issue of "Tapwave Times", an issue that was released during E3 2004.
https://zodiac.gameblabla.nl/files/tw_times.pdf

MTX: Mototrax looks nothing like the final version that was leaked to the internet...

That being said, i agree with guicrith.
Thanks to the registration system and people in general not caring about phone games,
Symbian and Palm OS are the worst victims of digital disappearance.
You really have to look really hard to eventually find some games...
For example, i still can't find the Street Hoops demo for Zodiac online...

Last Edit: July 16, 2016, 04:22:54 AM by gameblabla

u/Dream of Omnimaga July 16, 2016, 04:38:37 AM

Yeah. Very sad

. This reminds me of Vidéoway in Quebec (and I think United Kingdom). It was an online device you hooked to your TV that also required cable TV and for $8 a month you had access to a menu with plenty of services, like astrology, stock exchange, weather, news and interactive TV channels but the best part IMHO were the video games we could play online. All games looked like Colecovision or Atari 5200 games so I had to wonder if the thing used the same processor/hardware or something. However, most games were renamed and translated into French. Also the sucky part is that you had to use the TV remote they provided with the device rather than a gamepad.

Sadly, everything is now gone since 2006. The service was replaced with Illico in 2000 but it continued running until 2006 for those who still had the device. It was basically the Quebec ancestor to Internet.

Last Edit: July 16, 2016, 04:44:00 AM by DJ Omnimaga