GP32 Calling All Gp32 Developers

[Wintersheart]

Calling all gp32 designers I need to know if I am crazy.... I am attempting to design a small program in visual Basic that will allow me to convert Windows .exe application extentions into .fxe GP32 application extentions if this is impossible will someone please tell me. If it is possible I need all the design help I can get and If there is one already out there give me the link to download it.

Many Thanks

:unsure:

 

[aquafish_]

it is totally impossible !!

 

[mithris]

Nah, it's not _totally_ impossible..
(or it is if you intend to do a _small_ program)

But i'll give you a couple of hints, things you need to do in order to get this working.

First of all, you would need some kind of x86 instruction interpretion, which then
could generate approperiate ARM code, this is not a simple matter because the x86 is a CISC and has lots of instructions ARM doesn't have.
You would also ofcourse have to do some poking around of offsets, and work around the fact that you cannot have 32bit immediates within the code without using a PC relative load. (that will for sure screw up some jump offsets etc, lots of things to keep in in mind).
And the decide if you would like to link all DLLs statically with your new built FXE.
(in any case you would need some kind of bootup thingie on the GP32 taking care of memory mapping, since 8mb will not be enough to hold all DLL's, data etc) you should read up on virtual memory systems aswell.

This was the easy part, and i might have left some important steps out of it but i'm sure you will notice them when you get there.

What you need to do next is implement the win32 API for GP32, GDI etc.
That is a shitload of work, but not impossible i guess.
Then you would need some preemtive multitasking kernel running in the background, again, lots of work.

Well, if you have come this far, it's time to implement some of the more fun DLL's like DirectX, which i assume you would like to have, the source is ofcourse not open, but 'how hard could it be' to just implement the whole API?

Then there is the thing with emulating the floating point unit, and the SSE ofcourse.
The ARM CPU has some tricks for this, you can leave a undefined instruction in the code, and it will generate an exception for you where you could handle the instruction you would like to emulate, it will ofcourse be slow as hell but.. i think it's the easiest way of doing it.

Well, in short, not impossible at all, some might say it's a piece of cake.

Good luck!

---
mithris

 

[Tristan]

Mithris' long, LONG story...

And you left out a few bits. Like for example all the graphics would have to be resized in the program, unless ofcourse you'd like to do that realtime, then there's the problem with the keymapping, and the obvious shortage of buttons on the GP32. And ofcourse the GP32 doesn't have a MIDI chip, so if a game uses MIDI you'll have to emulate that chip.

All in all, fairly easy for such an experienced programmer as yourself. Especially seeing as Visual Basic is among the most potent, and powerfull programming languages known to man

:rolleyes:

 

[aquafish_]

Mithris' long, LONG story...

i think it is totally impossible !! i don't know any god able to do that...

 

[sebastian_insua]

Yes well he was taking the piss...
(I think...)
Even if it could be done it would take so long tha toyu might as well just do a proper port of every single application that you would want to convert with the "program"...

 

[generalnmx]

It would require a translation compiler. While theoretically possible, it would take too long for anybody to attempt in their free time. In fact, a GBA to GP32 translation compiler would probably be easier to accomplish, albiet still taking an absurd amount of time (we're talking years even for a master coder).

 

[Johndifo]

You can develop a kind of fractal language and convert all windows environment into a small math formula, the app you wish to convert into another small formula, then you make a fractal app decoder in GP32 and voila !!! you also win the nobel prize as side effect. :rolleyes:

 

[rcx21000]

Or you could make a neural net (huge, mabye a 1millx1mill layer per bit your input is). Then find tons of exe's that have been ported to GP32 (doom, snes9x... mabye 1 google would be enough) train your net with those, then it will port the exe's for you - no need to port any API.

But for my method, you'd need:
(1) To use C or some other lang much faster than VB
(2) Know alot about AI
(3) Not much time to program, but lots and lots to train
(4) A supercomputer with tons of RAM

 

[the_Diabologic]

to make a long story short, it's possible if you have a whole bunch of overpaid asm-gods and x86/windows/arm-super-gurus and some decades of time

so, to be realistic, it's simply not gonna happen

cheers

 

[the_Diabologic]

but hey, seeing this realistic you could write a lib for a windows-like gui
like having windows, buttons, etc. (according to gpzine someone did that before, who was it? ^^)
then you can remake some little mouse-driven apps or so

just an idea

 

[kneissl]

would be a complete waste of time.. vb blows

 

[rcx21000]

to make a long story short, it's possible if you have a whole bunch of overpaid asm-gods and x86/windows/arm-super-gurus and some decades of time

so, to be realistic, it's simply not gonna happen

cheers

I'll help with the overpaid part . All I charge is $100,000/hour. Other people can be the asm-gods

 

[Wintersheart]

Thanks all for replying to my message I am very grateful... sadly though strange as it may seen I dont have the money to fund an experiment like that...so its back to the drawing board.

Here's another idea. Is there a way to take the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system and get it to work on the GP32, bearing in mind that the software was designed to run on Palmtops powered by ARM9 processors! Any replies would be extremely grateful

PS: I do have a copy of the software and it is the 2002 IPAQ version.

 

[diablo2]

you mean making an emulator for pocket pc
it can't be done
pocket pc or most of them like ipac
are much to powerful to be emulated on gp32

i think if you wanted to make a lot of the users on this board happy help yoyo with his snes emulator, open snes9x gp or help enf65 on his gba emulator, gp advance.

An attempt wouldn't hurt though
do what you want

 

[mithris]

You don't need to emulate anything, many pocketPCs are ARM based.
I think it shouldn't be completely impossible to get WinCE running on the GP32..
Afaik someone was working on it before.. and, iirc microsoft have released the porting suit for free?


---
mithris

 

[Dozer]

You don't need to emulate anything, many pocketPCs are ARM based.
I think it shouldn't be completely impossible to get WinCE running on the GP32..
Afaik someone was working on it before.. and, iirc microsoft have released the porting suit for free?


---
mithris

It was firefly iirc.

 

[papapopalung]

surely a exe-fxe converter wouldn't be so hard for dos programs pre-1994? an x86-arm converter, something to make noises, and a standardised virtual keyboard and mouse/key>button mapper...

vga resolution is 320x240, innit?

 

[no_skill]

isn't vga a graphics standard (defining which memory adresses contain which functions etc) that supports various resolutions up to 640x480?

or am i confusing it with vesa?

 

[mithris]

The good old VGA memory started at 0xA000:0000.
And the resolution ppl used was 320x200 (mode 13h)

And i think 640x400 was the highest standard VGA mode..
mode 12h.. it was horrible to work with slow as hell, completely useless.

But you could play around pretty much with the VGA registers, and get a mode called ModeX, actually i think all the tweaked modes were called ModeX of some reason, just as long as it wasn't standard mode 13h
the main feature was that you could get a little higher resolution and that you could address the whole 256k VGA memory.

---
mithris