new to GP32 scene - couple of questions


scottm

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Dec 8, 2003
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www.kaiserpc.co.uk
Hi all,

just got my GP32 FLU from GBAX.com (thx Craig) - wow it's awesome. Never heard of it before a fortnight ago - stumbled across gbax.com while thinking about getting a flash unit for my gba-sp.

After I read about the emulation on the gp32 I decided to plump for that - c64, atari st, and scumm oh yes! (I had a c64 & atari st 1st time round, and always loved monkey island et all)

So the unit arrived the other day, and I quickly tried out some c64 games - last ninja, wizball etc. Dungeon Master on castaway, and DOTT on scumm. Also tried some mp3s. Wow - this piece of kit is excellent and deserves to suceed (or is it too late already!). Anyway I have to give up my GP32 until christmas now, as I'm getting the gp32 from my Wife for Christmas, and I was just "testing" it to make sure it worked.

Anyway on to my questions ...

1/ Fancied getting the movie player from joygp but it said my gp32 wasn't registered/authenticated or something along those lines. Craig had preflashed the gp32 with 4 different OS's since the register site was down. Joygp asked me to download some register tool but I was a bit wary since my gp32 was flashed already. Is this okay to run? and once I do this can I buy games from joygp without any issues?

2/ I hear a new official OS has been released for the GP32 how do I go about upgrading my official OS and retaining my current multi OS boot up options?

3/ I see keyboard drivers have been developed for the gp32 has anyone managed to rig a pda keyboard up to their gp32? I'm sure some electrical techie could do something with the expansion port (please excuse my ignorance if this a major task - I don't know the first thing about how to do this :) ). This would turn the gp32 into a fully functional pda as well (along as we could get some basic apps - diary, calculator, text editor)

4/ talking of using the expansion port has anyone looked at outputting the video output to a tv?

5/Also heard about the new Zodiac console - do you think all the homebrew developers will abandon the GP32 for the Zodiac?

Anyway that's enough ranting for now - sorry for the length of the posting and that most of these questions have probably already been asked.

Cheers,

Scott M.
 
I will try to answer the questions best I can, because I'm surprised that for once someone isn't asking about SNES emulation! I mean, I'm not bagging anybody, but this is sorta comfortable!

1. This isn't something I'm familiar with I must admit. Freelauncher is the program you'd need to run programs off a SMC, just so you know. That's all I'm really game to say, but since JoyGP isn't really gamepark itself, I personally wouldn't expect any damage to occur...but that's me. I destroyed my arcade cabinet, don't take my word for it!
2. The European firmware, I assume you mean? I assume you have freeloader, since I don't think there is any multi-OS/firmware boot thingy (but hardware again isn't my specialty), but as I understand it, it has no real new features over the one you have. It's an alternative. The MP3 player might be better, maybe, but that's it. I doubt the MP3 quality improves, though...
3. I haven't heard of anyone else getting the keyboard to work as nobody has schematics to do so. There's currently no applications that actually use a keyboard, of course, but text editors and calculators do exist already. I think Wind-Ups may have a calculator, I forget. There's a text editor...is that in Wind-Ups also? I have it somewhere...
4. Nobody has done such a thing yet, unfortunately. It's obviously not as easy to do as a GBA because it didn't take long for that to happen on GBA...
5. Definitely not. The Zodiac has more raw power, but it isn't a pure games machine like the GP32, and it's more expensive. With the hype preceding its launch, I bet everyone was expecting it to totally and utterly kill the GP32, but...well, what a letdown. It isn't going to improve and I think, for now at least, there's room for both machines. Since the GP32 doesn't appear to have any successors on the horizon at all, I have to wonder if the opposite will occur myself...
 
Thx for the answers :)

Knew I forgot one question:

Does anyone have any idea of the installed user base of the GP32? Also the country or at least continent breakdown?

Cheers,

Scott M.
 
What do you mean? If you're talking about the main region it was released, well, GamePark is from Korea. So it's main market is Asia. But it appears to be equally as popular in Europe, especially the UK.
 
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