Palm Os On The Gp-32 - Possible?

[DaveC]

I was thinking that is would be possible to run Palm OS on the GP32. Hell if you can run Linux, why not Palm. Most Palm devices are quite simple in hardware, just a CPU some RAM and that is about it. The only problem would be that the larger apps would likely need the 32 MB RAM upgrade.

Now I know what you are thinking "you idiot how the hell would you use it, the GP32 has no touch screen" Well that is simple really, you would have a layer running over Palm that would emulate it with the joystick and an on screen "mouse" pointer. Much the same way that a mouse is simulated in CasTaway Atari ST emu. when you want to "tap" the screen you would just press a button.

Then you could run some small games and even some apps. Graffiti would be a pain but you could have a little virtual keyboard come up like Castaway, Frodo etc.

 

[Swiss_Cheesespam]

It isn't open source to my knowledge.

 

[Scott]

Actually I think it is. You can download the sdk and it comes with an emulator and source i think.

 

[Squidge]

There are PalmOS emulators and the SDK is free, but PalmOS itself requires licensing to be able to use. It's certainly possible, and would allow hundreds of games to start working (and if you emulate PalmOS5, it would include a large quantity of Zodiac games).

 

[wolly wotsit]

That sounds cool, how would you run zodiac games?

 

[Squidge]

Well, a lot of Zodiac games will run on standard PalmOS. They just will not use the enhanced features of the Zodiac.

 

[EvilDragon]

You won't emulate PalmOS.
You will port PalmOS.

 

[Tristan]

You won't emulate PalmOS.
You will port PalmOS.

You don't have to port PalmOS, because it's already been ported to ARM. All you need to do (I think) is dump the PalmOS from a Zodiac, then write drivers for the input and be done with it. Would seriously own imho.

 

[Squidge]

Using the PalmOS from a Zodiac would be a nightmare, as it would be expecting all the additional hardware such as ATI chip and the like.

What you want is the "ROM" from a PalmOS simulator, look those that Palm supply themselves. These are far more generic ROM images that simply assume "screen+buttons".

 

[DaveC]

There are alot of cool little apps like picture viewers, scientific graphing calculators, dictionaries, address books, etc that would run great. The only things that would not work are scheduling/calendar stuff due tho the lack of a real time clock. No big deal though. And it would have the advantage in that the battery in the GP32 would not be continually draining even if not used like the real PDAs do.

 

[CrazyDesi]

Emulating the Palm m100 is good enough for me. It already adds tons of apps which could come in useful.

 

[EvilDragon]

You won't emulate PalmOS.
You will port PalmOS.

You don't have to port PalmOS, because it's already been ported to ARM. All you need to do (I think) is dump the PalmOS from a Zodiac, then write drivers for the input and be done with it. Would seriously own imho.

Well - yes, it's for arm.
But you still need to recompile it as the GP32 does have different hardware.
PalmOS usually gets recompiled for each PDA AFAIK.

There's always more than a processor in a computer system...

 

[DaveC]

Emulating the Palm m100 is good enough for me.  It already adds tons of apps which could come in useful.

Yeah it would be cool, and on the GP32 it would not have the ever draining battery thing. I mean you could leave your gp32 turned off for months and when you turn it on you wouldn't lose anything.

I never meant that it would run Zodiac stuff though, but I guess almost every post seems to end up as a zodiac thread <_<

Also many Palms were very simple in hardware. Not all of them had/have built in cameras, bluetooth, graphics and sound processors etc. hell many of them had sound capabilities not much better than the PC speaker.

 

[Squidge]

I know you never meant that it would run Zodiac stuff, but I was just pointing out that 95% of Zodiac games are actually just standard PalmOS games. Don't forget however that PalmOS stores a lot of configuration etc in ram that is not meant to be deleted at power off, so this would need to be written back to the SMC before switching off the GP, and reloaded next time.