Palmos Emulation?


nemt

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2005
Messages
142
Age
39
Website
www.nemesisz.net
Does the GP2X currently support any kind of PalmOS emulation? There are a few PalmOS games I'd really love to play on it. Obviously the lack of a touchscreen presents a bit of a problem, though.
 
Shikaku posted on Oct 11 2006 at 03:09 PM said:
the PalmOS has a lot of architectures and clockspeeds.

Not really, all the modern Palm devices use ARM architecture. Maybe you're confusing PalmOS with PocketPC?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Shikaku posted on Oct 11 2006 at 08:17 PM said:
... maybe with the architecture, but even then, the speed, the lack of TOUCHSCREEN (very important!) and also the lack of source for PalmOS makes it kind of dumb to do so...
You clearly don't know what you're talking about. Quite why you feel the need to make bold assertions given that, I have no idea.

There are PalmOS emulators for several platforms. The source *is* available (from PalmOS, as it happens). Additionally, there exists QCoPilot which is a GPL'ed version for the Zaurus.

The lack of touchscreen would make an emulator perhaps not the easiest to use for all tasks, but I'm sure someone could produce a UI that used the joystick to move a cursor and a button to press down, and also something that brought up a virtual keyboard. There's a heck of a lot of software out there that could run well with that configuration.

w.r.t. architecture and speed, I think the easiest thing to do would be to use the PalmOS source and emulate a 68K-based Palm. They ran at 16MHz, which is not unreasonable to emulate on the GP2X given the shortcuts one could take (the NeoGeo runs a 68K at 12MHz, but I'm guessing a Palm emulator wouldn't be shifting full-colour graphics at a fast rate). Amusingly, the 68K core that Palm used is the one from UAE.

If we're talking about emulation of ARM-based Palms, then I'd say 'not likely' for now.

Which games were you hoping to be able to play?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nemt posted on Oct 11 2006 at 07:11 PM said:
Shikaku posted on Oct 11 2006 at 03:09 PM said:
the PalmOS has a lot of architectures and clockspeeds.

Not really, all the modern Palm devices use ARM architecture. Maybe you're confusing PalmOS with PocketPC?

It depends on what PalmOS the games are for. PalmOS devices run on a 68000 compatible CPU and there are emulators based on the UAE core that emulate PalmOS 4.x on the PC. I wouldn't be surprised if such an old device could be emulated properly. There even is a way around the missing touch screen by implementing a cursor and use one of the shoulder buttons as 'screen is touched'-function. The 4 action buttons could be used for the 4 palmOS buttons on the device itself.

As for emulating an ARM powered Palm.... well that's another story.
ARM powered PALM devices are often compatible with 68k code by use of software emulation that enables those devices to run older PalmOS code that doesn't dig into the OS too much.

Oops, my post is somewhat identical to the one made just above mine....ah well that is what happens when you start writing something and post it after a big meeting at work... ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mark1970 posted on Oct 12 2006 at 10:29 AM said:
Oops, my post is somewhat identical to the one made just above mine....ah well that is what happens when you start writing something and post it after a big meeting at work... ;)
Uncanny :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Naturally the source isn't needed -- its not like anyone has source for super Mario either, right? :)

There are several classes of Palm OS gadgets, the obvious division being pre-ARM and post-ARM.

The pre-ARM gadgets were often quite slow (the originals being like 12Mhz or thereabouts) and very cramped on resources -- their goal was long battery, simple display, fast non-multitasking, etc. The later pre-ARM gadgets were pretty buff for 68k... 100Mhz! The ARM gadgets can vary up to abour 400MHz (before overclocking), with higher resolution displays and lots of crazy features.

It would be darned easy to port Copilot (POSE) for the earlier models; the touchscreen.. easy, just a joystick interface; not efficient, but workabnle (see UAE and Outcast for the experience essentially), but RAM and speed would not be a problem.

For later ARM editions speed woudl be _bad_ unless it was ported really well (dynarec, code reuse and such), or ported from source (the entire source is not available, though some chunks of it are.)

But for sure emulating up to a IIIc (say) would be a piece of cake.

jeff
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nemt posted on Oct 12 2006 at 05:17 PM said:
critical posted on Oct 12 2006 at 05:07 AM said:
Which games were you hoping to be able to play?

Space Trader is one of my favorites.

Hah, I've made a thread about Space Trader in the wish subforum too a while ago. It's one of my favorites too but there wasn't much response.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I currently use a PalmOS device from Sony, it's a SONY Clie SJ33, it sports a pretty fast 68K CPU that can run at 66Mhz. It also sports a high resolution display that can be utilized by many applications.
I was thinking about upgrading to an ARM based system but don't actually see the need to as most apps still work like a charm on this device.

A full singing and dancing Sony Clié SJ33 could be possible since it is somewhat like an ST or a pre PPC macintosh.... which are already emulated in their full glory on the gp2x. So technically it would be possible.
 
nemt posted on Oct 12 2006 at 09:02 PM said:
Is there any kind of PalmOS emulation on those Linux based Zaurus (sp?) devices?
Why ask a question if you don't read the replies?

From my reply yesterday:
"There are PalmOS emulators for several platforms. The source *is* available (from PalmOS, as it happens). Additionally, there exists QCoPilot which is a GPL'ed version for the Zaurus."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top