#136103 - Brian Recchia - Sun Jul 29, 2007 5:44 am
i know newer palm pdas have arm cpus inside and i also know older ones had real simple cpus. would it be possible to write a palm emulator for the ds? a problem could be the lack of ram iirc the first palms had like 2mb + you need the room for the emulator itself to reside in memory and possibly the firmware (though perhaps those could reside on the flash cart and be accessed via dldi? or something like the opera expansion cart/ez flash v 3-in-1?)
#136106 - calcprogrammer1 - Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:14 am
Hmm...
NDS:
ARM 7 - 33MHz
ARM 9 - 66MHz
Dell Axim X50v (my PDA)
Intel Xscale (ARM based) - 624MHz
Intel 2700G (graphics) - 100MHz
Well, it certainly couldn't emulate a new PDA, though early Palm (black and white era) PDA's maybe, but my friend has an old Handspring Visor PDA, back from the beginning of PDA era, but it has a 33MHz processor, probably not DS capable.
I think it'd be more logical to implement PDA features on the DS (but then again, they already are, DSOrganize, DSMail, DSAIM, DSFTP, etc), rather than to emulate an old platform when we have features of that platform already.
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#136118 - tepples - Sun Jul 29, 2007 11:52 am
| calcprogrammer1 wrote: |
| I think it'd be more logical to implement PDA features on the DS (but then again, they already are, DSOrganize, DSMail, DSAIM, DSFTP, etc), rather than to emulate an old platform when we have features of that platform already. |
PDA features include the existing library of freeware and shareware games. PDA features include a well-tested file system implementation. PDA features include easy sync with PC based organizer software. Can DSOrganize do these?
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#136149 - LiraNuna - Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:15 pm
| Quote: |
| PDA features include easy sync with PC based organizer software. Can DSOrganize do these? |
DSOrganize supports a plugin system. Did anyone even bother to write anything for syncing with a computer? no. There's your answer.
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#136158 - tepples - Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:52 pm
Actually, PC/DS sync doesn't have to run on the DS; it can run entirely on the PC, calling chkdsk and then modifying DSO's files on the SD card through the USB adapter. But which PC-based organizer software should we investigate syncing with?
And how do we port PDA games instead of emulating them?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#136163 - Lazy1 - Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:56 pm
I would think emulating something like a Palm III would work, since it's just a PDA you don't need it to run at full speed and there is more than enough room to draw the screen.
The ROM may be too big to fit into RAM though, so you might have to use the ram found on some slot-2 carts.
It may cut users down by half, but I have a feeling that apps that use the extra ram will start to become more common.
#136182 - Dood77 - Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:30 pm
Palm III sounds very doable. It had a 16MHz processor, "based of the aging 68000" (says palm, if it was aging in 1998, what is it now? :P) And Wikipedia says its got 2MB of RAM, and 2MiB of flash ROM. At 16MHz, one of these could be run from fat, right?
I had an old Palm Vx, which has a 20MHz processor, and 8MB of RAM, as well as the 2Mib for flash ROM, it had some pretty good apps. Not to mention I broke the 'todo list' button on the GBC emulator. :)
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#136184 - Brian Recchia - Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:41 pm
yep and from what i understand the palm desktop sync software supports syncing over 802.11b so if we had a palm emu. and it had wifi support, we'd be able to sync wireless and not even have to worry about a method of getting it into the pc since the hotsync client has it built-in. we just need to get an emulator (and i'm sure there's an open source one that's portable) and port it and (if not already there) add network support and boom we have a full pda. don't get me wrong, i love dsorganize, but it's not like a real palm pilot. furthermore, why reinvent the wheel when you can simply reuse one that's been proven to work perfect? furthermore, the 66MHz arm9 cpu inside the ds has 72.6 mips and the dragonball vz in many older palms and calcprogrammer1's friend's visor is 5.4 mips. this is the old "megahertz myth" popular around the late 90s and early 00s more commonly about mac/powerpc verses pc and intel pentium vs amd athlon. the mhz speed is just how fast it "ticks" (mhz=1 million times a second so 66mhz is 66 million ticks in a second). the mips is how many things it does per second (million instructions per second; thus 5.4 mips=5,400,000 instructions/sec and 72.6 = 72,600,000 instructions/sec.) that means that the ds is definitely powerful enough to emulate it at full speed and even then, as lazy1 said you don't need it full speed. let's say as an example the palm IIIc: according to wikipedia, its specs are 8MB ram and a 20MHz dragonball cpu. now since mips are dependent on mhz, the dragonball cpu gets approximately 0.163 mips per megahertz. thus, 0.163*20=3.26mhz. now the 8 megs of ram is where you're fucked, except for the fact that there are slot 2 expansion cards that give extra ram, such as my ez flash v 3-in-1 with 10 megs of ram on it (and the opera pack has that much, too) added to the 4 the ds already has. now the rom is 1.59 mb. that is 9.59 mb plus whatever you need for the emulator and i'm sure the emulator's not gonna take up 4.41 mb. i personally don't see any reason it's in any way not possible. it should be real easy as far as i can see.