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StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

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Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#51

Post by classichasclass »

csnover wrote: post #46
classichasclass wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your POSE 64-bit fixed or still 32-bit? ISTR running into this problem trying to compile the original from source and have yet to find the round tuit.

It is 64-bit fixed (along with a bunch of other show-stopper bugs in the ancient FLTK code, and I got rid of the bizarre UI they they used only for *nix and replaced it with the UI they used for Windows). There were a couple 64-bit safety issues in the prc compiler too which I also fixed.

Good to hear (I have my own 64-bit fixed pilrc but POSE was the missing piece). What do you mean by the Windows UI, though? Likely I'd compile this on my MacBook.

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#52

Post by csnover »

classichasclass wrote: post #51
csnover wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is 64-bit fixed (along with a bunch of other show-stopper bugs in the ancient FLTK code, and I got rid of the bizarre UI they they used only for *nix and replaced it with the UI they used for Windows). There were a couple 64-bit safety issues in the prc compiler too which I also fixed.

Good to hear (I have my own 64-bit fixed pilrc but POSE was the missing piece). What do you mean by the Windows UI, though? Likely I'd compile this on my MacBook.

When opening POSE without a previous session, on Windows it would open a reasonable window with some buttons (New, Open, Download, Exit). On *nix, they instead decided to open a blank window that said “Right click on this window to show a menu of commands”. (And then, due to programming errors and bitrot, actually trying to use the context menu would access invalid memory and crash.) So I replaced that bad UI with the less bad one from Windows. :-)

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#53

Post by 3036e4 »

anthk wrote: post #15
capitain wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the whole idea of 'apps' before smartphones became a thing. It's also the simplicity of how these worked, forget multitasking, just focus on one thing at a time. No subscriptions! Either the applications were free or it's a one-off fee/shareware kind of thing. And it's ofcourse nostalgia, I made my first game for Palm OS over 20 years ago, it was nice to revisit it and get familiarized again with how the whole b…

Are the Z-Machine games (Infocom text adventures and the ones from the 90's made with Inform6 and 7 in the 00's) really playable with a stylus input?

I posted this 24 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45395479

"I have fond memories of some z-machine interpreter on the Palm that I found easier to play with than anything on my desktop computer. There were lots of shortcut buttons and thanks to the stylus it was still easy to use those (vs a touchscreen using ony fingers where you need huge buttons to hit). You could also tap any word in the output to bring up a context menu of actions (e.g. to examine or pick up objects mentioned in room descriptions) and that list of actions was a combination of a configurable global list and a game-specific list you could add actions to. Could play through entire games and barely ever have to type anything. Had a folding keyboard, but no memory of using that for interactive fiction."

From looking at my old hoarded palm files I think that the interpreter was PalmPilotFrotz, still available on the if-archive: https://ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archive/infocom/interpreter...

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#54

Post by anthk »

3036e4 wrote: post #53
anthk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the Z-Machine games (Infocom text adventures and the ones from the 90's made with Inform6 and 7 in the 00's) really playable with a stylus input?

I posted this 24 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45395479 "I have fond memories of some z-machine interpreter on the Palm that I found easier to play with than anything on my desktop computer. There were lots of shortcut buttons and thanks to the stylus it was still easy to use those (vs a touchscreen using ony fingers where you need huge buttons to hit). You could also tap any word in the output to br…

Uhm, the context menu on words was a thing on the ZMachine (v3) port for the Game Boy too. I launched Tristam Island under a Chinese Game Boy Colour clone and some rewritable USB cartridge. The games where playable enough with patience.

On smartphones, FDroid for Android had the Anysoft keyboard with a swipe option, it works great, much better than typing. There's also some grafitti 'keyboard' input at FDroid, but I prefer the swiping one as it's far superior.

On the old T9 phones, OFC a Frotz port exists for J2ME, but I didn't try it.

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#55

Post by fuzztester »

I had a Palm V and later a Palm Zire (I think a model 21) when they were current.

I would like to get a Palm or similar PIM device again, to actually use.

Are there any devices like that, made by any company, these days?

I don't mind it having no net connectivity, in fact I'd prefer that, as long as it has a way of doing backups and restores, and installing apps.

I had searched somewhat, but so far did not find any, or maybe any at a suitable price.

Edit: It would be a plus if it could run a light version of Python too.

I had installed an app called Pippy (a Python for Palm) on my model V, but it used to crash all the time, so I stopped using it.

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#56

Post by MomsAVoxell »

rkagerer wrote: post #28

I would love for a widespread PalmOS revival! I'm not talking so much about the devices, as the whole experience. The exquisite UI, the distraction-free atmosphere, the lack of ads and dark patterns like tracking, the elegant simplicity, the efficient Graffiti language, and, yes, the reprogrammable physical buttons.

I'd love to have it running on a watch, and the watch can be used to input Grafiti or whatever its called.

A PalmOS watch would be a really nice counterpoint to the hegemony of Apple Watch.

But that's about as likely to happen as an SGI Irix laptop.

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#58

Post by rkagerer »

paultopia wrote: post #37
rkagerer wrote: post #28

I would love for a widespread PalmOS revival! I'm not talking so much about the devices, as the whole experience. The exquisite UI, the distraction-free atmosphere, the lack of ads and dark patterns like tracking, the elegant simplicity, the efficient Graffiti language, and, yes, the reprogrammable physical buttons.

Now that Pebble is coming back why not bring Palm back too? I miss my circa 1999 PalmPilot so bad. I even had a gigantic ugly wireless modem for it that I used to check e-mail.

Do you mean the Enfora Wifi Sled? Had one of those too.

Re: StarGrid: A new Palm OS strategy game

#60

Post by scottlu2 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #40
scottlu2 wrote: post #34

Very nice to see new PalmOS apps being written, and good job on your strategy game. I co-authored Warfare Incorporated, an RTS originally on Palm devices, if anyone remembers that. We had to pull out all the stops to get the perf and get it small enough to fit.

My favourite PalmOS game! The OS 5 version is well done in that it properly adjusts to any screen resolution, including ones that no device ever shipped with. I often use it to test rePalm builds on new hardware. The OS 4 version was not as well done, so i had to patch it to support Dana widescreen and HE330 HVGA. Patched versions are here: https://palmdb.net/app/warfare-inc For Dana, it was a simple binary patch. Fo…

rePalm and the numerous projects on your home page are quite impressive. Nice to see WI running on it!
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