Re: Apple Emulator for Palm

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Roger Johnstone" <rojaws@mac.com> wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
>
>> Dragontat <dragontat@adelphia.net> wrote:
>>
>>>I dont really know where else to look for info so I though I'd give it
>>>a shot here. Does anyone know if there is a way to play Apple II games
>>>on a palm pilot or if there is a emulator out there on the market that
>>>will allow one to do this? I miss my Apple after my wife made me throw
>>>it out but I managed to hide the software I had. Any help or info
>>>would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Palm's processor doesn't have the power to do such emulation.
>> Palm and clone handhelds are only on the average 16Mhz btw.
>> However, many of the freeware/sharware games for PalmOS
>> appear to be ports from the Apple II era.  At least they look and
>> sound a lot like the 8-bit Apple II titles (Galaxian, Space Invaders,
>> and so on).
>>
>> Seeing the screen resolution, speed, and software of the palm,
>> you have to wonder...Apple really missed the ball when they
>> didn't exploit the MegaII chip by making a handheld II.  When
>> combined with the 20Mhz 65C816 processor, the results
>> would be quite spectacular.
>
>Someone recently released Taipan for Palm, based on the Apple II game. There
>is an Apple II emulator call PsiApple available for the Psion PDA, but I
>believe it's fairly slow, it can't run at full speed. Certainly some PDAs
>would be more than fast enough. The last Newton released (the 2100, back in
>1996) has a 160MHz processor and 4MB of RAM. Some of the recent releases
>from other companies have finally caught up with it and now have colour
>screens too.

Yup, the PocketPCs, like the Newton, have CPUs in the hundreds
of Mhz.  But that's besides the point.  There is a reason why Palms
and their clones (Handspring Visor, Sony Clie, etc.) are the best
PDAs out there.  Their 8Mhz to 32Mhz Motorola Dragonball procs.
conserve battery life such that they run many times longer then
the PocketPCs and the like.  The PalmOS is simple to use and
works well with pen based computing, unlike Windows CE which
kind of sucks in this respect.  You can't just take a desktop GUI
designed for mouse and keyboard and translate it to pen.

This is why I believe Apple could have taken the Apple II and
turned it into something like the Palm.  The Apple II is a simple
and streamlined system, just like PalmOS and Palm type PDAs
are.  This is why old Apple programs are the favorite exploits of
PalmOS programmers who seek to port things.  Usually, they
like to port games but I'd enjoy seeing a port of AppleWorks.  It
will probably never happen though since Apple still owns the
program.  It licensed the name and update rights to Quality
Computers at one time (now Scantron) but everything has most
certainly reverted to Apple.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  That's what PDAs and PDA
OSes should be.  If I wanted complexity, I'd buy a laptop, not
something like a PocketPC which is neither here nor there.