Tungsten|C input hacks, among other things

[namelessplayer]

I've been lurking here for a while, but felt like joining now to ask a few things.

Being the proud owner of a T|C, I would naturally like to make the most of it. I knew of the keypress slowdown well in advance, as well as the whole keyboard acting as one button, and while it is annoying, it's still faster than a T|E at 180 MHz. (I'm grateful enough for that.)

However, despite what everyone says about these problems not being able to be fixed, there could be some radical solutions.

One of those could be hacking the Treo keyboard API into the T|C. It would take a bit of tweaking to work, with the different button layout and all, and it may or may not fix the slowdown, but at least I'll be able to use all the keys in metaview's FPS ports.

Another might be to use an IrDA keyboard. This would of course only be of use in the FPS ports currently, but I'm wondering if it works around the T|C's slowdown. (I also want to know if it works with the Palm Universal Keyboard or not, or if I have to get something different.)

Okay, time for the "other things". I remember reading in that LJR thread that there could be SDL on Palm OS. I'd be heavily interested in this just to get the best game ever made on Palm OS. However, all I've found relating to SDL on Palm OS is source code for just the graphics component which is normally used for a SuperWaba VM.

If anyone could direct me to a more complete SDL implementation on the Palm OS platform, I would be heavily interested. After all, my friends must know the importance of Fwiffo...

(And one more thing-why'd my name come out all lower-case? I could've sworn that I had a couple of capital letters in there when I hit "Submit"...)

[Tinnus]

There's SDL for PalmOS with fully functional graphics, and maybe sound (I'll have to check that). No threads (because PalmOS doesn't suppor them) or events (because it's easier to just read keys directly with KeyCurrentState, and keys would be the only event anyway).

In any case, if it uses SDL's sound callback system it should be easily adapted to PalmOS as well.

[metaview]

Crimson Fields uses SDL with sound.

About TC keyboard: there isn't any info released by Palm about accessing the keyboard of a TC. Means no chance for a support.

[namelessplayer]

No threads in the SDL implementation? d**n. UQM needs threads to run, from what I've been told. But if you can point me to this fairly complete SDL port, I might find a workaround with some time. Might take me the rest of my life to do so, but when there's a will, there's a way.

Back to the T|C keyboard, would it be possible to reverse-engineer the existing input code? Undoubtedly not an easy task, but there has to be a way to replace Palm's smegged code with something more efficient. If I just knew where to get some programs that would monitor any changes in input code activity, even if it's in practically-unreadable hex, I would look into this myself.

I could also use such a program with Treo code to see if I can find any major differences(of which there are bound to be tons). Seeing that I am not permitted to have a Treo(or a PDA phone in general), though, I don't really have access to its keyboard API. (Of course, the major reason I even wanted the Treo in the first place is so that I could play LJP, ZDoomZ, and the like with the keyboard, and not get massive slowdown on a keypress...)

Still, about the IR keyboard, is there a specific model required for use in the FPS ports, or can I just get the Palm Universal Keyboard? It obviously won't work to satisfy my mobile Rabite-punching needs until LJR on Palm OS, but if it allows me to frag without any slowdown(as well as touch-type for general schoolwork), I'm in.

(And speaking of FPS ports, how about a ZStrife? The other Doom-engine games are ported already, and IIRC, they're based on ZDoom, which supports Strife.)

[metaview]

SDL: Crimson Fields on www.metaviewsoft.de
IR- keyboard: I've tested it with the 4-row IR keyboard from Palm. You might also try the BT gamepad.
What's strife?

[namelessplayer]

SDL: No wonder I haven't found it since it lacks a dedicated page! I've downloaded both the binary and source .zip files of Crimson Fields. I was hoping for just the SDL stuff, but if it does use a lot of SDL, it's much better than nothing.

IR: Sounds good to me. *goes to Tasks to insert entry: "Buy Palm Universal Wireless Keyboard"* I'll report back to tell how much slowdown I get with the keyboard as opposed to using the screen or integrated buttons. (I know that touching the screen will slow things down, but not nearly as much as the hard buttons. That's why I'm guessing that the IR keyboard might not have the problem.)

Oh, and when you say a four-row keyboard, do you mean like this one as opposed to this one, without a dedicated number row? Just want to be sure that the space bar and modifier keys aren't considered one of the rows.

And you don't know about Strife? Here's a Wikipedia link for extra good measure. I should note that on my K6-2 366 MHz-based legacy gaming PC, though, I can't run it well above 320x240 WITH Glide acceleration(Voodoo 2 12 MB), whereas Doom 1 and 2 run fine in 640x480 and maybe even 800x600. That likely means that even overclocked XScales will struggle to run the game, but I'd still like to have the option.

[namelessplayer]

Sorry for the double-post, but I should note that one of my friends has had an unused Treo sitting around this whole time!

Unfortunately, it's a pa1mOne Treo 600 (Sprint), which means a crappy screen, weak sauce CPU, and no Bluetooth. Worse off, I don't have a cradle or charger for it right now, and the battery is completely dead.

But when I juice it up someday, perhaps I can dump the ROM contents and start looking at the keyboard files. (I'll probably take a peek at the rumble implementation as well, since the rumble function in MetaView's FPS ports does not work on the T|C.)

Of course, this is all assuming that the Treo 600's keyboard and rumble motor ARE supported in the FPS ports. Hopefully I'm not incorrect in that regard, going by earlier posts in the forums...

[metaview]

Might work, right.