Appalm/readme

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2019-04-21 13:53:32 +00:00
Welcome to the Apple ][ emulator for Palm PDAs.
Authors:
Hilary Cheng : hilarycheng@yahoo.com
David Schmenk: lematinracing@yahoo.com
Web Sites : http://sf.net/projects/palmapple
Public Forum : http://sf.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=88936
License:
Appalm][ Licenses is GNU GPL. Please go to this links for more
details Appalm][ is based on YAE so that we can port to PalmOS
Platform. Appalm][ cannot be used for sale or any redistribution
unless there is an agreement with the authors. Please contact
the author before any sale or any redistribution.
Appalm][ is an open source software. Anyone is free to modify
the source code and contribute to it. All the users are free to
use this software. But the authors are not responsibile for any
damage by THIS SOFTWARE. Please try it at Your Risk!
Preface:
Because 68000 based Palm devices are barely faster than the
Apple ][, emulation performance may be less than stellar. An
overclocking utility will go a long way to make the emulator
more useable on anything less than a 66Mhz Clie 665C.
Introduction:
What would be better than being able to take your beloved Apple
][ with you, including most of the software you had for it, all
in your pocket? Here is your chance. The Appalm ][ emulator
brings a 64K Apple //e, no 80 column card, and 2 disk drives,
to your Palm OS based PDA. Disk images can be uploaded into the
internal Palm memory or a memory card (think how many 140K
floppies fit on a 128 MB memory card :-) ) Joystick emulation
is provided using the hard keys available on most Palm PDAs. If
you have one of those Zires without all the keys, then life
sucks for you. The Sony HIRES screen is supported (in color!) -
and looks great too. The Sony Game Controller works very well.
Highly recommended.
Installation:
You need to install the emulator, appalm.prc, plus the ROM
files apple2e.rom and slot6.rom. Pick a disk image (currently
must be .DSK fomat) and use the DSK2PDB utility to create a
PalmOS DB of the disk image. A '-r' flag can be passed to
DSK2PDB to create a nibblized disk image which can load
slightly faster on the Palm but takes up 220K vs 140K for the
raw data. The standard format database performance has been
improved to the point where I don't know why you would want the
raw format.
Running:
The basic features of the emulator are available through the
menu. Special keys and joystick options are settable there. You
can return to the Palm Launcher and run other applications.
When you come back to Appalm, it is in the same state as when
you left it. Some of the Palm buttons have been hijacked to
provide useful feature for the emulator. They are:
Calculator - ESC key
Find - CTRL-C
Appointment - Joystick button (1 or 2)
Memo - Joystick button (1 or 2)
Phone/ToDo - Joystick X axis
PgUp/PgDn - Joystick Y axis
A type-ahead buffer is implemented for use with an external
keyboard. You can keep typeing without losing characters.
Development:
This is a very preliminary version meant more as a
proof-of-concept. More features and performance will be
improved upon. Disk performance is very good now and writing to
the disk image is supported. Sound support would be nice if I
could figure something workable out. Color support for lo-res
(160x160) Palms is in the works.
Conclusion:
I wanna say thank you to David Schmenk for enhancement of Emulator
and prepare all the works of Appalm][.
And I can thank Hilary for doing all the initial development
that laid the groundwork for my work. Its much easier if you
have something that already works when developing new emulation
components.