Space Trader, old palm os game, way cool Options

[bam]

anyone wanna try and port thios to the zaurus?

http://palmtops.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsi...r/STFrames.html

I would be willing to pay any developer to port this for a 'stock/cacko rom'

[tinyrooster]

Yeah!!! This is a great game!

[merli]

What about Elite in Spectrum emulator or in dosbox? Seem to me that Space Trader is clone of Elite.

[bam]

pay means like up to say....around $50.00 - $100.00(usd) if it works exactly like the palm one...

[Antikx]

anyone wanna try and port thios to the zaurus?

http://palmtops.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsi...r/STFrames.html

I would be willing to pay any developer to port this for a 'stock/cacko rom'

Ahhh yes... this was the first game I played on a Palm.
I've lost many hours of my life to this little game. It reminded me of TradeWars in the old BBS days.
I'm gonna shutup before I date myself.

I would help you, bam, if I had the know how.

[km2783]

I have this on my T3

It only requires Palm OS 2.0 or higher, 3.5+ needed for color or greyscale. Has anyone tried to run it under the Zaurus Palm OS emulator? It's a pretty simple game, it might work.

[miskinis]

Hi,

I took a quick look at the project's published source code, hoping to see if
this was something I could quickly tackle. From what I observed, the C code
and some header files are present, but the GUI resources (forms, and matching
headers) were not provided.

When I was a Palm developer, (anyone remember MISKINIX?) I remember
seeing tools mentioned that could extract the resources from a program in
PRC format, but I never used them. If it is possible to extract these, or better
yet ask the original developer for them, it might be feasible to get it running
on the Zaurus devices. I would consider this quite an effort, even with those
files however.

If I was going to do it, I would approach it from a standpoint of converting it to
run as an X11 client, allowing the work to occur on a more powerful desktop
machine. I would expect it to then be somewhat trivial to get it working on an
X11-based ROM like pdaXrom that I use. I suppose it could be made to work
under X/Qt, but I do not use that, since I did not like it a year or more ago when
I tried it on the Sharp ROM on a 5500.

I would also be curious as someone else posted, about the PalmOS emulation
on Zaurus, and if this game "just runs" under it.

John

[melee]

I remember seeing tools mentioned that could extract the resources from a program in PRC format, but I never used them.  If it is possible to extract these..........

Hi

You don't need to extract them, they are available on the site HERE

The zipped source from that same page contains a /rsrc dir with what I assume are the resource files you refer to plus headers.

Unlike you however, I have no knowledge of Palm programs and no interest in games, so that is the limit of any help I can be.

regards

Melee

[miskinis]

Ahh, Thanks for the link. It seems the author is accepting donations, via paypal,
for support, etc.. It states

Some people have requested if they can support future releases of Space Trader, a sequel game, or other software projects with a small cash donation. You now can do that through PayPal, ...

"

For some reason, I can't get Paypal to accept the 1000 Space Trader credits...

Has anyone here ever asked the author to create an X11/Linux (and/or) Qt/Linux
version?

John

[miskinis]

Hi,

If folks are truly willing to cought up some bread for this effort, as a native
version for the Zaurus is desired, please feel free to comment on these requirments:

R1 - Graphics Resolution - The 160x160 pixel, 8bpp color environment of the
first generation color PalmOS device shall be presented on the Zaurus at a
resolution of 480x480 by drawing a solid color 3x3 pixel block for each original
pixel. This is intended to provide the most suitable reproduction of the original
game experience. The colors displayed shall closely match, or be the exact
original colors. A 160x160 version may be provided at a later time for use on
320x240 devices.

R2 - Operability - The game shall operate just as the original, presenting the exact
same graphics, and exact same gameplay experience. Slight deviations in the
locations of and shapes of GUI elements such as "push buttons" and "text fields"
are acceptable.

That's about all I can think of for the moment, but hey, I'm thinking...

John

[bam]

I am still up for $50-100(usd), I know it sounds insane but there are alot of old-timers here that migrated from palm who wasted tons on hours on this little fun game. Just my part to help with software since I dont develope directly for the z platform.

[miskinis]

Hi,

Would you be happy if it ran under pdaXrom or would you prefer it to run
on the Sharp ROM under the Qtopia environment? I have to state up front that
I do not use Qt, and have never programmed directly to the Qt API, since it was
(and still may be) under a license that I was not comfortable with at the time.

I also noticed that a Windows version was produced, but I did not see any
mention of the source code for that version. I suspect, that if the Windows
version represents a close, if not exact imitation, and the source code is
readily available, it would be most likely be a better base to start with in
a conversion effort. It could actually reduce the effort significantly. The PalmOS
architecture was a marvel of its time, but is very different from other environments.

I also do not own Code Warrior (commercial), and cannot take advantage of
the proprietary encapsulated data within some of the project's source files.

Now, I just gotta dig out my Palm IIIc and try this game. From what I saw in
the source code, as far as messages to the user, it seems that it could very
well be a cool and interesting game...

John

[miskinis]

It seems there is a forum for the Space Trader Pocket PC version. The
latest source code is not provided, but an "old copy" is provided. Upon
a little examination, I have found that it is a C++ project, using the
MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) GUI.

Without such a development/runtime environment setup, I can't simply build it,
to see how it operates. In addition, I read about a total rewrite effort that is in progress.

[miskinis]

UPDATE (and brief help needed from someone with a Windows box)

1) I have the authors permission, and encouragement to perform the port.

Perhaps I'm having the following issues due to my browser, but I don't have
problems with any other sites...

2) I have been unable to obtain a tool that actually works, for extracting the
full data out of the CodeWarrior .rsrc files in the .zip file. I found something
called PrcExplorer and downloaded it (twice) and the .zip file is not a .zip
file that LINUX "unzip" likes.

http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...re&prodid=40542

3) Same .zip issue with the Windows (.net?) version of the source code.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...lease_id=314566

Is anyone else able even look at the .zip file in #2? I wrote up a description of the
issue I am having in PalmGear's "contact us" web page, and then got a message
saying that there was an error trying to submit the message. Whew!

[miskinis]

All set, no assistance needed, I was given a link to a valid PRCExplorer1.0.19.1.zip
on another site. Of course the tool runs on Windows, so it might be a few days before
I check it out... John