Messages

1

C1000/3x00 General discussions / My C1000 Review

« on: January 01, 2006, 11:18:12 am »

I don't have a holster-style case for my C1K yet.  I used a Nutshell 207 case for the 5500 (from http://www.tuff-as-nuts.com/), and plan to order a Nutshell 209 for the C1K, but haven't done it yet.  At the moment I'm using a zippered neoprene jacket that came with a Palm Portable Keyboard to protect it while it's in my travel bag or while I am carrying it in my hand.

I checked out the Nite Ize cases you mentioned and they look nice, too.  They look like too much for me, though.  I don't usually need to haul all my accessories around all the time.  I also just like the looks of the Nutshell cases.

2

Sharp ROMs / Cacko 1.23 Locks With Older Qtopia Games

« on: December 22, 2005, 02:09:56 pm »

If I have been running for a while since my last reboot, when I try running Qtopia games designed for the old Zaurus 5500, my C1000 will go to the black screen like it's switching resolutions for a few seconds and then show the reboot screen.  However, it's actually locked up, and I have to open the battery cover and reset the C1000 to get it respond again.  If I try running the same game immediately after a fresh reboot, it runs fine.

I typically run the PIM apps, Kino2, some 640x480 games, and the SNES and NES emulators so it's possible that one or more of them has been run between the reboot and the crash.  I haven't narrowed down the conditions more specifically yet.

Examples of games that do it are:  Froot, zBlack-Box

Is anyone else having this problem?  It's the only real problem I've encountered while running the latest Cacko ROM.  (Other than wrong-sized window decoration icons when in 320x240 mode.)

3

C1000/3x00 General discussions / My C1000 Review

« on: December 20, 2005, 05:58:07 pm »

I do have to ask about the screen.  As few people have mentioned trouble with the screen, and you mention that it  bothers you, how bad is it?

Actually, it's not a problem for ebooks.  I use JustReader, which has black text on a white background.  As kahm mentions, the screen effect mostly affects pictures and movies, especially letterboxed widescreen movies, where there are large areas of black on the screen.  The black text in JustReader is broken up by the white background enough that I don't notice the silvery effect at all, really.  (I tried to make it annoy me just now and couldn't.)

I prefer to view ebooks in landscape mode myself.

For pictures and movies, the effect really just limits the angles from which the screen looks good.  For watching movies by myself, it works fine, as long as I view from slightly left of the screen.  It just wouldn't work very well if two people are trying to watch a movie at the same time.

4

C1000/3x00 General discussions / My C1000 Review

« on: December 14, 2005, 03:23:25 pm »

PriceJapan's "continuously flucuating price" is probably (IMO) due more to the current exchange rate than variance in their purchase price.

Good point.  I had totally forgotten about exchange rates when I wrote that.  I've updated my review accordingly.  Thanks!

5

C1000/3x00 General discussions / My C1000 Review

« on: December 14, 2005, 01:07:21 am »

When I was deciding whether to upgrade from my old 5500 to a C1000, I didn't find a lot of reviews about the C1000 specifically.  There were several on the C3000 and C3100, which are very similar, but I found very little about the C1000 itself.  Now that I own one, I decided to put together my own review for others interested in this unit.  It's on my web paget:  BlackCardinal's C1000 Review

If you have any comments or suggestions I'd appreciate the feedback.  (I think   )

6

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Genesis Neogeo Snes Turbografx Nes Gameboy Emu

« on: November 10, 2005, 06:15:49 pm »

I'm on a C1000, too.  To be specific, you are saying the keys in the SNES emulator are fine?

Oops, I'm wrong.  The keys do work, but I do not have the bvdd SDL installed!  I had installed it, but had key problems and moved back to Cresho's package.  I forgot about that, but I just double-checked on my Z.  Sorry for providing some misinformation.    

On the bright side, I found that on Cacko even the non-bvdd SDL runs faster than it was on the stock Sharp ROM, and now SNES seems to run at full speed.

7

Accessories / Piel Frama Cases For Clamshells

« on: November 10, 2005, 05:52:36 pm »

maslovsky, which Nutshell case do you have?  I've had a 207 with belt clip for several years for my old 5500 and absolutely love the case, and I want to get one for my new C1000.  But I can't tell for sure which one to get.  It looks like 209 is the right size, but it would be a tight fit for the thicker C1000.

8

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Genesis Neogeo Snes Turbografx Nes Gameboy Emu

« on: November 10, 2005, 01:53:29 pm »

Actually, I'm using the bvdd version from the Cacko feed and the keys work just fine.  It's possible that I briefly had Cresho's SDL package installed on Cacko but if so then I uninstalled it before installing the bvdd version.  (I don't remember if I did to be honest.)  My keys work fine, and the emulator runs noticeable smoother than it did before I installed Cacko and the bvdd SDL.  I'm using a C1000.

9

5x00 General discussions / Does Kpwm, Come In Pi-sync Package?

« on: October 25, 2005, 01:29:20 pm »

Is the process not owned by your normal user for some reason?  Try changing to root (with 'su') and then killing the process.  A normal user can only kill their own processes.

10

General Discussion / Help Picking My First Zaurus (ok Went For C760)

« on: October 24, 2005, 06:15:35 pm »

Personally I'd get a c1000 if I were to upgrade - the only thing it lacks which the c3k has is a hdd and CF cards are cheap these days.

I totally agree.  I just ordered a new C1000 from PriceJapan for USD$425 (including shipping to the states) to replace my 5500.  The extra cost for the internal HDD just wasn't worth it to me, especially since if I ever want to use one in particular situations it's easy to add it as a CF card.

11

Hardware Mods / Dismantling The 6000

« on: October 24, 2005, 12:05:37 am »

It's not too difficult to take apart, about 6-8 screws.  I have various pics of it taken apart on my web site, but a step by step.

I love the motto on your website:  "If it ain't broke, fix it 'till it is!!!"  That's classic.  

12

5x00 General discussions / Does Kpwm, Come In Pi-sync Package?

« on: October 21, 2005, 04:07:35 pm »

Code: [Select]

$ killall -9 vialso works and is more convenient (don't have to look up the PID first).

Either way, though, the -9 forces a hard kill.  Issuing the command without the -9 just sends a polite request to the application asking it to shut down.  This is preferable if it works, since it gives the app a chance to close files and cleanup first, but if the app is locked up, it doesn't work.

13

C1000/3x00 Hardware / Graphics Speed

« on: October 21, 2005, 02:26:53 pm »

But with flags = -03 -mcpu=iwmmxt -mtune=iwmmxt -march=iwmmxt , i get..
...
Any idea?

I checked my code for the time calculations and there is a minor bug which might cause an overflow and hence a math error in some situations.  I used a signed integer to store an unsigned value.  Try changing the line:

time_t starttime;

to

Uint32 starttime;

I had to dig to find it, but time_t is a signed 32-bit integer, at least on my Z.  I had originally copied the time code from the SDL "plasma" demo but I later changed the calls to the Unix system call time() to SDL_GetTicks() to improve the resolution without verifying that the return types were the same.

Otherwise, I suppose it might be a bug in the compiler.  I seem to recall there used to a rule of thumb that -O2 was the highest level of optimization that was reliable with gcc.  I don't know if that is still true or not.  What does the screen do when you run that version?  Does it run faster or slower than the non-wmmx build?

Also, I should probably mention that all of the tests are run in 8-bit color modes.  Since the Z's native mode is actually 16-bit, it might be worthwhile to add tests for that mode.  I wouldn't be surprised if 16-bit color modes were faster due to the elimination of the palette lookup.

14

C1000/3x00 Hardware / Graphics Speed

« on: October 20, 2005, 07:59:35 pm »

Well, I hate to reply to myself twice in a row, but this time I've put together a little SDL benchmark program that might be useful for this comparison.  It performs the following tests:

- point drawing, update screen every point
- point drawing, update every row of points
- filled rectangles
- bitblt of a 32x32 "sprite"

It runs the tests up to four times:  320x240 software, 320x240 hardware acceleration, 640x480 software, and 640x480 hardware acceleration.  It will only run those tests that are actually supported by the hardware & SDL library on the system.

To use, either install the binary (built for SDL v1.2 on ARM4) or you can build it yourself from the source code available at my website:  SDL benchmark on Gelhaus.Net.

If you're willing, please run these on your Z's and post the results.

For comparison, here's how my SL-5500 scored:

Code: [Select]

Pitch = 320
Hardware surfaces avail  = 0
Window manager avail     = 0
Blitter hardware         = 0
Colorkey blit hardware   = 0
Alpha blit hardware      = 0
Software->Hardware accel = 0
Video memory             = N/A

                          320x240  320x240  640x480  640x480
                          software hardware software hardware
Slow points (frames/sec): 0.260323    N/A      N/A      N/A  
Fast points (frames/sec):  20.4767    N/A      N/A      N/A  
    Rect fill (rects/sec):  416.472    N/A      N/A      N/A  
  32x32 blits (blits/sec):  625.535    N/A      N/A      N/A  
and, just for fun, here's my Windows laptop at work (2GHz Pentium 4 with Mobility Radeon 7500):

Code: [Select]

Pitch = 320
Hardware surfaces avail  = 1
Window manager avail     = 1
Blitter hardware         = 1
Colorkey blit hardware   = 1
Alpha blit hardware      = 0
Software->Hardware accel = 1
Video memory             = 32456

                          320x240  320x240  640x480  640x480
                          software hardware software hardware
Slow points (frames/sec):  7.44879     2000  2.95094  470.588
Fast points (frames/sec):  408.293  930.909  179.523   228.98
    Rect fill (rects/sec):  22382.5   163840  11160.8   146286
  32x32 blits (blits/sec):    32768   120471    37578   128000

15

5x00 General discussions / Xmmc And Mplayer

« on: October 20, 2005, 03:53:39 am »

MPlayer does work on the 5500, although I haven't found a nice GUI to go along with it.  But if you're willing to use the command line, it runs fine.  I just installed it on my 5500 yesterday in fact, using the binary from this site:

MPlayer on Zaurus

The author includes a valid codecs.conf file to go along with the binary.

Maybe this is an "outdated" version, but it plays the movies I've given it so far.