Topics

1

C1000/3x00 Hardware / C1000 Keeps Suspending When Not Plugged In

« on: February 18, 2008, 08:40:03 pm »

Hi,

Suddenly my C1000 keeps suspending when it's on battery power, even though it says the battery is 100% charged.    If I power it on, I'll see the screen for a few seconds, then it will go black.   After doing this a couple of times, it stops responding to the power button completely until I plug it in.

Sometimes I can get it to stay on for a little while on battery power,  but if I do, it will suspend itself within two minutes or so.    Again, it says the battery is 100% charged the whole time.

Does this mean that there's something wrong with the battery, or is there something else that might be wrong.  I've tried rebooting.

Thanks for any help

2

Deals and Great Z Buys / Nokia 770 $139.99 At Buy.com

« on: June 26, 2007, 10:13:39 am »

It's so tempting at that price, but I gotta keep reminding myself it doesn't do much that my Z can't do.    

http://www.buy.com/prod/nokia-770-internet.../204081472.html

3

Software / Another New Game: Yaki

« on: June 14, 2007, 05:13:43 pm »

I'm the one who recently posted WordWorx,    I put some finishing touches on a second game I had been working on.   This one is basically a version of the dice games Yahtzee and Kismet (Yahtzee with colored dice).

This was actually the first game I wrote, and it came about because I had been playing Yahtzee on the gameboy, and got frustrated with the AI of the computer players there, and thought I could do better.

It requires SDL,  SDL_image and SDL_mixer

Like WordWorx,  you will need to change the permissions of the scores.dat file if you want to save high scores.   This will be in something like share/yaki/hs/scores.dat under whereever you installed it to.

Download the ipkg here: YaKi 1.3.5

4

Software / New Game: Wordworx

« on: June 06, 2007, 02:59:17 pm »

Hi, I've created a new game called Wordworx.   It was inspired by the Wordsmith game that is included on Tivo.

It requires SDL, SDL_mixer, SDL_image and zlib.   It works on Cacko 1.23.   I'd be interested in hearing about success with other roms.

It is installable to cards

Download here:
Wordworx 1.0.4 download

Note: After you install it, you should ensure that /opt/QtPalmtop/share/wordworx/hs/scores.dat file is writable by any user who will play the game.   This is a high score file, if it's not writable, the game will crash at the end--  no big deal if you don't care about saving high scores, I suppose.   I tried to create a postinst that set these permissions, but it broke the ipkg, so I removed it.  (if someone can write a postinst that works and add it to the ipkg, I'd appreciate it)

Apart from that,  I think the game is pretty self-explanitory.     The object is to make words from the pile of letters.    the longer the word, the better the score.  It's simple, but it can be addictive.

You can use the touch screen or the keyboard.   To add a letter to the word, click on the letter.  To remove the last letter, click on the word.

Words are checked against a Scrabble tournament word list.   There are cases where the game sees that you can still make words from the letters you have left, but the word may not be obvious because it's rather obscure.   In these cases, you can press 'H' to get a hint.

I think that about covers it, I appreciate any feedback.

Also, I'd like to thank Cresho for assistance in getting it in ipkg format.

EDIT: New download site

5

Software / Does Xmms-embedded Work In Cacko?

« on: June 05, 2007, 10:13:07 pm »

I tried to install xmms-embedded-0.0005pre which is the last version that is supposed to work with Sharp roms.    I installed it under Cacko on a C1000  and when I tried to run it, it made the screen go black, nothing displayed.    I ended up having to reboot.

Anybody use this successfully?

6

Qt/Qtopia / I Created Some Games For The Z...

« on: May 19, 2007, 12:18:35 am »

I created a pair of games.   They run fine on my C1000 if I copy them to a card and run them from there,  

but now I'm trying to make ipkgs for distribution, and they are giving me problems.

First problem:   It's showing up under the "Applications" tab, not the "Games" tab.   What controls this, the control file or the .desktop file?   control is set to Games.   .desktop says Game,  I didn't pluralize it b/c the example I used didn't have Application plural.

Second problem, a bit more serious-  I doesn't run when installed as an ipkg!   It uses SDL, (the bvdd version on mine).   If I click on it, I see the right icon on the screen, and the screen goes black, but then I see an "Exit SDL" message.    Like I said before, it runs fine if I copy it to a card and run it, but if I install it, and even if I try to run it from the command line, it fails.   What is different about an installed app?   Do SDL apps need special configuration?  

Third problem:  Not really SDL/Zaurus specific, and I hope I can explain it so it's clear.  Rhese games have some datafiles on the file system.   I tried hard to make the programs smart about finding the datafile locations, so that the games can be installed anywhere.   It checks argv[0] and pulls the directory information out, and looks for the datafiles based on what it finds there.

That works great if you run it from the command line with a ./ in front of it.    But if it is in your PATH, then there is no directory information in argv[0], just the command name. and it can't find it's files.   (NOTE:  I thought this problem was the cause of #2, but some testing showed otherwise)

Now I could work around this by hardcoding the default Zaurus installation dir into the app, but I'd rather not since it's not foolproof.    Is there a good way for a C program to check where it was installed or run from even if argv[0] doesn't contain directory information?  I'm sure I can't be the first person who's had this problem

7

C1000/3x00 General discussions / Help! Battery Issues

« on: May 07, 2006, 08:20:24 pm »

Hi, I've had my C1000 for about two months.  It has the latest Cacko installed (1.23)  Just today I've started having this problem...

1.  It won't power on with just the battery, even though the monitor says it's 100% charged.
2.  It works fine with the power adaptor plugged in.
3.  When I first disconnect the power adaptor and power it on, it might come up, but it acts a bit unstable.  Last time, after a couple of minutes, I clicked on something and the screen went black.  Even though it was black, I would still hear that audio cue if I tapped on it, so it was almost like it was powered on, but with the screen turned off.

I tried rebooting, it rebooted on just battery power, but then it started acting strange again after it booted.

So anyway,  I thought I had read about similar problems, but I can't find them.  Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Does it sound like a bad battery, or something else?

8

Deals and Great Z Buys / Hitach 4gb Microdrive $79 At Compusa

« on: April 30, 2006, 07:31:39 pm »

In this weeks circular, they are advertising the 4gb Hitachi CF microdrive for $79 after instant savings and rebates

9

Software / Dialog

« on: April 06, 2006, 10:29:11 pm »

It's my first successful cross-compiled program!

Ok, so it's not terribly exciting.   Still I find it to be incredibly useful.  It allows you to create console-based dialog boxes easily for scripts.

The official home page for this software is here:
http://invisible-island.net/dialog/

It works, except I don't see color running under konsole.    Still, it does what I need it to.

I posted it in case anyone else can use it.

10

Qt/Qtopia / Cross Compiling Sdl Apps

« on: April 03, 2006, 11:26:37 pm »

Hi, I have several SDL apps I'd like to port, but I have a few questions about setting it up

1.  Can I use the native SDL on my machine, or do I need to install a special SDL build?
2. Do I need a arm-compiled SDL on the box to link against, or is the linker smart enough to link against an x86 compiled one?
3.  I'd like to test them under qvfb,  For the one app I tried "export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=fbcon" but it tells me there's no frame buffer device.  This was with the native SDL.  Again do I need a special build, or is there another way to test with qvwm?

11

Qt/Qtopia / Newer Gcc?

« on: March 25, 2006, 06:05:53 pm »

It looks like all the SDKs are based on gcc 2.95.   I've noticed that gcc 3.4.x has more optimizations for the processor in C1000/C3x00 series.  

Are there SDKs available with newer gccs?  Or is it difficult to upgrade?

12

C1000/3x00 Hardware / How To Identify Usb Host Cable?

« on: March 25, 2006, 05:10:40 pm »

I have a C1000.  I've read that the difference between the USB host cable and regular USB cable is the connector on the end causes the Z to behave differently depending on which one is inserted.

I've also read that you can get the USB-host adaptor in a kit you can buy at Walgreens.

I bought a Universal USB adaptor kit before I bought by C1000.  I've noticed that it has a couple of different types of mini-USB connector.   I was wondering how you can tell if any of them are the host (USB OTG) type connector? (Is there a closeup image anywere?)   Are there any other giveaways?  Or if you plug it into the Z, is there any command you can use to check?

13

Sharp ROMs / Nfs Or Smb Client Support?

« on: March 20, 2006, 04:43:48 pm »

Hi,  I know that you can mount the Z as a samba share, but can you mount an NFS or SMB share on a remote system to the Z?   Does it need additional packages?

I tried to mount an NFS share on my desktop, but it failed.    My goal is that I'll cross compile apps on my desktop, and I'd like to test them via a remote FS before copying them over.

14

General Discussion / Flash I/o Performance Database?

« on: March 16, 2006, 11:32:07 pm »

Is there a comprehensive database on the net that compares the read/write speed of various CF/SD cards?   I have several cards, and I want to figure out which is the fastest so I can install the apps that would benefit most from the speed on them.

15

Sharp ROMs / Some Questions About Cacko

« on: March 16, 2006, 04:06:22 pm »

I'm a fairly new C1000 owner.   I keep hearing good things about Cacko, and I want to try it, but I have some questions and concerns I'd like to get answers to first:

   1.  I see that it uses a compressed filesystem.  How exactly does this work?  Does it need to be decompressed first?   Or is it mounted in its compressed state?   Does this make Cacko slower than the Sharp Rom?   Does this make the filesystem read-only, so apps can't be added?
   2.  Was care taken to shut off unnecessary writes to the flash filesystem?   Things like mounting with the 'noatime', option, turning off unnecessary logging, or directing them to a ram filesystem?    I know flash has a limited number of writes, so I don't want to use a rom that unnecessarily hastens its demise.
   3.  Full vs. Lite...   What exactly was removed in the lite version?  Is there a list somewhere?
   4. What do you give up by going from Sharp ROM to Cacko?  Anything significant?

Thanks for any answers.