PSION emulator on Cosmo/Gemini

[mmbika]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched for PSION emulator on android and cannot find any definitive guides, available stuff is for PC/Windows so negates the purpose of having a PSION in your pocket ..

Why PSION emulator .... because I need a simple, Microsoft or Google or Apple independent simple spreadsheet or just a sum sheet. I did not find any apps from sources other than playstore and haven't infected my device with G virus ... available software I tried and did not liked ... some are preorganized such as My Expenses and do serve their purpose, not as customizable as I want ... I want plain raw calculation sheet

[plutopants]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched for PSION emulator on android and cannot find any definitive guides, available stuff is for PC/Windows so negates the purpose of having a PSION in your pocket ..

Why PSION emulator .... because I need a simple, Microsoft or Google or Apple independent simple spreadsheet or just a sum sheet. I did not find any apps from sources other than playstore and haven't infected my device with G virus ... available software I tried and did not liked ... some are preorganized such as My Expenses and do serve their purpose, not as customizable as I want ... I want plain raw calculation sheet

I'd also go for an EPOC emulator working on the Gemini and Cosmo. The built in spreadsheet and wordprocessor and even the database were simple and superb. Since those clays everything has gotten overbloated and unnecessary.

I used to have it running on a small Toshiba Libretto pocket Win98 PC, when my Psions had died. It was remarkably useful even then.

Monochrome was workable as well.

Wonder if anyone is working on getting the emulator onto Android - or even Debian - now a similar form factor to the Psions is resurrected?.

[jakfish]

I've run the Psion Emulator via Wine (almost any Wine version will do) on a variety of machines and Ubuntu flavors. I've even gotten PsiWin 2.3 to run on modern day Windows (for conversions, ir file transfers, etc)

I've read, though, that it's hard to run Wine on Debian on the Gemini. And I don't know if there's an effective Wine emulator for Android.

Jake

[KevReillyUK]

About a year ago I knocked up an experimental configuration for the DOS-based SIBO "emulator" that allows a Gemini to think it's a Series 3a. I don't know if anyone has tried it on a Cosmo but you're welcome to give it a shot.

It has a few quirks, most notably around keyboard mapping, but it does work. Because the "emulator" is a 386-based development environment rather than a true ARM emulator it does mean that a lot of third-party apps won't run if they use C or assembler calls, but those that are pure OPAs work fine as do all of the built-in applications. Sharing files or data between the emulated Psion and other machines, even the host Gemini, is tricky because all you can really do is use the Android file system to drill down into the Psion's virtual drives and move stuff around. But if all you want is stand-alone spreadsheets this might work well.

To make the most of it you'll need to invest in a registered copy of Magic DosBox for Android, which was £3.20ish the last time I checked. It will work with the free version, but setting it up is much much easier with the full version.

The setup files are at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/S3aGemini.zip and a copy of the documentation is at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/emulator.txt

One of the discussion threads on the Facebook Gemini/Cosmo group is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/17746201995...05576219743418/

You may noticed that there's also a Series 5 "emulator" on that web page but it is very experimental and unsupported so I'd steer clear of it unless you're morbidly curious. It's slow as molasses and requires you to obtain and set up a working Windows 95 environment under Magic DosBox. In all honesty it's not worth the effort. It looks cool for about five minutes but it's really just a novelty.

The Series 3a environment on the other hand is quite usable. I still play Fairway on it from time to time. Certainly for running the Sheet application it should be great. The default installation runs at 640 x 264 pixels, so you even get more screen estate for your spreadsheets than on the original hardware.

If anyone decides to have a play, let me know how this works on the Cosmo. I've only ever seen it running on Gemini hardware.

[idc]

See also Ash Wolf's efforts here/Ninji: https://wuffs.org/blog/building-a-psion-emulator

(I look forward to trying the Dosbox version and comparing.)

[plutopants]

See also Ash Wolf's efforts here/Ninji: https://wuffs.org/blog/building-a-psion-emulator

(I look forward to trying the Dosbox version and comparing.)

Thanks for sharing. interesting, and nostalgic.

[Beiriannydd]

See also Ash Wolf's efforts here/Ninji: https://wuffs.org/blog/building-a-psion-emulator

(I look forward to trying the Dosbox version and comparing.)

Thanks for sharing. interesting, and nostalgic.

Oh wow, running the web browser emulation in Firefox on the Cosmo looks amazing once it has taken a couple of minutes to boot. It's a shame that the keyboard presses repeat forever or it might be usable.

[mmbika]

About a year ago I knocked up an experimental configuration for the DOS-based SIBO "emulator" that allows a Gemini to think it's a Series 3a. I don't know if anyone has tried it on a Cosmo but you're welcome to give it a shot.

It has a few quirks, most notably around keyboard mapping, but it does work. Because the "emulator" is a 386-based development environment rather than a true ARM emulator it does mean that a lot of third-party apps won't run if they use C or assembler calls, but those that are pure OPAs work fine as do all of the built-in applications. Sharing files or data between the emulated Psion and other machines, even the host Gemini, is tricky because all you can really do is use the Android file system to drill down into the Psion's virtual drives and move stuff around. But if all you want is stand-alone spreadsheets this might work well.

To make the most of it you'll need to invest in a registered copy of Magic DosBox for Android, which was £3.20ish the last time I checked. It will work with the free version, but setting it up is much much easier with the full version.

The setup files are at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/S3aGemini.zip and a copy of the documentation is at https://gemini.kevreilly.uk/emulator.txt

One of the discussion threads on the Facebook Gemini/Cosmo group is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/17746201995...05576219743418/

You may noticed that there's also a Series 5 "emulator" on that web page but it is very experimental and unsupported so I'd steer clear of it unless you're morbidly curious. It's slow as molasses and requires you to obtain and set up a working Windows 95 environment under Magic DosBox. In all honesty it's not worth the effort. It looks cool for about five minutes but it's really just a novelty.

The Series 3a environment on the other hand is quite usable. I still play Fairway on it from time to time. Certainly for running the Sheet application it should be great. The default installation runs at 640 x 264 pixels, so you even get more screen estate for your spreadsheets than on the original hardware.

If anyone decides to have a play, let me know how this works on the Cosmo. I've only ever seen it running on Gemini hardware.

I tried the Magic DosBox version and it worked out-of-the box. I was able to launch Sheets on full screen and it seemed awesome. I haven't bothered yet to map the keys or mess around further, just used BT mouse and inbuilt keyboard for a test tide. Will explore further.

Some photos