PocketPC

Honestly, I don't know anybody that uses a PDA. I know many, many people that own them, but PDAs seem to be nothing more than toys that remain interesting for around ~20 minutes.

I'll be using my PDA (Dell Axim x50v) as soon as I can get the 2005 SDK working without VS 2005, but until then mine is pretty much nothing more than a music/video player - compress a few DVDs to the ultra-low resolution (by today's standards) and low sound quality and quite a bit of video can fit on a 1GB compact flash card. I tried using embedded VS (with the 2003 SDK), but it's worse than VC6 =-/

Thats the thing though.. I've gotten the impression that PDAs have two uses: Portable gaming, and digital paper. I just wanted to know how many people actuialy go out and buy (or download for free even) games for it, or if they simply buy it, say "yay I'm cool now" and let it collect dust.

I have a broken zire 31, the input has been worn out from being overused and having a desk dropped on it. Still works for schedules but not much else. Once I get the money and the axim goes on sale I'll get one.

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Original post by Dreq Thats the thing though.. I've gotten the impression that PDAs have two uses: Portable gaming, and digital paper. I just wanted to know how many people actuialy go out and buy (or download for free even) games for it, or if they simply buy it, say "yay I'm cool now" and let it collect dust.

I tried getting games for it, but all the free games I could find were arcade fast-reflex style games, which just don't work on a PDA since it doesn't have a fast input mechanism (at least, I'm not repeatedly jabbing my screen with the stylus - don't want to make deep scratches). There is a bluetooth gamepad made for PDAs that fits around it to make a gamepad+screen, but it doesn't fit around the axim x50v. The company was making a new model that did, but I haven't checked back in a while.

Part of the reason I want the SDK is to be able to make games that are more suited to it's slow-but-precise input, such as turn-based strategy and puzzle games. There are, of course, a few of those types of games available for free, but most of them were in the $20 range and I can't justify paying that much since I likely won't play the game very long (single player isn't so replayable to me, though good procedural content might be able to fix that)

I never really intended my PDA to be a business device - the calendar, phonebook, etc was just a bonus. Originally, I wanted to use it to write/record notes to myself, but since that's really all I can currently do with it, it collects dust =-/ About once a month or so I fiddle with the SDK trying to get it working, but so far no luck. I don't even care about debugging while it runs on the device or those kinda fancy features, I just want a good IDE and a decent compiler for it that supports all the features added with Windows Mobile 2005

Thats the thing though, with the touchscreen, it opens a window of new games that can be played on it. Instead of the typical RPG and side scrolling shooter, you can use the stylus for unique and interesting games.. DS did it, I figure PocketPCs could also.

i own an Axim X51v, i have used emulator and made some test programs using Visual Studio 2005, ( i am thinking on making a port of my PC Tetris Clone for the PPC ), anyway, i regulary use the pocket to listen music, whatch movies, South Park episodes and gaming, im really happy with this one ( use to have an ipaq rz1710 ).

My advice... go for the x51, is a really nice ppc, ( the vga screen is so nice ).

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Original post by Extrarius Honestly, I don't know anybody that uses a PDA. I know many, many people that own them, but PDAs seem to be nothing more than toys that remain interesting for around ~20 minutes. I'll be using my PDA (Dell Axim x50v) as soon as I can get the 2005 SDK working without VS 2005, but until then mine is pretty much nothing more than a music/video player - compress a few DVDs to the ultra-low resolution (by today's standards) and low sound quality and quite a bit of video can fit on a 1GB compact flash card. I tried using embedded VS (with the 2003 SDK), but it's worse than VC6 =-/

I have a thread that walks through getting the 2003 SDK working without VS 2003. It still has a couple of holes in it, i.e. how to get the command line compiler to stop auto-freaking-referencing the main .NET assemblies and use only the CF ones that I indicate, and what exactly certain numbers mean in one particular config file.

I'm going to be installing a 90-day trial of VS 2005 to update it for .NET 2.0.

I have an Axim X50v and I absolutely love it. I write little programs for it all the time. Right now I have a notepad clone (there is no general purpose, set-your-own-file-extension, text editor on WinMobile), a graphing app for tracking my distance running times (erh... I haven't been too good about keeping up with it), and a random number generator for use in dice based games (such as Warhammer where one could be rolling 30d6 for all one's archers. It just makes economic sense). You can actually download them off my website.

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Original post by Extrarius Honestly, I don't know anybody that uses a PDA. I know many, many people that own them, but PDAs seem to be nothing more than toys that remain interesting for around ~20 minutes.

I agree 100% with you!

I have owned a few diffrent pdas, saved up ages for them, an then after a few days, I just seem to forget about them!

however that short period is fun,a nd then I like occasionally messing around with them!

(I have a phillips velo, a nec easymate 700, a old palm, and 4 unknown brands windows ce based machines (3 handheld edition, 1 palm edition?)

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Original post by Extrarius Honestly, I don't know anybody that uses a PDA. I know many, many people that own them, but PDAs seem to be nothing more than toys that remain interesting for around ~20 minutes.

I agree 100% with you!

I have owned a few diffrent pdas, saved up ages for them, an then after a few days, I just seem to forget about them!

however that short period is fun,a nd then I like occasionally messing around with them!

(I have a phillips velo, a nec easymate 700, a old palm, and 4 unknown brands windows ce based machines (3 handheld edition, 1 palm edition?)

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Original post by wilhil Quote: Original post by Extrarius Honestly, I don't know anybody that uses a PDA. I know many, many people that own them, but PDAs seem to be nothing more than toys that remain interesting for around ~20 minutes. I agree 100% with you! I have owned a few diffrent pdas, saved up ages for them, an then after a few days, I just seem to forget about them! however that short period is fun,a nd then I like occasionally messing around with them! (I have a phillips velo, a nec easymate 700, a old palm, and 4 unknown brands windows ce based machines (3 handheld edition, 1 palm edition?)

I had a Sony Clie that fell by the wayside, but the Axim I use on a regular basis.

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Original post by capn_midnight [...]I have a thread that walks through getting the 2003 SDK working without VS 2003.[...]

You seem to be talking about a different 2003 SDK than me, and your link confirms it - I'm talking about the SDK for Windows Mobile 2003 using C++, which uses embedded VC (which is worse than VC6 in both standards conformance and UI design). The 2005 SDK seems to be unified for all languages (.Net or not), but it requires VS 2005 (won't install at all without it, requires any version higher than express edition). Even if the express edition worked with it, I'd still want to separate it simply because I can't stand VS 2005's GUI =-/

I don't program in any .net languages, and learning one solely to program my PDA would take more time than I can spare right now (and for the foreseeable future).

Extrarius, you seem to be under the false impression that C# is *hard*. If you know any C-like language, you should be able to pick up the basics in an hour, tops.

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Original post by capn_midnight Extrarius, you seem to be under the false impression that C# is *hard*. If you know any C-like language, you should be able to pick up the basics in an hour, tops.

The syntax, of course. The huge .net library, not so much. Sure, I could find simple tutorials, but there's more to knowing a language than being able to make "Hello World" or "Guess the Number".

For example, how can I convert a string (of 'char') to a dynamic array (of 'int')? How would I parse a command line string consisting of atomic strings (that cannot contain spaces) and quoted strings(that can contain spaces) that are space-separated into a single dynamic array (besides manually examining each character in the string - too much extraneous code; automatic parsing isn't an option because {at least for the VC2003 CRT} it treats some characters other than quote as 'special' in some way).

I could look up each such example I gave and find the functions to do it, but the point is that I'd have to look up examples, tutorials, etc, while in C++ I already know that I can use copy and back_inserter for the former, and I can use a short loop with calls to find, and string::substr, and vector::push_back for the latter. The library defines a language as much as, if not more than, the syntax. The .Net framework is a huge library that I don't have time to learn to the point that I wouldn't feel impaired by the change.

I'm seriously considering getting one of these for myself, provided that I can get a Sega Genesis emulator for it, that it has enough storage (or enough storage can be added) that I can copy and play a few DVD's onto it without totally murdering the quality, and that I can get on the internet using a cell phone provider.

On that note, what exactly does Windows Mobile do? I assume it can't run normal Windows programs natively, but how difficult is it to compile programs for it?

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I'm seriously considering getting one of these for myself, provided that I can get a Sega Genesis emulator for it, that it has enough storage (or enough storage can be added) that I can copy and play a few DVD's onto it without totally murdering the quality, and that I can get on the internet using a cell phone provider.

I'm sure you can get hold of a genesis emulator. I've found (and used) SNES ones before and I'm pretty sure I've come across genesis ones. My PDA (Dell Axim x50v) has an SD card slot and a CF card slot as do many other PDAs so adding storage shouldn't be a problem and 1gb should be enough. I don't know what you find to be acceptable quality but I generally find that using PocketDivX Encoder with low quality settings gives me nice small files with acceptable quality. I use BetaPlayer (now TCPMP) to play videos on my PDA.

You can get PDAs which you can put a sim card in and directly access mobile networks. There's also bluetooth so if you have a bluetooth phone you can connect your PDA to the net via that.

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but how difficult is it to compile programs for it?

In my experience only slightly harder than it is to compile programs for 'normal' Windows (i.e. it's very easy) once you've got the tools all setup.

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Original post by cowsarenotevil I assume it can't run normal Windows programs natively, but how difficult is it to compile programs for it?

Open up Visual Studio .net 2003 (I assume 2005 does this too.. but I can't afford it atm :p), file-new project, C# for windows CE/Mobile. Bam, write your code with your pocketPC pda docked :) I have to say I was quite impressed by the seemlessness of developing on a palm (even if it was for a short period of time).

i have an ipaq 3x00 series which has more dust on it than some nuclear reactors, and an e740 which i was rather fond of until the headphone jack got jacked up. i opened it up to try to repair it but thise butts hid one of the screws under a label where NO_ONE would have possibly looked unless they already knew it was there, so that the system got jacked up and constantly unlocks now and full-resets itself every 5 minutes. needless to say, i don't use it anymore.

the only thing i use pdas for are for development on IF/when a client wants an application on them. but besides that, they are horrible and there is no need for them.

there are a few technologies which we often attribute to productivity such as organization and the aspects that go along with it -- having your address book, being able to communicate via email / chat / internet, etc. The pda was invented for this reason, but the thing is, there are a lot of other devices that do the exact same thing. Too many other devices in fact!

In the end, all of the functionality will be integrated into a single device, which people will, in time, fully adopt. This device is the cellphone.

There already exists very small cellphones (in other words normal sized) that have stereo sound, qwerty key pads and get this -- have more triangle pushing power than a voodoo 2. of course the screen size is smaller than what the voodoo 2 had to power, but this is still a crazy accomplishment for the past few years. voodoo2 is old, but it's not that old... is it?

as for all those rich people buying ipods (music/video), I never quite understood that. before ipods were invented, my pocketpc played mp3's as well as divx videos. after they were invented, my pocketpc still played videos and music. sure, i can store 10 years worth of continious music on my ipod as opposed to the one month or whatever of continious music that I can on my pocketpc, but considering how much ipods cost vs what they can do (basically play music / watch videos thats it. you can hack some stuff into it, but not much more), I really perfer the pocketpc. and i dont even like pocketpcs

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Original post by Dreq Quote: Original post by cowsarenotevil I assume it can't run normal Windows programs natively, but how difficult is it to compile programs for it? Open up Visual Studio .net 2003 (I assume 2005 does this too.. but I can't afford it atm :p), file-new project, C# for windows CE/Mobile. Bam, write your code with your pocketPC pda docked :) I have to say I was quite impressed by the seemlessness of developing on a palm (even if it was for a short period of time).

whoa there, don't be throwing around such dirty words as "palm". Developing for PalmOS is a den of inequity.

I definately think it would be wise to learn the .net framework. You'll learn to love it, everywhere you go everything is the same, and it seems to be working so well I don't see the next change in the near future. I develop on a pair of Symbol MC50's and a treo 700w at work. Could not have done it with out the support of .net. My programs were converted to these devices in a matter of a day.