Are any of you playing Zork on your Palm device? I have played many text adventures on desktop machines, Zork, Station Fall, Planet Fall to name a few. I'm trying to play Zork 1 on my Palm (OS v.4.1) and even mindful of my ADD I'm having trouble staying "in the game". I'm hoping for suggestions and encouragement from the group.
This is way easier to take apart than a Gameboy Pocket Light. And a world away from the HP200Lx screen. Now I just need to find a place to buy polarizer plastic.
There you go! Let me know if you need more details.
My CF-74's both take a really long time to shut down. I have tried disabling as many services as possible but keep getting a error in the logs that says something is trying to use the Registry while Windows is shutting down. I can't find what is doing this as there are no applications running in Task Manager (other than Task Manager) and all but the services that are required before crashing the system are set to "Disable" and "Stopped". Tried finding support on Microsoft's support pages (using a modern computer and browser) but they act like no one uses XP anymore or some stupid thing like that. (every CNC machine I have ever worked on used embedded XP or something even older.)
In the spirit of the previous posting, Back in the day, I took the idea Jeff Hawkins had to see if I wanted a big honking Pocket PC device in my pocket. This was made to be about the size of an HP Jornada. The "docking cradle" is partially visible to the left. I carried the wood and plastic thing around for awhile and was "ok" with the bulk. I bought a Jornada and was happy that someone sued HP for falsely claiming the device had more color capability than the shipped units. HP offered a refund program and I sent my Jornada back for the money. That thing was "ok" but windows in a mobile/pocket device was very not ok.
Really, you should be able to edit the topic when you screw it up.
Two Symbol SPT-2846's manufactured in March and April of 2004. Batteries in, and they both work! Ok, one of them works but the other has a bad digitizer (the reason I took it apart).
It took me a little while to figure out how to configure the network stuff and something is still wrong, I get an IP address in Status but Internet Explorer can't load a site. DNS is pointed at my WiFi router and my even older SPT-1846 can reach right through to the Internet using the same settings. I'm kinda irritated that configuring WiFi is done through an icon on the desktop while there is nothing in "Settings" that addresses this configuration. Feels like the guys building this OS were not talking to one another. It's ok, those guys likely have taken 25 years of grief for some of the stuff here. :-)
Not going to spend a lot of time on these, the ones with Palm OS are more interesting to me. I will keep r/OldHandhelds in my Favorites and keep an eye on what all you people are doing :-)
I found this hiding in yet another box of Palm stuff. I put the software up on PalmDB.net but I was unable to find a way to paste the actual device on the website. No worries, you are not missing much. The plastic they used to make this thing is crumbling away, it almost disintegrated while I was taking the pictures. I used my 3.5" Floppy to USB adapter to capture the files and my TRGPro to display the device in operation. I can remember trying to use this thing outdoors on a camping trip and finding that a good old fashion Silva compass works a lot better. Funny note, the company's Readme.txt file suggests that you can/could order the device for less than the sticker price on this box.
All of them work however I only have four working batteries. One of the orange colored ones has had a rough life and the casing is cracked in a couple places and it is argumentative about charging it's battery but it's otherwise a good thing. One of those two red ones spent years in my pockets! If only Palm Treo 680's had WiFi, I could forgive Palm for neutering the network stack in these things rendering the Blazer browser locked to the cellular radio, unable to recognize a working Bluetooth DUN IP address sitting right there.
The form factor of the Treo is about the best of any pocket device. In the good old days, it was the phone everyone wanted. I would drop my Android phone right in the junk drawer if the Palm Treo 680 had a 4G LTE radio in it.
I have five CF-74 laptops. I want all five of them to be useful. Right now, only two of them are complete systems.
The first two laptops will run Windows XP, you can swap the drives and the two machines don't care.
Model number: Original Equipment Operating System and current operating system.
CF-74GCDADBM OEM OS Windows XP Professional. Currently has Windows XP Professinal installed.
CF-74GCDADBM OEM OS Windows Vista Business. Currently has Windows XP Professional installed.
The three machines below will not run with the hard drive(s) from the two machines above. You get a "B.S.O.D." that Internets to something about hard drive drivers. These three machines will run if you install Windows Vista Home on a drive (third drive in the equation) You can freely swap the Vista drive between the three machines. I have not tried the Vista drive in the two working machines. Not poking the bear.
These three machines will boot and run Windows Vista but not boot and run Windows XP.
CF-74CCBAXBM OEM OS Windows XP Professional. Will run with Windows Vista Home.
CF-74GCE01BM OEM OS Windows XP Professional. Will run with Windows Vista Home.
CF-74JCJDDAM OEM OS Windows Vista Business. Will run with Windows Vista Home.
I realize that the model numbers contain the magic answer but researching these old computers is hampered by the Internet trying to sell me new computers and cases for my cellphone (don't get me started on how bad AI "help" is when researching). I tried to get drivers from Panasonic but they seem to support all but the CF-74 for some reason. This would not be a serious problem if I could find driver support for Vista including the built-in communications and touch screen. The two machines in the upper set are fully functioning laptops. The best I can do with the bottom three is get them acting like they could be useful and/or swipe parts from them to make the first two machines happy. I have a copy of Windows 7 but after failing to find any support for these machines under Vista I did not try the Win7 install.
Welcoming comment, both critical and helpful. :-)
I have a little additional information. I have the original Panasonic CF-74 recovery and install disk. It will not work on the three "problem" machines, however it works just fine with the two working machines. The error reported when you try to use this DVD on the non-working machines is "unsupported hardware". I guess they all look like ducks but some of them are not ducks.
