I'm seriously considering getting myself an Omnigo. I can get an
excellent deal on a used one with the connection kit and all. My previous
palmtop was an Atari Portfolio (Seems a few Omnigo users who get this list
were once Portfolio owners). I really just want it just so I can develop
some programs and some games for it.
Questions:
1) Does anyone have the Omnigo SDK that they would like to part with?
Cheap? Anyone want to let me borrow theirs? ;)
2) All this information about DOS mode is very interesting. How does
one write directly to the Omnigo screen in DOS? Does the keyboard
require special drivers to work as well? How about pen input,
anybody find out how to directly reference the pen?
3) About book reader, is the format of book reader content files
available anywhere? I'd like to create an offline webbrowser for
the Omnigo. (Use the PC to download the HTML and convert it to book reader
files).
4) Disk compression: Does GEOS access DOS or the BIOS to do file reads
and writes? I have enough code lying around to write a good disk
compression program provided that GEOS uses DOS for file access.
Although, if it uses BIOS I'd still like to attempt it with a little help
from other developers.
5) How many other people are developing applications for the Omnigo?
(Please drop me a line)
6) I'm just a very poor student, would Omnigo users pay for high
quality shareware built for the Omnigo?
I have several ideas for applications for the Omnigo, tell me what
you think:
Offline webbrowser
Your Windows 95/NT PC would download HTML pages from
the internet, run the files though
user defined filters and convert them to either
bookreader files or you'll have an IZL application
which will read the files. I read www.news.com, and I'd love to take with
me and read it on the bus.
Offline E-mail reader
Your PC would download your E-mail, transfer it to
your Omnigo for offline reading and replying. You
could then plug your Omnigo back into your PC and transfer the messages
back to the PC to be sent.
Offline news reader
Possible. Would need to implement some kind of
compression, works the same as above.
Game of Civilizations
If you've ever played this game you probably know
how addictive it is. It's a large game but it
doesn't require a lot of graphics (the PC version has weak graphics). Also
one of the few truely interesting games that doesn't require "arrow keys."
In civilizations you begin at 3000B.C. - The object
is to create the most powerful civilization in the
world. You navigate a large world-map which you must explore.
Building cities, attacking, ect all occur on this map. I believe this game
won an award or two, very realistic.
Might be a DOS game if I don't get the Omnigo SDK
and I learn how to access the pen from DOS.
Disk compression
Can't afford a RAM card, so I'll probably need to
create it just to servive. Wouldn't mind making
this a group project. I haven't coded a DOS device driver in a while, and
I'm a little shaky on BIOS disk routines.
Hope I haven't taken up too much bandwidth...
Later,
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\/\/ayne \/enables Simon Fraser University
wvenable@sfu.ca Burnaby, BC, Canada
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