Amiga emulator for PalmOS 5.

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: PalmUAE 0.6

Notes:
PalmUAE version 0.6 Readme file

1. Introduction to this version

   Well, sound is available. If you have 400 Mhz device, you will be able to hear
some decent sounds (although a little bit slower). You have 600Hmz or more? Guess
not, forget that I asked. Anyway, I remember playing WinUAE on 800Mhz Duron, I had
to add a frameskip or two for some games. I don't expect Intel PXA architecture to
be faster on the same frequency, being oriented more to lower power consumption,
rather than speed.
IMPORTANT FOR CLIE USERS: You will have to install MCA2 (formerly known as cliepet)
if you want sound support. Otherwise you will encounter an error.
This is a free tool and you can find it here:

	http://www.aibohack.com/clie/modclieaud.htm


And now, the release notes (not the Larch, silly):

Version 0.6:
- Houston, we have sound
- Added option to choose between storing kickstart in Heap or Storage RAM.
- More logging. This is mainly because it's still not running on Zodiac.
- Moved kickstart loading from ARM to M68K (huh? ;-)
- Bug fixes

Version 0.5:
- Started to track versions. There is no much previous versions info.
- Compact. Meaning that there is no external binary file needed. Everything is stored
  in one file (except, of course, kickstart).
- added run-time menu. You access it by tapping the menu icon at the bottom-right.
- hardfile support. You can mount one hardfile to act like hard disk.
- on-screen keyboard at the bottom of the screen.
- custom-defined keys. You can save defaults, and have different key assignment for
  different configuration.
- two floppy drives available. If you are using only hard drive, disable them to save
  storage RAM. That way you will have more available for hard disk file
- mouse sensitivity control. Amiga programs use different mouse sensitivity, so you
  can scale it from 1 to 8. Default is 4, which matches Workbench 1.3 default.

Known bugs:
- Kickstart 3.0 only works with 24b address space off. That's normal, I guess.
- Tapping outside of the area used by a current amiga program will result in loss
  of calibration. This is because amiga screen is set to 320*256, and some amiga
  programs might use smaller area. PalmUAE is tracking down tapping on the whole
  320*256 area, so the mouse cursor will not be able to follow. Just move the pen
  arround the corners of the area used by the program to re-calibrate.
  I have no idea how to handle this problem.
- I can't get 'insert floppy' screen on kickstarts > 1.3. I must've screwed something
  up. It does not, however, affect any game I tried. It might have something to do
  with graphics. So, I guess there could be problems with graphics-demos.
- Some on-screen keys are still not correctly mapped. And you can't press two keys at
  the same time, like shift-key. It's due to the limitation of the PalmOS (two taps on
  the screen are detected as one in the middle of the two). You can map shift to a
  button to solve this.

To do:
- Move ALL VFS handling from ARM to M68K. Floppy loading is still done in ARM, so if
  that is the problem with zodiac like I suspect, this version won't do any good.

2. Instructions for use

Create directories on the memory card:

1. /PALM/Programs/PalmUAE
2. /PALM/Programs/PalmUAE/kick
3. /PALM/Programs/PalmUAE/adffiles
4. /PALM/Programs/PalmUAE/hdffiles
5. /PALM/Programs/PalmUAE/config

Put kickstart files into the second one (with .rom extension), adf files into the
third one (with .adf extension), and hdf files into the fourth (with .hdf extension).

  Now start PalmUAE and wait a few seconds. Choose your settings. Default settings
should work, so change just the adf and kickstart files, and frameskip according to
your device speed. Select if you want to have kickstart in RAM or in Storage memory.
This is mainly because some games will require 2MB RAM to run. Until now kickstart
was placed in dynamic RAM, meaning you had half a meg less available. Disadvantage
of having it in storage RAM is that you have less space for hardfile loading. So, if
your game requires 2MB to run, check the box. If you, however, have a large hardfile
to load, uncheck it and hope you game will work with 1.5 MB (512k chip + 1MB fast).
(This is valid for devices with 4MB heap, if you have more, you have no problems).

  Click GO! and again wait a few seconds. It's loading kickstart, floppy and/or hard
disk from the memory card to storage RAM.
  When you enter emulation, you will see familiar LEDs at the bottom-right of the screen.
There are two floppy LEDs, the power LED and HD led. Note that when writing the HD it's
led is blinking reddish (well, it's more pink-orange, don't ask why).
   If you have Clie TG50, or simmilar, you will have the benefit of having most of the
AMIGA keys covered. Those missing you can assign to buttons. As I previously mentioned,
floppy and hardfiles are loaded into storage RAM, and if you save some game, it is only
saved to RAM, not to the memory card file. This means that if you exit emulation without
storing them you will loose the saved game. Don't forget to save it to external card!
  Well, since Palm devices have screen width of 320, you don't have place for border. If
your device has 480*320 in landscape mode, the area of the screen > 320 will not be used.
Unfortunately, not all the programs start at the same coordinates, so you have to do
centering manually for now. Use run-time options for that and for mouse scaling. You can
save the in-game configuration, and that will store the centering info for the next time
you start the game. All the other data is stored in those files too, such as disk files
names used, kickstart file name, memory configuration, key assignment etc.
  Use the run-time options also for changing/saving floppies, saving the hard disk file,
assign other keys, etc
  To speed up the emulation I write to video RAM directly. I use the method that Castaway
author used. He mentioned to me that this method does not work on one or two devices.
  To exit emulation you need to map the button to 'Exit'. If you forgot to add this to
you config file, no problems, you can do it in run-time and store the configuration.
   I didn't have any lock-ups lately, and I'm testing it extensively, but I have no idea
how it will perform on other devices. So, if you want to try it, BACKUP FIRST!

Requirements:
Device with 320*320 or greater with 16bit color
PalmOS 5.0 or greater.
At least 200 Mhz processor
4MB heap RAM.
2.8 MB storage RAM.


Changes: