Update on the Palm Gameboy Emulator: Gambit
Maven, the developer working on the Palm Gameboy emulator project, recently released a long awaited email update on his progress with the gameboy emulator. It's new name is Gambit and it currently runs Tetris! Visit this article for the full update. If you want some background information on the project see this PalmInfocenter: exclusive story that broke the news about the Emulator. Now with exclusive screenshots!!!
UPDATE 6/26/00: Gambit is nearing release see this article for more details.
UPDATE 7/7/00: Liberty was released today. Read our review.
UPDATE 8/23/00: Version 1.1 of Liberty is now available.
So you want to play gameboy games on your PalmPilot? That may be a reality soon.
Considering the two devices similarities it's hard to ascertain why this hasn't been done yet.
The Nintendo
Gameboy has an 8-bit z80 processor with a
clock speed of 4.19Mhz, and a 160 x 144 pixel screen with 4 shade greyscale. As a general rule
in emulation you need a system at least 3 times as fast as the original system to be emulated. Palm's
16Mhz dragonball processor should be enough to handle that task.
Palm Infocenter recently interviewed Maven, who is currently working on making Palm Gameboy a reality.
Maven is writting the emulator from scratch, others have tried to port the
Virtual Gamboy emulator to the PalmOS
but gave up on the task because of the palm's limited speed and memory. He is also writting the code
in assembler, since that's the only way to get enough speed for emulation (the C compilers are not very good at efficient code). Right now the CPU emulator has been built and is running without problems, his next step is to emulate the screen and sprites system. Maven plans to release a demo beta as soon as the ever popular
Tetris game is fully playable.
Stay tuned to the Palm Infocenter for more updates on this story, we will also have the demo
availible to download as soon as it is released. Read on below for exerpts from the interview.
Palm Infocenter: What will you call the emulator?
Maven: Actually, I've been calling it PalmBoy, but Palm Computing has informed me they consider that a violation of their trademarks, so I have to come up with a good name. I am open to suggestions, and maybe even a naming contest! (I just can't have the name 'Palm' in the name of the product)
How do you plan to implement the controls, such as the d-pad, A & B, etc.?
Also, do you plan to add support for the GoType keyboard?
The directional pad will be used by the PalmPilot's hardware buttons. Up/Down corresponds to the Palm up/down, right/left will be the scheduler/ phone book keys, and A/B will be the ToDo/Memo keys. This will probably be configurable by the user. Obviously, the design of the Palm keys isn't the best layout for joypad/buttons. Oh, well.
The start will be through the 'find' button. Other options, such as loading games will be available through the menu button, which will also pause the game.
At this point, I don't have plans to support any keyboards.
Will gameboy roms need to be converted into a .pdb format or some other method to transfer them to a pilot?
Yes, the ROM's will have to be downloaded into the Palm as a .pdb file from a desktop PC. I will have a conversion utility to put the ROM's in a format suitable for the Palm. At this point, I haven't tried any larger than 64k, although I'm sure it can be done.
When do you expect to near a completion date? Can we expect a beta?
Completion? "grin" I'm hoping to have Tetris running within the next week or two. Other games will take longer.
I will release a demo version when Tetris is fully playable.
Will games such as Marioland and Zelda be fully playable?
Or will the emulation will be up to speed or comparable to the gameboy?
As I have said, I am still nervous about the overall emulation speed. I may never be able to emulate the sound of the GameBoy, and I'm sure I won't be emulating any add-ons. I would like to emulate the Color GB (without the colors, of course) if I find the speed is sufficient- The Color GB's clock speed is double the standard GameBoy.
There is no reason why most GameBoy games shouldn't run if Tetris runs correctly.
What other palm apps have you developed or are planning?
I've actually played with a FlightSim program for the Palm. I am using the Emulator as a way to really learn 68k assembly language. Once I have that down, I hope to write other games/simulations.
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RE: Palm Gamboy - IR support
ahh...4-person F1-race championship during boring meetings
RE: Palm Gamboy - IR support
Hmm,a beta test?
ok?if you need to know something,maybe you can letme know?
regards to all,
kevin
Gambit is a Hoax
You suck. :P
RE: Gambit is a Hoax
Show us some screen shots!
for the Palm released some screen shots to show its not
vapor!
RE: Screen shots are up now
Sound?
RE: Sound?
RE: Sound?
RE: Sound?
RE: Name
RE: Name
PälmBöy :>
use the 'accented' characters from the scandanavian languages.. in many english speaking countries they actually look like the normal 'a' and 'o' :>
has 3com protected the use of 'Pälm'? :>
(which of course is not a real word)
RE: Name
I have two words...
RE: I have two words...
But anyway Worms on the GameBoy sucks... Why would you want it emulated on the Palm?
N.B. All ROMs should work, when the final version of Gambit (or any other emulator) is released. Possibly we could get someone to write a .gb|.pdb converter? For purely educational purposes, of course.
unclear points
1. Will Gambit run on older palm units (palm III, palm prof.)?
2. Will Gambit be freeware?
3. How many Kilobytes is gambit now?
4. After the rom is converted, does it change in size?
RE: unclear points
2. you have to buy the ROMs of course
3. under 30k for the emulator + ROM (32k on Tetris) Also requires ~64k working RAM
4. Not really (a few bytes)
RE: unclear points
the really surprising point here is whether Nintendo is going to have something to say about the emulator.
RE: unclear points
2. I have quite a few roms and a orignal gameboy, have you tried any other games?
I think it can be done maven, assembly is not easy and if you have gotten this far sound and large roms are possible.
I was confused if gambit was only being designed for the newer palm processors, I figured I would use Eco-hack for speed enhancement.
I don't want to press you, but can you give a rough estimate on a beta release?
keep up the good work, you are pushing the palm farther than anyone thought.
Hi...Aaron Ardiri
You Guys are LATE
Today is August 30th.
Do the math.
RE: You Guys are LATE
RE: You Guys are LATE
i wrote ports of LodeRunner and Game&Watch classics (Donkie Kong Jr, Parashoot, Octopus and Fire!).
i own a GameBoy, have have numerous roms
(legal, which i have transfered myself) :>
RE: You Guys are LATE
RE: You Guys are LATE
You call someone a fucker because he charges a couple of bucks for excellent games? Beside, would you work months on a project, when you have a full-time job, and then give it away? I really think Gambit should be shareware. I'd buy it for 20$ after testing it to see if it works well.
RE: You Guys are LATE
some real nerve!
if i help Maven - i would have no intentions to make the software shareware, thats his choice.. in order to make it shareware he needs to ensure that more than one ROM is supported :>
as for your "comment" on charging (Mr Anonymous - thats even more lame) - what is $5? did you care to realize that my latest game, Phire! was released as postcard ware?
Two other ports existed, so.. to prevent any conflict with sales.. i released mine for free - but you just had to send me a postcard.. what is so greedy about that? the Phire! implementation is probably close to the original than Fire! or Fire Escape will ever be..
The better program.. but FREE? you do the math.
Then figure out who is greedy.
Some points to ponder
If it is hard enough to get it to run at full GB speed with only tetris, how in the world will it be able to run the other games that actually do something? The Palm isn't a desktop computer with megs of memory and lots of HD space. It is very limited in terms of memory and available space. If you ask me, the speed of the processor isn't the problem, it's the memory available. There are GB emulators for winCE machines because at least they have a decent amount of memory, but the Palm .pdb format has a record size limit of 64k, so any rom images that are usually 300k or more will have to be split up into 64k chunks. Good luck trying to program the emulator to jump all over between the different records. As the original article stated, the general rule is you need at least 3x the original processor speed. Because of the tight memory conditions on the Palm, even 4x won't be enough. But hey, it can run tetris! :)
RE: Some points to ponder
RE: Some points to ponder
I haven't written the paging code yet, but the time shouldn't be any greater than in the real Gameboy.
After doing this emulator, I must say I'm REAL skeptical about the 3x rule. Of course, you can't get a GB emulator for the PC that runs on less than a 33MHz 386, and that's for a hihgly-optimized one. (So that works out to 8x?)
Memory doesn't matter too much, unless you are talking the larger ROMs.
Thanks for the input
Anyway, I'm not going to hold the negative comments against you. I'd be just as skeptical as some of you are.
I'll be glad to continue to answer any questions here that I can.
Have a great day!
-Maven
RE: Thanks for the input
Appreciate the fine work that you're doing with this. I think the general sentiment is that the community in general is fairly skeptical of the possibility of this really happening. How close is Tetris to running at full speed? What kind of time frame are we talking about before a beta is released? ...
If you ever need a tester.. =)
Ronak
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Palm Gamboy - IR support