[HN Gopher] A MiniGolf game for Palm OS
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A MiniGolf game for Palm OS
        
       Author : capitain
       Score  : 129 points
       Date   : 2024-09-11 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ctrl-c.club)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ctrl-c.club)
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | You need to promote this to projectionists so they can play it on
       | their IMAX systems.
        
       | ASalazarMX wrote:
       | Wondering if I could run this on real hardware, I realized I have
       | no idea what happened to my Palm LifeDrive when I changed to
       | Blackberries. I miss that little chunky PDA. It was amazing for
       | its time.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeDrive
        
         | sodaplayer wrote:
         | I just came across my old Palm Tungsten E2 last week while
         | doing some cleaning. If I can also find its charger, I'll
         | report back on running it.
        
       | cebu_blue wrote:
       | I love this and love the art design especially. Great job! The
       | only thing I would change persoanlly is that i think it feels
       | more natural to go in thge opposite direction with the mouse when
       | you're aiming. Many mini golf games on Miniclip used to do it
       | that way. Also if you're a fan of FOSS games i recommend
       | Neverball and Neverput which is a 3d golf similator with nice
       | graphics
        
         | aliher1911 wrote:
         | Original Palm was using stylus so you don't obscure where you
         | are aiming compared to finger touch phones and having more
         | space in the direction of shot could be the factors.
        
       | zzanz wrote:
       | Interesting project. I would say the issues had, memory leaks.
       | debugging, etc are a lot more common in game dev than you might
       | expect. Much of these problems have been abstracted away by game
       | engines such as Unreal/Unity/Godot, but if you were to go into
       | game dev with C, OpenGL, and a memory restriction (especially
       | when hardware enforced), you might run into the same teething
       | issues.
       | 
       | The level editor is a nice touch, I would be curious on the
       | implementation as something in the same vein existed for the Tony
       | Hawk series of games and was responsible for "Tony Hawks Pro
       | StrCpy" https://icode4.coffee/?p=954 . Though jailbreaking and
       | arbitrary code execution is probably a lot easier achieved via
       | PalmOS than a minigolf side project.
        
       | gwbas1c wrote:
       | The game is really fun when played in the browser-based emulator.
       | I nearly got sucked into practice mode.
       | 
       | IMO: I'd love a port (or otherwise inspired by) version for
       | Android / iOS / in-browser. It's really fun.
        
       | supportengineer wrote:
       | Great job! Just from the video I could tell this is fun. This is
       | what games are supposed to be.
        
       | teruakohatu wrote:
       | I have been using CloudPilot [1] to play a bunch of retro Palm
       | games on iOS. It works reasonably well. Hopefully a native
       | emulator will be released now allows emulators.
       | 
       | [1] https://cloudpilot-emu.github.io/app-preview/#/tab/sessions
        
       | kstrauser wrote:
       | This is beautiful! And now I'm nostalgic for my IIIxe. Through
       | the rose colored glasses of poor remembrance, that might've been
       | peek productivity in a handheld. It had enough functionality to
       | remember all the things I cared to have on my person at all
       | times, but was utterly lacking in notifications about
       | distractions. It took me a while to quiet my iPhone so that it's
       | not always pestering the hell out of me, but Palm was opt-in. If
       | you didn't tell it to tell you about something, it kept its mouth
       | shut.
       | 
       | I wouldn't actually go back if I could, but part of me misses
       | that.
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | I feel the same. I loved my IIIxe. I'm guessing we'd be
         | horrified at the UX now if we could go back, but at the time it
         | was a huge boost in productivity. The handwriting language was
         | really great. I actually wrote papers on that thing! It was
         | great, I could work on papers while on the bus or travelling,
         | without having to lug around a laptop. Remarkable devices.
        
           | i80and wrote:
           | So I actually bought a Palm Classic device to test the
           | hypothesis that my memories are nostelgia.
           | 
           | They're not! It's actually a great UX!
        
           | kstrauser wrote:
           | I played with an emulator (https://cloudpilot-emu.github.io/)
           | recently and it's honestly not that bad at all. The
           | resolution is bad by today's standards but the basics are all
           | there. It even has a system-wide search that looks for the
           | input string in all your apps and lets you tap right into
           | those records. That's pretty handy!
           | 
           | I like my phone too much to go back, but if I _had_ to, I
           | could make do.
        
       | nanna wrote:
       | Is there an app store for palm is, or somewhere you can browse
       | different apps at least?
        
         | dmitrygr wrote:
         | PalmDB
        
         | eichin wrote:
         | https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_palm is a good
         | place to start (and you can just run them in-browser via
         | cloudpilot.)
        
       | andrewshadura wrote:
       | It would be really cool if someone wrote something like WINE to
       | allow running PalmOS applications on Android.
        
         | dmitrygr wrote:
         | It would have similar problems to WINE, without nearly as many
         | developers who understand the bug compatibility required. One
         | project (pumpkinos) tried but there are many apps that don't
         | work in it. Emulation is easier. And accurate. Source: I
         | believe at this point I am the highest authority left on PalmOS
        
         | AshamedCaptain wrote:
         | https://styletap.com/
        
       | xrd wrote:
       | The post suggests getting a real device. Where the heck do you
       | get a real device these days? Is there some retro hardware out
       | there? An open source project where you send out a PCB order to
       | Shenzhen?
        
         | flymasterv wrote:
         | eBay has new-in-box Zires for $10.
        
         | eichin wrote:
         | ebay; the hardware has lasted surprisingly well. (That said,
         | chrome on a recent samsung phone runs CloudPilot _very_
         | responsively, start here
         | https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_palm and you can
         | just click on things and run them...)
        
       | blackeyeblitzar wrote:
       | I am not very familiar with Palm OS, but I do like the idea of a
       | smart device that isn't a full on smartphone. Something like the
       | old Palm devices or the Pocket PCs from 25 years ago. Is there
       | such a thing today? What gets closest?
        
         | two_cents wrote:
         | BOOX Palma maybe? https://shop.boox.com/products/palma
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | Miniature golf was a game I began twice for the Macintosh back in
       | the 1990's but never ended up completing/shipping.
       | 
       | I've just recently been trying to recover my nearly 35 year old
       | sources and create disk images for use on an emulator. The first
       | B&W attempt at MiniGolf is here:
       | https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/SoftDorothy-UnfinishedTa...
       | 
       | The second attempt (when I was a better programmer) was in color
       | ... will make it on Volume 2. (I'm currently trying to put that
       | disk image together.)
        
         | aresant wrote:
         | Glider was THE franchise of the 68k mac era, I am more than a
         | little starstruck, glad to see that you are back at it!
        
           | JKCalhoun wrote:
           | It's kind of for nostalgia that I am putting together all the
           | sources, artwork, projects, (tools) on a disk image suitable
           | for emulators. To me it has been fun trying to go through old
           | hard drives and find the "almost rans" like MiniGolf (and
           | later LiliPutz).
           | 
           | The shareware and commercial games (Glider, etc.) are on disk
           | images in other repos. (You should be able to find them
           | easily if you care to.)
        
       | post_break wrote:
       | I miss bike or die. For a while it was on iOS but didn't get
       | updates. I had hours in that game.
        
       | harikb wrote:
       | I have the Original PalmPilot, hardware upgraded to 3.0, as part
       | of a beta program. I also have a few Palm 3's. Is there a
       | compiled PDB available?
        
       | tomcam wrote:
       | Let me hijack this with a hate story about my wife and minigolf
       | games.
       | 
       | Back in 1996 she thought maybe she needed a hobby. She was a
       | housewife and we didn't have any children yet. She said maybe she
       | could do a game. At the time I was working in Microsoft C++ and
       | the Microsoft Foundation Classes framework, building Windows
       | apps. She had never programmed a language more challenging than
       | Turbo Pascal.
       | 
       | When she asked how long it would take to even get started, I
       | estimated about 18 months to learn C++ properly, another six
       | months to learn Microsoft foundation classes. The six months
       | after that to learn the windows API if she worked really hard at
       | it. At the time I thought maybe there was a place in the Windows
       | game market for a mini golf game.
       | 
       | She took less than a week to create a working, bug-free
       | prototype, but then lost interest.
       | 
       | I hate people like that! Everything takes forever for me to
       | learn.
       | 
       | Luckily she blessed me with a passel of pretty much bug-free and
       | absolutely hilarious children, so I'm giving her a pass.
        
         | smabie wrote:
         | If you're laser focused on a end product then learning can
         | happen remarkably quickly.
        
         | ok_dad wrote:
         | > bug-free children
         | 
         | I know you didn't mean anything by it, and it was a pretty
         | funny joke, but children with bugs are pretty cool as well :)
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-09-11 23:00 UTC)