EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 I don’t believe there’s a thread for this. I intended for this thread to be about the N-Gage, Tapwave Zodiac, and Gizmondo. If there are any others I’m not thinking of, talk about them too. This’ll be for new pickups, memories, etc. Personally, I’ve got an N-Gage and a Zodiac, hoping to get a Gizmondo for a good price soon. Working on the Zodiac set (only 8 games, need 7). Does anyone else collect for these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmadgames Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 I really enjoy collecting for the N-Gage and Gizmondo. I actually picked up my extra Gizmondos from the factory in China around 2007 or 2008. I guess Tiger Telematics never sold many and the factory had gotten stuck with a bunch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 19 minutes ago, bmadgames said: I really enjoy collecting for the N-Gage and Gizmondo. I actually picked up my extra Gizmondos from the factory in China around 2007 or 2008. I guess Tiger Telematics never sold many and the factory had gotten stuck with a bunch. Oh, are you willing to sell a Gizmondo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 I was intrigued by Palm PDAs and PocketPCs around the turn of the century, when they were the best handhelds you could run. The Zodiac has nice gaming controls and could run NES emulators passably well. There were some fun Palm games back then. GameBoy Advance was way better than any of these as a game player, of course. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 4 minutes ago, Flojomojo said: I was intrigued by Palm PDAs and PocketPCs around the turn of the century, when they were the best handhelds you could run. The Zodiac has nice gaming controls and could run NES emulators passably well. There were some fun Palm games back then. GameBoy Advance was way better than any of these as a game player, of course. Yeah, Zodiac is pretty fun. I’ve had some fun playing Doom and SimCity on it. N-Gage is good too, but the games are starting to rise in price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 18 minutes ago, Flojomojo said: I was intrigued by Palm PDAs and PocketPCs around the turn of the century, when they were the best handhelds you could run. The Zodiac has nice gaming controls and could run NES emulators passably well. There were some fun Palm games back then. GameBoy Advance was way better than any of these as a game player, of course. Same here, did the same thing. I had one of those HP ipaq things and I ran NES and Gameboy on it, also got a few games like apogees hyperspace delivery boy which was phenomenal(wish it was still playable.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Among the PPC scene, there was a divergence between MIPS and ARM if I'm remembering right. I had a Casio E-125 which had game friendly controls, but the iPaq had better performance. They all kinda suck from the perspective of today, they were super $$$ and not very powerful. I'm forever grateful for cheap phones and tablets with better screens that we have now. Here's a site I liked, with a review of the Dell version of an iPaq, which I owned for a while. https://the-gadgeteer.com/2003/01/23/dell_axim_x5_pocket_pc_review/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 I vaguely remember the control being less than ideal either being touch or the oddly center facing setup it used. I found I stuck to what could comfortably be played without getting screwed by that very thing. I even tried a few of those Capcom arcade conversions like 1942 an GnG which was interesting to attempt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Oh, and the iPhone's smooth-scrolling, multitouch, capacitive touchscreen really did change things forever. There's just no going back to the stylus or low res screens in thick brick cases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 1 minute ago, Tanooki said: I vaguely remember the control being less than ideal either being touch or the oddly center facing setup it used. I found I stuck to what could comfortably be played without getting screwed by that very thing. I even tried a few of those Capcom arcade conversions like 1942 an GnG which was interesting to attempt. I liked the idea of running SCUMMVM on those, and the stylus would be helpful to that style of play. In practice, nope, but the idea that it was possible, so great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 I found a Palm Vx in a bin recently. It's pristine. Even the support was threw out with it. And the battery still decently works I need to set up a computer with a COM port to load games on it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 Just now, CatPix said: I found a Palm Vx in a bin recently. It's pristine. Even the support was threw out with it. And the battery still decently works I need to set up a computer with a COM port to load games on it. Oh that’s good. For anyone curious this is what I found on google about it: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 Yes, that's it. It's un full working order, despite what I read that the backlight or digitizer might be faulty. I do'nt have the fancy case or the better stylus for it but heh. I mean the topic says "PDA" and all the systems named are more "emulator consoles" so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 Just now, CatPix said: Yes, that's it. It's un full working order, despite what I read that the backlight or digitizer might be faulty. I do'nt have the fancy case or the better stylus for it but heh. I mean the topic says "PDA" and all the systems named are more "emulator consoles" so far... I’ve heard a lot of different names thrown around for them. Tablets, phone-game combinations, etc. But mostly I just hear PDA so that’s what I decided to call it. These actual PDAs are fine to go here as well in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 Also, if anyone has Zodiac stuff they want to get rid of, let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 13 minutes ago, CatPix said: I found a Palm Vx in a bin recently. It's pristine. Even the support was threw out with it. And the battery still decently works I need to set up a computer with a COM port to load games on it. That was a nice one. Most people would turn up their noses at the dim, slow, monochrome screen, but I think you know enough history to appreciate it. I think you could find a USB-to-serial adapter to load it on a modern machine. There is a shipload of software for PalmOS, and much of it reminds me of early Macintosh stuff. Everything is tiny! Also, I just found this, which might just be the last word in archiving Palm stuff: https://palmarchive.com/files/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted February 24, 2020 Share Posted February 24, 2020 I don't consider the N-Gage a "PDA". It was a game system/cell phone hybrid using Symbian OS. Yeah, you could do basic PDA-like stuff (as could any Symbian-based phone from back then), like taking notes or doing small voice recording--but functionality was still limited in that regard. Games-wise, it is solid for what it is. Gizmondo I can't comment on as I never owned one, but it seems powerful for the time and a few of the games look really fun (like Trailblazer). Zodiac--totally in PDA territory, considering it has a touch screen and uses PalmOS. Fairly powerful system it seemed and a shame it didn't last longer on the market. Zodiac wasn't great as a games machine due to having a small library, but it does have access to a wide range of Palm games. Quality is still all over the place. Having owned one for a while, it seemed like it was best used for hacking/homebrew. The emulators were solid for the time (Game Boy was especially good) and some of its ports were solid (Out of This World, Flashback, etc). That analogue stick didn't do it many favors for 2D games though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 The (Apple) Newton Messagepad (1993-1997) had some fun games, but the Newton 2000 and 2100 got a nice boost in power (10x processor speed) from the previous Newtons (100, 110, 120, 130, and the eMate). So naturally I suggest the Newton 2000 and 2100 with the games I mention below. All and all, the Newton was device with some fun light green and black display. Controls like in all tablet devices suffered with on-screen controls, but there were some games that made use of the external keyboard. My favorites looking back were NewtHack, SoloDX (Solitare), Minefield, some Tetris clone, and DeepSpaceNewt (typical Star Trek game). Playing NewtHack with the Tempest 2000 bacon level music playing on the modplayer was a fun way to pass time. The Nintendo emulator was extremely innovative for the Newton 2000, though this was one where the controls suffered being onscreen. Not sure if the keyboard controls ever worked for that one. Played Galaga with it though. Kinda cool. And many rounds of Z games (Infocom games could be ported and played). There were other amateur Z games that were also written and available. Newton Games http://unna.dillernet.com/view.php?/games Most notable were Motile, SoloDX, Bricks, The arcade pack (Rocks in Space, Birds with Lances.. :P), DeepSpaceNewt1.01, KungFu1.0, Mahjongg2.1, NewtGliderDemo, Newtris (quite a few Tetris clones), SubPatrol, YAZI1 (good for playing text adventures), NewtHack1_1, MinefieldII1.2, Newton Mod Player found here... http://unna.dillernet.com/view.php?/applications/ModPlayer2.0b1 Newtendo (NES emulator for Newton) http://dev.newtontalk.net/eagan/index.html https://www.zophar.net/pocket-pc/nes/newtendo.html Newtendo packer... (for packing roms to work with Newtendo) http://www.unna.org/unnasearch/entry.php?pkey=12732 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 25, 2020 Author Share Posted February 25, 2020 35 minutes ago, doctorclu said: The (Apple) Newton Messagepad (1993-1997) had some fun games, but the Newton 2000 and 2100 got a nice boost in power (10x processor speed) from the previous Newtons (100, 110, 120, 130, and the eMate). So naturally I suggest the Newton 2000 and 2100 with the games I mention below. All and all, the Newton was device with some fun light green and black display. Controls like in all tablet devices suffered with on-screen controls, but there were some games that made use of the external keyboard. My favorites looking back were NewtHack, SoloDX (Solitare), Minefield, some Tetris clone, and DeepSpaceNewt (typical Star Trek game). Playing NewtHack with the Tempest 2000 bacon level music playing on the modplayer was a fun way to pass time. The Nintendo emulator was extremely innovative for the Newton 2000, though this was one where the controls suffered being onscreen. Not sure if the keyboard controls ever worked for that one. Played Galaga with it though. Kinda cool. And many rounds of Z games (Infocom games could be ported and played). There were other amateur Z games that were also written and available. Newton Games http://unna.dillernet.com/view.php?/games Most notable were Motile, SoloDX, Bricks, The arcade pack (Rocks in Space, Birds with Lances.. :P), DeepSpaceNewt1.01, KungFu1.0, Mahjongg2.1, NewtGliderDemo, Newtris (quite a few Tetris clones), SubPatrol, YAZI1 (good for playing text adventures), NewtHack1_1, MinefieldII1.2, Newton Mod Player found here... http://unna.dillernet.com/view.php?/applications/ModPlayer2.0b1 Newtendo (NES emulator for Newton) http://dev.newtontalk.net/eagan/index.html https://www.zophar.net/pocket-pc/nes/newtendo.html Newtendo packer... (for packing roms to work with Newtendo) http://www.unna.org/unnasearch/entry.php?pkey=12732 Very interesting. Didn’t know the newton played games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 56 minutes ago, EdgeOfPortal said: Very interesting. Didn’t know the newton played games. Basic rule of computing: if it can compute, a game will be written for it. Case in point the TI-83/84 programmable calculator and look at all the games written for that.... https://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/basic/games/board/strategy/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 4 minutes ago, doctorclu said: Basic rule of computing: if it can compute, a game will be written for it. Case in point the TI-83/84 programmable calculator and look at all the games written for that.... https://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/basic/games/board/strategy/ This is absolutely true, like this dude who plays Doom on his thermostat I don't think the Gizmondo and N-Gage really count. It's your topic though, so if you think it counts, it counts. Might as well add the game.com at that point since you can plug it into your modem and check your email and browse the internet with it. Kind of cool, but not really practical even then, I think. Never heard of the Tapwave Zodiac before, but it seems interesting. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 Maybe it's in your link or i'm thinking of the TI-82 from back in the 90s, but I recall someone coded up and handed around like Duck Hunt for the thing, Tetris too. I was quite surprised even with the limitation how decent it worked for single non-scrolling screen style games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeOfPortal Posted February 25, 2020 Author Share Posted February 25, 2020 13 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said: This is absolutely true, like this dude who plays Doom on his thermostat I don't think the Gizmondo and N-Gage really count. It's your topic though, so if you think it counts, it counts. Might as well add the game.com at that point since you can plug it into your modem and check your email and browse the internet with it. Kind of cool, but not really practical even then, I think. Never heard of the Tapwave Zodiac before, but it seems interesting. I have no idea what to call them then. I’ve always thrown N-Gage, Gizmondo, Zodiac into one category in my mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 Just now, EdgeOfPortal said: I have no idea what to call them then. I’ve always thrown N-Gage, Gizmondo, Zodiac into one category in my mind. I mean, that's fine. I've always though of the N-Gage and Gizmondo as game systems first, and then other stuff is a second priority. Perhaps because I saw Worms World Party for N-Gage in Gamestop in like 2007 or so. Never seen any other N-Gage stuff in the wild, though, including the system itself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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