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Re: "System Message" popup
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Is there an xmpp component to this? Would be nice to use jabberwocky with it.

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Re: Any MUI coding experts out there?
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I found this site to be extremely useful when first doing MUI stuff, though I'm using GCC 2.95.3 and AOS 3.9. The audodocs that were on sasg's site seem to also be on http://amiga.sourceforge.net/amigadevhelp/, though the original site is archived on archive.orgs wayback machine.

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Re: Flatscreen TV issues.
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@Samurai_Crow

Scandoubler? for a NTSC flatscreen TV?

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Flatscreen TV issues.
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Hello all, I've recently purchased a flatscreen TV with VGA input, hoping to use this instead of the scandoubler I've been using (see here and here to see why). Unfortunately, this thing is MILITANTLY ntsc, and 90% of my non-RTG games are in PAL. I was running some some searches, and found
this on Amazon, and was wondering if anybody has used such a thing? I'm not too concerned about video quality, as I usually only play 320x200 or 320x256 res on AGA, but the info states its good for Playstation II, which I believe is 800x600. Even a pal hi-res-laced screen is less than that.
Also, my TV has S-video and composite inputs as well as the antenna input, but I'm sure the s-video would require 60hz verticle as well. (The antenna input can deal with 50hz input, but chops the bottom 56 pixels off the screen, rather inconvenient when trying to find the flippers in Pinball Fantasies).
Also, I know theres a few different PAL standards, I'm not too sure which one the Amiga uses? Thanks for any help.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@trixie

I don't see why it wouldn't, as the palm files seem pretty consistant from one rev to the next, at least throught 5.x. I had a palm m130 and a zire 71, both seemed to be similar. Though I've not pried into them with a hex editor, and both are kinda broken. (PDA's are NOT the kind of thing to have in your pocket when wrestling around with your drunken friends when nearby a brick wall..) Anyway, do you have a way to get the data onto an Amiga? (either a cradle with a serial port or a usb device on your miggy with a usb cradle) If so, just grab the last upload @ Aminet, and give it a shot! just remember to "setenv pdaconvert.cfg <path to wherever you put the conversions drawer>" first.
The converter is CLI based, to do the memo to amigaguide conversion is:
pdaconvert -i memodb.pdb -o ram:memo.guide -c guide

also, if you're syncing with a pc, you can always copy the file manually, by copying it to a floppy or e-mailing it, etc...
If you try this and have problems, PLEASE let me know. Also, as its still "under construction", you might want to avoid anything important running in the background. I've seen this thing crash & burn before, granted that was caused by a rookie mistake with the malloc() commmand...

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@kvasir

Got bored, and my brain is too insomnia-fried to code (I've learned better than to attempt it the hard way. Trashed a hard drive because of repeated incremental filenames being saved to HDD in a closed loop. Without closing the file pointer. Apparently FFS doesn't like that a whole lot....) Anyway, got some screengrabs of how the thing works so far.

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PalmOS Memo Pad, converted to AmigaGuide

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PalmOS To-Do list pad, converted to AmigaGuide

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PalmOS Datebook to both AmigaGuide and Limpidclock .reminder files.
Still thinking about the best way to automate pda->limpidclock, without either destroying Amiga-entered input or resulting in double entries on every hotsync. Might whip up a quick program to insert date into the file, while checking for duplicates. Limpidclock seems to ignore ; commented lines, might be able to stick the palm records ID number on the limpid entries previous line or something.

EDIT: After another attack of insomnia, I got the datebookdb.pdb file converted sufficiently to export limpidclock and amigaguide files.


Edited by kvasir on 2010/9/11 20:58:01
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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@kvasir

ok. 3rd rewrite now, but got a beta on aminet (here) that con convert the memo database into AmigaGuide. Also figured out how the categories work. Still alot of problems with it, it doesn't check whatever file you plug into it for consistancy, so if it's not a Palm database, its gonna crash. Well, it might not crash. But the odds are it will. I put it up there to see if theres any problems with anybodys memo database (the one called MemoDB.pdb), and for any suggestions. Useful ones. I already know to add error checking.
The "scripting" language is more for my convenience than anybody writing a script, but thats because I'm planning on writing a stand-alone GUI to write the scripts, so it shouldn't be too big a prob.

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Re: Instant messaging tip
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This way, you can use your Amiga to wonder if the "naked girl" you're chatting to is a bot or not. lol (I just use Jabberwocky + gateways! :D )

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Re: Wireless Keyboard finally works!!
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@delshay

Already considered the printer option. My wife, unfortunately, was with me @ the time (The trip to Radio Shack that resulted in the KVM purchase was done solo, when I actually had the debit card. I'm guessing this won't happen again for a few months ). She's not as enthusiastic about "geek toys" as I am sometimes.

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Wireless Keyboard finally works!!
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Figured I'd post this because getting this thing to work was an enourmous headache. Wireless mouse, no prob. (Mr. Mysza ps/2 adapter, green ps/2 usb adapter, plug reciever into that). Sega wireless gamepads, a little more hassle, but not bad (this thread). Keyboard? That was the biggest prob yet. But it works now, thanks to US$10 spent at Radio Shack.
I originally bought a Micro Innovations wireless keyboard/mouse combo from a thrift store some years ago (The mouse wasn't included, though). It's a keyboard that takes 2 "AA" batteries, and a reciever that has 2 ps/2 ports (1 for keyboard, 1 for mouse). @ the time, I didn't even have a ps/2 compatable Amiga, but I bought it for when I was to do my tower upgrade.
When I got my tower upgrade, I went with Elbox's pckey-1200, which is an AT interface. That and a din-mini din adapter got every ps/2 keyboard I owned to work. Every one except the wireless one.
After trying exotic and weird combinations of adapter (ps/2 to usb back to ps/2, etc..) I finally found a way to hook it up. Kind of. With a generic dual-ps/2 to single USB adapter, I was able to plug it into my USB device, but that only works when the USB drivers are active. WHDload doesn't like them, and crashes my system when it loads (why I have the remove command in the whdload prefs, followed by the driver loader firing off after it quits). So, I would tinker with it, but not terribly much. Finally, I found out how to get it to work with the pckey 1200. With a wired keyboard, the pckey seems to halfway-activate the keyboard, which won't work until you press a key. The wireless keyboard won't send a keystroke until its completely activated. This little catch-22 was what I was dealing with. A friend of mine recommended a KVM switch, which would interface with both the Amiga and the keyboard independantly, allowing the keyboard to work. I found a few in the $40-$50 (US) range, mostly USB switches. Finally, at a Radio Shack, I found a US$10 KVM switch that was ps/2 only (the TK-205). Plugged the reciever into the console side, and the pckey-1200 into the KVM cable on the 1st slot, and fired the beast up.
The thing works because of a stupid KVM switch... Which I now have a completely wireless Amiga! (except for a wifi card, still working on that, though its kinda hard to justify, as I have a 100mbps card on the mediator) Kinda wish this thing had the mouse when I got it second hand, as it would be one less gadget littering my desk, but its not that big a deal when I can just toss the keyboard on my lap, lean back, and not worry about tripping over stuff when I get up. Or when I have to lean forward to use the mouse, which I'm thinking of getting a lap tray to keep the mouse, keyboard, 2 sega controllers, and the DVD remote I rigged to the USB port. But I'm not sure if I'm lazy enough to do all that....

Resized Image The keyboard, complete with my "spare" flaming boing-ball case sticker
Resized Image the reciever for the keyboard, with the red LED showing a connection. (It lights up a puke amber color when it can't find the computer)
Resized Image the $10 KVM switch, which is used as nothing more than an adapter at this point.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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OK, done a bit more work on this. (Been kinda slow with it, craziness as usual interfering. Mostly the 3 year old wandering into my office, saying "shoot aliens?", and requiring me to fire up Alien Breed SE ) I uploaded the output so far, though its only AmigaGuide (Might have to right-click-download for that one, unless you have an AmigaGuide mime type set) and HTML output, designed to show record-by-record hex dumps for reference when writing scripts. I'm still determining the "language" for the scripts, the ideas I've had so far are a bit more complicated than needed.
So far, I'm thinking of 3 separate "sections" of the conversion scripts, being a header, read, and write section. The header just contains user level information (something like "this is a PalmOS to-do list", followed by generic information about the palmapp that wrote it). The read section creates variables, and loads them with the data according to the following script. The write section(s) write the file in whatever format its configured for. The output linked to above has really nothing to do with the conversion system, aside from making reverse-engineering .pdb files easier.
oh, this is the shell output:
Quote:

11, Work:Code/pdatools>pdaconvert pdadata:addressdb.pdb yam:.addressbook yam guide ram:sample_addressdb html ram:sample_addressdb
PalmOS Address Book
Inputfile = pdadata:addressdb.pdb, Outputfile = yam:.addressbook Conversion = yam:.addressbook, HTML file = ram:sample_addressdb.html AmigaGuide file = ram:sample_addressdb.guide
Help (Off) | Avail (Off) | HTML (On ) | Guide (On )
Verbose level: 1
pdaconvert terminated, No Error

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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OK, FINALLY got this thing working a bit. At least as much as I'm going to tonight. Er.. This morning... (3AM in Wisconsin right now) Tracked down the memory leak, as I mentioned in the previous post. Fine-tuned things alot, and got working HTML code. (will post a sample on my site, as soon as I use something other than my personal login password database as a test file). Most of the time I was fine-tuning its HTML output. The HTML output (will add AmigaGuide, too) is just for reverse-engineering pdb files, as it shows various record and database header information, as well as the records themselves. Only ASCII characters are readable, of course. Anything else is displayed as its HEX value, and color-coded (blue is ASCII, green is HEX numbers). Got what I believe to be a nice chart display for the other stuff, including database and record attributes.
The next thing is polishing this up a little bit. The dates are still stored as 32-bit integers, using PalmODS time. As opposed to Amiga (or POSIX) time... Did you know there are EXACTLY 2,082,844,800 second between midnight, January 1, 1904 and midnight, January 1, 1970? Coincidentally, there's a variable in my source called pdaoffset that holds that exact value.... If I find the guy at Palm who decided 1904 was a better year than 1970, and thus disagreeing with 90% of the 32-bit machines that bother to keep track of time, I'm going to do something the mere mention of which will probably get some moderators attention....
Anyway, the time display is pretty much a stub job using ctime, and the (incredibly annoying) offset. While it works, I'm going to change that to separate day/month/year/hour/minute/second values (crammed together in an array, already have that set up). This way, re-arranging them in whatever order/language another program uses should be easy.
Also, while I like the HTML output, adding an AmigaGuide option for the same would be pretty easy, so why not?
And I have yet to torture test this. There's a few .pdb files that crashed before, I'll see if it either works or at least trips the error trapping with this one.

Then, its just a matter of developing a "language" for the conversion files. (general order is load the .pdb file, load the conversion file, read conversion instructions from it, dump out a .whatever file) Thinking some sort of markup language with some macros. Possibly binary, with a de/compression utility. Not that I'm worried about the space, but the binary stuff would be easier to handle in the program. Anyway, rambling as usual. Time for bed....

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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Finally figured out the porb I ran into. I'm used to malloc() setting the length of a string (not exactly what it does, but its useful for doing this). All I knew is I had x number of characters to stick into y array, so I'd use x=malloc(y). When x is a structure with several different long ints, and you assume malloc will automatically figure this out, bad bad bad things happen....
Anyway, bug fixed, I feel like an idiot, and am now watching the simpsons.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@AmigaSource

Thanx for that! :D as soon as I get something working right (which I've actually made alot of progress with today), I'll zap the code to my brother and see if he can't do an OS4.x compile of it. (He has an A1 w/ 4.1 I believe, as well as a Sony cli?, unsure of the model number, just that it has more buttons than my computer, a flip-up qwerty keyboard, a bunch of gadgets, and looks like it would hurt if dropped on your foot) In the meantime, I don't know if Spitfire2 would work on OS4? I'm not sure if the author is taking registrations, but the core desktop programs are still compatible with the .pdb files pdatransfer pulls over via usb. Just have to move them into the right directories via a script.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@328gts

Unfortunately, I can only tinker with the gadgets that I own, and an Iphone isn't among them. :( (Impoverished student) Though I'm not trying to write an i/o program to do the synchronization/data transfer so much as convert the data when its already on the Amiga. Depending on the iphones data format (android is XML based, which would be really easy to deal with, as mentioned in some post or another above this one), and my skill with a hex editor, I might be able to get it to work. However, the only thing this proggy would do is convert PalmOS data to/from Iphone or android. Though it's designed to convert to/from existing Amiga applications that I already use for similar functions. (Palm date book to limpidclock events, palm address book to yam address book, not exacltly sure what the hell to do with the to-do list and memo pad, but they've proven useful enough to figure something out).
As far as the connection and syncing, I'm trying to steer away from that, as its pretty much re-inventing the wheel at this point. (several proggies on Aminet do this) However, after the data conversion routines are done, I could probably tinker about with the USB API (I use poseidan, unsure if anything is available with Anaiis/anails/however its spelled) and get an all-in-one package going, including a MUI GUI (perhaps something more rudimentary for people wanting pre-os2.x stuff), and even a complete desktop package. (after the conversion, this wouldn't be too difficult, as I can just use the conversion routines to write something a bit more in-line with my admittedly chaotic thought patterns)

For connection to Palm devices, the poseiden stack comes with PDAtransfer if using USB, and I believe Aminet has some rs-232 compatible stuff, too. (Might even be the same program, the guy who wrote Poseidan seems to have done alot of really good work in this area)

Though I'll try to kick up an Iphone, and an android phone, plug 'em into my usb, and see what happens. If I can transfer some data, I'll peek at it with a hex editor (as well as google what the Linux geeks doing the same are up to).

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@kvasir

OK, back to writing this thing today. Re-doing from scratch, as I've found better ways of coding virtually every function I had in here. Plus I want to make it modular enough to support a GUI, when my skill approaches that level. Also, a complete re-write is surely easier than finding the missing semi-colon/ parenthesis/ wrong malloc() value/ whatever else could be wrong that is causing a workout of the GURU screen. Fun fun.. Going to actually flowchart the thing this time.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@gerograph

I might write something along those lines too, if I ever get ahold of a cell that costs more than $20US. (I'm still in school, so discount pre-paid junk is what I use cell-wise) This is just a project to get my personal equipment (being a 68k os3.9 Amiga and a Sony PDA) talking together. Which they already do that, but the Amiga can't read the pda's files. Hence the translation proggy. Though the general concept should hold as far as other data models, like the previous post(s) about Android would suggest. XML seems rather popular for that kind of thing, and would be easy to implement in a macro type conversion system (which is similar to what I'm working on). Might have to tweak it a bit when I get ahold of such data.

The real challenge with phones, pda's, etc.. is getting the data into the Amiga. Before I had USB in this thing, I had to synchronize my PDA with my ailing windows machine (that eventually became so frustrationg performance-wise that I wiped XP and installed Ubuntu), and drag whatever files I needed on the 1200 over via SMBFS and a network share on the XP box. I'm not sure how Android or Windows stuff would be recognized on the Amigas USB stacks, though I might look into writing actual transfer software too if the existing systems aren't working well.

Though right now, I'm at an impasse.. The memory glitch thats scrambling file output seems elusive, though a compiler for Ubuntu seems to complain about some integer casting, thinking that might be the problem. Which is a pretty lame, beginner level screw up.... I should really drink coffee for an hour or so before firing up a compiler.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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@Sprocki

If I recall, there was a namechange involved in the software pdatransfer uses, palm didn't like somebody naming a library "palmlink.library" or .device or something like that, so you needed to manually change the binary with a hexeditor. (from palmlink.library to pdalink.library, just add hex 00 at the end for the extra character). Then just configure poseiden to fire off a script that dumps all the palm files to whatever directory you prefer.
That being done, you now have a ton of PDA files that you can't really use. That what this proggy is supposed to fix.

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Re: Writing Amiga <-> PDA software
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Finally came upon some free time to continue with this. Still tracking down a memory leak, causing some html output to get garbled...

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Re: Ghetto rigged sega adapter
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OK, got both controllers working now. The second controller didn't need the 5V line swapped over, so I didn't need to cobble another adapter together. I plugged controller #2 into this thing (Mouse/Joystick switch), with the wireless mouse -> usb/ps2 adapter -> Mr. Mysza ps2/Amiga adapter (of all the h/w I have on my Amiga, adapters make a significant portion of it) in its mouse port. Fired up a couple of 2-player games, along with the joystick tester that I used to originally test it.
Second controller works great! A few caveats:

1) I wansn't using the mouse switch originally, because it doesn't seem to pass the mouse wheel input through properly. I've decided to live without it, as nudging the wheel caused more headaches than convenience. (I'm using Freewheel and wheeldriver. If anyone knows a fix for this prob., let me know)

2) The fire button/ left mouse button switches between the joystick and mouse, if I have the controller switched to the wrong side, I disable the mouse. And the switches cord is so short, the LED's that indicate the active device are out of sight. Might be obvious what happened with the mouse not moving, but being wireless, dead batteries could cause some confusion as well.

3) All the wireless stuff I have plugged in sucks power from the mobo. I have a decent (250 watt) PSU, though I'm starting to get worried about mobo drain. (I also have several USB devices plugged in, though the hungry ones are connected to a self-powered hub)

Overall, this has been a wonderful little experiment, and has done wonders clearing my desk of unwanted cable-clutter. Though I have a large amount of desk real-estate dedicated to various wireless recievers. And the wiring behind the computer is still a rats nest.

One of my main concerns was usability with these controllrs, as they rely on infrared to communicate to the receiver. However, the controllers seem to have a very wide transmission, and the receiver is sensative enough to pick up said transmission. Also, this thing was originally designed to control a sega while sitting on a chair/couch/whatever on the other side of the room, and my computer chair is virtually "on-top" of the computer. So no probs there.

As far as interference, I'm running a wireless mouse, and sometimes a wireless keyboard. (Can only get it running via USB right now, looking into how to fix that) Also, I have a playstation DVD remote plugged into a playstation usb adapter. Using Subway+Poseidan as a remote-control task-launcher. As well as having 2 wireless routers, among several laptops that connect that way.

Nothing interferes with anything else. Of all the wireless stuff, the only infrared devices are the 2 controllrs, the playstation DVD remote, and my PalmOS PDA. The rest uses RF for signal, and they all play nicely together. (Even made sure my cordless phone doesn't use 2.5 ghz, as thats a common problem with wireless networking). The only other item that responds to the other IR devices is my PDA, though the only program that does so was designed that way. (for diagnosing remotes, etc... Was useful in verifying funtionality of the controllers, as I did get them second-hand)

Time to log off, and fire up Skidmarks AGA! And let my 3yo daughter have at the second controller!

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