That's very odd, no-one's reported such a problem before...?

If you have a card-reader, I suggest connecting the mini-SD card to your PC and running CHKDSK on it. I suspect there is some corrupt file or other on the memory card which is causing the problem... maybe...

I second that, Wisbar Advance is fantastic and offers a lot more than just the "close" button for a mere $10...

No-one complaining about The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, then? I thought this was the single most dismal thing I've seen in years and years. The pace is appalling, the dialogue has been screwed about with for no apparent reason, and the acting is truly desperate. Martin Freeman is wayyyy too blokey and not nearly confused and bewildered enough. The Arthur-Trillian love affair is spurious and trite. Marvin looks great but sounds... like Alan Rickman.

There are only a few good moments in the whole train-wreck, and they only serve to show just how good the thing could have been if they'd got it right. I can only agree with PlanetMagrathea.com :



The new radio series are vastly better, even the bits they've tweaked to make it more up-to-date - latest episode downloadable from here...

If I understand correctly, there is very limited sound support, in (some of) the Nokia ports, for those games that used the 68000 for sound. Most games used the Z80 processor for sound - PicoDrive (as written by dave) doesn't support Z80 emulation so that's simply not going to happen unless someone writes/builds in a Z80 emulator. Which would be a big task.

See (the bottom of) this page about the latest Nokia port for more details:
http://picodrive.atspace.com/

There may be a new version of PicoDrive for Smartphone though, with a few bug-fixes that Reesy (of DrMD fame) put together. Most likely it would only be small fixes to games that already run; no new games are likely to start working. Anyone who sends an email to picodrive_beta_test@gamesforsmartphones.com before midnight tonight can help test the beta, and is welcome to join the hunt to find things that are fixed...

Try putting sellotape over the write-protect tab on the memory card.

No, really. This has fixed my three memory cards (three different manufacturers) all of which started to show the same problem -readable but not writeable - across three different card readers.

I always assumed that the write protect tab on an SD card was wired to the memory chip inside the card and prevented writing that way. But, I was wrong! Actually it's a lot more like VHS or floppy disk write protect - the write protect tab pushes up against a switch in the memory card slot, and it's the memory card reader that then prevents writing to the card.

If the switch in the card slot is dodgy, or not *perfectly* aligned with the tab on the memory card (for whatever reason) then you can't write to the card. Putting sellotape across the entire tab (wrapped around from one side of the card to the other, thus covering the tab) effectively gives the memory card switch something to "bite" on. Make sure there are no rough edges to the sellotape or it could get stuck in your card slot

RascalRuss, if you try this can you please post back and let us know if it works or not? I'm interested to see if it's the same problem because it's affected all my memory cards and readers - no combination works more than 25% of the time, if the sellotape is absent, so I'm interested to know if other people are experiencing the same problem. If this is a common problem then it'd be nice to publicise the solution because, I kid you not, it took me about 5 hours of diagnostics to come up with this fix. At one point I thought it was down to the Allocation size on the FAT table! *wrrrrong!*

I can explain this one :-)

It's (essentially) a scam by SanDisk and other disk manufacturers (e.g. Maxtor).

Windows (arguably correctly) considers a kilobyte to be 1024 bytes, a megabyte to be 1024*1024 = 1048576 bytes, and a gigabyte to be 1024*1024*1024 = 1073748124 bytes.

So, for Windows to show a card as exactly half a gigabyte, the card should have 1073748124 / 2 = 536,870,912 bytes.

But, SanDisk - and virtually every other disk manufacturer - defines a kilobyte as 1000 bytes, a megabyte as 1000*1000 = 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1000*1000*1000 = 1,000,000,000 bytes. That means their half-gigabyte card has 500,000,000 bytes - 36,870,912 bytes less than Windows thinks a half-gigabyte card should have.

In the case of a 128Mb card:

Windows: 1048576 * 128 = 134,217,728 bytes
SanDisk: 1000000 * 128 = 128,000,000 bytes

The difference between those two figures accounts for 6,217,728 bytes = 6,072K = 5.92 megabytes, of the discrepancy between SanDisk and Windows.

The rest of the discrepancy is for the file allocation table (FAT) which allows filenames to be linked to the correct parts of the disk space.

For comparison purposes, my brand-new "300Gb" Maxtor drive showed about 276Gb once formatted. A scam, whether the drive manufacturers agree or not, because (most) people don't actually get what they thought they were paying for.

More information here -> http://www.answers.com/topic/mebibyte-1

Ooops... *possibly* I meant "VK_LWIN 5B Left-Windows Key". You're right, it's getting late :-s

Try VK_START (the Start button, at any rate)...?

Right place at the right time

I reckon you might well have more luck with binarys.com 's smart explorer - it worked for me

TBH it's a good program to have knocking around anyway - I recommend their task manager too

Purely out of interest, what sort of thing are you scripting? Just interested to know how it's being used - I *will* get round to writing a new version just as soon as I work out how I'm going to handle variables... :-s

1) - are you only having problems creating a *permanent* association, or can you not get it to run even once? And, are you using www.binarys.com 's File Explorer?

2) These values are in hexadecimal so you'll need to convert them to decimal - you can do that using the windows calculator, in scentific mode.

From the help files for eVC++ 4, example VK_SHIFT is 10 in hex = 16 in decimal:

Symbolic constant Hexadecimal value Mouse or keyboard equivalent

VK_LBUTTON 01 Left mouse button
VK_RBUTTON 02 Right mouse button
VK_CANCEL 03 Control-break processing
VK_MBUTTON 04 Middle mouse button on a three-button mouse
— 05–07 Undefined
VK_BACK 08 BACKSPACE key
VK_TAB 09 TAB key
— 0A–0B Undefined
VK_CLEAR 0C CLEAR key
VK_RETURN 0D ENTER key
— 0E–0F Undefined
VK_SHIFT 10 SHIFT key
VK_CONTROL 11 CTRL key
VK_MENU 12 ALT key
VK_PAUSE 13 PAUSE key
VK_CAPITAL 14 CAPS LOCK key
— 15–19 Reserved for Kanji systems
— 1A Undefined
VK_ESCAPE 1B ESC key
— 1C–1F Reserved for Kanji systems
VK_SPACE 20 SPACEBAR
VK_PRIOR 21 PAGE UP key
VK_NEXT 22 PAGE DOWN key
VK_END 23 END key
VK_HOME 24 HOME key
VK_LEFT 25 LEFT ARROW key
VK_UP 26 UP ARROW key
VK_RIGHT 27 RIGHT ARROW key
VK_DOWN 28 DOWN ARROW key
VK_SELECT 29 SELECT key
— 2A Platform developer specific
VK_EXECUTE 2B EXECUTE key
VK_SNAPSHOT 2C PRINT SCREEN key
VK_INSERT 2D INS key
VK_DELETE 2E DEL key
VK_HELP 2F HELP key
— 30 0 key
— 31 1 key
— 32 2 key
— 33 3 key
— 34 4 key
— 35 5 key
— 36 6 key
— 37 7 key
— 38 8 key
— 39 9 key
— 3A–40 Undefined
— 41 A key
— 42 B key
— 43 C key
— 44 D key
— 45 E key
— 46 F key
— 47 G key
— 48 H key
— 49 I key
— 4A J key
— 4B K key
— 4C L key
— 4D M key
— 4E N key
— 4F O key
— 50 P key
— 51 Q key
— 52 R key
— 53 S key
— 54 T key
— 55 U key
— 56 V key
— 57 W key
— 58 X key
— 59 Y key
— 5A Z key
VK_LWIN 5B Left Windows key on a Microsoft Natural® keyboard
VK_RWIN 5C Right Windows key on a Microsoft Natural keyboard
VK_APPS 5D Applications key on a Microsoft Natural keyboard
5E–5F Undefined
VK_NUMPAD0 60 Numeric keypad 0 key
VK_NUMPAD1 61 Numeric keypad 1 key
VK_NUMPAD2 62 Numeric keypad 2 key
VK_NUMPAD3 63 Numeric keypad 3 key
VK_NUMPAD4 64 Numeric keypad 4 key
VK_NUMPAD5 65 Numeric keypad 5 key
VK_NUMPAD6 66 Numeric keypad 6 key
VK_NUMPAD7 67 Numeric keypad 7 key
VK_NUMPAD8 68 Numeric keypad 8 key
VK_NUMPAD9 69 Numeric keypad 9 key
VK_MULTIPLY 6A Multiply key
VK_ADD 6B Add key
VK_SEPARATOR 6C Separator key
VK_SUBTRACT 6D Subtract key
VK_DECIMAL 6E Decimal key
VK_DIVIDE 6F Divide key
VK_F1 70 F1 key
VK_F2 71 F2 key
VK_F3 72 F3 key
VK_F4 73 F4 key
VK_F5 74 F5 key
VK_F6 75 F6 key
VK_F7 76 F7 key
VK_F8 77 F8 key
VK_F9 78 F9 key
VK_F10 79 F10 key
VK_F11 7A F11 key
VK_F12 7B F12 key
VK_F13 7C F13 key
VK_F14 7D F14 key
VK_F15 7E F15 key
VK_F16 7F F16 key
VK_F17 80H F17 key
VK_F18 81H F18 key
VK_F19 82H F19 key
VK_F20 83H F20 key
VK_F21 84H F21 key
VK_F22 85H F22 key
VK_F23 86H F23 key
VK_F24 87H F24 key
88–8F Unassigned
VK_NUMLOCK 90 NUM LOCK key
VK_SCROLL 91 SCROLL LOCK key
VK_LSHIFT 0xA0 Left SHIFT
VK_RSHIFT 0xA1 Right SHIFT
VK_LCONTROL 0xA2 Left CTRL
VK_RONTROL 0xA3 Right CTRL
VK_LMENU 0xA4 Left ALT
VK_RMENU 0xA5 Right ALT
BA-C0 Platform developer specific; reserved
C1-DA Unassigned
DB-E2 Platform developer specific; reserved
E3 – E4 Platform developer specific
E5 Unassigned
E6 Platform developer specific
E7-E8 Unassigned
E9-F5 Platform developer specific
VK_ATTN F6 ATTN key
VK_CRSEL F7 CRSEL key
VK_EXSEL F8 EXSEL key
VK_EREOF F9 Erase EOF key
VK_PLAY FA PLAY key
VK_ZOOM FB ZOOM key
VK_NONAME FC Reserved for future use
VK_PA1 FD PA1 key
VK_OEM_CLEAR FE CLEAR key

Hi giles2005...



In reverse order, the screen isn't quite drawn at full-screen because 320x240 (MegaDrive screen resolution) into 176x220 (Smartphone screen resolution) doesn't go very well. So you need to rescale the graphics to very specific parameters if you want to avoid

i) "lumpy"-looking graphics, and
ii) slower emulation

I think the screen sizes available at the moment are quite a good compromise tbh...

as for sound - the most-requested feature - that would be the *most enormous amount of work*...

Just had a similar problem myself, and not for the first time. My 1Gb card, normally 100% reliable, suddenly wouldn't write on my PC. That's via a card reader - it just said the card was write protected. I know all about the lock on the side of the card, obviously, and my Smartphone and iPaq were both happy to write to the card. The PC was able to copy data off the card as normal.

Formatting the card on my iPaq did *not* help - the card was still unwriteable (though entirely readable) on the PC.

In the long run I tried formatting with Binarys' Task Manager, then renamed the card (on a hunch) to something other than Storage Card, using File Explorer. Suddenly the card works fine again on my PC.

As I said, not the first time I've had this problem, but the first time I've been able to document how I've fixed it.

Early beta version now available from http://www.gamesforsmartphones.com ! :-D

Make sure you read the documentation before using it - you could do nasty things to your phone with this.

Obviously it's pretty simple at the moment - no looping, ifs, or variables, but it *does* allow you to download an arbitrary file to your phone from the net! 8)

The sample downloads the latest UK weather map into your My Documents folder. Possibly useable with that plugin that displays pictures on your homescreen?

Post feedback, bugs, suggestions etc. here...

Enjoy...!

Max

Since I found out about AutoHotKey - an open-source scripting program for PC that lets you automate virtually anything - I've literally used it every day, for all sorts of purposes. For instance, every night it downloads The Guardian, page by page, as PDFs, then runs commands that concatenate them into a full paper :-D

It strikes me that there's no equivalent (that I can think of) on Smartphone. Obviously there are fewer things to automate on Smartphone, but it could still start and kill apps, send keystrokes to and read text from windows and so on. Plus, if such a thing allowed simple looping, if statements, message boxes and so on, it could be a really useful way to put together a quick program if you need one.

Anyone have any views on this one? Is it worth doing? Anyone see any obvious pitfalls?

:edit: no overlap with SmartCommander intended; this is a standalone concept to process text scripts on Smartphone.

... if I might say, those new graphics kick a quite enormous amount of ass

Radiator, if you're happy for me to do so I'd love to drop those fruits graphics (and, for that matter, the hold button) into the proper zip file. They're the same only much, much better - more like what I imagined than what I managed to draw!!

- vxd, the same goes for your Euro graphics; is it OK if I put them in the proper zip file?



- certainly I'll take another look at the sound thing too. Thanks to martin for running the test; insanely, the sound is supposed to play on *any* win at all, but in practice it comes out subgame-specific! Which is, as I say, insane.

Anyway the plan is to shelve the thing for a week or so to get my breath back. After that I quite want to add some kind of config file so you can more 'skin' the thing than just re-theme it - change graphics locations and sizes, plus all the various delays and so on. That's the idea, anyway and I promise I won't change any of the default graphics sizes, either. I might come up with some better filenames for 'em though

Keep up the new graphics, guys and extra kudos to the first person to come up with a MoDaCo theme!

interesting, have had a look myself; I can see lots of Microsoft stuff - and they probably don't care because it's roughly how it was intended to be used - and I can see 7-Zip, which is GPL and therefore (probably) OK. But I agree, renaming it to .DLL when it would work perfectly left as 7-Zip, seems a little strange...

I can't find any trace of RAR in the thing, on the other hand. How did you find RAR.exe - which file is it?

LOLOL... my graphics suck, someone had to say it which is pretty much why I've made the graphics replaceable in this one :-)

Anyway not as such, I just never really set out to make it look like a fruit machine. It wasn't *designed* to look like anything per se if you want to have a crack at making it look more like a real machine, please be my guest

As for the HOLD button - the magenta colour is replaced with dark green when the button isn't lit, and bright yellow when it is lit. TBH the game behaviour is up for grabs, I can tweak it if it's worth doing...

OK, so now you have to put your JPEGs where your mouth is! :twisted:

:edit: it strikes me that you need to know a couple of things, namely that you need to not change the height or width of the files, else strange things will happen. Also you might like to know that the "background" colour is R=249, G=57, B=198...

I agree. Sound is a bit of a problem :-(

Possibly you could do me a favour. If you put a WAV file of your choice on your phone as "\Storage Card\test.wav" it should try and play it when you win. Can you let me know, if you try it, how it performs? On my phone it works only sporadically, which is why I haven't built it into something better yet...

Hi all...

I've put together another freeware time-wasting game for your enjoyment... FruitsForSmartphones is, unsurprisingly, a fruit machine emulator. The surprising part might be that all the graphics are replaceable so you can re-theme the thing exactly how you'd like it

There are various ways to win, subgames and so on but I'll not spoil it; to start with all you need to know is that "5" starts the reels spinning, and "0" quits. You can download it from the usual place ( http://www.gamesforsmartphones.com ) - comments, feedback, replacement graphics and so on all welcomed as usual!

Enjoy...

maxh2003

It would be possible to build such a feature, in theory at least, into MenuHack, so it would left-click on the target window, but how do you get it to click *in the right place*? I can only think of bad solutions to that problem TBH...

Hi guys...

I've made an update to FlashHack. Specifically, it's now called MenuHack instead. The good news is it works with ANY window you want, but the bad news is you have to configure it first.

Obviously, the point of this is that what I'm making available is now nothing to do with Macromedia. If you want to use it to control SmartExplorer, PocketPC RealPlayer, Orneta Chess, or whatever, you can. It's entirely up to you - just write the config file. Full details of how to do that are in the new download, available from http://www.gamesforsmartphones.com as always :-D

Enjoy. Just don't ask me how to configure it to work with Flash! :-D

Max

I managed to find a little 160x120 video in SWF format and it worked really well.

No word from Macromedia yet, FWIW.

Hi all

Just a brief update on this. A couple of Macromedia blogs caught wind of FlashHack so I'm hoping they'll give an official line on it at some point in the next few (working) days.

To state the obvious: I don't need to pick a fight with an 800-pound gorilla like Macromedia - after all, gamesforsmartphones is a personal web page, not some corporate enterprise - so to take the urgency out of the situation I've temporarily pulled the FlashHack download. If they don't want to or can't be bothered to respond I guess I'll put it back up in a week or so. That should give everyone involved - me in particular - a less stressed time.

I hope you all understand why I've done this :-)

I'll keep you all posted if there's any news.

Max

- done :-D

* Smartphone 2002 version
* Hash and Star swapped - no more locked-phone nightmares
* Simpler to use

The biggest change is that you need FlashHack *and* Beta Macromedia Flash.exe in the same directory, and that you now start the app by using SmartExplorer to open your SWF "with" FlashHack. It's all in the readme...

Enjoy!

Max