Simple questions

[bigsofty]

Hi,

Some, mainly pocket pc, questions Gernot,

1) How do you stop a GLBasic program that is stuck in an infinte loop?

2) What commands access the joypad/buttons of a PDA from with GLBasic?

3) How do you access the stylus of a PDA from within GLBasic?

4) Is there anyway to get system information from GLBasic when running on a PDA (Screensize/Colurs available/Memory/ SD Card installed/size etc...)

Thanks for any answers,

Ian

[mikiex]

I may be able to help a little also, from my tests


I have an mda compact pocket pc and also a c500 smartphone

1) there is an X type of close box icon which you can click on with stylus -
I have not tested with smartphone - which does not have a stylus - so not sure
It would be nice to be able to turn this box off and replace with your own exit method.

2) not tried any of this, assuming some buttons are mapped

3) the stylus is just treated as the mouse pointer, which works great and
how it should be, so any code that works with mouse works with stylus

4)dunno - would be good if you could access some info

[Kitty Hello]

1. Is you have a SHOWCREEN in the loop, the 'X' button will close it. You can disable the X button with ALLOWESCAPE command.
2. See the command reference for KEY command. There's a list of what codes are mapped to what PC-keys.
3. mikiex says it all
4. GETSCREENSIZE, GETPLATFORMINFO$ give you some information. The colors are always 565 RGB - at least on modern devices. The storage card should be /storage or /sd_mmc_card or something. Simply use GETFILESDIR$ on the directory "/".
If you need a special function, let me know. I'll write an addition to GETPLATFORM$ then.

[mikiex]

Hi Gernot,

Out of interest which pocket pc/s /smartphones have you tested glbasic, I think the current modern pocket pc are all very compatible (thankfully!). should the only difference between machines be speed, due to the hardware ?

[bigsofty]

Thanks Gernot and Mikie.

Ive just purchased a Fujitsu Loox 610 on EBay for programming GLBasic (Thaks for the advice Gernot, Next, I need to save up for the full version of GLBasic though!), its pretty compatable. Im persoanly interested in getting 3D onto it.

[Kitty Hello]

The graphics buffer is aligned differently on each device. It was quite a lot of work to get the back buffer copied to the screen on each device with optimization. The Versions 3.08x and above should allow 3D in demo mode on PocketPC now, don't they?

[mikiex]

I got 3d working fine, although lighting did not seem to work, everything was bright and unlit compared to pc. I don't know if this is expected or not currently

[bigsofty]

Yes, I have the 'bright' effect too.

But my 'simple' experiments with GLBasics 3D are working out so far... great fun!

[Kitty Hello]

I'll check that. Lights should work, but might be slow. Use simple textured or coloured models only on PPC for a game that's no slideshow.

[mikiex]

It would be interesting to compare the speeds of our devices
My mda compact has an xscale 416mhz I think the 610 loox has a 400mhz xscale
So performance should be similar. Also I have not tested the c500, which has an omap750 -200mhz I think. I may put together a benchmark demo

[Kitty Hello]

gerat idea. Use a new thread for the benchmark. I have an Acer n35 a DELL axim x50 and an iPaq3660 at hand.

[bigsofty]

I agree, great Idea Mikie. I'll stick my Loox through your benchmark program.