Hmm.. It's been almost a month since my last update... Summer Vacation's drawing near, and I'm quite busy trying to finish my studies... My Cassiopeia E-700WE really helps me in doing my Kanji homework, because it has the IME for changing Kanji, and English-Japanese Dictionary, Japanese-English Dictionary, Japanese - Japanese Dictionary and Kanji Dictionary.

For this summer's project, I might be making a new game for Pocket PC devices. :) It sure means I've got to start learning C++ :) I really want to get Visual Studio .NET for the .NET Compact framework and VB.NET. I mean, my development environment is now eVC++ 4.0 and eVB 3.0!

I'm sure eVB programs I made can run on Windows Mobile 2003SE with the runtime, but if I want to make a game, it needs to be written at least on a C program. (eVB is almost like VBScript, which is interpreted. 

Pocket PC Tweakies is moving on to blog

@ http://ppctweakies.blogspot.com

Most of the articles will be moved there. Don't worry, this site will be here. 

http://www.pdaclub.pl/upload/Emu_Pocket_Palm_freeware.zip

Can't find the old Flash Player 4 for MIPS? I've found the link, and it's available here:

Flash Player 4 for MIPS (pocket PC 2000) download

http://www.samsung.com/PressCenter/PressRelease/PressRelease.asp?seq=20050420_0000114591

This thread at Pocket Matrix gives a coupon you can use for $35 + http://www.pocketmatrix.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21079e.jp/niwaf/zatushi/zatu_9.html

Hmm.. 15% off too. 

Look at my Handango Softwares & Themes:

Hi. I was visiting this site my friend showed me today, and found a real cool eelctronics circuit diagram, which I might be able to appy for my future projects. It is....

RJ45 Network card to IR communication! RJ45 is the standard plug (10Mbps or 100Mbpss) you connect your LAN cables in. If you make this right, you can build a infrared wireless LAN connector to transfer your files across Win CE devices! 

The Link to the RJ45 Network Card to IR Communication

and many many more electronics schematics for those who are interested. 

Off Topic ;) 

For those who are good at electronics and want to test something exciting:

A Laser Transmitter http://circuitos.tripod.cl/schem/r94.gif 

PIC16F84 8x8 Animated LED Signboard http://www.zws.com/products/picxie2/

F84 Miniature Real-Time Controller http://chaokhun.kmitl.ac.th/~kswichit/f84rtc/f84rtc.htm

PIC BASIC altimeter http://www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/niwaf/zatushi/zatu_9.html

Pretty cool eh? The amplifier sounds real nice when you listen to more analog songs such as jazz and classic.

Quoted from Microsoft Reder Adin page. Download Here

Flash Memory Cards are getting smaller by the year... Read what I think about it.

Comparison of my three PDAs from the left:

   Cassiopeia E700WE Casio E125 NTT Docomo (Casio OEM) G-FORT

    E700 18.5mm height

    E125 22mm  height

    G-FORT 26mm height

What my PDAs look like from the back.

from left E700; G-FORT; E125

Note that the G-FORT is Lithium Polymer Battery, which is the entire black place. The Casio E125 has LiIon like the Cassiopeia E700WE. 

 G-FORT and E700WE have Japanese Pocket PC 2000 OS, while E125 has US version, which includes Microsoft Reader from first.

Random Link of the Day

Iconship, an easy eVB Icon customizer

http://www.visualbyte.com/Products/tools/IConShip.htm

My Entire SD Cards I have

From Left: 8MB Sharp SD Memory Card that came with my white ROM J-SH51

                 TOSHIBA SD Memory 16MB that came with my MINOLTA DIMAGE Z1

                 RICOH 32MB SD Memory Card that I bought 3 years ago in Akihabara for about $25

                 PQI 256MB SD Memory Card that I bought in Akihabara for $30

Cut Key that came with G-FORT which I tried to connect with my Cassiopeia E125.

Random Link of the Day

HPC Doom

http://home.freeuk.com/gamefreaks/pql/hpc_doom.htm

On March 29th 2005, I went to Aichi World Expo by riding on a normal train for 6hours. That was lots of fun, and I got to see many Ai Mate (s).

The "Ai Mate" I found in the German/France Pavilion shop

Ai Mate has a Windows Mobile 2003, and is made by KDDI.

This ticket has a 0.4mm chip inside (though I don't know what it does)

looots of people infront of Mitsubishi Miraikan. (I didn't go there)

Japan's flag and Expo 2005 flag

Expo 2005 flag

Today, at 8:30 AM, I went to take the Pasokon Kentei Shiken 4 Kyu, or the Personal Computer Certification 4th class. It took me about 45minutes to complete a 60minute test, and I got 370/400! (about 93%) for first try! The picture below is just a printout that proves that I passed, but a better certificate is coming in about 10 days.

    Discovering  there's that many people who does not secure their hotspots, I was like "WHAT??"
 

  Top ranking SSIDs I saw were: YBBUser, corega, default, WARPSTAR. 

Okay, influenced by the Microsoft Mobile Contest, I'm developing a smartphone app....

Tsubasa k. 3-21

     KDDI, the also known as providing au service in Japan, is going to use Windows CE .NET Pocket PC 2003 based device for the World Expo 2005 held at Nagoya.

Looks very very cool, with digital camera, and miniSD card. I wish they sell these (lol)

I'm wanting to go to the World Expo '05 this spring vacation, or maybe during summer vacation.

KDDI (official)

Japan CNET

    Yesterday, I got a very special present from Mr. Andrew Shuttleworth, the administrator of Pocket PC Japan. He sent me a G-FORT and a Casio E-125! I'd like to thank him VERY much for them, for I will be using it to power my site (at times) and for other development things.

   He has been really kind to me, though I did not know him very well, he sent me his pda. I will take care of the pdas very well, and will post more info on them on this site.

Tsubasa K., Admin of Pocket PC Tweakies 3/19/05

   Okay, this is how my Sigmarion looks like after the disassembly. You can see the VR4121A CPU  by NEC (MIPS 131Mhz).

I've gotten my Japanese Audio Aiueo linked from my Pocket PC Japan! at:

http://www.pocketpcjapan.com/faq/pmwiki.php/Main/JapaneseLanguageLearningTools

You can buy my software at: Handango

how my Mobile Gear MC-R520 looks like now.

from HP overview of HP MObile Printing:

"HP Mobile Printing for Pocket PC software enables integrated printing directly from most Pocket PC applications, such as Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, File Explorer, and Pocket Internet Explorer. Simple to load and easy to use as desktop printing, it is designed to work seamlessly with your Pocket PC applications, eliminating the need to load a separate printing application."

Check it out!

. hmm.. that'll belike 0.715 MB/s.... hmm.. not bad for 1.5MB/s USB 1.0.... I  guess.. (calculating 12Mbps / 8 for bytes per second) 

   Yeah! Today, my friend got me a gmail account!! Yeah! It's really cool 'cause you get 1000MB for mail! I can't tell you my new mail address cause of spamming etc though. :( Now, I must figure out how to use the account wisely... :)

Word I checked in my Cassiopeia E-700: hydrangea. (Ajisai in Japanese). 

Tsubasa Kato 3/8/05

         HpcArchive.info is going to be dedicated to Handheld PCs, which is now quite forgotten but much loved by many users worldwide. I got this domain name yesterday, and the domain is going to be hosted from my 131Mhz Mobile Gear 2 MC-R 520. Wish me good luck on it. :) 

A little of Mobile Gear II server spec:

          131Mhz MIPS 4142 CPU

             128MB Compactflash 30X 

             MIS 11Mbps Wifi LAN card RZ2002 with Prism driver 

             Server Software: CEHTTP 2.36

How I got the domain and my inspiration

          First off, I got this domain name from a host called registerfly I've been using for my other domain name, stingraze.net. Registerfly is one of the best, reliable and cheap domain host. The price is really low, only $9.99 /year for .net domains and $2.99 for .info domains. 

          And you're probably wondering why all the trouble and what's the big deal about hosting a site from Windows CE? Well I'll tell you why. Sadly, the Handheld PC market had declined since many companies began to make note pcs running Win Xp and Mac quite small and compact even if compared to H/PCs. It is easy to forget that Handheld PCs are one of the best devices for its ability to start up fast, it's ability to run on low power (9V, 3W for my Handheld PC) and its ability to run heavy duty programs like a web server for months without much maintenance (ahhh, not really) .

         I don't want the world to think that Handheld PCs are dead devices, but alive and active if you  some tweaks and goodies to them!
 

     I'm running a server for 8 months now under Windows CE, including the time I hosted my site from Sigmarion I, Windows CE is working very well. If it was one of those $60 junk Pcs, it wouldn't last 2months without getting it hacked or DOS attacked by hackers. :)

          My goal is to make  an archive of information on Handheld PCs and to make a 'rich-content' site to make the best out of your H/PCs that might be sleeping in your closet.

 Tsubasa Kato March 6th Sunday 2005.

         www.hpcarchive.info

image above taken from i o data

Recently HITACHI introduced it's 6GB Microdrive. I O DATA is going to sell it's 6G Microdrive soon for about 32000 yen ($320+)  Features 2000G/ms and 33MB/s write speed. It would be very nice if I could get a 6GB Microdrive to run my site, but I think I'll wait until the 4GB price gets cheaper, or get an old Muvo2 to use it to run my site from  MCR-520.  $320 is not affordable for me still ;) '

Random Link:

Seagate 5GB USB2.0 drive

Editor's Rambles..

       I've been using my beloved Cassiopeia E-700 for 3 years and a bit, which I bought back in 2002 for 19800 yen or about $200 ~. It has served me very well, with it's functionability to play movies and audio with applications like Media Player, BetaPlayer, and Pocket TV. For a 150Mhz processor, when there is the latest Pentium 4 going at 3.6Ghz, you might think it very slow, but actually, it isn't. Playing AVI files are very smooth, with only a bit of lags sometimes. MPEG4 encoded by Pocket DVD Studio is very smooth and clean because the Cassiopeia has an expensive TFT screen unlike STN screen used for some in H/PCs. 

     Rather than buying an iPod, which cost about $240, I think it was a smart choice for me to buy the Cassiopeia because I can watch DVDs compressed to the SD card, and play lots of Mp3s too. Of course, the iPod is like 20GB~ and the largeset SD memory is 2GB, but it's not like I'm gonna listen to thousands of Mp3s anyway. 

     Come to think of it, my Cassiopeia's 'supposed' to be a limited color edition, and the normal ones are silver and dark gray, while mine is bright silver and metalic silver. There are some other limited edition of Cassiopeia E-700s that were sold in Japan, including blue, red, yellow, and green. The precedessor of the device, E-750 has a CF slot, which I think was a better choice for Cassiopeia. Because there wasn't the SDIO when E-700 came out, the memory can only be used as a storage device, and not a IO port, which I think is the only bad part of the device.

    And lastly, I will share a painful experience with my E-700. Well, I loved this pda so much, that I carried around it everywhere I went, and one day, I went to visit a highschool. Coming back from the visit to the highschool, I accidentally stepped on it with my butt while I slept. ARGH... The screen had this black smear when I turned on the switch, and I was like "AAAAARRGGHHH!!!"  Well, I was planning to use the device on my school expedition, but cause of that incident, I had to send it to CASIO for repair. Luckily, I bought the device at BicCamera, which provided a warranty service that it will fix it for me if I dropped it or broke it. Well, the PDA was in the "hospital " for over a month, and finally came back. Well, E-700 had a whole new screen, and without any dot missing! (the previous screen had a dot missing)

The end of story ;) 

          Doom for Windows CE (can be played on H/PC) (even black&white ones!) ( did not try yet)
      

Leo's Flight Simulator Flight Simulation game that might work on H/PC!  (I couldn't get it to work, but probably you can)

http://www.leobueno.net/

A screen saver app is available for H/PC, which was developed by me. It is now available for download...

After 4 builds of try and error, I have successfully made  a cool Screeen Saver App for H/PC 2.11 And above running 640X240 mode.

Download here

Monopoly for H/PC & Palmsize PC

Play Monopoly on your Handheld PC! Check it out here:

http://www.softwaresupermall.com/showProduct.cfm/pid/172934/software/Hasbro%20Interactive/t/Monopoly%20for%20Handheld%20&%20Palm-Size%20PCÆs

from:  http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=342&posts=8

PpcScreenSvr for sale!

PpcScreenSvr is a classic screen saver application for Pocket PC devices.

It features very fast drawing with beautiful graphics, and it is available for only $1.99 per copy!

Features Full Screen/Windowed Mode Ultra-smooth rendering and beautiful multicolored polygons.

Supports multiple devices (MIPS, ARM 1100, and SH3). It is a must for you PPC!!

You can buy your copy here for only $1.99!

A lot of Windows CE Links available here:

http://ppctweakies.stingraze.net/bookmark.htm

The bookmark is a collection of all the sites I've bookmarked in the last few years. Some links don't work, but please bear with me.

The bookmark is hosted on my Mobile Gear, and is on my CF, so it may take some time.

ugo/

(image taken from iodata homepage)

CF GPS Card I might be wanting in near future..

This CFGPS card has a external GPS antenna with it, and also has a PC Card Adapter too. It was going for around 13000 JPY. (Makes me think... maybe I can get for my birthday) ;) 

Driver url: http://www.iodata.jp/lib/product/c/530_etc.htm

Play a game 4,000 years old on your newest PDA!

I do not really know how to play Go (though I am a Japanese) but I got it working under a Cassiopeia E-700. There was a CAB file available, but I used eVC++ to compile it. The GNU Go is distributed under the GNU Ver2 License, and is available for free to download, use, edit, etc.

URL: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo.html

Gmail goes on Pocket PC?? check this cool link out!!!!

They might have it taken down, so you'd better hurry! 

http://gmail.wiggster.com/

Good News!

Since I've got a new Handheld PC (Mobile Gear 2 MC-R520,) A new site is up temporarily limited time here: http://ppctweakies.stingraze.net (it is still under construction)

The open times will be decided later, maybe it will be open for only weekends or time limited. :) Yeah..

Java running on a Gameboy Advance!!!!  Simply amazing.

http://www.ewesoft.com/

Java vm? for Handheld PC and such WINCE devices. 

   Well, I sucessfully disassembled and put it back together.

Pre-first step: touch  a metal object to let static electricity go off. it may damage the components.

First step: take off all the screws on the bottom (there's 8 of them)

Second step: take the battery off. (I took off the sub battery too just in case)

On the picture above, I've marked the parts  in orange where you need to use a thin negative screw driver, or your finger nails to pry open. When I first opened the sigmarion, I used a negative screw driver because it was so hard getting my fingernails between the case, but after opening, I could easily use my fingernails. :)

Most importantly, there's the flexi-cable on the right side, (viewing from top) you would definitely do not wanna cut that. It will definitely bust your screen, and the wires are thin as hair. You'll also have to be careful when lifting the top case (the one with the keyboard on) because there's a short speaker cable. You wouldn't want to cut that either.

Though I opened the sigmarion, nothing changed it just remains the same... :)

Good luck! call me if you need help :-)

Yes. I have finally dared to open up my Sigmarion I. I've uploaded several pictures for your help.

Taking apart my favorite (but quite dead) Handheld PC needed quite a dare. :) I successfully disassembled the bottom, and maybe I will disassemble the STN display. I used this site for reference: HERE The ROM is on the left side and CF is on the right.

Tips on disassembling: try to pry open the key parts (on the top url) with a thin negative driver. Be careful not to cut the fexi-cable on the right, for it is very easy to cut. the speaker cable is on the left top (CF on right) so, you can gently pull it. 

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

PDA ranks 9th in Google -Popular Electronics Query.

Don't need any more recharging cables for your PDA?

Read more about this new idea that might really become true.

link: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3163

A cool virtual keyboard for your Pocket PC 2002 + devices. This will greatly reduce the strain caused by tapping on your software keyboard. Uses bluetooth. 

link: http://www.tsrmobile.com/products_vkb.html#downloads

Xmen backgrounds for Handheld PC

Left: Rogue right: the xmen.

Today, I went to a local electric appliance shop, and I got to scoop alot of 3AA batteries for 100yen. I got 26 batteries with only 100yen (about $1 +) ! :) I made a DC adapter for my Cassiopeia E-700 Pocket PC too. It's great when the main battery gets low, since I can charge the main battery with it. It's real easy to make. First, get a battery box for 6V (4 3AA batteries.) Then, get a dc plug that goes into your dc plug on your pda. Then just solder wires from your battery box to the dc plug. That's it!

:) I assume no responsibilities to any damage that may be caused from reading this article. Make your dc adapter with your own risk thanks.

Happy New Year ! (2 days late) but, hehe ;)

How was 2004? Hope you had a great year. I did too. Well, 2005 must be better! :)

I've made a list of my favorite urls below. take a look. I've also made a I, Robot background for H/PCs.  

Click the link, and right click the picture to save.

business

Pocket PC magazine Forum - Product Announcements

classified

PDA street forums - Free Classified Listings

contest

Giveaway Sky Force [PocketMatrix mobile devices]

E-125

Joe Thielen Casio Cassiopeia E-125 Pocket-PC

emulator

Conduits Products

registry

CESDS0006 - Windows CE 2 Registry Guide - HPC Factor

Server

CEHTTP on l'agenda

CET Web Server - Download Freeware software from our Utilities category

General Paranoyaxc ApacheCE

General Paranoyaxc PerlCE

NetBSD-hpcmips Apache

NetBSD-hpcmips User How-To page

NetBSD-hpcmips

sigmarion

http--www.geocities.co.jp-SiliconValley-SanJose-8917-

Sigmarion

 

 

Articles 2004