Welcome to Peter's Place

Share your DVD drive with other computers on your network

NetDVD allows you to play DVD movies, audio CDs, games and install applications on a netbook, laptop or desktop PC that has no CD or DVD drive; and to burn CDs/DVDs on a netbook, laptop or desktop PC that has no CD/DVD writer.

NetDVD adds a virtual DVD drive to your Windows netbook, laptop or desktop PC, which connects to a real CD or DVD drive on another computer connected to your network.

NetDVD is commercially released from my product software company: Blue Lion Software Ltd.
For more information read the product description.
Download the free Try&Buy version

EZoom - Zoom utility for the SonyEricsson P800/P900

• Start & stop: Select start zooming from the menu to start zooming. To stop zooming either select stop zooming from the menu or press the close button from EZoom's control toolbar.
• Zoom control: When EZoom is active it shows a zoom control. This control has a toolbar to change scaling quality, update mode and rotation and to stop zooming. The zoom control shows the zoomed-in screen (the outer rectangle) and the area of that zoomed-in screen that is currently visible (the inner rectangle). The latter is drawn to scale and thus grows and shrinks as you zoom in and out. Dragging the inner rectangle moves around the visible area of the zoomed-in screen. Dragging the outer rectangle moves around the zoom control itself. The power button can be used to hide and show the zoom control.
• Change zoom: Use the camera button to zoom in and the browser button to zoom out. You can set the zoom level between 100% and 1600% with 25% increments. EZoom will give visual feedback on the current zoom level.
• Toolbar - quality: The 1st toolbar button can be used to toggle between high and low quality scaling mode. For those who care, high quality mode uses a bi-linear scaling algorithm; low quality uses next-neighbour scaling.
• Toolbar - update mode: The 2nd toolbar button toggles between smart update and continuous update mode. In smart update mode, EZoom will only scale parts of the screen when they get redrawn by the system (good for battery life and excellent performance); in continuous update mode, EZoom will scale the entire screen 15 times a second (bad for battery life and bad performance). Smart update mode works fine in most cases but some applications will require continuous update mode, particularly games like EDoom & EMame.
  
• Toolbar - rotation: The 3rd toolbar button will rotate the screen 90 degrees. There is no additional performance penalty in doing this.
• Transparency: Under the options menu you can configure the zoom control's transparency level.
• Background image: Under the options menu you can configure the zoom control's background image.
  

• Latest version of Zoom for the P800/P900 is 1.1. Download the .SIS file and install it on the P800/P900 as per normal.
• What's new in 1.1:
• Fixed cosmetic bug where screen updates can become flickery (especially the blinking cursor) when stopping/closing EZoom.
• Latest source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Read the sources.txt file in the docs folder for build instructions.

• EZoom works in both flip open and flip closed but I haven't made a real effort to make the flip closed support fully functional. Note that on a P800 the touch screen is enabled in flip closed, so you can actually use the stylus to control EZoom. On a P900, the touch screen is always disabled in flip closed.
  
• When EZoom is active it will prevent the system from turning off the display otherwise the screen gets corrupt. A side effect of that is the the backlight will never be changed either when EZoom is active.

Screenshots

EZoom works transparently in the background without the system knowing about it. You can't therefor use SCap to take screenshots of EZoom; you will get a normal screen without any trace of EZoom being there. The following screenshots are all taken under Windows using the UIQ emulator. A basic shot of EZoom  (400% zoom), showing off transparency of the zoom control, 90 degree rotation and a dual screenshot showing the quality difference of bi-linear (left) and next-neighbour (right) scaling. Finally, here's the zoom control with the default background image featuring my beta-testers hard at work performing a code review of my software :-)

Article
I've written an article on EZoom for Symbian's Developer Network.

SCap - Screen Capture utility for the SonyEricsson P800/P900

• File format: Save screenshots as 24-bits bmp, 8-bits bmp, gif or jpg. For jpg you can configure the image quality (and thus the file size).
• Location: You can configure screenshots to be stored on either the internal disk or the Memory Stick.
• Filename: You can specify the base file name of the screenshot image files. SCap will append a unique number to the base filename. For example, the default base file name is screen and the default image type is jpg, so images are called screen.jpg, screen-1.jpg etc.
  
• Hotkeys: Select Camera button, Browser button, Power button or Jog dial select as the hotkey.
  
• Auto/manual stop: You can configure SCap to either automatically stop the capturing after you've taken a screenshot (and thus release the hotkey to its normal use) or to leave it on until you manually select Stop capture from the SCap menu. This is handy if you want to take several screenshots.
• Visual feedback: If you enable visual feedback you get a small popup to say SCap is saving the image and a popup to say it is done. You can disable them which is usefull when taken screenshots of games such as EDoom or EMame as these popups will take these games out of their full screen mode.
• Audible feedback: You may select an audio file to be played after the screen capture is fully completed. Audible and visual feedback are usefull because for example saving a screenshot as gif on the memory stick may take 10 seconds. In that period you cannot take another screenshot.
  

• Latest version of SCap for the P800/P900 is 1.0. Download the .SIS file and install it on the P800/P900 as per normal.
• Latest source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  To build from source:
• Unzip the SCap source code preserving directory structure 
• Change directory to \scap\group and build the project scap.

Screenshots

There's not much to see, but here's the general configuration dialog and here's the one for the image options. Both are taken with SCap of course ;-)

EChess for the SonyEricsson P800/P900

• Game engine is Crafty 18.13. EChess comes with Crafty's opening books (first 20 moves).
• Frontend is a port of Winboard 4.2. For flip open I've used the WinBoard bitmaps, for flip closed I've designed them myself.
• You can play white or black and change it during the game. You can also put EChess in edit mode, which means you can make legal moves for white and black.
• Files are saved in standard portable game notation format (pgn). Although EChess stores just one game per pgn file, it does handle pgn files with multiple games.
• When you load a pgn file, EChess will automatically replay the game for you, notifying you if there is an annotated comment (flashing comments button) for a move. There are lots of annotated chess games in pgn file format out there.
• You can change the tags and add comments per move, just as in the Windows version of Winboard; these will be stored as part of the pgn file.
• Easy toolbar controls allows you go back and forth in the game and examine your moves. 
• When moving away from the chess view, the games is automatically paused; alternatively you can pause the game manually. 
• Crafty (the engine) will ponder in the background whilst it is your move. To preserve battery life, it will not do so when the game is paused.
• Time control. By default you play a 5 minutes - 40 moves game but you can change that to whatever you want.
  
• Options to change patterns and colors using EChess' built-in fancy RGB-color chooser.
• Flip closed chess board view. Although the functionality is somewhat limited, you can fully play chess in flip closed; use the jog dial to move pieces around. Pressing the C key toggles pause/resume and the back button takes you back to the standby view. Oh, and EChess is present in the FC apps list.
• For the experts: you can send commands to the chess engine from the "action" menu. Here's a list of the commands you can issue. You can also edit the crafty.rc file from within EChess for any option you like. Here's the crafty documentation online. Note that you have to restart EChess after changing crafty.rc.
  

• Latest version of EChess for the P800/P900 is 1.1. Download the .SIS file and install it on the P800/P900 as per normal.
• What's new in 1.1:
• Rebuilt EChess with version 1.2 of ECompXL.
• Latest source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  To build from source:
• Unzip the EChess source code preserving directory structure 
• Change directory to \chess\chessrec and build the project chessrec.
• Change directory to \chess\echessapp\group and build the project echessapp.
• Change directory to \chess\echess\group and build the project echess.
• Change directory to \chess\engines\crafty\group and build the project crafty.
  Note that both crafty and echess are configured to use ECompXL.
  

Screenshots

This is the chess board in flip open and this is the flip closed view. Configuration for patterns and colors; and my personal favorite: my own super-duper-all-dancing-and-singing RGB color chooser ;-)

Feedback wanted

• For some reason I can't get crafty to play random opening moves; it will consitently play the same one. If someone with more crafty.rc skills than me can shed some light on this then that will be appreciated. 
• Some of the "patterns" used in the chess board views look horrible when you recolor them. If you have better ones then please send them to me; I will update them in the next version.
  

EDoom for the SonyEricsson P800/P900

• Latest version of EDoom for the P800/P900 is 1.4. Download the .SIS file and install it on the P800/P900 as per normal. Also read the comments below on WAD files.
• What's new in 1.4:
• Rebuilt EDoom with version 1.2 of ECompXL.
  
• What's new in 1.3:
• Fixed crash when displaying the map
• What's new in 1.2:
• Fixed crash ("E32USER-CBASE Reason number 42") when using the vibrator
  
• Fixed toolbar bitmap corruption
• Fixed "access denied" error during uninstallation. Sometimes you can still get an "In use" error; just reboot and retry the uninstall.
  
• What's new in 1.1:
• Updated video routines for P900 (64K rather than 4K colors)
• Added vibrator support (configurable option from within Doom)
• EDoom will automatically close all running Apps before starting Doom to free up memory
• Added bigger icon for App Launcher
  
• Latest source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  To build from source do this:
• Unzip the EDoom source code. 
• Change directory to \doom\doomapp\group and build the project edoom.
• Change directory to \doom\epoc\group and build the project doom.
  

WAD files

Just as for EDoom for the Psion devices, the P800/P900 version of EDoom doesn't come with the original WAD files. Again, doom1.wad and doom3.wad is probably what't you're after. So, be creative! Buy a copy of Doom, search for them on the net or "borrow" them from your Dad (afterall, Doom is pretty old ;-)). Essentially I don't care as long as you're not going to mail me asking for a copy.
Once you have them, store them on the P800/P900 in the folder called DOOM under Document.

Screenshots

No project without screenshots nowadays, so here goes. This is the EDoom frontend from which you start EDoom. When started you get the EDoom's splash screen.Choose single player game from the menu and you get here. EDoom is 320x200 and you may configure it to be rotated to either the left or the right.You can also save & load games; when saving a game, you can use the on-screen virtual keyboard, conveniently alpha-blended with the Doom scene.

Game control

Game control was one of the... let's call it challanging aspects of porting EDoom to the P800/P900 ;-). Here's what I've settled for in the end:

• Navigation: Use the stylus as an on screen joystick. The rules are:
• Move the stylus up / down to go forwards / backwards.
• Move the stylus left / right to turn left / right.,
• When moving left / right at the same time as forwards / backwards the left / right delta movement is done in smaller increments to prevent jitter.
• Strafe left / right when moving forwards / backwards to make a big turn in that direction.
• Fire: Camera Button.
• Use/Open door: Browser Button.
• Strafe left/right: Jog dial up/down.
• Look up/down: Jog dial left/right.
• Jump: Jog dial inwards.
• Other: Use the on-screen virtual keyboard for alpha-numeric input when needed (for example when loading / saving a game). Commonly used keys like ENTER, ESC, Y and N, and 1-6 for switching weapons are also included on the toolbar.
• Configuration: You can change the key / button assignments as per normal via the menu (Options -> Setup Controls). The P800/P900 specific keys have been mapped to keys A-G.

EMame for the SonyEricsson P800/P900

• Latest version of EMame for the P800/P900 is 1.2. This version supports over a thousand games - here's the gamelist and the romlist.
• What's new in 1.2:
• Rebuilt EMame with version 1.2 of ECompXL.
• What's new in 1.1
• Updated video routines for P900 (64K rather than 4K colors)
• Updated audio buffering - this will hopefully get rid of some squeeks
• Added bigger icon for App Launcher
  
• Latest source code is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  To build from source do this:
• Install ECompXL (this is mandatory, EMame for the P800/P900 cannot be built without it).
• Download X-mame version 37b7.1 and unzip it in your development environment. Afterwards, rename the xmame-0.37b7.1 topdirectory to mame.
• Unzip the EMame source code. Note that this will overwrite (or better said patch) a handfull of xmame source files in mame\src.
• Change directory to mame\src\epoc\group\scripts and issue the command armiurel for a target build.
  

Game roms

Just as for EMame for the Psion devices, the P800/P900 version of EMame doesn't come with ROM images either. Point your browser at www.mame.dk to see what ROMs are needed for a particular game. Once you know the name of the ZIP files you need, you'll find that most of them are just a google search away. ;-)
Store the zip files (still compressed) on the P800/P900 in the folder called ROMS under Document; you may store them either on the internal phone memory or on the memory stick.

Screenshots

I've tried to take some pictures with my digital camera, but as you can see I have more knowledge of programming than photography. Anyway, here's what the play list looks like (observe the donkey-kong wallpaper); here's pacman and here's galaxian. Just for the fun of it, here's what the help screen looks like (and yes, those are truetype fonts ;-)).

Game control

People have asked how to actually play MAME games on a device like the P800/P900. Well, it's all explained in EMame's online help, but for those of you who don't have a P800/P900 (yet), here goes:.

• Navigation: Use the stylus as an on screen joystick. When moving the stylus on screen, EMame generates move events for that direction. If, after moving, you keep the stylus down EMame will keep generating events for the last direction you've moved to.
• Button 1: Jogdial up and down both map to Button 1. Typically button 1 is used for shooting; if so, then you achieve the best result by repeatedly scrolling up and down with the jog dial.
• Button 2: Jogdial left, right and inwards all map to Button 2.
• Insert Coins: Just like a normal arcade machine, you have to insert coins before playing a game. When the game displays its splash screen, use the Camera Button to insert coins.
• Start Button: After inserting a couple of coins, press the Browser Button to start the game.
• Quit: During the game press the power button to quit the game.
• Pause: During the game close the flip to pause the game. You can resume it by opening the flip and clicking on the EMame entry from the applications list. EMame then shows you a dialog from which you can stop or resume the game.
• OK: When prompted to press OK during the startup of a game, you may press any key for O and any key for K.

ECompXL - EPOC Compressed eXecutable Loader

• Latest version is 1.2.1. For more information on what is new in this version read the readme first. Developers using ECompXL are strongly advised to update their apps to ECompXL 1.2.1, see bug fixes in the readme as to why.
• Latest sources are here.
  

Linux on AAEC-2000 - Running Linux on Agilent's AAEC-2000 System On a Chip (SOC)

Status

• The following aaec2000/aaed2000 hardware is supported: keyboard, LCD, touch screen screen.
• If you load a ramdisk (change file a2kboot.c in a2kboot v. 1.3 for manual loading), you can logon and perform some basic commands.
• I'm looking into getting one of the IPAQ cramfs images to work on the aaed2000. This will probably require some tweaks in the framebuffer driver (to support mmap) and the touch screen driver (correct scaling and maybe some ioctls for calibration).
• See the readme's in the a2kboot package below on how to boot.

• Latest a2kboot version is 1.3 and is released under the GNU General Public License.
• Older versions of a2kboot can be found here.
• No Linux kernel source code available yet. I'm on 2.4.5 with Russel King's rmk7 patch.
• Here you get Russell Kings's ARM patches

EDoom - Doom for the Psion Series 7

Download

• Latest version is 1.0.
Instructions:
• Unzip edoom.zip file onto your Series 7 on either c: or d:, honoring the directory structure (edoom.exe may be stored anywhere on the device).
• You need doom1.wad and doom3.wad, both need to be stored in the same directory as edoom.exe. Doom3.wad can be found as part of the win32 doom legacy distribution. See the doom legacy website for more info.
• Click on edoom.exe and enjoy the fun!
• Latest sources are released under the GNU General Public License. The same disclaimer as for EGnuBoy applies (about the cleanup).

EDoom splash screen on the Series 7.

EGnuBoy - A GameBoy emulator for the Psion Series 5mx & Series 7

Download

• Latest version is 1.0 read the readmefor the list of new features.
• Latest sources are released under the GNU General Public License. Note that I've reused most stuff from my EMame sources but I haven't bothered to cleanup. If you're looking for EPOC low level graphics and audio handling, I'd suggest you look at the EMame sources instead.

I've only got pictures of games running under the emulator. Here's MsPacman running at the normal 160x144 screen size and here's MsPacman running at 320x288.

PsiLinux - Series 7: Linux on the Psion Series 7

What you need

• Latest version of Arlo
• Linux kernel (see download below)
• Quick installation guide:
• Install Arlo (see the Arlo readme)
• Copy Linux kernel image (uncompressed) on your EPOC c: or d: disk
• Copy a ramdisk image (keep compressed) on your EPOC c: or d: disk. I use the ramdisk I found here.
• Create an arlo.cfg file
• Run arlo and off you go....

• Linux boots ok, ramdisk loads ok, keyboard works fine.
• See a picture of the S7 booting Linux, here's another one that shows the frame buffer console.

Status on hardware:
• serial port: works out of the box, don't know whether it's complete.
• frame buffer: changed the sa1100 frame buffer driver to remap the video memory as setup by EPOC; it doesn't (yet) reprogram the LCD controller.
• timers: works out of the box, don't know wether it's complete.
• keyboard: works.
• pcmcia (including compact flash): moderate success. I can read the cis of a CF card in both the CF slot and the PCMCIA slot (using a CF -> PCMCIA adapter). The problem is that haven't figured out how to configure PCMCIA interrupts yet.
• pen driver: work not started yet.

• Here's the latest S7 kernel image and source patches.
• Browse older S7 kernel images and source patches.
• Note that my source patches are against Russell Kings's ARM patches and Nico Pitre's SA1100 patches. Apply Russell's patch first, then Nico's patch and finally mine.

Boot2nd: A portable second stage Boot Loader for Linux

Download

• Latest version is 1.0.2, read the readme for the list of new features.
• Boot2nd is released under the GNU General Public License.
• Browse older versions.

EMame: A port of MAME for EPOC32

EMame is the port of MAME to EPOC32 and can be used on Psion devices such as the Series 5mx and Series 7.

Download

• Latest version of EMame is 1.2, see the readme on the new features and how to install.
• Latest sources are released under the GNU General Public License. Read the building instructions to see what else you need to compile and link EMame. I'd strongly suggest to read the instruction first to see what you're letting yourself into. I've includes all of the generated .wins, .marm and .dsp files - if things don't work according to the instructions, use them instead. Please bear with me if I don't respond straight away on your "it doesn't build" email.
• This version of Emame supports 592 games see the game list.
• I've also written an EMame FAQ, which you may find useful.

ER5 screen shots

Here' my old time favorite Pacman; it's running on the Series 5mx. Here's pacman again, this time running on the ER5 emulator (Series 7 configuration).

ER6 - Quartz screen shots

I've ported EMame over to ER6 - Quartz, hurray! Here's pacman running on the ER6 emulator. Quartz manufacturers willing to donate a unit are more than welcome to do so. I will then of course make sure EMame will run on your hardware :-)

Game roms

No one is allowed to distribute ROM images with MAME, so EMame doesn't either. Rumors have it that www.mame.dk might have a 'few' rom files :-). Here's the romlist for the current version of EMame. Remember to copy these zip files in either c:\emame\roms or d:\emame\roms.

Paper

I've written a paper on EMame for Symbian's developer network. You may read it here.

Send feedback to: EMame maintainer
For the latest version see: EMame homepage

ArLo: A Linux Boot Loader for the Psion Series 5, 5mx and 7

Arlo is the boot loader that is needed to boot Linux kernels on psion devices. As of version 1.2, Arlo supports the Series 5, 5mx and Series 7. The Psion Revo (plus), 5mx Pro and Netbook will probably work, but that needs confirming.

Download

• Latest version is 2.1.0 read the readme for the list of new features.
• Before you run any version of Arlo, you MUST do a cold reboot first because usually the device driver has been changed. Unfortunately, the device driver cannot be unloaded other then by rebooting.
• Latest sources are released under the GNU General Public License.

Status on booting Linux kernels

• Series 5: Fully supported (for quite a while actually), see the project web site.
• Series 5mx: This Linux version is currently under development. We've recently got hold of the relevant information on the S5mx hardware, so it's finally going to happen. There is no official kernel out there for the S5mx but you may try one of the developers home page.
• Series 7: This Linux version is under development by yours truly. See the section on PsiLinuxS7.

DESKWIN : A virtual desktop manager for Windows 9X/NT

• Latest version is 1.6.1, read the readme for a list of features.
• Latest sources are released under the GNU General Public License.

Send questions, remarks or bug reports about deskwin to: Deskwin maintainer

(last updated: 25 Dec 2006)

FSDEXT2 : Second extended file system for Windows 95

About fsdext2

• Latest stable version is 0.16, see the readme, historyand the faq first.
• Optionally, you could try version 0.17, which has some new features, including an unmount option. However, it does not handle removable media (floppies, cd-roms, zip drives etc) correctly. If you insert such a new media while fsdext2 is active, then you won't be able to use that new media after a new reboot. Nothing bad happened, it just won't get recognised by Win95.
• version 0.17a and 0.17b caused me a lot of trouble, so I don't make them public anymore!
• Latest source is available as well (after unzip -d, read src.txt first).
• Please note that from version 0.17, FSDEXT2 is copyrighted and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Support

• Crash/blue screen when you start the machine. Fsdext2 is not using a very sound mechanism to interface with block device drivers (hey, someone at Microsoft should have written better documentation) I've tweaked it until it worked on my machine, but it seems not to be working on all machine.
• Win98 extended partitions. Fsdext2 does not detect the newer style win98 extended partitions and therefor anything in them cannot be read.

Other links

If you are interested in file systems, check out Georgatos Photis' home page.

Some personal stuff

• Pompom and Patchy's home page
  
• Ray Tran's home page
  

Peter van Sebille

This page was last updated at: Jan 11, 2009