gp32

Aaron J Reichow reic0024 at D.UMN.EDU
Mon Aug 25 17:19:03 UTC 2003


Alexander-

The GP32 has been mentioned a couple times on this list.  The device has
been out for a couple years.  While it certainly could run a trimmed down
version of Squeak, I think some people wondered how useful that would be.
Using a small MVC-based image with a little work on top of the graphic
facilities that MVC provides, Squeak could be used as a pretty cool engine
for developing games pretty quickly- definately easier than doing it in C
and/or assembly, although liable to be a bit slower.

The GP32 isn't too speedy- 67 MHz is the default speed. You can apparently
overclock it safely to 133 MHz and 160 MHz if you're willing to damage
your screen.  However, from what I've read, if you run much faster than
the stock 67 MHz, the device can't get at all the RAM, perhaps some issues
with the rest of the device not being sped up too, limiting you to the
CPU's internal cache.  While I've used MVC Squeak on a 66 MHz MIPS machine
and been pretty pleased (vtech helio, CharRecog was acceptable speed),
Morphic would be pretty much useless.

The 8MB RAM limit could be overcome with a memory-mapped file that used
space on an SMC card in the expansion slot. Yoshiki's written this feature
into the WinCE VM and it works pretty well.

Another factor is price.  Unless you're hell-bent on a machine better
fitted for gaming, the price-performance ratio isn't the best with the
GP32, compared to buying 206 MHz StrongARM-class WinCE PDA.  The GP32 goes
for $160 sans backlight and $230 with a front-light.

What would be mighty slick is a PalmOS port of Squeak- perhaps it could be
done by the time the Tapwave Zodiac is released- a PDA intended for
gaming, with the buttons to support it.  The specs go quite a bit beyond
the GP32's, and will have a similar target price; $200 for the base model,
and $300 for one with a built-in camera.  No bad considering the specs:

	PalmOS 5.2, 480x320 backlight screen, ATI graphics accelerator,
	Yamaha audio chip, bluetooth, 200 MHz ARM9 CPU, dual SD card slots

And, of course, it can be your full-blown Palm PDA as well as your
mobile gaming console.  see -->  http://www.godoplay.com/tapwave.html

A great site for all sorts of GP32 info is: http://www.devrs.com/gp32/

Just my insights as to a gaming platform for Squeak...

have fun!

Regards,
Aaron

--
"a system based on exchanging products inevitably channels wealth to a few, and
   no governmental change will ever be able to correct that."  ::  daniel quinn


On Sun, 24 Aug 2003, Alexander Lazarevic wrote:

> Today I saw gamepark's gp32 at a computer games fair. I don't know if
> this has been discussed already on the list and I'm out of my depth
> here, but I think squeak could run on such a device. It's nice because
> it has a ARM9 processor, large display, usb, 4 channel rf and (only?)
> 8MB SDRAM. In europe it should be prized like the game boy advanced.
> I've been told that a public SDK is available at www.gp32.com. Just all
> that said if this ain't old news ...
>
> Alex
>
>



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