Dosbox for Zipit Z2!
It turns out that with a bit of source code modification, you can get dosbox running quite well on your zipit z2!! This is HUGE for me, as I'm currently reliving my youth with a Pools of Radiance campaign on my z2! For those impatient to try it out, DL the openembedded ipkg and modified source files at the end of this post.
Enabling Swap
Follow the directions here for adding a swap file. I recommend a good 64 meg chunk. This will keep dosbox from segfaulting when it searches for available memory.
Modifying Sources
Head into your dosbox source directory (or the dosbox/src directory in your OE bitbake tree) and do a
"grep -r "640" ./* ".
This will return all the source files containing video mode switches. You're going to want to change all the SDL function calls from 640,480 to 320,240.
Installing Dosbox
Bitbake your new dosbox and install prerequisites. You're going to need a whole mess of SDL libraries like sdl-net sdl-image sdl-x11 etc. My usual routine is:
(bitbake host) bitbake (package name) && bitbake package-index
(z2) ipkg update && ipkg install dosbox
if #2 complains, replace (package name) in #1 with missing package
Editing Dosbox config and startup
By default dosbox will enable a number of options that are not conducive to use on the zipit z2. Luckily you can pass the dosbox config file location to it on startup. I start dosbox straight from the command prompt, as opposed to from an xterm window. It saves about 1/2 meg memory, and every little bit helps. I start dosbox with the standard xfbdev script ala:
export DISPLAY=:0.0
Xfbdev -screen 240x320@90 -hide-cursor -br &
dosbox -conf ./.dosboxconf
My dosbox.conf is attached with the code below, but at minimum you'll need to set the following option to enable the arrow keys:
usescancodes=false
And that should get you going. The initial dosbox window will be larger than your display, and the cursor may be scrolled off screen. This will be resolved when you start a game, but I like to add the game start commands to the dosboxconf as below:
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c /home/root/
c:
cd poolrad
start
And that's that! You can download the updated source code and ipkg files here.
dosbox modified sources and configs
January 12th, 2009 - 02:06
How did you get into the device ? I’ve been trying to find a cable to connect something to it, and havent found anything. Any suggestions ?
January 12th, 2009 - 08:46
No need for a cable, head over to linux.zipitwireless.org and download a boot image to a mini-sd card. Then you can boot the zipit into linux mode, no cracking of case required.
February 9th, 2009 - 11:26
I hate to ask this, but it is particular evident that many Zipit users haven’t the foggiest what a compiler is, it would be really great if you could you please put up a statically-linked binary.
Great program.
February 9th, 2009 - 11:49
I can post a statically linked binary if you like, however I have great concern it will cause the zipit to thrash heavily. With x11 and dosbox running with nothing emulated, you’re looking at at least 20-25 megs usage. Adding in a game and we push the memory usage over the limits of the zipit and into swap territory. A statically compiled dosbox binary would exacerbate this greatly. I’ll post it though, if you are interested.
February 12th, 2009 - 14:32
You should check out the GP2X version of DOSBox for porting. It has a recompiler for ARM (although kind of a rudimentary one). I think it still uses SDL for everything else, and is made for 320×240.
Kind of curious how the Z2 performs, I wonder if there have been any benchmarks comparing it to other handhelds.
February 12th, 2009 - 14:37
Hey Gilead, that’s a good idea Ill definitely check that out. Right now its running about 286 speed but I have yet to do any comparison tests etc. For the price (50) you wont get a much better wireless linux handheld, but for homebrew I think a 50$ used DS is probably a better deal. This is all kind of leading up to my pandora coming in. You pre-ordered yet?
February 12th, 2009 - 15:33
Nah, they’ll send me one when they feel like it I guess. I’ve refused dev units before because of lack of time and wanting to have a more complete one but when they can manage to send one just for some ports I’d be doing then I’ll take it.
I do have a GP2X Wiz dev unit though.
February 12th, 2009 - 15:35
.. wait, can you really get a used DS for $50?
February 12th, 2009 - 15:36
Hell yeah, I got mine for 50 and it came with a game I sold for 15! I think even gamestop is selling them around the 50 mark now too.
February 12th, 2009 - 15:51
Nice, might pick one up eventually.
March 24th, 2009 - 14:45
The dynamic library version would indeed be best then. I since use a version that uses dynamic libraries. I too intend to port a few emulators to the Z2 once I get a version of GCC or TCC installed on it or in Winders.
March 24th, 2009 - 14:59
Nice, I’ll be interested to know how that turns out. Now that sound is working I imagine a tight emulator would get the zipit community re-energized. Be sure to post it on the zipit yahoo forum, that’s where most of the development has been happening this past year
March 30th, 2009 - 12:29
Ratz, there are still 3 libraries I’m missing in order to get this running, I know 2 where SDL related. I’m sure I’ll eventually get it going. I want to get GBA and C-64 emulator going first. I’m thinking of a version of the Legacy PC emulator too. The earlier pre-SDL versions looked like an easy port and it too uses a virtual bios for speed. Found an arm GCC version for Winder’s ala a GBA dev kit that will work.
March 30th, 2009 - 13:49
I’m very interested to see the frame rate you pull from the Legacy PC emulator…. 300mhz should be enough to run ~386 with little optimization.
August 30th, 2009 - 13:11
Has anyone given any thought as to setting up an ipkg repository for this device?
August 30th, 2009 - 21:56
Ya we’ve been talking about it for a while, check the comments on the later z2 posts I’ve written, a couple of people have gotten the regular angstrom repositories to work, hopefully that’ll point you in the right direction.
September 13th, 2009 - 12:18
Thank you very much for that good entry.
September 25th, 2009 - 17:37
Speaking of the DS I got the 1st version which I prefer slightly more anyways for $10 & that was 3 years ago. A 13 year old kid sold it to me at a yard sale, Adapter, Stylus good battery, everything! He also sold me Rayman for $5 Back then I think Gamestop was selling them in the $80 – $90 range. His mom was there too, I was just kind of shocked, Even more so when I found out it worked perfect.
I saw this on hackaday, Happy I ran across it. I didn’t even know these things existed, My brother who is studying computer science at Georgia Tech was looking for a low cost arm laptop to tinker with. So I’m defintly letting him know about this, I might get to play with it too until I pickup one
November 29th, 2009 - 01:43
Has anyone considered TinyCore?
http://www.tinycorelinux.com/
The Dillo browser also looks interesting:
http://www.dillo.org/
Regards,
MAS
November 29th, 2009 - 10:01
Hey MAS,
Thanks for the link, I had not heard of TinyCore. Looks like a tight implementation, but not immediately applicable to the Z2. Would take a bit of trimming down, as TinyCore freaks out with less than 48mb real ram, and the Z2 only has 32.
Dillo is running well on the Z2 now, and is included by default on the debian image released. I’ve also been using konqueror and netsurf with success. Thanks for the info!
July 28th, 2010 - 12:59
Here’s an off the wall question:
Dell Axim x3
Intel XScale 400MHz Prox
64MB RAM/64MB ROM
Can I relieve it of its Windows CE burden and put Linux on it?
I have been waiting years to try.
Only problem: Touch screen only, no KB.
Thoughts?
July 29th, 2010 - 15:23
Hey DW,
It looks like these guys are working on it:
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/DellAximX3
. Other than that it appears not a lot of folks are looking into it.
http://www.anytux.org/hardware.php?system_id=726
I’d be interested to hear if you get anything going. Good luck