Psion Series 5 "emulator" for Planet Computers Gemini PDA ========================================================= A VERY experimental configuration to allow the Windows EPOC development environment to run on the Planet Computers Gemini PDA using Magic DOSbox. Please understand that these files, links and notes are provided "as is" and while some related discussions may take place from time to time on the "Gemini Planet: for Gemini PDA Owners and Fans" Facebook page, it is not possible for me to provide direct support for any of the software discussed here. Note especially that Windows 95 remains the copyright of Microsoft Corporation, and any requests for pre-installed Windows 95 images will be ignored. Requirements ============ Note that a PC or other machine capable of running virtualisation software, copying files to and from the Gemini PDA and writing disc images will be required. The setup assumes the user has a basic working knowledge of installing software on Android and Windows. For a PC-based installation the following files will be required: Magic DOSbox for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bruenor.magicbox&hl=en_US (This is the full version. Getting the SDK to work on the free version is possible but would require manual configuration beyond the scope of this document. If you want to make use of the pre- defined configuration file with custom zoom, key mapping and touch controls, you will need the full version of Magic DOSBox.) SwiftKey for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchtype.swiftkey (Required to make some of the Gemini's keys available to DOSbox.) Oracle Virtualbox: https://www.virtualbox.org/ WinImage: http://winimage.com/winimage.htm (Shareware version, should be sufficient to get the SDK files onto the Windows 95 disk image.) Windows 95 support images: http://www.mediafire.com/file/m9cdcalmsak0a5b/Win95Install.zip (These are provided by the author of Magic DOSbox and are also linked in the notes for the first tutorial video listed below.) Windows 95 ISOs and keys: https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-95/osr-3 (Link to third-party site provided as-is. If you have your own Windows 95 installation media and Product Key I would advise you to use those, but those on WinWorld will work for this.) EPOC OPL SDK (the "emulator"): http://psion.info/GJ5/emulator32_opl.html Installation files and instructions =================================== 1. Install Magic DOSbox on the Gemini. 2. Install SwiftKey on the Gemini. 3. Follow the instructions in the YouTube video "How To Play PC Games on Android With Magic Dosbox", Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg0PAmwgB2s 4. Follow the instructions in the YouTube video "How To Play PC Games on Android With Magic Dosbox", Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RgCw7Xnnnk 5. Once you have Windows 95 installed and working under Magic DOSbox and running at 800 x 600, you will need to transfer the EPOC SDK installation files to the virtual Windows 95 machine using WinImage. The quickest way to do this is to copy the "Drivers.img" file from the Gemini to the PC and use WinImage to remove the driver files and replace them with the EPOC installation files. They will then be available on the D: drive when you next start Windows 95 on the Gemini. 6. Launch the Windows 95 installation on the Gemini and create a shortcut from C:\EPOC32\RELEASE\WINS\REL\EPOC.EXE to your StartUp folder located at C:\WINDOWS\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP so the emulator starts automatically with Windows. Note that the existing shortcuts that the installer populates into the Programs menu will NOT work because they launch via an MS-DOS shell which will almost certainly cause the Windows emulation to hang. 7. Copy the "Series_5.mgc" file from this site to the Gemini and use the Import feature of Magic DOSbox to install it. NOTE: For the provided Magic DOSbox configuration to work, the installed Windows 95 image must be called "Win95.img" and must reside in the root of the Gemini's Shared Storage folder i.e. "/storage/emulated/0/Win95.img". If the IMG is kept anywhere else you will have to edit the DOSBox Config under Expert Commands in the Magic DOSbox configuration. 8. Run the "Series 5+" icon in Magic DOSbox. Using the EPOC environment on the Gemini ======================================== A few things to note about the EPOC emulation: 1. It is not true emulation. Most built-in apps and self-compiled OPL programs will work within the SDK, so you can use your own programs, Agenda files, Databases etc. but third-party apps will almost always fail because they're compiled for the wrong architecture. (You can sometimes find utilities that have been compiled for use specifically with the SDK but they are not common). 2. The emulation is slow compared with real hardware, especially when drawing graphical elements. It can be sped up to some degree by adjusting the Cycles parameter within DOSbox but this also causes the real time clock to lose time if pushed too far (you can use the timer in the Bombs game as a gauge for this). A detailed explanation of how this works is beyond the scope of this document, but if you're comfortable with Magic DOSbox please feel free to experiment. 3. By default the virtual Series 5 will "go to sleep" after three minutes of inactivity. Practically this means that the emulator window will minimise to the Windows taskbar, and because the screen is zoomed it is not trivial to get it back. If you're going to be using the emulator for some time, I recommend going to Control Panel | Switch On/Off and turning off Automatic Switch Off. Unfortunately this setting is not remembered between sessions so you will need to do this each time you launch it. 4. Keyboard controls may not work correctly on non-UK keyboards. For UK keyboards the mappings are mostly intuitive except for the following: Fn-Q (media play/pause) is mapped to the Series 5's hardware Menu key. If you want to get to the menu without tapping the > button, use this combination. To obatin a Pound Sterling £ sign you will need to press Ctrl-Shift-3 rather than the expected Shift-3. To obtain the / symbol you need to press Fn-Shift, release Fn then hold Shift as you press the comma key. 5. Touch controls are enabled through Magic DOSbox' "absolute" mouse emulation with some custom scaling. Occasionally the Windows 95 mouse pointer "escapes" from the Android pointer, resulting in incorrect screen taps. If this happens, tap the title bar to reset the mouse to the correct zero point about 1cm above the Agenda softkey. Sometimes multiple taps may be required to make this work. (My eternal gratitude to anyone who can reliably figure out what causes this, or how to prevent it. Slowness aside, this is probably the most annoying aspect of running Symbian on the Gemini in this way. It's infuriating.) 6. To shut down the virtual machine you can either use the Switch Off option on the Menu, or tap the red Power icon to bring up the bigger Power button which will task-kill the SDK when you tap it. 7. To cleanly shut down Windows once the SDK is killed or minimised, tap the red Power icon to bring up the bigger Power button. Then tap the Power button to bring up the Shut Down Windows dialog. Tap Yes, or press Y or Enter to complete the shutdown. Once Windows is shut down with that very old-school, "It is now safe to turn off your computer" message, you can close Magic DOSbox by swiping down from the top of the screen, tapping the Android back button (<), tapping Quit then tapping the green check button. (The on-screen Power icons work by sending Alt-F4 keystrokes to the relevant tasks, killing them. If Windows doesn't offer the Shut Down dialog it's probably because another task or window was open and received the previous Alt-F4. This shouldn't happen unless you're tinkering, but if it does you need to keep cycling the small and large Power buttons until Windows gets the message. If you quit Magic DOSbox without cleanly exiting Windows it may fail to boot on the next startup. If it does this it's probably waiting for a keystroke to start the Check Disk tool. If it's sitting for a long time at a largely black screen, try hitting a key to start the Check Disk tool.)