Database Info

ROUNDUP: PPC dictionaries - WordNet-based ones

Please note that this roundup contains a LOT of tips and tricks never published elsewhere. That is, if you already own a WordNet-based application and don't want to switch, you still want to read the roundup because you may learn a LOT of new tricks and tips (for example, using some of the features present in your application, updating it etc.)
WordNet is a well-known (please do read this Wiki entry to see what WordNet is all about and how it compares to other dictionary databases if you don’t know what it’s about) project is getting better and better and, now, in 2006, really high-quality, useful and pleasing dictionaries can be constructed based on it.
For example, while the MobileTechReview Palm OS dictionary roundup, in 2003, still found the value of WordNet-based dictionaries questionable, times have indeed changed. Now, WordNet-based dictionaries can be very useful, particularly when you compare the wealth of information stored in them to, say, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary of English (the dictionary most alternate Pocket PC dictionaries are based on). The latter, now, is clearly worse than the WordNet database - not only because of the links between the words, but also because of the vast differences in the vocabulary size and the size of the description of each word.
Also, WordNet is far better than most other, publicly available, free word dictionaries. For example, one of the often-used databases, OPTED, is a public domain version of Webster's 1913 Unabridged English dictionary. That is, about 100 years old – this, unfortunately, also means it’s pretty outdated. Wiktionary isn’t the best either (yet?). Its main strength lies (as opposed to WordNet) in not English-language explanations of English words and expressions, but in multilingual links and translations. That is, it’s of little use for someone that only needs English explanations.
Note that it’s up to you whether you find WordNet useful and better than, say, the excellent American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language (which also has a Pocket PC version). Most people do, but there may be exceptions. If you don’t, don’t read this roundup further but wait for the next parts – in here, I will only review Pocket PC dictionaries solely based on WordNet and will only review dictionaries based on other databases in further parts of the series. This article is only the first in a series of a roundup of all (notable) Pocket PC dictionaries (including both English and bilingual ones). (Actually, I’ve already written most of the other roundups too but wanted to separate strictly WordNet-based dictionaries into a separate article to keep the complexity and the “information overloading factor” down.)
On the Pocket PC, there are ten notable WordNet implementations (or front-ends – again, they all use the same database and, therefore, there are only differences only in the user interface, its capabilities and additional features). In this roundup, I review and compare them all.
Please note that it’s in the comparison chart that most of the (comparative) feature information and screenshots (there are some 200 of them!) can be found. In the following list of the reviewed applications, I’ll be pretty terse. Check out the comparison cart (and the explanation for it) for really extended information.
UPDATE (08/29/2006): Part II of this series can be found here.
The official desktop Windows WordNet client
Anyone who used the official, free desktop Windows WordNet client knows how bad it is. It lacks even the most basic wildcard searching capabilities (it only supports substring searches) and doesn’t even provide links with related words. Are the Pocket PC, WordNet-based implementations any better, you may (rightfully) ask.
Fortunately, even the worst Pocket PC implementation is much better in almost every respect (links, advanced searching capabilities).
Incidentally, there is also a Web interface to the WordNet database, assuming you just want to run some Web-based lookups.
(Some additional screenshots of the desktop client using the definition of “charm”: Definition of word "charm" in the Windows (official) client; Related nouns; Related verbs; Noun hypernyms. It’s worth comparing these screenshots to those I’ve provided with every Pocket PC-based WordNet front-end to see how those applications render the same information.)
AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7
I had high expectations before starting to use this client. The developer is well-known for some of their quality (“UltraLingua”) databases also used by, for example, Paragon in one of their German dictionaries also available on the Pocket PC.
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Unfortunately, this title was really disappointing. It not only lacks advanced functionalities, but also completely gets rid of even the basic inter-word connections (except for synonyms). In this respect, it’s clearly worse than anything else on the market. It’s a very bad buy for the price, I would say. Certainly not recommended.
A quick note on installation: if you download the CAB file (instead of the desktop-based installer EXE), you’ll also need to separately download the RoadLingua viewer available here.
WordBook 3.6 b50612 by TranCreative
As opposed to the AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet, this application turned out to be one of the best WordNet front-ends. It has really powerful add-on capabilities, which really make using the WordNet database fun. It’s, in my opinion, only Lexisgoo that is better, feature-wise.
Note that the same developer has been developing Magic Button, probably the best, highly recommended, free (!!!!) task manager for the Pocket PC.
MDict 2.1.3 by Octopus Studio
This free, not well-known but really worthy dictionary is pretty good, as long as you don’t need to look up the additional WordNet relationships (that is, there are no hyponyms / hypernyms / antonyms), wildcard searching, studying support, pronunciation or non-open-class words (the latter two can be found in alternate, free dictionary databases, easily desployable and usable under MDict). It supports additional databases (not as well as SlovoEd), of which there are quite a few (all public domain-based: OPTED, Moby Thesaurus etc.) The multiple database support, albeit not as sophisticated as that of SlovoEd, is a definite plus with the application. In addition, it’s the only application to have a desktop-based dictionary converter/creator tool, “Mdx file builder”, if you want to create your own dictionaries.
It has pretty good (similar to Lexisgoo and WordBook), text selection & icon-based word lookup capabilities usable in other applications. They are much better than those of most other applications.
Note that if you have more than one dictionary database files and want to avoid adding them one-by-one in Library / Open Library, you can just add them with Library / Add All Library File to List.
I really recommend this title because of the availability of multiple dictionary databases (which you can create yourself too), the speed and the easiness of word lookup from other applications. All this if you don’t need the additional relationship information stored in the WordNet database or wildcard lookup, that is.
Compared to the other free title, WordNetCE, this title certainly excels at speed, the size of the database and multiple database support. It, however, doesn’t have any kind of wildcard search capabilities (one of the main strengths of WordNetCE) and doesn’t display the WordNet relationship (which is a real letdown). If you don’t need these, however, go for it – you won’t regret your choice.
Lexisgoo English Dictionary by PPCLink
This dictionary, feature-wise, is clearly the best WordNet front-end. It’s a real pleasure to use.
Note that the other, just (in July) released dictionaries of PPCLink include the Concise Oxford Duden German Dictionary and the Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary, which will be reviewed in a later part of this series.
PocketGenius 3.0 by Maction Technologies, Inc.
This (unfortunately, except for some capabilities like full in-text searching, pretty mediocre) dictionary engine has a LOT of additional, mostly Chinese- (and, to a lesser degree, Japanese-) centric dictionary databases available here (Chinese!) (Babelfish "translation" here).
Of them, some English-English dictionaries (including a WordNet 1.x-based, and, therefore, really outdated compared to WordNet 2.0, which all the other tested apps / databases are based on) can be found in the Dictionaries section. Note that, in order to make downloading English dictionaries easier (Babelfished pages don’t offer downloading capabilities), you will want to go to the original page and look for dictionaries that have the
icon next to them. As far as downloading the WordNet dictionary is concerned, go here and click the
icon.
As has already been pointed out, the dictionary engine is pretty mediocre and only recommended for Chinese (Japanese) speakers. English-only folks or people looking for English to/from other non-oriental language dictionaries should look elsewhere – there are much cheaper and better alternates. The (very few) English dictionaries that can be useful for non-Chinese speakers are pretty outdated (particularly the WordNet-based one).
Note that it’s because of the uselessly old WordNet version that I’ve disqualified this product in the Verdict (while, of course, I’ve included all the necessary information in the comparison chart.)
TomeRaider3 3.2.00
TomeRaider (please read this review of the latest version; in there, I’ve thoroughly compared it to other dictionaries in general) is a pretty good, albeit, in some respects, incapable and buggy book reader engine.
Unfortunately, its WordNet database is one of the databases that lack extended relationship information. Because of this (and a lot of other reasons, which the advantages – for example, the full in-text searching capabilities – of the engine can’t really outweigh), I don’t really recommend this engine either for strictly WordNet-based work (note that this has nothing to do with Wikipedia reading; for that, it’s TomeRaider3 that I recommend the most).
SlovoEd 2005 by Paragon
Along with the Merriam-Webster Collegiate talking dictionary with extended thesaurus (which is, as you may have guessed, based on the Merriam-Webster Collegiate database), Paragon, well-known for their language extenders and dictionaries, also offers a WordNet-based dictionary. The former costs $49.95 with the 10 000-word speech module, the latter $29.95. By leaving out the speech module you can save $10. (Note that the speech-less WordNet dictionary is promised to contain the 14 665-entry Acronym dictionary by Hein van Steenis (which can also be purchased separately for $5.95). I, however, couldn’t find this module in the trial version (the lack of it may be an oversight on the part of Paragon).)
Advantages of the SlovoEd engine
SlovoEd’s main strength lies in the engine’s ability to use several dictionaries at the same time – in a much more sophisticated way than, say, BEIK's BDicty (another engine that supports several databases used by the same engine). Under the same engine (that is, a single executable file), you can have any number of databases. This approach is vastly superior to that of, say, LingvoSoft. The latter uses separate executables for all the different databases. This not only takes up more storage (the executable .EXE file, as the different database instances don’t share them, needs to be had multiple times in the storage) and adds a lot of icons (if you install a handful of dictionaries on your PDA), but also makes it impossible to implement any kind of interaction between these dictionary databases.
In handling several databases at once is the definite, unmatched advantage of the SlovoEd engine no other database engine provides. If you install more than one database of the same language (pair), you will have access to all the information in them at the same time, unlike with any other applications with more than one databases.
For example, sticking with English, you can deploy (if you are ready to pay for them both) both the WordNet and the Merriam-Webster database on your PDA (along with other languages, if you like). Then, the Dictionary Direction menu in the main menu will be something similar to this. Here, English - English (3/3) means, after clicking the Details button (or if you just go to if English is active) that there are two official dictionaries and your user dictionary. You can freely (de)activate any of them and/or move up/down the priority list (if you prefer one of them to be presented results from first) in this dialog.
Real-world examples showing the strength of this all
First, the number of searchable items is increased if you activate more than one dictionary. For example, the Webster dictionary contains these words starting with ‘slow’, while the WordNet dictionary these (second page). As can be seen, there are a lot of words in both dictionaries that aren’t present in the other: for example, slowcoach, slower, slowest in WordNet and slow-footed in Webster. If you don’t activate both dictionaries at the same time, you won’t be able to search for the words not accessible in the currently active one. However, if you do activate both of them (as is the default if you install them both), all words from both dictionary databases will be visible and searchable as can be seen in here. Yes, slow-footed (only contained by Webster) and slower/est (only contained by WordNet) are all here.
Upon a search for a word that is present in both dictionary databases, you can easily switch between the results contained by both of them – separately. You only need to use the
and
icons to switch between them like in here and here (where the results for ‘slow’ is shown for both dictionaries). (Note that the icons will be grayed out when not accessible.) This is much easier than with other dictionaries – even with ones that support using more than one database in the same executable. For example, check out the BDicty section on how complicated it is in there to get the descriptions out of more than one database at a time.
As you’ll see in later parts, scrutinizing multilingual dictionaries, this will be a definite advantage with other languages too. For example, German, Russian and some other languages have more than one SlovoEd-compliant database. You can maximize your effectiveness by accessing them all at the same time. (An example of German: words around ‘abberufen’. With the two dictionaries (UltraLingua and Arsenal) available, the full list is like this; with Arsenal only this and with UltraLingua this. As can clearly be seen, access to multiple databases at the same time is a definite advantage.
Also, it’s the only engine that allows for adding individual, searchable records (not to be mistaken for simple notes). User-added records are treated and displayed the same way as “official” ones – that is, you can even search for them.
Finally, another real strength of the application is the (English-only) sound engine, which isn’t a synthesized one but contains human speech. This also means excellent quality and no pronunciation problems (unlike with all synthesized speech). It isn’t particularly cheap and “only’ contains 5/10/20 000 words (depending on the version you purchase) but is much-much better than any synthesizer-based engine.
… and the cons…
Unfortunately, the SlovoEd engine also has some drawbacks compared to Lexisgoo and WordBook, the two best WordNet-only dictionary apps. For example, it contains no pronunciation information (in the WordNet database; the Webster database does have it but it must be purchased separately and uses non-IPA pronunciation notation), it contains no non-open-class words, no anagrams, no user notes, its study support is much weaker than that of Lexisgoo / WordBook (and doesn’t support the real VGA mode, not even in the latest version, unlike all the other WordNet apps.)
Version differences
The WordNet version comes with release 5 of SlovoEd 2005. Much as I haven’t spotted any differences between it and the latest, release 9 of SlovoEd 2005, you may still want to upgrade it to the latest version. Note that, under operating systems prior to WM5, you will get the “not a valid Windows CE setup file” message upon trying to install the CAB file. In this cases, you can just extract the 0SlovoEd.001 file from the CAB file, rename it to SlovoEd.exe and just overwrite the old version on your Pocket PC with it (it’s in \Program Files\SlovoEd by default; you can safely relocate it to anywhere else, as has also been pointed out in the comparison chart).
Unlike with, say, BDicty, the new engine can’t be downloaded from the developer’s site. You can either get it directly from my database back-end or by downloading for example the .exe]English-Estonian, English-Hungarian or English-Russian talking Gold (this contains “MultiLex” engine, which is exactly the same as SlovoEd 2005, except for being 2 hours newer and having some different bytes in the EXE file) dictionaries, starting them but canceling the installation right before the programs are installed on your PDA and getting the CAB file from c:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync\SlovoEd\ SlovoEdPPC.ARM.CAB - or, by just installing the engine itself and nothing else: just untick the non-engine checkboxes in the desktop installer as can be seen for example in here.
Again, as has been pointed out, I couldn’t find any differences between version 5 and 9. However, you may run into significantly older engines, for example if you install other languages. For example, in some German dictionaries directly linked from Handango, I’ve found the 3.5-year-old version 3.0.1 engine, which is really-really outdated and should be avoided. In these cases, you will really want to update. (Paragon’s not updating the engine in their products is a bit problematic!)
Verdict
If you plan to purchase both the Merriam-Webster and the WordNet database OR you want an excellent (non-synthesized) speech engine, you will want to check out the SlovoEd version first. Access to several databases at the same time, the killer feature, is really worth the higher price (and the lack of goodies like anagram support).
If you, on the other hand, only plan to utilize the WordNet database and don’t care about the speech, you may want to give a try to “real” WordNet-only dictionary applications first (Lexisgoo or WordBook). Their additional features (anagrams, pronunciation info etc.) may appeal to you better.
Lextionary 2.4 by Revolutionary Software Front
I had very high expectations of this application – after all, it has been developed by the author of PalmGB, a WinCE / Pocket PC port of Marat Fayzullin's well-known Virtual GameBoy emulator, which, back in the WinCE times, was the best Nintendo GameBoy (Color) emulator.
Unfortunately, after thoroughly testing and comparing it to the alternatives, I was pretty dissatisfied with Lextionary. It’s clearly less powerful (and less colorful – this is what one notices at once) than most of the other alternatives.
Note that the same developer has also been developing Lexipedia, a Wikipedia port currently with 550,000 articles and reflecting the August 2005 state of the Wikipedia database. Also, they have a Pocket PC port of the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. I’ll compare both of them to the alternates in my forthcoming lexicon / database roundup.
BDicty English Pro (part of English Heritage Bundle for Pocket PC) by BEIKS
Unfortunately, BDicty too eliminates almost all the additional relation information present in the underlying database. This means there are absolutely no relations between words. The engine itself isn’t pretty sophisticated either. There are no additional goodies like study support, wildcard search, anagram support or favorites.
The only real nicety I could find was the easy switching to the other, installed dictionaries. For example, if you purchase the English Heritage Bundle (right now, the only way to acquire the WordNet-based English Dictionary Pro), you not only get the WordNet-based English Pro dictionary, but also the English Gold dictionary and a thesaurus.
Note that, as with Paragon’s excellent dictionaries, the executable (the 3.5+ years old version 5.0) bundled with the dictionaries is a bit outdated (for example, it has messed-up icons on VGA devices). You may want to manually update it to version 5.5 if you don’t need the features no longer working in the latter version. (See below.) The new, 5.5 version can be downloaded from HERE (direct link of the CAB file here) and freely installed on top of an already-installed 5.0 version.
However much the BDicty engine (as opposed to Paragon’s SlovoEd 2005, which is the best in this respect (too)) can’t display the words available in all the installed dictionaries at once in the word list (this means you will need to switch between all your dictionaries if looking for a word not contained in one of them, but is listed in another), when you switch between the installed dictionaries, the current word (if it exists in the newly-activated dictionary) will still be highlighted. This is a nice feature of the engine (and pretty similar to the even better approach of SlovoEd 2005.)
An example of this is as follows. The WordNet-based English Pro displays the definition of ‘charm’ this way. If you switch to the English Gold dictionary, it will already have the input field filled in; then, you’ll only need to quickly switch to something else (for exaple, “goodly”) and, then, back in order for the definition to be seen.
The same is the case with switching to the Thesaurus: the word will be filled in. A quick down/up and the definition will be seen. Again, it’s still a far cry away from Paragon’s approach but is still better what the other, multiple dictionary-capable engines do (or better, don't do).
Note that this feature, for some reason, is missing from the newer, 5.5 engine, while still present in 5.0. Also, in 5.0, Edit/Paste (even with Ctl-V) to the definition search input field works, in 5.5, no longer does. The same stands for quick word highlight: in 5.0, you can quickly highlight a word by double-clicking it (and an entire paragraph by triple-clicking); in 5.5, this is no longer the case. This must be a bug in version 5.5.
All in all, the BDicty engine isn’t really the best when compared to almost all the other reviewed engines. However, taking into account that you can get three dictionaries for $24, you may want to consider getting it.
(Note that, as there are several other (for example, bilingual) dictionaries for BDicty, I’ll also elaborate on it in later parts of this review series and compare to the bilingual alternates.)
WordNetCE 2.7 by Troy Simpson
It’s pretty similar to the desktop version (and makes use of its (uncompressed) database). However, fortunately, it has some additional searching goodies (for example Widcard/regex and Anagram/Scrabble search).
Note that it requires the Compact Framework 1 SP3 (which also means it’s also PPC2k/PPC2k2 compatible). SP3 is also available, as individual CAB files, here.
For a free program, WordNetCE is pretty OK (my personal favorite is, however, as far as free WordNet implementations are concerned, MDict - please see the section on it for more info and a comparison to WordNetCE ). It, feature- and speed-wise, is not comparable to the best commercial solutions (most importantly WordBook and Lexisgoo), though.
Comparison chart
Due to the space constraints, I had to put it in my Web server back-end as a stand-alone, full-sized HTML table. It’s available here. Don’t forget to click it – AGAIN, it’s there that you will find most of the comparative information and screenshots!
Comparison chart explanation and comments
Trial restrictions?: in general, all the trial versions are pretty usable except for Lextionary, which is almost useless in trial mode (it does random lookups) and BDicty, which only lets for browsing words starting with A and B.
Requirements: none of the dictionaries have any special requirement except for the Compact Framework (CF) 1-based, free WordNetCE. It’s very important that you install Service Pack 3 (SP3) if you have an older, WM2003 or WM2003SE device shipped with an earlier Compact Framework version. The SP3 CAB files are available for download here (for PPC2k MIPS, PPC2k2 ARM and WM2003+ ARM.)
Memory?: how much storage they consume and whether they can be entirely installed onto storage cards. Note that apps with resident modules (for example, Lexisgoo, which has a module started from \Windows\Startup – that is, right at booting) will need to store some dozens of kilobytes in the main storage (RAM with op. systems prior to WM5).
Compatibility group: in here, I’ve tested the compatibility with VGA devices in both standard (SE) and native VGA mode. I also tested landscape compliance. I’ve conducted tests on three different Pocket PC’s: a WM2003SE Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720, a WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard and a WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v with ROM version A12. As can be seen, only SlovoEd is close to useless in native VGA mode and two (lower-end) applications need to be forced to VGA in SE VGA.
WordNet feature support group: in this group, I elaborate on whether all the inter-word relationships are implemented and available in the specific WordNet implementation.
All relations displayed?: a generic catch-up test – a summary of the next two rows.
Synonyms / antonyms (latter tested with “good”): does the given app support synonyms and antonyms. All of them do, except for AbsoluteWord WordNet, MDict and BDicty, which painfully lack antonyms.
Wider (hypernyms) / narrower (hyponym) definition links? : The WordNet database is excellent in that it also has hypernym and hyponym relationships. In here, I’ve elaborated on the particular clients’ supporting this. As can clearly be seen, it’s again only AbsoluteWord WordNet , MDict and BDicty that don’t support them at all.
Example of Charm: example screenshots of the applications showing the definition of the word ‘charm’ so that you can see how the (same) information is presented by the individual front-ends.
Additional features group: here, I’ve collected additional features that really can enhance the usability of a given WordNet front-end.
Easy to further search in the answer text?: many times, you’ll want to make further searches for words in the descriptions. If you “only” want to search links (all WordNet clients support this, as opposed to the desktop Windows client, which has no links), it’s a no-brainer. Things, however, get complicated if you want to search for words not linked. Then, you’ll need an app that provides the easiest possible way for this. Some applications (here, WordNetCE and SlovoEd) let the user just (with SlovoEd, double-) click a word and, then, run a search on that (this is the easiest way but, in cases, may be problematic, for example, if you want to search for a two-word expression or you want to copy something to the clipboard for future use). Some applications (WordBook, Lexisgoo) display a context menu after you make any selection with the, among other things, lookup option. BDicty requires the user to highlight the text to be looked up (this works with a double-tap in the 5.0 engine version) and, then, a separate icon clicked. Finally, Lextionary , MDict and AbsoluteWord WordNet require the user to select, copy the given word(s) to the clipboard and paste it back to the input field – the most tiresome approach.
Lookup history?: more advanced applications store the history of past lookups, preferably persistently, over restarts too. In here, I've elaborated on the persistence and the "can the list be accessed freely, or only in a serial manner" issues.
Favorites?: WordBook and Lexisgoo also offer favorites (links that you would like to keep in one place). Of the two, Lexisgoo has a really nice, structured (just like the folders in any (decent) Web browser’s favorites system) and time-constrained (“I only need the favorites I’ve added today”) way of storing favorites. WordBook’s approach isn’t this sophisticated, but at least it still exists, unlike with all the other dictionary front-ends.
User notes?: making additional notes for records has always been in high demand among dictionary (or, for that matter, e-book reader) users. Unfortunately, only Lexisgoo and BDicty make this possible (with textual notes only – that is, no freehand drawings are possible, unlike with, say, Microsoft Reader). Of the two, Lexisgoo ’s approach is far better because it even keeps a central list of all the added user notes.
Speech synthesis?: SlovoEd has a separately purchasable and installable, high-quality speech pack.
In addition to this, two of the applications (WordBook and Lexisgoo) use the FLITE engine (a free speech synthesis engine by Carnegie Mellon Univ.), making it possible to read both the active word (expression) or any kind of text (with Lexisgoo, even from other applications, if you use “Read” in Lexisee).
Note that this is a synthesis engine. That is, while it’s still much better than a lot of other speech synthesis engine (including the English support in the speech engine of the LingvoSoft dictionaries – more on them later, in the next installments of this series), it’s in no way as good as native speakers’ spoken English (the way for example Paragon offers real speech on the Pocket PC). For example, while it’s able to (correctly) pronounce ‘adobe’ (unlike, say, the LingvoSoft engine), it’ll find for example ‘these’ difficult to pronounce.
Also, as it’s an external library called from the dictionary front-ends, once started, you won’t be able to stop it. This is particularly painful if you, for example, start one than more instance of Flite, reading a looooong text, by double-tapping the speaker icon. Then, two Flite instances will be started. You will only be able to help this by explicitly killing WordBook / Lexisgoo from a task manager. Keep this in mind when you use it.
English grammar tutorial built-in? : Lexisgoo has an excellent grammar summary in its help section. It’s much better than most in-app grammar summaries I’ve seen on the Pocket PC (make sure you check out the provided screenshots to see how cool it is!). As WordNet doesn't even contain a list of irregular verbs, I've also scrutinized whether the given front-end lists them (for example SlovoEd does).
User-added, searchable, new database records as in, say, SlovoEd 2005?: unfortunately, none of the dictionaries (except for, naturally, SlovoEd) allow for adding additional records.
Dynamic scrolling with, preferably, hiding all the entries that are surely not looked for?: it’s preferable to have a dictionary application that, when you enter a new word to look for, dynamically scrolls the available word list to the position of the word. This makes it very easy to see what other words there are starting with the same, already-entered character sequence and, in cases, makes input much faster.
It’s only WordNetCE and Lextionary that don’t support any kind of dynamic scrolling. WordBook, SlovoEd, MDict, BDicty and Lexisgoo do, but they simply scroll down/up the wordlist and don’t restrict the displayed words in any way. It’s only AbsoluteWord WordNet that doesn’t display words that start with different letters than those already entered. This, however, isn’t a showstopper, as far as SlovoEd, MDict, WordBook and Lexisgoo are concerned.
Multiple dictionary database support group: in here, I’ve compared and elaborated on the unique feature of some of the dictionaries (for example, SlovoEd, MDict and BDicty). Please read the mini-reviews of all these three applications for more information on what the four tests mean in this group.
Search group: in here, I’ve elaborated on what kind of searching capabilities the reviewed applications have. It’s (also) in this respect that a dictionary application can be really different from the rest of the WordNet front-ends because this, as with the rest of the user interface, is completely independent on the underlying WordNet database. With, for example, support for regular expression-based search, puzzle-solving capabilities or anagrams, a front-end can really excel and can add a lot of additional functionality.
If you have ever used the desktop Windows client, you know it is pretty bad in this respect – it doesn’t even let for wildcard searches, let alone other, even more sophisticated searching types. In this respect, all the tested applications are considerably better (as was also the case with linking words in the descriptions.)
Best match search support? (Wildcard searches (AKA puzzle helpers)?): Does the application make it possible to do wildcard searches? One of the most important usability areas of this is puzzle solving (see the provided screenshots for some examples!)
Phonetic searches?: while some of the applications also have phonetic search (“it sounds like”) capabilities, I’ve found them pretty useless, compared to the other ‘closest-match’ search capabilities.
Approximate match? Type (intelligent typo-checker / first match)?: in here, I’ve examined how “intelligently” the reviewed apps try to find the best matches for a given word. To do this, I’ve run searches for two deliberately misspelled words (aproved (approved) and propably (probably)) to see whether the applications do any kind of intelligent ‘closest-hit’ searches.
Interestingly, in this question, WordNetCE proved to be the best (and by far the slowest). Lextionary proved to be the second (and very fast). It was orders of magnitude faster than WordNetCE and also listed the well-spelled word in the first position. Unfortunately, the other dictionaries have proved to be far worse in this respect. That is, in this respect Lextionary is the best application (taking the time needed also into account).
Anagrams; tested with ‘listen’: WordNetCE, WordBook and Lexisgoo have anagram capabilities. This add a great deal of fun factor to these three applications – this feature can be used for delighting time-killing. Unfortunately, the other two applications don’t have anything like this.
Full text search (all occurrences of a given word)?: only one of the tested applications, AbsoluteWord WordNet, is able to run (very slow) full text searches in the entire database.
Communication with outside world group: is it easy to highlight a word in another application and look up its meaning in the tested dictionaries? In here, I’ve also elaborated on the copy (from the definition) / paste (to the ‘search this word’ text input field) capabilities.
Icon and/or other means (for example, monitoring the clipboard)? If not, other means of quick, preferably Clipboard-based quick paste upon activation?: Does the given dictionary have an icon you can just tap when you’ve selected (and, possibly, copied to the clipboard) some text? If it does, does it need to user to place the given text to the clipboard (as is the case with AbsoluteWord WordNet and BDicty), or, is just highlighting (selecting) sufficient (as is the case with the, in this respect three best applications, WordBook , MDict and Lexisgoo?) If it doesn’t have an icon (as is the case with WordNetCE and Lextionary - and SlovoEd, but the latter supports auto-invocation when something is double-copied to the clipboard), does it at least support quick, preferably hardware button-based invocation and auto-paste-to-the-input-field capabilities?
Copy/paste: Pasting into the input field?: interestingly, the otherwise best Lexisgoo is the only application that doesn’t support any kind of pasting to there (and BDicty if you use the 5.5 engine, as opposed to 5.0). You will not really feel the lack of it, though: Lexisgoo has other means of searching for text inside the definitions it displays (and its word lookup capabilities from other applications are also excellent).
Copy definition (or parts of it) to clipboard?: all the applications support this operation. That is, you will be able to export them to, say, a mail message if you need it.
Study support group: everything related to studying with the Pocket PC – another usability area the Pocket PC can excel at with, say, randomly generated word lists for each day.
Study?: Here, I’ve elaborated on the means the tested applications have for making self-study easier. As can clearly be seen, the two best applications (Lexisgoo and WordBook) both have excellent study support capabilities, Lexisgoo being the better.
Explicit random word display?: Some applications (also) offer the ability to display a random word (upon request). This can also help people that need a word to study. Nevertheless, it’s much inferior to the great study list configuration capabilities (with the separate dictionary text files of different language exam level) of WordBook and Lexisgoo, let alone the Today plug-in of the latter.
Not in the WordNet DB group: everything belongs here that, originally, isn’t contained by the WordNet database but is still very important in everyday life. Currently, there are three main areas of this kind of information: pronunciation, syllabification information and non-open-class words.
English pronunciation displayed?: all dictionaries except for BDicty, SlovoEd, the free MDict and WordNetCE contain add-on pronunciation information.
There are vast differences in the phonetic alphabet used. Some titles (WordBook, Lexisgoo) strictly use the International Phonetic Alphabet for English, which is the standard for teaching English in all countries where English is taught as a foreign language (this is what ALL dictionaries should do). AbsoluteWord WordNet uses something very similar, but not exactly the same. Finally, Lextionary, unfortunately, uses a completely different phonetic alphabet, which will be a pain to read for anyone that is used to the standard IPA alphabet.
Note that not all words have added pronunciation. For example, the “problematic” ‘adobe’ or ‘vehicle’ have but the more standard ‘adobo’ doesn’t. The same stands for words that also have a pair with given pronunciation; for example, the ‘adolesce’ and ‘adolescent’ pair. With them, you’ll need to look up the longer word so that you get the pronunciation of the shorter one. All the dictionaries seem to share the same words with pronunciation (the developers may have used the same add-on word list to import them) – that is, there are no dictionaries with more frequent pronunciation information.
Syllabification?: WordNet, unfortunately, doesn’t contain syllabification information either (which would be pretty important with English) and none of the client have this as add-on information.
Non-open-class words (determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles)? Tested with ‘this’.: As section 3.2 of the WordNet FAQ also states, WordNet only contains "open-class words": nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Thus, excluded words include determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles. Most of the dictionaries (including the Windows desktop and the online one) don’t have them as add-on words. (For example here, some people have also complained of, in this case, Lextionary’s not having simple words like these.) That is, you won’t find for example ‘this’ in them. It’s only Lexisgoo and BDicty that do include these words.
Verdict
In my opinion, Lexisgoo is the best WordNet implementation on the Pocket PC. Its only problem is the definitely weaker (compared to Lextionary 2.4 or, speed issues aside, WordNetCE 2.7) approximate searching mode. It’s, however, much better than the other applications in everything else. Highly recommended!
Close second is WordBook. Of the two, I would prefer Lexisgoo; your mileage, however, may vary. Compare the two apps to find out which one suits your needs better. (For example, some people at the AximSite forums have gone for WordBook because the low-res Lexisee icon doesn't look good on a VGA device, while the Word Picker icon of WordBook is hi-res and, therefore, looks better. Yes, choosing from between apps can depend on such subtleties.)
SlovoEd is also a worthy application to be considered. It entirely depends on your needs (do you want multiple, parallel database support? A really decent speech engine? If you do, this application is the way to go) whether you should go for it (see the SlovoEd section above for a more thorough comparison.)
The free MDict is also a very nice application assuming you don't need any extra capabilities. Please read the MDict section above for more in-depth comparison and elaboration on the cases when it may prove excellent.
Unfortunately, Lextionary, which is a favorite dictionary of many, feature-wise, didn’t excel at all. The inter-word relationship (this is what WordNet is all about…) support its homepage emphasized is also supported by all the other applications (except for the, in this respect, absolutely poor AbsoluteWord WordNet, MDict and BDicty). This means there is not a single feature in Lextionary that WordBook or Lexisgoo wouldn’t be capable of; except for, maybe, the great “like” matching, in which Lextionary is clearly better than the two latter applications. That is, if you need the best matching capabilities and can’t stand the snail-like speed of WordNetCE, you may want to consider getting Lextionary. Otherwise, I don’t really recommend it: both WordBook and Lexisgoo have much more superior features (and IPA pronunciation).
The free WordNetCE 2.7, while having certain drawbacks, is still better than one of the commercial (and most expensive) alternates (AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7). That is, if you must use a free application, you need the WordNet relationships (which the other free front-end, MDict, doesn't support) and can’t pay for a much better commercial one, WordNetCE is an acceptable solution.
BDicty is another 'also-run' application. Its only strength is the three separate databases coming in the English Heritage Bundle (thus, driving down the price), the easy switching between them (which is in no way as easy as with SlovoEd) and the support for non-open-class words. Otherwise, it's a pretty mediocre product not really recommended for purchasing - WordBook or Lexisgoo are far better, as far as pure, real WordNet support is concerned (for example, there is absolutely no support for antonyms / hypernyms / hyponyms in BDicty). If you need multiple database support (or, you want to deploy other language modules under BDicty), you may want to consider it, though. (Still, as far as multilingual / multi-database engines are concerned, I'd go with Paragon's SlovoEd 2005 instead.)
The absolute loser of the roundup is AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7. Except for the ability to (very slowly!) to a full text search (all occurrences of a given word) in the entire database, it is clearly the worst commercial WordNet-based application. I’d say it’s even worse than the free WordNetCE, particularly if you need antonym / hypernym / hyponym information (which AbsoluteWord WordNet painfully lacks). Also, as far as the other free client, MDict is concerned, I'd definitely go for it instead of AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet.
Acknowledgements
Without Hal Goldstein’s inviting me last (and this) year to be a judge in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards judge board, there would be no dictionary roundup. That is, thank Hal first if you like the roundup(s)

creating new Mdict file
Hello,
I'm trying to create a new Mdict file fro; a Star dict file, and I have a little problem.
The explaination files says :
Steps to convert Star dict dictionary files into mdx format:
1) download the dictionary files in tarball format from http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php
the following steps will use file in http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries_ja.php as example
2) download both "JMDict-en-ja dictionary" and "JMDict-ja-en dictionary"
One dictionary file is enough, but we will show you how to merge two dictionary into one file, so need to download two dictionaries here.
3) extract the file into a temporary directory for example: c:\temp
There should be 4 files in c:\temp now:
2003-07-04 01:47 1,414,385 jmdict-en-ja.dict.dz
2003-11-12 19:38 2,392,521 jmdict-en-ja.idx
2003-11-12 19:38 351 jmdict-en-ja.ifo
2003-07-04 01:47 2,702,509 jmdict-ja-en.dict.dz
2003-11-12 19:38 3,732,514 jmdict-ja-en.idx
2003-11-12 19:38 352 jmdict-ja-en.ifo
4) copy the "convstar.exe" and "star_style.txt" into c:\temp too.
5) run:
a) convstar jmdict-en-ja.ifo e2j.txt
b) convstar jmdict-ja-en.ifo j2e.txt
c) copy e2j.txt+j2e.txt all.txt /b
if you don't need to merge two dictionaries into one, you can stip b) and c)
but I'm locked on 5) because each time I run convstar.exe , a windows pops up and the close immediatly. It is impossible to write anything (I'm using windows XP, english version).
It must be the kind of problem a novice like me is bumping into...
I would appreciate your light to solve this problem !
Thank you very much

how to : build your own dictionary with Mdict
I found the solution eventually
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=290503
cheers

Emulating Texas Instruments’ calculators under Windows Mobile

Many of you may have already heard of Texas Instruments’ excellent calculators; most importantly, the (currently) top-of-the line TI-89/92 and, for high school students, the most recommended TI-84 series.
These calculators can be much more powerful than native Windows Mobile calculators
They are free (as opposed to some commercial Windows Mobile calculators), assuming, of course, you have the original device
while there are some excellent unit conversion apps for Windows Mobile (for example, Burr Oak Software's Conversions In Hand, Fann Software's ConverterCE Pro or TranCreative's MxConverter Comprehensive Edition for Pocket PC), the built-in unit conversion capabilities of these calculators are excellent (example screenshot HERE (accessible after pressing 2nd + 3 on a TI-89) and HERE)
may already be well-known to you if you’ve actively been using them in real life (no need to learn the interface of a new calculator software – you can just go on with your already well-known one)
have GREAT third-party software add-on support (as far as the newer models, manufactured in the last 14-15 years, are concerned)
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This means it might be far more advantageous to check them out instead of trying to find a native Windows Mobile implementation. In this review, I scrutinize all the available solutions, going back in time. That is, at first, I review the most up-to-date emulators and, then, go back in time to discuss emulators of other (less powerful / capable) calculators. This means the first part of the review will be of interest to anyone wanting to get some decent calculator software or just doesn’t want to keep her or his calculator around when the Windows Mobile handheld is capable of doing (almost) the same. Latter chapters of this roundup will mostly please people like me – that is, classic for example LED calculators, which have long been dwarfed with more recent models.
Please also consult the linked-in Wiki pages on the original calculators themselves. Here, I will only elaborate on stuff directly connected to Windows Mobile-based emulation and the like – that is, stuff completely missing from the original Wiki articles. You may also want to follow ticalc.org’s calculator pages.
Before embarking on listing the available (with special emphasis on current) models, let me point out that higher model / series number doesn’t correspond to being newer. That is, for example, the TI-84 series, while considerably newer than the TI-89 series, have a lower number. Also worth mentioning is the fact that TI has several (graphing) models, all targeted to different market segment. For example, a high school student doesn’t necessarily need derivation / integration capabilities (dunno if high schools in the States do teach these subjects for regular high school students – here in Europe, these are only taught in specialized high schools) – it’d be an overkill for her or him to pay extra for a calculator that offers these advanced capabilities. That is, instead of the most advanced (and expensive) TI-89/92/V200 series, a high school student will most probably want to get a cheaper TI-84 Plus (SE) (or, if she or he is cost conscious, their direct, compatible predecessor, the TI-83 (Plus)).
Let me also mention that this tutorial is
the first in the row of my forthcoming series on Windows Mobile calculators. In the following installment, I’ll discuss the emulators existing for HP’s calculators and, then, the native calculator programs
as usual, widely needed. The official manual of the best desktop Windows emulator, VTI, is very hard for a beginner to understand, and the same stands for the official TI-89 manual. In addition, the Windows Mobile version has absolutely no documentation / tips / descriptions of in what way it’s different from the desktop version. That is, this tutorial is undoubtedly the best tutorial available for TI-89 newbies wanting to get up to speed as soon as possible without having to read hundreds of TI-89 manual pages.
So, the current (and future) TI calculator models are as follows. (Note that the Comparison & Feature Chart also has a quick summary of these devices, along with a lot of information.) Also note that, in general, TI uses the “Plus” to refer to the second edition of a given model (except for the TI-84 Plus, which doesn’t have a non-Plus device). “Silver Edition” (abbreviated as SE; not to be mistaken for “Second Edition”!) and “Titanium” generally refers to the third (and, therefore, most advanced) model in a given series. That is, always try to get a SE / Titanium model if possible.
1.1 TI-Nspire
This model hasn’t been released yet; therefore, no emulators exist (let alone Windows Mobile ones).
1.2 TI-84 Plus (Silver Edition)
These two, pretty new (released in 2004) and, according to the poll HERE, most popular TI series high school calculator (in the poll, the TI-89 was placed second; don't forget, though, that the TI-84 series is aimed at high school students, while the TI-89's are aimed at more serious university students or graduated folks) models (the enhanced versions of the TI-83 Plus (Silver Edition)) are still not emulated under WM (or, for that matter, the desktop Windows) either. Not that it’d be a problem – after all, these models don’t have any advanced functionality compared to their predecessor (the TI-83 Plus), “only” a faster CP and more RAM / ROM.

1.3 Voyage 200 (also V200 and Voyage 200 PLT)
No emulators exist for WM.
1.4 TI-89 and TI-92 series
These are, after the TI-84 series, the most widely sold TI calculators. Again, don't forget that this series is the way to go (and NOT the more widely sold TI-84 series!) if you want something above the high school level. Do read the related Wiki / ticalc pages.
1.5 TI-86
This calculator (released in 1997) is partially compatible with the TI-85 (which it replaced) and is also supported by VirtualTI-89Pocket.
1.6 TI-83, Plus and Plus Silver Edition
Two of these calculators, the TI-83 and the TI-83 Plus (released in 1996 and 1999, respectively) are supported under WM; the latest (2001) model, Plus Silver Edition (which has nine times the available Flash ROM and over twice the processing speed of the Plus), isn’t.
The changes between TI-83 and the TI-83 Plus were pretty big; for example, the latter already allowed for ROM updates.
1.8 TI-85 (and THIS)
This model has been replaced by TI-86.
2.1 Getting calculator ROM’s
Both the desktop and the Windows Mobile-based emulators require the original ROM of your calculator(s) to be present. It’s easily extractable using the desktop-based ROM extraction tools (it’s also built-in into VTI, the most important desktop-based emulator). However, if you DO have the original device, you may want to choose downloading the original ROM’s right from the homepage of TI itself.
You will most probably need the TI-89 ROM download (currently, it’s “TI-89 Operating System v2.09”; click the Download icon on the center right). It’s also linked from HERE. Just put the resulting os.89u file in the home directory of your desktop / Windows Mobile version. That is, with the desktop version, just copy it into the directory you’ve uncompressed the emulator to; with the Windows Mobile version, you’ll need to copy it to <storage card name>\Program Files\VTI Pocket Emulator.
You can access the majority of the other, compatible ROM’s on TI’s other pages (see the related row in the Comparison Chart) if you really need compliance with those older and/or less capable models (if not, just stick with the 89 – it’s the best, still supported model). If you need one of the TI-82, 83 and 86 ROM’s, you can also get them from other pages; for example TheOldComputer.com’s ROM download page. Note that you will NOT want to use the TI-85 ROM in there – it won’t work (not that it would be a problem: the TI-85 is superseded by the supported & compatible TI-86). M.E.S.S., another desktop emulator for (along with several other models) the TI-81, 85 and 86 isn’t able to use this ROM either. Also note that the TI-99 also listed in the TI section is NOT a calculator ROM but that of a very old home computer, the TI-99/4A.
All ROM files must be copied to the home directory of the emulator; with both the desktop-based and the mobile one. With the TheOldComputer.com package, you’ll, naturally, need to decompress them first.
Note that you won’t need for example the TI-84 Plus ROM (also linked from the ticalc.org TI-84 Plus page) because not even the desktop VTI support the new 84 (Plus). The same stands for the latest 89-series model, the TI-89 Titanium: its ROM doesn’t work under any emulators either (it’s identified as TI-92+ by both the desktop and the WM emulator and is refused to be loaded). Finally, other current models aren’t supported either.
2.2 Emulation on Desktop Windows
You MUST learn how the emulator must be used under the desktop Windows operating system if you will ever want to import any third-party application into your Windows Mobile-based emulator or want to export your own programs typed (tapped) directly into the emulator in easily maintainable, direct exports.
The best emulator available for the desktop is Rusty Wagner’s free Virtual TI v2.5 beta 5 (linked from the main page HERE; alternate download HERE), which is compatible with TI-82, 83, 83 Plus, 85, 86 and 89.
(Note that you won’t want to download the Virtual TI-89/92(+) Emulator v1.01 Beta (it doesn't find the ROM image in the same directory) or the Virtual TI v3.0 Alpha, unless you want a TI-73 / TI-83 Plus emulator only.)
Just download the ZIP file and, after copying one (or more) ROM files in the same directory (if you don’t want to use the app to extract a ROM image from your connected calculator), start vti.exe.
A calculator image will come up (showing the face of a TI emulator, depending on the available ROM images in the home directory). If it’s the wrong emulator (you’d like to emulate another calculator by changing the ROM image) either press F12 or right-click the image and select Set calculator / ROM version as can be seen in this screenshot.
A dialog box will be shown, showing what ROM versions are available. Just select the one you’d like to use (for example, in this screenshot, I’ve selected the TI-89) and click OK.
After changing the ROM, the skin will immediately change and the calculator boot in as can be seen in here. You will want to raise the (virtual) contrast by repeatedly clicking the
("diamond") button and, then, clicking the + button. To make this faster, use the Ctrl key (it’s a shortcut for the diamond key) on your desktop keyboard while depressing + (or -, if you want to decrease the contrast) on your keyboard. BTW, the diamond key will always result in invoking the functionality printed in green on top of most buttons. The yellow 2nd button,
, (also in the top left) will do the same, but with the yellow labels (second functionality) printed on top of most buttons (note that the desktop PC keyboard uses the Alt shortcut for the 2nd button).
Now, you can start to do some serious work. If you already know how to operate a TI-89 (from now on, I only show how it can be operated; other models are, fortunately, pretty similar in operation), then, you will only need information on how files / programs can be transferred between the operating system and the emulator itself. If you’re a newbie, on the other hand, you may want to download the official TI-89/92 manual / guidebook from HERE. It’s certainly a good read, but may be a little too much for a newbie, particularly because it discusses two series at once. Therefore, for basic tasks like program transfer and starting, you may want to prefer my tutorial below, particularly because, of course, it doesn’t discuss emulation-related questions at all. (Needless to say, the documentation coming with VTI is pretty useless for a newbie. The Windows Mobile port is even worse: it has absolutely no Windows Mobile-related documentation. That is, you won’t be able to learn anywhere – except for my current article – how you can import third-party / external programs to it.)
First, let’s see how file transfer is done from the desktop PC to the emulator.

2.2.1 Desktop PC -> emulator file transfer
First, let’s get some for example games so that we can indeed try to operate the emulator! (Note that getting and deploying productivity apps – for example, math functions – is done exactly the same way. In here, I’ve chosen games to show you how excellent gaming platform these calculators are with the right coding.)
For example, download Earth Mission HERE. It’s a really nice, very fast action platformer game. After downloading, decompress earth89.zip. It’ll contain two files of interest, earth.89y and earth.89z (in addition to the French language readme file, lisez-moi.txt). Highlight them in either Windows Explorer or, for example, Total Commander and drag-and-drop them on the calculator image (make sure the virtual TI-89 is switched on - you can't transfer anything to switched-off emulator images).
During this, you shouldn’t be presented a Transfer error dialog box; if you are (most importantly because you’re run out of the, when nothing is installed in the RAM, 192 kbytes of RAM), just click Cancel and read on to find out how you can check the free RAM memory of your emulated calculator and how it can be increased.
Now, press 2nd (again, on the PC keyboard, the Alt shortcut key) and - buttons (that is, invoke VAR-LINK). You’ll see the following:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlink1.png
Now, let’s create a so-called “folder” (they’re just like a directory in the file system) in order to separate the game from other apps / games you’ll later upload to avoid name clashes / much better separation.
2.2.2 Creating / using folders
Using folders is particularly useful because most third-party apps, particularly games, contain several executable and/or data files, which makes browsing them REALLY hard. When correctly separated into folders, managing / browsing them becomes far easier – as with directories in a file system. (Note that only top-level directories are allowed – not nested ones! That is, you can’t, for example, create a Games main folder and, for example, an Asteroids subfolder inside it.)
To do this, still in this, VAR-LINK mode, click the F1 button (or, of course, on the keyboard) and select 5: Create Folder.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder.png
Enter some meaningful name for the new folder; for example, earthmis:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder2.png
Press (click – it’s at the bottom right) Enter two times. The new folder will be created as can be seen in here.
Now, select the new files you want to move to the new folder. To do this, press (click at the top, under the screen or press the hardware key on your keyboard) F5 (All) to bring up the selection menu. Here, just select 1:Select all. All the files will be marked in the non-collapsed folders. The results will be the following:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder5.png
Now, press F1 (Manage) and select Move. You’ll need to decide which folder to move the selected files to; as you have only one folder (in addition to MAIN), you can just choose the default (earthmis). (If you will have more than one potential target folders, you’ll be able to select them right here.)
Now, you’ll be taken back to the file list view:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder7.png
As can be seen, the two files have been copied to the new folder.
When copied into separate folders, you must use the folder name as the prefix when starting a given program in these folders as in foldername\appname(). This will be auto-generated for you when, after doing the above tests (but NOT making the new folder the default one – this will be explained later), you press Enter on the executable file of the two (earth.ASM):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder8.png
In this screenshot, as can be seen, the name of the executable program (earth) has been prefixed by earthmis, using the backslash character to separate the two names. To try to run the game, you can just supply the closing parenthesis and pressing Enter. Then, you’ll be presented the “earthpgm not found” error message as can be seen in here.
This is because the main executable, earth, is trying to find the related resource files in the MAIN folder (in here, there is the executable ASM file (earth.89z – note the z at the end! Z, in most cases, states for assembly programs) and one data file (earth.89y – note the y, which, mostly, states for data files). This will be a problem with ALL third-party applications / games depending on other resource files.
To combat the problem, you will need to use the setFold (folderName) command (cd (Change Directory) under MS-DOS / Windows), where folderName, as you may have already guessed, will be earthmis in our case:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder10.png
Press Enter two times; the result of this will be changing to the new folder:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/varlinkCrFolder11.png
Now, you can reissue the earthmis\earth() command above (you can even leave the foldername and just use earth()) and the game will now start. (Note that you’ll need to start the game and control jumping with the 2nd button in the game; not, say, Enter. This is pretty understandable if you take into account that this button is pretty much in the same line as the D-pad, unlike Enter.).
There is another very important thing you MUST master: copying the files off the RAM to the flash ROM.
2.2.3 Using the built-in flash ROM to store programs / data
As with all mobile platforms, dynamic memory (RAM) is very scarce and really precious. There is only 192 kbytes of RAM in the TI-89, which fills in REALLY fast, particularly if you (try to) run games. (If you encounter problems when you try to run something, it will most likely be caused by the shortage of RAM). Therefore, you MUST master backing up your files to the built-in flash ROM of your device. There is much more flash ROM than RAM.
To do this, go back to the already-known VAR-LINK mode, select the files in RAM to be moved to flash (in the F5: All menu), press F1:Manage and select 8:Archive variable:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/desktopVITArchiveVriable1.png
The filenames will, now, be prefixed with the http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/desktopVITArchiveVriable3.png icon, which means the files are no longer in RAM:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/desktopVITArchiveVriable2.png
You can easily check whether the transfer to the flash ROM has indeed succeeded. To do this, you’ll need to use the memory applet – another very important applet you need to master with all programmable calculators so that you can see how much dynamic (program) / static (flash ROM storage) memory you still have.
2.2.4 Checking the available RAM / flash ROM size
To do this, just press 2nd + 6 (MEM). In there, look for the two numbers at the bottom right (the cursor is just below them):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/desktopVTImemsize.png
The “RAM free 195852” means you have the full (factory) available RAM at your disposal; the “Flash ROM free 631482” means some 20k of files are already in the flash ROM of the device (that is, in this case, the emulator).
Finally, let me elaborate on how you can export files from the desktop emulator to the file system of your desktop computer. If you, for example, write a program in the emulator (see Chapter 17: Programming in the official manual on how programs need to be entered in the emulator) and save it as, say, omaapp2 (as can be seen in here), you’ll need to select F3:Link and, then, 1: Send. The desktop Windows OS will present a file save dialog, where you can rename the file before saving and also select its target directory):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007TICalculators/desktopVTISaveProgs3.png
(Note the ‘p’ in the .89p extension. As opposed to assembly programs, which end up in z, BASIC programs created using the built-in program editor end in p. Also note that the different file extensions are also listed HERE and HERE.)

2.2.5 Other apps / games to try
As far as games are concerned, you can also give a try to Aspirin v3.0 (a small but pretty nice and indeed addictive game), CalcRogue (an interesting RPG; remember to transfer ONLY the contents of the binTI89 to the calculator, without the contents of the Titanium subdirectory), Calcwars (also see Advance Wars for the Game Boy Advance; must be started with ttstart("cwdata")) etc. There are TONS of other games in the Games subcategories of the TI-89 archive of ticalc.org (for example, here’re the assembly language (meaning fast) ones and here’re the BASIC ones (slower).
The same stands for applications / math libraries. There’re virtually thousands of such apps for example here (assembly math) and here (BASIC math). If you have the time, I REALLY recommend looking around in all the subfolders of the ticalc.org TI-89 library - it’s really worth it! There’re even (simple) Java Virtual Machines for the calculators - let alone goodies like Telnet apps or (Lynx-like) Web browsers.
In addition, you’ll want to take a look at CalcG.org. Much as, in general, it has fewer titles, it has some really interesting goodies (and an online forum – ticalc.org’s mail list archives are currently down); for example, this StarCraft article (unfortunately, without any downloads).
Finally, there are some (very few) official Flash programs on TI’s pages themselves.
Now that you know how to use the desktop version, let’s move on to the mobile port.
2.3 The Windows Mobile port
2.3.1 Getting and installing the mobile version
The mobile version, VTI Pocket Emulator v2.4, which, more or less, is a direct port of Rusty Wagner’s original on the desktop, is ported by Daniel Galano (see his personal page HERE) to Windows Mobile and is accessible HERE.
Installing it is pretty straightforward: decompress the ZIP archive and start the only EXE file inside. It’ll install the emulator through ActiveSync. As with the desktop version, you’ll need to copy the ROM(s) of the calculator(s) you’d like to use to the home directory of the emulator.
Having a dedicated installer, you can start the emulator right from the Programs, by clicking the VTI Pocket Emulator icon.
Note that you won’t want to use it in Landscape (there wouldn’t be much point in doing so as, for example, you can’t use slide-out / clamshell key/thumboards anyway) because of the major GUI bitmap problems (tested on ALL my test device, VGA and QVGA, old and new - behaved the same).
Swapping ROM’s can be done in File / Select ROM as can be seen in here. Upon swapping a ROM, the corresponding skin will also be auto-loaded as can be seen in here. (Note that skins except for that of the TI-89 are all pretty blurred.)
2.3.2 Differences between the desktop and the mobile version; problems with the latter; tips
There are some major differences between the original and the ported version. They are as follows:
The mobile version can’t load external files and can’t save programs you enter yourself / variables you’d like to be saved. This means the only way to transfer programs / data in either direction is using the <romname>.sav files (for example, with the official TI-89 upgrade ROM, os.sav) it automatically saves its state to upon exiting and restoring the state upon restarting / reloading a given ROM BIOS. That is, you WILL need to use the desktop version to transfer external apps to state saves.
Because the aspect ratio of the original calculator might be around 10:3 as opposed to the 4:3 aspect ratio of (most) Windows Mobile devices, the original button layout isn’t preserved – the uppermost three row buttons are relocated to the right of the screen, which can be pretty annoying if you’re got used to the original button layout.
It’s FAR slower than the desktop emulator, even on very fast WM devices. That is, it’s completely useless for gaming. For “traditional” uses, however, it may be OK (albeit, for example, graphing functions are REALLY slow – even the most simple ones. Just try entering graph sin(x) on a mobile device and see how slow graphing is – it’s decidedly faster on desktop devices).
Unfortunately, Windows Mobile hardware buttons can’t be used to speed up input (see the way the Alt / Ctrl keys are used on the desktop emulator to dramatically speed up invoking second/third functionality). However, built-in keyboards / the D-pad work on most devices. An exception is the HTC Universal, where attempts to use external / internal keyboards resulted in an almost immediate address error / privilege violation error. With the HTC Wizard (which also has a built-in thumbboard), I’ve encountered no similar problems. As far as the D-pad support is concerned, it’s only with the Dell Axim x51v (A12 ROM) that the D-pad didn’t work and trying to use it resulted in an immediate crash. With most (all?) of my other test devices, D-pad worked OK.
In addition to the problems outlined above, you MUST refrain from entering any data at a fast pace on the native GUI of the emulator, especially on (comparatively) slower devices. If you enter data too fast, the last entered button will be endlessly repeated upon subsequent key presses as if the last key were stuck. This (and the fact that you will need to slow down the pace you enter your data) can be pretty annoying.
2.3.3 Transferring files from / to the desktop version
As has already been pointed out, unlike on the desktop, it’s not possible to directly import an external program (data file) into the emulator, and you can’t export anything either. For example, if you select F3 / 1:Send in VAR-LINK (the way of directly exporting files / data to the file system in the target desktop), the mobile version just hangs. However, this isn’t really a problem if you do have the desktop version of the emulator on your desktop computer.
Then, all you need to do is making sure you do save the internal state of the calculator when exiting (that is, after right-clicking the skin, select the Exit and save internal state when exiting the emulator) and, then, just copy the newly created .sav state file to the Windows Mobile handheld. It’ll make use of it without any problems.
The same states for file transfers in the opposite direction. While the WM version doesn’t support selecting between exiting with and without state saving, when you exit the program, it does save the state. That is, if you need to export a program you’ve written / dataset you’ve created on your WM-based emulator, just copy over the .sav state file from the home directory of the emulator to your desktop emulator, and use the latter to export the file / data to the local file system as a non-sav, self-standing file.
All in all, if you need to import any kind of file into the mobile version, you must do this in the dekstop version and just pass on the state save (os.sav with the official TI-89 ROM) file to the mobile version.
2.4 The feature / comparison chart
As usual, I’ve created a feature / comparison chart so that you’ll have an easier time checking whether a given model is emulated under the desktop / mobile Windows, what hardware features (most importantly, screen and RAM/ROM size) it has, whether it supports CAS, where its ROM BIOS can be downloaded from etc. It’s available HERE. Don’t forget to check it out!
Note that the chart doesn’t include discontinued / superseded models: the TI-92 (1995; replaced by the TI-92 Plus (and later the Voyage 200), TI-80 (1995; replaced the much superior TI-73 and is, due to its proprietary CPU, is NOT emulated by any emulators), TI-85 (1992; replaced the superior and backwards compatible (!) TI-86), TI-81 (1990; replaced by all newer models; few additional apps because the programs needed to be entered by hand – this calculator had no linking capabilities).
Also note that TI’s official comparison chart only lists the four most current models (TI-83 Plus, TI-84 Plus, TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, TI-89 Titanium), unlike my chart.

3. What other TI emulators are available?
Not many: only the old TI-59 is emulated, which will be only of interest to retro freaks. Yeah, I loved the TI-59 back in the early 1980’s (before getting the Sharp PC-1500, which did blow out everything out of water) but, now, it’s really-really worse than any of the current TI graphing calculators.
The Windows Mobile emulator is available HERE. It, as with Daniel Galano / Rusty Wagner’s TI-8x emulator, uses a desktop installer. Note that the installer puts the direct link to the executable (when installed to the main storage, \Program Files\alainza\ TI59ce\ TI59ce.exe) to the Games folder of the traditional Programs.
Note that, much as Michu’s excellent Emupage lists MBA-Calc by Odyssey Computing, Inc. as a TI BAII PLUS emulator, it isn’t one. Odyssey Computing has two business (non-graphing) calculator titles for the desktop and handheld Windows; the newer and much more recommended BizCalc and the older MBA-Calc. These are NOT emulators.
Finally, still speaking of Michu’s Emupage, it lists another Windows Mobile version, “PocketPC v2.5 (with SkinEditor)”. It’s nothing else than the desktop VTI – that is, don’t run to download it.
4. Other links of interest
Long VTI Pocket Emulator v2.4-related comments thread at ticalc.org
FreewarePPC’s and PocketPCFreewares’ comments. Note that you will want to take PocketPCFreewares’ original comments with a HUGE pile of salt as they refer to a very old version, v2.4Beta, released early 2004. Also, some of the user comments at FreewarePPC are pretty misleading – do NOT necessarily believe what you read there!
TI-89, TI-89 Titanium, TI-92+ and Voyage 200 FAQ ("Can I run this game on my calculator even though it was written for a different calculator? What is AMS (Advanced Mathematical Software)? Can I play TI-89 games on my TI-89 Titanium?")
Poll: Favorite Calculator (1st: TI-84+ (SE); 2nd: TI-89 (Ti))
All the desktop emulator software

Great write up and I will try some of the others later, for now I must admit to being that "retro freak" you mention - I miss my TI-59 since the battery pack died and the home made one fried the main board, shame as it was a great device, I will have some fun trying this out later, I still have the original program listings I created when at collage 20+ years ago - thanks for the heads up - Mike

Wow, another excellent article. I popped my cherry on a TI-82. Still have my beautiful black beast somewhere in a draw
V

Buttons Misaligned-Fixed
After some farting around, I finally got this to run on my Rhodium (Tilt2), but the buttons were not aligned properly. I correctly assumed that it was a problem with the way that my phone scaled the bitmaps that it uses to skin the emulator. I am attaching the resized the skins, but I only have a ROM for the TI89 so I have not tested the others. I suspect that the resized skins would work on all WVGA (800x480) devices. I have no idea how to create a cab file, but it should be very easy for anyone to install these. All you need to do is replace the skins on your device with the ones below. The skins should be located in \Program Files\TI Pocket Emulator\Skins. Note: If you have installed the application on a storage card, you will find the "Program Files" folder on the card.

Emulating HP’s calculators on Windows Mobile

Hewlett-Packard’s calculator series, while in no way as popular or standardized as the emulators of Texas Instruments (please see THIS for the one and only COMPLETE overview of emulating the latter calculators on Windows Mobile), indeed have their place under the sun. What is more, they have way better emulators under Windows Mobile that TI.
Note that, as with the above-linked TI article, you may want to read this roundup and actively follow the for example Wiki links. Higher-end HP calculators (as with those of TI) can easily be better than any native calculator and/or unit converter on Windows Mobile (WM for short), let them be traditional touchscreen-enabled Pocket PC's (Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Classic models) or no-touchscreen Smartphones (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) devices. Furthermore, which should also be taken into account, the majority of these emulators can freely be used (as opposed to mostly commercial native WM calculators) – with the highest-end HP models even when you don’t actively own the original calculator. I provide you with all the necessary manual links so that you can easily find out more information on a given model – that is, you don’t even need to own the (original) manuals. Hats off to HP (as opposed to TI) for being so generous and providing the ROM image of their best calculators and allowing for using them even if you don’t own the original calculator!
As usual with most of my roundups, you simply won't find a better, more thorough source of the subject. This is particularly true of my first-hand information on MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) compliance. That is, if you're lucky enough to have a newer, high-resolution (QVGA) Smartphone and look for a decent calculator compatible with your device, make sure you read this article - you won't find "hacking" tips like these anywhere else.
Let’s start with the most popular 48/49 series, which many consider even better than the top-of-the-line Texas Instruments calculator series, the TI-89.
1. Emulating HP-38G/39/40G/48GX/48SX/49G
The HP-48 and HP-49 series are no doubt the best calculators ever manufactured by HP. They are not only graphing calculators, but also support CAS (read THIS for more info on this very subject). Should you want, in addition to, say, the Wiki pages, a guide to the different models and their target audience, also check out hpcalc.org’s Calculator Buying Guide.
Also note that, in 2000, HP ACO allowed the use of the HP38, 39, 40, 48, 49 ROM's even if you're not an owner of this calculator type (see for example THIS for references); that is, you are free to use this emulator even if you don’t have the original calculator(s). This is great news, particularly given that the manuals of the calculators are also available online.
Fortunately, the Pocket PC emulation of all these models is very strong (no bugs, hi-res VGA support, object export/import supported on Windows Mobile too etc.), as opposed to that of TI calculators.
1.1 Download, installation, configuration
First, you must download and install the original Emu48CE (alternate download HERE; homepage HERE. Here, click Emu48CE on the left and, then, Downloads at the top.) Emu48 is THE emulator for these models. It’s so good some have even tried to sell it on Handango (needless to say, it’s free).
Make sure you install all the ROM’s you want to use on the when prompted as, by default, it only installs the 39G ROM’s as can be seen in HERE. Note that you MUST untick the “Install Emu48 on PDA (required)” checkbox as can be seen in here (it also shows I’ve enabled installing all the other ROM’s). (If you forget to untick this checkbox, don’t try to click the newly created GNU Emu48CE icon in Start/Programs. Instead, just go to Start/Settings/System, click Remove Programs and select "GNU Emu48CE V1.23". Click Remove and, then, Yes.)
Note that the ROM files are installed by separate CAB installers; therefore, you won’t want to automatically dismiss the “Please check your mobile device screen” dialog of the desktop ActiveSync installer before the installation of each module is finished to avoid messed-up installment (for example, ROM images installed to the built-in storage instead of the storage card because the default setting under WM5+ is the latter).
Now, go to the Christoph Giesselink’s (the leader of the emulation project) homepage HERE. You’ll need to download at least (two if you have a QVGA device) two files:
E48MB113 (should the direct link be broken, just go back to the homepage and look for something like “The executable package of Emu48 v1.13 for Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003 (SE) and 5.0 (ARM platform).”, where 1.13 will be increased.
the ZIP file linked at the end of the description of the same program (“Already patched KML files (from Emu48CE without bitmaps) can be found here.”)
Decompress the contents of both ZIP files. Copy the decompressed files to the home directory of the emulator (it’s \Program Files\Emu48 when installed to the main storage – note that you will want to prefer installing the emulator to storage cards on models with little built-in storage because the ROM images take up a lot of memory). Make sure you overwrite ALL the original KML files!
Now, on a file explorer tool (for example, the built-in File Explorer) go to the same director right on your handheld and tap the just, manually transferred Emu48.ARM.CAB. This will create a new, Emu48 icon in Start/Programs (with WM5+ devices; with pre-WM5 ones, it’ll be right in the Start menu) – you can tap it right away.
Upon starting the emulator (or, when you choose File / New), you’ll be offered the choice of selecting a new so-called 'KML script'. I’ll elaborate on these scripts a bit more later; now, suffice it to say that they tell Emu48 which ROM to load and what keyboard bitmap to use. Note that the default files are optimized for QVGA (I’ll elaborate on VGA issues later) and most of the titles also contain the emulated model version; that is, it’ll be pretty easy to select one. (Of course, you can always experiment with the alternatives as the more popular and recent calculator models (48/49) have more than one KML file, all with different layout. That is, do experiment with them - it's certainly worth it.)

Let’s assume you want to emulate the 49G; therefore, let’s select one of the alternatives, “HP49G for Emu48”:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Now, click the OK button at the top right of the dialog (to the left of the X button). If nothing seems to happen, repeat this. You’ll be presented the results of the script compilation; if everything is OK, you’ll also see no error messages at the bottom of the scrollable text area and another OK button. The GUI loads and you can start working right away.
The KML script compilation process may encounter problems, particularly if you download additional KML scripts. You will want to do the latter to, for example, have a high-resolution VGA button layout on your VGA handheld, not just a low-resolution, ugly, blocky QVGA one. The two most common errors are the lack of the ROM file to load and the lack of the keyboard bitmap files:
When the ROM is missing, you will get the error message “This KML Script doesn't specify the ROM to use, or the ROM could not be loaded.”. If you don’t want to do some blind guesswork, just look into the associated KML file (with “HP49G for Emu48”, it’s in the file hp49.kml – just look for the “Title” at the top of each KML file to quickly find the associated source file) and look for the section defining the ROM; that is, the Rom parameter in the Global group at the top:
This states that, for the KML file to work, it needs a "ROM.49G" file in the same directory. Look around for the file – for example, reinstall it using the Emu48CE installer.
Missing bitmap files, for example, the lack of a “hp49.bmp.png” file in the home directory of Emu48, will result in receiving the compile error “Cannot Load Bitmap hp49.BMP” Fixing this problem, in general, only involves reinstallation and/or Googling for the given BMP layout file.
Finally, you may also encounter warnings (NOT fatal errors! That is, the compilation succeeds!) like “Patch BEEP.49G is Wrong or Missing”. These warnings can safely be ignored as these beep files only add beeping capability to the emulator – something you don’t necessarily want. If you DO need these files, however, you may find them all in the official, free HP SDK (details HERE, should the direct link refuse working) and copy emu\beep.48 / emu\BEEP.49G to the home directory of the emulator. Note that, alternatively, you can also find these beep files in the additional VGA skins, explained in the following section.
1.2 Additional KML files (a must for VGA users!)
The default keyboard skins coming with Emu48CE are QVGA only. If you have a VGA device, you’ll need to download the following skins:
Wombat3 for 48 SX and GX
HP49VGA for 49g
Just unZIP these files and transfer all the KML and bitmap files to the home directory of the emulator. After this, upon selecting a new KML file, you’ll also be shown these files as can be seen in HERE (Beemer’s 49G skin) and HERE (the Wombat3 GX skin). In action, they are indeed very cool as can be seen for example in HERE and HERE. Much prettier than low-res QVGA skins, aren’t they?
Note that if you don’t like the original (white) Wombat3 48GX script, you can also give a try to the dark, much more "natural" Juan Pardo scripts HERE. It’s not only more “natural”, but also contains some new, useful buttons in the upper left area of the screen. Example screenshot HERE.
There are several Landscape skins too (unfortunately, not in VGA – that is, for example HTC Universal / Athena users are left in cold. By default, the VGA skins aren’t Landscape-compliant.)
1.3 Usage
After all the hurdles of the installation (and, if you’re a VGA user, the additional installation of VGA skins), you can rejoice: the rest is much easier and there are no known problems with the emulator running on a Pocket PC (WM Classic / Professional), unlike with the TI emulator.
If, on the other hand, you only have a MS Smartphone, don’t expect much: while (after manually extracting and installing the files) the emulator itself starts, you can’t go any further from the KML selector screen (tested on the QVGA HTC Vox in both orientation modes; screenshot HERE and HERE).
The emulators can be used in exactly the same way as the original calculator. The only difference is the lack of the “physical” expansion like SD cards / connectivity. However, there is connectivity emulation in the emulator.
1.3.1 What if you don’t know the original calculators?
The documentation / manuals of all these models are available online. See the following links:
49G+ / 48II docs
It’s also linked from this generic page, with manuals of previous models too (note that the HP39 link doesn’t work; use the one HERE instead). I especially recommend the HP48 manual HERE if you’d like to more closely learn more about the system. Note that, however, you don’t necessarily need to read it; my tutorial will be sufficient to get you started and even load third party apps into the emulator. Only check it out if you really want to learn more about these excellent calculators.

1.3.2 Uploading third-party software in the emulator
Get the software title, start the emulator, make sure it doesn’t do anything and, in the desktop version grab the binary distribution (it’s, in most cases, ends in .lib file) to the emulator image. In the Windows Mobile version, select Edit / Load Object and select the file. Note that as, on Windows Mobile, Emu48 uses the system-level, default file dialog box, you may want to put your files in either \My Documents or in the root / the first subdirectory of your storage cards in order to be seen. Alternatively, you may want to install Mad Programmer’s free, excellent File Dialog Changer as is explained in for example HERE. In here, I’ll go on with showing you desktop Windows screenshots; after loading an object, it must be saved into the local memory using exactly the same steps as on the desktop Windows.
In this example, I show how the single PSYCH13.lib file of the HP-48GX version of Psychro needs to be deployed.
To make absolutely sure a given program file can be deployed in the emulator with simple (object) drag and drop, look into the beginning of the file. If it is indeed binary and starts with HPHP as for example in this example:
then, it’s compatible with this transfer model. (Otherwise, for other types of resources like additional GIF files with, say, games like the 48 port of Prince of Persia, you must use the MUCH more complicated terminal emulation. I don’t elaborate on the latter as most math libraries – the files that you most probably want to run, as opposed to games – come as standard LIB files deployable this way.)
After dragging, you’ll see something like THIS.
Now, you will need to store the uploaded program in one of the so-called “ports”. It’s how HP refers to different memory types. Port 2 is, for example, the emulated SD cards in the 49G+ (and the 50G), the highest-end 49-series model(s). With other devices, only port 0 and 1 are accessible; of the two, you’ll want to use the latter.
To do this, just press 1 and, then, STO (the second button in the second row on the 48GX). The stack list will be cleared, showing the object was indeed saved.
Now, switch off the device (the green button and ON; both are at the bottom right) and, then, again on (the lower left ON button). Press the green button again and, then, 2 (LIBRARY). You should see the title “PSYCH” in the title area at the bottom (also see where the mouse cursor stands in the screenshot!). You can click it (two times) to start it (screenshot of the running app HERE).
You can add a lot of other apps in the same way: when no program runs, just drag-and-drop the program, click 1 and STO, switch off and on the machine and voila: the new program is ready to run and listed in the Library section, next to earlier deployed libraries (screenshot of running HERE).
1.3.3 Downloading additional software
The best source of additional software is the archives of hpcalc.org. See THIS for HP48 and THIS for HP49 software.
Just an example of some famous libraries directly deployable on a 48 (from the Symblic Math category)
Erable 3.024
ALG48 4.2
In addition, there are other pages to acquire software from; for example, that of Savage Transcendental Studios. This page contains some additional database / Japanese studying 48GX/49G(+) apps. Some of them are simple libraries (for example, the 48G version of Kana Tutor and Psychro), which can be loaded straight into the desktop emulator via simple drag-and-dropping and, to the Windows Mobile one, by simple object importing. These programs are also accompanied with PDF files explaining how this needs to be done.
2. HP-41; dedicated website
There is only one, free emulator to emulate these old, alphanumeric calculators, eV41. It’s currently at version 0.93 and it’s highly unlikely it’ll be developed further (it was last modified over five years ago). Not that it’d be THAT important: for example, it supports loading user code even in current form.
Note that in order to access the WM version, you’ll need to register yourself! Also note that this distro also contains the desktop Windows emulator.
Fortunately, using this emulator is pretty straightforward and there are no known problems / bugs running it on any platform, except for the lack of Landscape (don’t try relying on scrolling because, as with the TI emulator, it’ll result in bitmap problems as can be seen in HERE) and Smartphone (a “hacked” version of ev41 doesn’t find some DLL) support.

3. HP17B/17BII/19BII/27S/28S/42S: emu42
(current desktop and Pocket PC version: 1.09 and 1.08, respectively; note that the page at hp42s.com lists OLD versions. HERE is the manual.)
As with later calculators (the above-introduced emu48 and the HP38/39/40/48/49), there is an all-in-one emulator for the HP 17B, 17BII, 27S, 28S (1988, semi-graphical: 137*32), 42s (weaker Wiki page HERE; released in 1989; still WAY worse than the TI-89 – for example, no real graphing).
It uses exactly the same approach to KML files / skinning as emu48; that is, if you do read the emu48-related first chapter, then, you won’t have problems deploying for example new, additional skins from the homepage (for example, the VGA 42S skin, SKN42SMV - since version 1.02, it also supports VGA resolution). Fortunately, as opposed to Emu48, it requires no tricks when installing – no need to manually copying KML files etc.
Note that, unlike with Emu48CE, you must download the ROM’s from your calculators manually – they aren’t available on the Web (don’t even try to run a Web search for the ROM names in the KML files.) If this is a problem and you need to emulate the 42s, I have some great news for you: there is another 42s emulator, Free42, which does not require a ROM image.
4. HP42s: Free42 1.4.36.
As has already been mentioned, as opposed to Emu42 discussed in the previous chapter, this emulator does not require a ROM image and may be used even if you aren’t a rightful owner of the original emulator.
There are two versions of the emulator: decimal and binary. The latter is much faster but, because of the internal representation differences, may not work with some legacy applications. If this is not a problem, install the binary version (copy and execute it there to install). Also see the section “What's the deal with the "Decimal" and "Binary"?” in the README.txt coming enclosed in the ZIP archive. The two versions can co-exist without problems on the same machine and, therefore, you can always go back to the decimal version, should a given application refuse running.
(the same with the “realistic” skin, which is pretty blurred because of the low resolution)
Note that, as with the ROM’s, the original, official manual of the 42s isn’t available on the Web either (as opposed to the 39G/40G (CAS)/41C/48G/49G+ series with manuals online); however, there’s an unofficial ‘fan’ manual HERE. The latter manual is very easy to understand – actually, I’ve found it much easier to comprehend than HP’s official manual.
Compatibility-wise, you can use the numeric keys of devices with built-in keyboard. It’s not compatible with the Landscape mode. It’s capable of importing / exporting programs. And, finally, good news for QVGA Smartphone users: if you copy the executable file(s) (after manually extracting it/them from the CAB file(s)) to your phone, it’ll run flawlessly. The numeric (phone) keys will work OK; for the rest of the keys to access, you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper. Example screenshot or it, running on my HTC Vox / s710 (the cursor is that of SPHelper):
Of course, this only applies to QVGA Smartphones - traditional (176*220) models will only show part of the skin and are, consequently, useless.
5. HP-16C
This calculator, mainly meant for computer programmers needing for example binary / hexa conversions, was manufactured between 1982 and 1989. Also see THIS for an intro to this model. It only has one emulator, CP16 (direct download links HERE); the current version is 0.326.
Installing and using this emulator is pretty easy: you download the above-linked ZIP file, extract cp16_ppc.exe from it, transfer it to your Windows Mobile device and start it from File Explorer (you can, of course, put a link to it into \Windows\Start Menu\Programs).
Compatibility-wise, it’s not Smartphone-compliant. It has built-in support for Landscape (View / Landscape); for it to work, you must start the calculator in Portrait mode because the emulator only rotates the GUI for itself, not on the OS level. This also means you won’t be able to use it in left-handed Landscape mode (the native mode for the Universal, Wizard, TyTN / Hermes and all other Pocket PC’s with a slide-out keyboard) unless you use a third-party hack to rotate the Portrait screen with 180 degrees before starting.

6. HP-10B Plus (business), HP-12C (financial; is still being manufactured (since 1981)) and HP-15C (advanced scientific)
I elaborate on these three calculator models in the same chapter because they are emulated by very similar, commercial emulators by Lygea Calculators. They are self-standing applications meaning you won't need to hunt for / download ROM images.
These emulators are as follows:
Pocket 10B SE Business Calculator 2.0; ($19.95) (WM6 VGA screenshot)
Pocket 12C SE Financial Calculator 1.61; $23.95 (WM6 VGA screenshot)
Pocket 15C SE Scientific Calculator 1.22; $20.95; WM6 VGA screenshot:
Using and the compatibility / features of these three emulators are pretty similar. For example, all of them support the Landscape orientation (example of the 10B emulator HERE) and use hi-res on VGA devices and, generally, look “cool”.
Note that all these emulators store their resolution-dependent resource DLL’s into \Windows, which isn’t the best news for users of some non-native WM5 models updated to WM5; for example, the HP iPAQ hx4700. Unfortunately, relocating these files to the app’s home directory won’t work (haven’t tested the same with relocating to another directory on the System Path - it might work).
Smartphone compliance-wise, the hacked (EXE + DLL’s in \Windows) version, unfortunately, doesn’t display the three bottom icons for going further (and clicking around won’t help either). That is, while you can enter the reg. number (with a cursor emulator like SPHelper), you just can’t go further. This means no (hackable) Smartphone compliance.
6.1 Pocket BizCalc by Odyssey Computing, Inc. 4.0.09
The 12C is also emulated by Pocket BizCalc by Odyssey Computing, Inc. It’s pretty OK and considerably cheaper ($14.95) (but much uglier, non-Landscape-compliant and not making advantage of hi-res resolutions) than the Lygea emulator.
Note that Michu’s Emupage only lists the H/PC and the Palm-size PC versions. You won’t want to get any of them: the H/PC version has major screen rendering problems (for example, the original LCD screen is invisible; see THIS and THIS if interested) and the latter is MIPS / SH3-only; that is, it won’t work on ARM devices, meaning any PPC2k2+ Pocket PC’s manufactured in the last 5-6 years.
Also see HPC:Factor’s review HERE if interested.
Smartphone compatbility-wise, after manually extracting and transferring the pbizcalc.exe file to the QVGA smartphone, it’s more or less usable. However, the right and the bottom side of the GUI will be hidden. This, unfortunately, means the multiply, addition, substraction, division and addition operations (along with some more advanced memory operations) won’t be available to “click” via a cursor emulator like SPHelper. (Screenshot HERE)

7. HP-10B II (Business; Wiki stub)
A similar (but definitely weaker – see below!) calculator, Moravia Advanced Financial Calculator 1.0 (direct Emupage download link; can’t be found on PenReader’s homepage any more), is available (but, given that PenReader doesn’t seem to support it any more, it’s rather dubious whether it’s worth paying for).
As can be seen, this calculator is definitely inferior to the original one – just compare the functionality it offers to that of the original (see the buttons in the screenshot above and those of the originals at the MyCalcDB page. It’s not a 10B emulator either (see the original page HERE).
Smartphone compliance-wise, if you extract the one and only EXE file from the original CAB file, it’ll run flawlessly on QVGA models in Portrait mode as can be seen in the following screenshot (just press the Action button when you’re shown the license agreement to get rid of it):
Unfortunately, you must use a cursor emulator even for inputting numbers – the numeric keys won’t work. And, of course, don’t expect compatibility with traditional 176*220 Smartphones either because of the skin size (screenshot).
8. What next?
This is the second instalment in my thorough article series on Windows Mobile calculators, the one on Texas Instruments calculators being the first. I'll soon publish the third instalment on native (non-emulator) Windows Mobile titles. Stay tuned
9. Other discussions of HP emulators
Some links for readers wanting to know what others think about the emulators.
Hp 48g/48g+/48gx/49g/49g+/49gx
Tutorial: HP48G calculator on your Axim.
Emu98CE; also quickly elaborates on emulating other HP models
Engineering Software
HP48 Emulator with 2003?
Cool! HP48GX Emulater
RPN Calculator (also discusses other, earlier HP models)
Need a recommendation for a calculator (mostly on other, non-HP models)
Graphing calculator - advice?? (mostly on TI’s calculators)
good scientific calculator... (generic)
Graphing Calculator for Axim? (generic)
Calculator Software
Math apps! (Calc. Emulators, Plotting, Physics, etc.) - PLease! (generic; note that the VGA 49 link doesn’t work any more)
Calculators (general; mostly about TI)

Windows Mobile software & hacking news (11/17/2007) & tips

1. There is a brand new HTC CAB (program) collection HERE. It’s, to my knowledge, the largest and most up-to-date collection of HTC’s own programs, ready to be installed on any WM5+ phone. It’s really worth reading the descriptions of the CAB’s to quickly find out what these small utilities really do. It’s REALLY worth – some of these apps are excellent; for example, HTC Equalizer reviewed HERE and HTC Streaming Media reviewed HERE. There are tons of other, useful utilities in there – do check them out!
2. There is a new music player at works, Lumen. Also see THIS MoDaCo thread.
It, right now, is totally useless and nothing really more than some screenshots - it's unable to play anything, as can also be seen HERE.
As the player is written using the, for multimedia / gaming, sloooooooow Compact Framework 2 (CF2), I don’t think you can expect it to be fast at playing back anything, unless it calls native code. All in all, I don’t think you should bother.
3. There are several threads on adding SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) support for models that, officially (not even via official ROM upgrades), don’t support this technology. The latest of them is HERE. Note that there are a LOT of (sometimes contradicting) reports of it NOT working on some models – that is, you WILL want to backup your device before installing the patch. I’ll also report more on it as soon as I receive my brand new 6 GB microSDHC card.
4. Several people use the built-in Pictures & Videos program (note that its previous, pre-WM5, as can also be seen in THIS pretty much important article, name was Pictures) to quickly watch their pictures. (Not that it is of any good – there are MUCH faster, MUCH better image viewer apps out there; the brand new PQV 4.0, Resco and Spb Imageer are the three most important & recommended ones, as has also been explained in the Image Viewer & Editor Bible. Note that Glass Lantern has just gone out of business; therefore, I no longer recommend their PocketLoupe any more, no matter how excellent it was. RIP Glass Lantern, yours was a great product!
Now, MoDaCo forum member mandt has published a quick tip on how you can make Pictures & Videos use a default directory different from \My Documents. If you use these LNK files (you can safely edit them to point to any directory), you can greatly speed up the startup and the initial directory lookup of your pictures.
5. Fring, the most revolutionary, multiplatform, real VoIP client (see THIS article for more info), didn’t use to work on the Qualcomm-based HTC Kaiser (AT&T Tilt), the current flagship model of HTC – the speech became complete garbage, independent of the transfer speed (not that Fring were as dependent on the speed as Skype – actually, it’s perfectly usable over EDGE connections and, if only one party speaks, even over GPRS). The current version, however, fixes this problem. That is, you can safely download the new version into the Kaiser. To do this, the easiest is navigating to http://www.fring.com from your handset and just click the download link.

REVIEW: New Windows Mobile Web browser "Dorothy"

A new Web browser, Dorothy, has been announced slightly more than two months ago.
I’ve waited until now so that I can give the developers some time to enhance it so that I can recommend it. Unfortunately, the (today) current version, 0.2.2, still only has files dating back to August. (Compare this to the frequency (in general, at least one per month) of updates arriving to the now-extinct Iris, which was also based on WebKit.)
As you may already have guessed: in its present incarnation, I in no way recommend the new browser. Going for Opera Mobile, Opera Mini 4.2 (not the beta-stage 5.0 - see my dedicated article HERE) with a decent MIDlet manager (refer to my MIDlet manager-related articles) or SkyFire is a much-much better choice. Of the three, you‘ll surely find the most useful. (For example, if Opera Mobile doesn’t really work on your phone – which, unfortunately, is the case with some models –, you still have two other, excellent browsers to choose from; if SkyFire’s using QVGA resolution only is unacceptable to you if you’re a VGA user, go for the other two browsers etc.)
(Note: I haven’t tested the brand new BOLT 1.5 yet so I don’t know whether it’s worth checking out and/or recommending. Some people – see Serola’s article - reported it isn’t at all bad.)
The problems with the current Dorothy version are as follows:
- Absolutely no support for tabs (both Opera Mobile and (via History) Mini support this)
- Absolutely no link / page / image context menus
- No text reflowing, unlike in all the three recommended browsers. This means your only way to make the text readable is zooming in (with the on-screen + and – icons in the lower right corner). Then, however, you’ll end up having to extensively scroll back and forward. All the decent browsers (not only the three most recommended ones, but also almost all WinMo-based ones – see THIS) are able to reflow text and/or switch to more mobile-friendly (for example One Column) views.
- There’s not even built-in favorite support. This also means you won’t have access to, for example, scriptlets, which can become life-savers with all scriptlet-capable Web browsers (even Internet Explorer Mobile) (latest, related article HERE)
- It seems to be incompatible with several WinMo PDA’s / phones. For example, on my HP iPAQ 210 standalone PDA (with the official ROM version it’s coming with and the “dummy” Phone and SMS DLL hacks in place so that both Jbed and SkyFire run on it), it constantly displayed a missing resource. On the other hand, it runs OK on my HTC Universal running WM 6.1.
- No full screen
All in all, it's much-much less usable than any of the recommended browsers. Even the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile is far better (full screen, context menus with goodies like image saving, reflowing, settable character size, different view modes including One Column, favorites etc.)
Getting it
If you would still want to give the browser a test ride: Register on the official homepage; after the account activation, you’ll be sent the link to the installable CAB archive.
Additional info
See THIS XDA-Devs thread.