(Multiplatform) REVIEW & STRATEGY GUIDE: Towers Trap

(Multiplatform) REVIEW & STRATEGY GUIDE: Towers Trap - General Topics

(Note that I’ve removed the inline images because of the four-threshold. Click the links to see the original images.)
In my latest Misc News collection, I’ve already recommended Towers Trap, a brand new game on two mobile (Windows Mobile and Symbian S60) and desktop Windows platforms. GameZoneProject‘s official page is HERE. No matter what platform you have, I really-REALLY recommend giving the trial a try and play through the (initial) tutorial. (Again, you’ll have text rendering problems on VGA Windows Mobile devices). I’m pretty sure you’ll like the game.
In this strategy guide, I give you a far better and more thorough introduction to the game than the demo tutorial of the game. This includes explaining the difference between the available weapon types, the enemy (the “creeps” ), how the maze should be constructed etc. That is, first, make sure you play through the demo. After this, either start the Easy mode - or the 8k one so that you actually have a chance against the creeps. In a nutshell: creeps, your enemies, enter from the top and left. They must be stopped from reaching the other side. If they do, you lose lives. You only have 50 lives to start with, meaning you can only let 49 creeps reach the other side before the end of the game, which, at least in the 8k mode, consists of 80 waves of creep invasion.
The game is very well playable on touchscreen-enabled mobile platforms (and, of course, desktop Windows with mouse / stylus). On touchscreen-less ones like Microsoft Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) or Symbian S60v3, playing the game is a little bit more complicated as the cursor moves pretty slow through the field. Hope a future version adds hotkeys for quickly jumping for example half a screen in a direction (utilizing the currently not used buttons). On the other hand, these platforms support quick weapon selection (using the numbers).
Now, let’s take a look at how the weapons can / should be used.
Weapons at our disposal
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/sniper.jpg
Sniper. Very useful, ranged, anti-ground&air, non-area-damage (non-splash) weapon with multiple functionalities. In the beginning of the game, it’s what you’ll need to buy (unless you play in the 8k mode) to successfully defend yourself against at least the first few waves of creeps until you can purchase more advanced weapons like Shocks and, even better, Earthquakes and/or Cannons.
However, its usage doesn’t end at this! It’s not just an early game weapon. Actually, I’ve found it much more useful than the Cannon & Air combo when talking about ranged weapons. (That is, I’ve lost almost all of my 8k games when I’ve gone mass-Cannon & Air, unlike with mass-Snipers. Both using the recommended three-wide vertical structures, mostly Earthquakes being outside and Cannons / Airs / Snipers inside to be protected from the lockdown of Ice creeps.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/rlaunch.jpg
Rocket Launchers. (Referred to as Luncher.) Much better (almost twice as long) initial range than those of Snipers. It’s also somewhat stronger. However, it costs double the price and can’t be used against air opponents.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/cannon.jpg
Cannon. This very expensive, (only) anti-ground weapon has pretty low (2) damage and moderate range (between that of Sniper and Rocket Launcher).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/shock.jpg
Shock. While it’s pretty weak (5) and has as bad a range as Sniper, it has a very useful feature: it slows down all creeps it manages to shoot at for quite a lot of time. This is essential. However, as it’s mostly because of this (pretty much permanent) side-effect that it’s worth using and, otherwise, has low damage, I don’t recommend going for mass-deployment. In most cases, 10-14 will be sufficient even in end-games: 4-5 Shocks at both entrances and, if you have a long (ground) path, some additional Shocks when the initial shocking effect is eliminated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airrr.jpg
This only anti-air weapon, Air, is much stronger (strength: 20 vs. 8) than the other anti-air-capable one, Sniper and has a much bigger range (10 vs. 6). However, in practice, I’ve found going the mass-Sniper (with some Shocks, placed at both entrances, to slow them down right at entering the field) route better in games. Remember: if you absolutely don’t use Airs and go the mass-Sniper route, it’s only the last two tides of creep airplane ships that may have a chance to get past of your defense (in 8k games).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/arth.jpg
Earthquake is an anti-ground weapon only. You will want to go the (mass-) Earthquake route as soon as possible as it has excellent splash (that is, damaging several creeps at the same time) damage (70; compare this to the 2 of the Cannon, the 8 of Sniper or 10 of Rocket Launcher). Its range isn’t very good (6) and upgrading it is very expensive (compared to, say, Snipers); therefore, you’ll want to place them to the creep path as closely as possible, while backing them up (mostly against the icy opponents) with Snipers and, possibly, some (very few) Cannons to easily get rid of closely-packed creeps / Shocks to make sure the initial slowdown / shock delivered to the creeps is safely repeated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/radar.jpg
Radar. This is a passive structure with the only aim of showing invisible creeps. As is described below, in the “Enemy creeps” section, in general, it suffices to place only two or three of them (fully upgraded) onto the battlefield. Note that the icy creeps also block Radars; during this, invisible creeps will creep in undetected. Therefore, make sure you protect them in the same way as ranged weapons behind Earthquakes.
The (initial) stats of all these weapons is presented in the stats area:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/stats.jpg
This shows the strength in the top left corner (10 in this case), build cost (20) and range (10; bottom left).

Enemy creeps
The most notable creeps you need to pay particular attention to:
The bombs, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru.png, have the bad habit of jumping over empty corners like the following:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru2.jpg
The solution is not leaving any empty corners on the field; always use “covered” or “filled” corners like this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru3.jpg
or this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru4.jpg
The satellites, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/satellites.jpg , are very fast. Shocks are essential for slowing them down.
The airplanes, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airplane.jpg , are the only air enemies. In my 8k practice, I’ve found that while “simple” Snipers deal less considerably damage to them, even a battalion of 8-10 upgraded Airs (the dedicated anti-air weapon), placed in the center of the gaming field, won’t stop at least the last two, most powerful tides of then-superstrong airplanes. Just putting at least four columns of Snipers and one column (as recommended) of Shocks (in the entrance) will almost completely stop even the last two tides of them.
When I tried placing a massive amount of Airs in the center of the battlefield, I generally lost my 8k games because it’s very important to have as many anti-ground ranged weapons in there . These means, most preferably, Earthquakes backed up (where ice can’t affect them) Snipers as Rocket Launchers can’t be used for anti-air and Cannons, while excellent against enemies coming in a bunch, aren’t as powerful as the mass Earthquake + Sniper combo.
The yellow guys, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguys.jpg , come in a group as in http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguysinagroup.jpg. This means Cannons (which do splash damage affecting very adjacent enemies) and, to a lesser degree, Earthquakes are especially useful against them.
The invisible folks, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/invisibleicon.jpg , make it necessary to build Radars on the field. Fortunately, splash damage done by Cannon / Earthquake is effective against them even when invisible if there are visible enemies (very) close to them. I recommend putting two radars in the two entrances (and upgrading them entirely) and another one in the lower right corner to get rid of the remaining ones.
The boss (a black ball - remember the one - see for example THIS - in Epyx’ Impossible Mission?) is worth trying to eliminate at any rate as it gives at least 100 points. That is, try not to bring it to the field with the other enemies so that all your weapons can shoot at it. Also, if the field is doesn’t have many other creeps making it hard to guarantee you can build the tower back, use the tricks like quickly altering the path of these balls by quickly removing a tower - and, when the have come sufficiently close, re-building it. With a loss of 2 dollars a time (if you use a non-upgraded Sniper for the trick), you can give the AI a hard time and keep the two bosses in the maze for quite long, until they indeed get destroyed.
Finally, Ice, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/iceicon.jpg , is by far the worst enemy: it disables all kinds of weapons (even Radars!) in its close vicinity. A very good counter-measure is not using columns of single or even two weapons, but - horizontally - group your weapons into groups of three. The two external weapons should be Earthquakes and the inner one a Sniper. The majority of my screenshots show exactly this setup. This way, even when the Ice creeps disable the outer Earthquakes, the inner Sniper will still be able to shoot at them. Nevertheless, be prepared to see some of them pass even the strongest weapons. Fortunately, this will only be an issue with the last about two waves - at least in 8k games, if you quickly build up your structures - not leaving out the three-wide walls of weapons as can be seen in the following screenshot:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
(Note that the full-screen screenshots have all been taken on a desktop PC to make my life easier (compared to all the hassles of taking screenshots on phones...). The game looks exactly the same on VGA devices. On QVGA ones, the sprites aren't high-res and the non-active (game) area is much smaller.)
An example screenshot of showing these creatures locking down the nearby towers (showing a massive attack; that is, swamping the maze on purpose. Of course, you won’t want to do anything like this, particularly not at the end of the game, where not even splash weapons like Earthquakes or Cannons will be able to destroy most of them)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/massattack.jpg
Here, locked-down towers are white.
Tips & tricks
* in 8k games, it’s worth deploying Shocks right at the beginning in the first row so that the enemies are slowed down right at the beginning, giving your weapons much more time to take them out. Also, make sure that if you manage to build up a multi-column defensive structure like the one in the screenshot below:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
then, place some additional Shocks in the points far away from the start because the shock (and the consequential slowdown) goes away after a while. In the above shot, there’s one in the lower right corner and the path is built up in a way that it takes the enemies back to the upper block of several long-range Shocks, making sure that all your enemies are slowed down (again). Of course, the artificial intelligence of the app gives priority to shooting at enemies having been further on the field; that is, in a structure like this the Shocks will shoot at the enemies coming from down and not just entering the field. Of course, this is what one would expect.
I show you three shots of 8k games I successfully completed. Now, based on the rest of this Strategy Guide, you’ll understand why I’ve gone the mass-Earthquake + Sniper route (with some Shocks in addition to slow down the enemies).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-2.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-3.png.jpg

* there is a nice trick worth keeping in mind: the game constantly evaluates the shortest path and dynamically re-routes the enemies if it founds a shorter path to the exit. This means if you quickly destroy a tower, the game might re-route the enemies to go through the hole. While this can be pretty dangerous (I’ve lost several games because I wasn’t able to replace the tower fast enough - if you try to build it while there’re enemies on the ground / over it, it won’t work; then, you’ll need to re-select the tower icon to build and try to build it again) if the last (or the just-coming) enemies are still pretty near, if they aren’t, it can pay off by forcing them to go backwards. Some screenshots showing removing a low-cost Sniper (to minimize costs - remember you always lose 20% at every sell) at the top of the center column:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
(the enemies have left the tower but the shortest path to the target would still be through the hole created by removing the tower)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick2.jpg
(the enemies still under the newly-created hole start moving backward, which is also shown by their “faces” looking up. During this, they take extra damage from your weapons they’re passing again)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick3.jpg
(another screenshot - from a bit later)
Of course, try not to wait too long - rebuild your tower before it’s too late and the enemies start pouring over the new hole:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick4.jpg
Problems
CPU usage. While it certainly doesn’t necessarily need 100% CPU, it still uses it (as of the just-released 1.1 version), resulting it most CPU’s chewing through the battery very-very fast. On the desktop, you’ll want to force underclocking; for example, with the free(!) Notebook Hardware Control. For example, on my 1 GHz Centrino-based HP TC1100 tablet, forcing the system to remain at 600 MHz radically decreased overheating and battery usage. You can do the same on non-VGA Windows Mobile devices too (the game is a bit slow on VGA ones). Note that it’s also pretty quickly chews through the batteries on Symbian S60: it consumes about 1.2W (as opposed to the ~0.3W when the game isn’t running and the backlight is on). Finally, also note that, on Symbian, the current version seem to have some sound problems (tested on the v21 Nokia N95).
Speed problems on some high-resolution (VGA) devices. Strangely, it’s pretty slow on my Windows Mobile 6.1-based, 624 MHz / PXA-270 Dell Axim x51v (which is one of the, unfortunately, very few models to come with a hardware underclocker utility built-in) - definitely slower than on the PXA310-based, VGA iPAQ 210. (This means underclocking the Axim to 208 MHz renders the game plain unplayable). I had no speed problems running it on QVGA devices (the 195 MHz TI OMAP 850-based WM 6.1 HTC Wizard and the 400 MHz PXA-255-based WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210), on the other hand.
No upgrade info is given on the new range and strength - unlike with some of the comparable games; most importantly, Desktop Tower Defense (see below). With the former, only beforehand - after the upgrade, you’ll already see the new range by clicking the tower. An example of this is shown HERE, where the last-but-one Sniper is selected having all the upgrades and, therefore, a very impressive range.
It’s not possible to cancel the process of selling a tower. This is really bad as it’s very easy to click selling a tower on a Pocket PC (this is less of an issue on non-touchscreen platforms and desktop Windows). If enemies start pouring over the newly-created hole, you may be doomed and may need to restart the game. And, if no such thing happens, you still need to purchase the tower again (and upgrade it if necessary), which means a loss of 20% money.
The good
Multiplatform (both WinMo platforms, Symbian S60v3 and desktop Windows)
Hi-res on VGA (albeit can be a bit slow on some devices)
Really-really addictive
Trial version not crippled and can be started several times before it expires
Online high score table
Compared to Desktop Tower Defense:
You may already know Desktop Tower Defense (DTD for short). It has a bit similar weapons and strategy to use; for example, DTD doesn’t have any invisible enemies. A quick comparison between its weapons and their Towers Trap counterparts:
Pellet Tower = Sniper
Squirt Tower = no real counterpart (it isn’t an equivalent of Rocket Launcher as the latter is anti-ground only)
Dart Tower = Cannon (with the same splash damage)
Swarm Tower = Air
Frost Tower = Shock (with splash damage; Shock doesn’t have splash damage, unfortunately)
Note that as it doesn’t have anything like the icy enemy (locking down nearby towers), the TDD example mazes available for example HERE aren’t as useful under Towers Trap. You may still want to give them a look.
Unfortunately, there’re no hotkeys in Towers Trap, not even with the help of external button redefiner apps to, for example, quickly start the next round etc. In this respect, TDD is definitely better. Hope this shortcoming will also be fixed.

Related

The first hours with Shadow of the Legend, the King of Windows Mobile MMORPG’s

I’ve often reported on SmartCell’s forthcoming Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) Shadow of the Legend; last time upon its entering (currently, still (?) open) beta. (Please see the above link for more info on how to apply, what other MMORPG’s there are for Windows Mobile and so on. Note that a new MMORPG, Providence, has also been announced in the meantime. However, not much is known about it as yet, let alone anything playable.)
Yesterday was the big day of opening the beta. Sure, I’ve jumped on playing the game at once and have been VERY happy with it. It’s working just great on all my WM2003, WM2003SE, WM5 and WM6 test Windows Mobile devices (explicitly tested on the HP iPAQ 2210, the Dell Axim x51v, the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720, the WM5-upgraded HP iPAQ hx4700 (which is pretty famous for not being able to run some games) and the HTC Universal). Yes, unlike what has originally been announced, the game supports the WM2003 and WM2003SE operating systems too. With the MS Smartphone platform, however, it “only” supports WM5+.
Installation
Despite what the online documentation states, you MUST have at least 850-900 Mbytes free (!) on your storage card before first starting the game (and not just 500 Mbytes). Exactly the same stands for the desktop PC version: you MUST have at least equally much free hard disk space for the (current version of the) game.
Note that as the Windows Mobile version downloads the updates into one of its subdirectories, you MUST install the original, downloadable CAB installer file (linked from here) on a storage card (unless you have at least 900 Mbytes free in your main storage, which is only the case with some new devices with 2-4 Gbytes of Flash ROM.)
Note that, fortunately, if you have more than one Windows Mobile devices and you want to avoid having to install the game on all of them separately, you can just swap the memory card between the devices – or, just copy the contents of the installed and updated, HUGE home directory from your memory card to another one. Fortunately, the game doesn’t use for example the Registry to store anything; that is, simply swapping / copying the card(s) will do just fine.
Graphics
They are very good. The WM version, as you’ve probably guessed, a scaled-down (QVGA, 320*240) version of the SVGA (800*600) desktop one. This means the graphics is FAR more coarse. Unfortunately, the game, currently, doesn’t make use of the high resolution of (W)VGA (800*480 or 640*480) WM devices. Hope this will be fixed in the future: the game would REALLY benefit a lot from it.
Music
In this regard, the desktop and the WM versions are similar. Both uses stereo music and mono sound effects. Unfortunately, while the music is VERY good and different for all main areas on the map (currently, it seems, there are 12 of them), it’s pretty short (about 1 minutes and 40 seconds) and, therefore, quickly becomes repetitive.
The developers may want to consider adding longer in-game music to the game in the final version even at the expense of storage usage (currently, in-game music is in uncompressed format).
Messages
In-game messages, which are very important with a MMORPG title, work just great (see the screenshot above) in both private and public modes (you can even fine-tune who should receive your messages as can be seen in here).
Bandwidth usage
At the SmartCell forums, people have asked what kind of connection is needed to play the game. I’ve made some extensive bandwidth tests and found out that, in five minutes, 83 kbytes were sent and 167 kbytes received, totaling to about 250 kbytes / five minutes; that is, three Megabytes in an hour. Keep this in mind if you plan to play the game through a non-unlimited mobile data access plan.
Some other screenshots
A desktop screenshot and a Windows Mobile one. Accepting a quest (WM screenshot).
Verdict
I need to disagree with Allen Gall (see THIS). This game looks to be a major hit. Don’t forget to apply for the beta – it’s REALLY worth it!

Thanks for pointing this out, just applied for the Beta!

Hahah, 2 hours after I applied to be a beta tester, they emailed me saying that i got accepted!!
Gonna install it now, look out for me, my screen name will be Ramacher.

Emulating home computers on Windows Mobile Part V - Sinclair ZX Spectrum

UPDATE (06/18/2007): an updated version posted to http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2030&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 . Sorry, I don't repost it here: it'd take far too much time / energy to cut it into manageable, postable pieces. That is, the version below is the first, outdated one. Make sure you follow the link to the newer.
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a very popular home computer system in the eighties.
The history of the Spectrum didn't end at the official, 1990 discontinuation of the series. As with the Commodore 64 (see the review of all Windows Mobile-based C64 emulators HERE) , which still receives top-notch scene demos, the Spectrum had (and is still having!) a spectacular afterlife in the ex-Soviet states; most importantly, Belarus and Russia.
Particularly in Russia, there have been a plethora of self-manufactured ZX Spectrum-based home computers throughout the entire nineties, with a lot of fans and developers. This trend even continued to this century - currently, there is some hardware manufacturers still producing ZX Spectrum-based & compatible computers like the Pentagon and the ATM Turbo. While these models, in general, haven't really improved on the (gaming-wise, particularly weak) graphics subsystem of the original Spectrum (not taking the new low-res EGA-like mode into account), they come with plenty of memory (128k to 1M in general), good sound capabilities, IDE hard disk, CD-ROM, mouse etc.
Russia's leading role in the ZX Spectrum's surviving has also resulted in something else: a steady stream of software titles released for these ZX Spectrum-based computers. Just pay a visit to the Virtual TR-DOS main page (Wiki), which is the largest archive of the software ever released for these models. I especially recommend downloading the full app / games database (it's the Virtual TR-DOS Games & Press Base link on the main page) and browsing the database. Titles with the type "RU" are all genuine games developed by Russian developers. Titles with the type "D" are also interesting because they show what projects Russian developers have ever embarked on (but, then, either failed at or, at least, didn't deliver a final, fully working version). The dedicated demo download page is HERE. I've even posted some screenshots of a somewhat working (!) Civilization and Wolf3D-clone in the The Comparison & Feature Chart (“Chart” for short). You WILL want to check out these demos in a capable emulator (in either the desktop-based Unreal Speccy or its Windows Mobile version, UnrealSpeccyPPC) - they are really fun and clearly show these models (except for the really bad, one-colour graphics) are much-much better than anything imaginable on the original ZX Spectrum. You may also want to check out some scene demos (again, under a capable, compatible emulator); for example, the two ZX demos written by AND, author of UnrealSpeccyPPC. While, technically (mostly graphics-wise), these clones aren't as good as the Commodore 64, some demos (and genuine Russia-based) are really top-notch.
If, on the other hand, you "only" want to play old, original, commercial games written for the original ZX models and are not at all interested in advanced stuff like watching Russian demos written for somewhat more advanced Spectrum clones, you will also want to read on - you'll find all the answers in this article.
In this roundup, I present a full roundup of the Windows Mobile (both Pocket PC and MS Smartphone) emulators of the platform. As usual, I'm absolutely sure you won't find a better discussion of the subject anywhere else. And, in addition, I present you a lot of new and REALLY groundbreaking information never ever published in English - only in Russian (one of the several languages I have the honor to speak) and a very short news item in Czech. Yes, this is the FIRST roundup to report on the BEST ZX Spectrum emulator ever written, UnrealSpeccyPPC. You can be pretty much happy that I also speak Russian (along with a lot of other languages) – without my knowing the language, Windows Mobile users would have ended up being not reported on this really groundbreaking emulator, let alone being presented with a usable tutorial, which I also provide in here – probably not even in the future.
This roundup is somewhat different from the previous one discussing Commodore 64 emulators. The sole reason for this is very simple: of the five Pocket PC-capable Spectrum emulators, there is only one that should be preferred unless you need Portrait mode or an on-screen keyboard with all the original labels. With the C64 emulators, there were two strong Pocket PC contenders (PocketCommodore64 and PocketHobbit) and, of course, the Smartphone-based PocketHobbitSP2003. In the case of the Spectrum, fortunately, there is only one really recommended emulator, which greatly simplifies the discussion.
This means I put particular emphasis on the most recommended Pocket PC emulator, UnrealSpeccyPPC, unlike the other two non-disqualified titles (PocketClive and SpectrumAnyWhere), let alone the two titles (the comparatively new, but with the arrival of UnrealSpeccyPPC, already-outdated PocketSpeccy and the very old (the last version was released in 1999), Handheld PC-specific SinclairSpectrumEmulator), which I haven't included in the Chart . Of course, as far as the MS Smartphone platform is concerned, I also put particular emphasis on the most recommended MS Smartphone emulator, FuseSP. This, of course, doesn't mean I completely ignore the two non-disqualified Pocket PC-specific titles (PocketClive and SpectrumAnyWhere) either - I've very thoroughly compared them to the rest in the Chart . It's just that, in the textual tutorial below, I don't elaborate on how you can for example load programs. In the Chart, you'll find most of the needed information though.

First, let's elaborate on whether it's at all worth emulating ZX Spectrum (or, of course, one of its more advanced, Russian clones).
1.1 Is Windows Mobile-based Spectrum emulation worth the trouble at all?
While, technically, the ZX Spectrum has FAR inferior gaming capabilities compared to the most important, direct competitor of the model, the Commodore 64, in certain cases (not taking into the account of emulating post-Soviet games / hardware), it may still be worth preferring to emulate other platforms.
First, there are several games not released for other platforms or, when released at all, these titles are not possible to get. For example, should you want to play the classic game Pssst, you WILL need Spectrum emulation (unless you play the Flash remake). Also, there are some other well-known titles not existing on many other platforms; for example, Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenge. These two, excellent titles only existed on two other platforms (C64 and the Amstrad CPC); therefore, should you be unable to find for example a copy of the C64 / CPC version, you may end up having to play the Spectrum one.
Furthermore, as opposed to, say, emulating the Amstrad CPC or the Commodore Amiga, the Spectrum is emulated without major glitches and on even very slow Pocket PC's and MS Smartphones. While it's impossible to play most Amiga games on even the fastest Windows Mobile devices without stuttering sound, ZX Spectrum games run on even on lowest-end, 7-year-old models without problems. This also includes today's TI OMAP-based Pocket PC and Smartphone models, of course.
Supporting low-end hardware, fortunately, also means support for even low-end, low-resolution (176*220) MS Smartphones. As the Smartphone platform has way fewer games than its big brother, the Pocket PC, emulation becomes even more important. While, fortunately, there are some really excellent gaming console emulators for MS Smartphones (even 176*220 ones) - for example, Masterall's emulator masterpieces and SmartGear, home computers are generally not emulated on the platform (that is, there are no for example Atari ST or Amiga emulators for the MS Smartphone). The lack of (home computer) emulators and native games makes it very important for any MS Smartphone user to have access to a plethora of ZX Spectrum games, which are, as has already been pointed out, perfectly emulated even on low-end, cheap mobiles.
1.1.1 When to stick to emulating another platform?
Of course, not all titles should be played in a Spectrum emulator. For example, when a particular title also exist for the Nintendo NES, the SNES, NEC’s TurboGrafx-16 (PC Engine), the Sega Master System (SMS), Genesis / Mega Drive or Game Gear, going for these emulators may turn out to be a better choice. (Please do click the links for the complete rundown of the Windows Mobile emulation possibilities. Also make sure you follow the other, for example Commodore 64 / Amiga / Atari ST / Amstrad CPC / IBM PC links to emulating home computers.) With the exception of SNES, the emulators of these systems are also very low-end handheld-friendly and the games, in general, are at least as good as on the Spectrum (and, in MOST cases, technically MUCH better, with much more advanced graphics and/or music).

As a rule of thumb, if you plan to play a given title but would like to get the best gaming experience, go to Wikipedia, look up the given title and check out what other platforms it has been ported to (it’s listed in the text box on the right, in the “Platform(s)” row). In general, you can safely ignore the Commodore Amiga (as long as you want sound) ports. If there is an Atari ST port (another, more advanced home computer with excellent Windows Mobile emulation capabilities), you may want to check it out; as is the case with most C64, NES, SNES, SMS, PC Engine, Genesis and Game Gear ports. Most of these games / ROM's are available on the Web. In my past articles, I've explained how you can find these titles and what you will need to play them on your Windows Mobile device.
The same stands for games that have a native Windows Mobile interpreter; for example, Magnetic Scrolls titles. Speaking of these excellent games, unfortunately, the ZX Spectrum versions have no pictures at all - as opposed to even the C64 version. Therefore, in no way should you use a Spectrum emulator to enjoy these games – unless you don’t need images, that is.
1.2 Downloading C64 games / apps / demos off the Web
All emulators are common in that they, generally, read standardized file formats. If you're new to Spectrum emulation, you need to know about tape and snapshot images (and, if you would like to access the mostly post-Soviet TR-DOS titles, disk files). All emulators handle both tape and snapshot formats; UnrealSpeccyPPC, THE most recommended emulator, also handles disk images.
The main source of original (non-post-Soviet) Spectrum games and other titles is worldofspectrum.org. It at least lists all the available games. Note that, should it not contain the tape images of a given title because of (C) reasons, you will need to Google around. It’s by doing the same that I've found a source of R-Type, for example. Also, the Virtual TR-DOS main page has almost all old titles; I'd, however, prefer worldofspectrum.org to it because it has a lot of other, great information (game manuals, links to original articles / tips), unless you look for something not available in the latter or, of course, post-Soviet titles.
(Note that, still speaking of worldofspectrum.org, it has a pretty good and up-to-date emulator lists, also with WinCE (PPC) and Smartphone sections. The former still doesn’t list UnrealSpeccyPPC.)
As far as scene demos are concerned, your best friend will be zxdemo.org. It contains a generic, international (not just post-Soviet) overview of the scene, albeit, sometimes, it also contains weird stuff like this article, which, it seems, mistakes Finland for a post-Soviet country ("Q. How active is the demo scene in the UK? A. Well, on the Spectrum there's just a few of us keeping it all together. Over here the Spectrum scene is more focused on the whole retro gaming thing. As far as the wider scene goes, there are a couple of groups, but we're not really as active as other places like Finland. It does make you wonder - do they teach kids C at kindergarten or something?" FYI: it's not for the ZX Spectrum demoscene that Finland is famous for. In this regard, the two ex-Soviet, Russian-speaking countries are WAY ahead of Finland.) The direct Spectrum demo / tune downloads are HERE.

1.3 Using the emulators
After you've downloaded the games you'd like to play (demos you want to watch etc.) and installed the emulator, start the latter. Note that as none of the current emulators support archived files, you will need to decompress the files before transferring them to your handheld.
The target directory is very important as it's only one title, the (otherwise) most recommended UnrealSpeccyPPC, that is capable of loading Spectrum titles from anywhere in the file system. This is particularly true when used together with Mad Programmer's File Dialog Changer in order to be able to navigate to any directory, and not just the root and the direct subfolders of the root, as is the case with WM5+. Please see my earlier articles on how FDC should be installed and used.
The other emulators (including the only one native MS Smartphone emulator, FuseSP) all require the files to be put in a specific directory so that the emulator can find them. They are, in all cases, either the home directory of the emulator or a subdirectory of it. This also means you MUST install the emulators on a storage card if you want to avoid your built-in storage to be overcrowded with Spectrum files.
Please see the "File dialog?" row in the Chart for more information on what these directories are.
1.3.1 Loading programs into the emulators
The two (main) types of available media also means vastly different methods of loading them.
1.3.1.1 Snapshot files
First, with "snapshot" files (files that, effectively, contain a full print of the memory & full state of a computer), you just click them and they're immediately (without having to wait anything) loaded.
The advantage of this approach is immediate loading. The disadvantage is the lack of boot screens (which you may want to see - at least once. Some of them, for example, that of Rainbow Islands, is pretty cool) and the comparatively big size (as the entire RAM is saved - even with programs that are way smaller in size).
You can recognize a snapshot file by its extension: SLT, SP, SNA or Z80; the latter two being the most common.
1.3.1.1.1 Snapshot file loading in UnrealSpeccyPPC
To load a snapshot file in UnrealSpeccyPPC (the recommended emulator for the Pocket PC), after starting the emulator, click the large Open File button at the top (screenshot here; note that, as with all my all screenshots, I traverse the focus to the button / GUI item you need to activate so that it is easily recognizable). Note that, after loading something, its label will change to the full path + file name of the currently attached file as can also be seen in HERE. After this, click the file to load and, then, click Start at the bottom left (later, when you exit back to this screen to, say, make some changes in the settings, this button will be renamed to Resume). The execution will immediately be transferred to the given title.
1.3.1.1.2 Snapshot file loading in FuseSP
Conversely, to do the same in FuseSP (the recommended emulator for the MS Smartphone), after loading the emulator, go to Menu (right softkey) / 1 Load Snapshot; in the Select Snapshot GUI list control, select the one you'd like to load (pressing Action will result in being presented a full, vertical list of all the available ones to greatly speed up the selection; just press the Action button again to select a title from this view.). Then, just press Done (left softkey); you'll be taken right into the emulator, running the just-loaded title.
1.3.1.2 Tape files
Loading tape files are a bit different because they, by default, aren't auto-started in the Pocket PC emulators (including UnrealSpeccyPPC); it's only on the MS Smartphone where they are auto-loaded by default (which can be disabled).
Tape files have the file extension TAP, TZX (and CSW with UnrealSpeccyPPC). Compared to snapshot images, they are, in cases, MUCH slower to load but more closely mimic the actual tape loading experience, with some emulators (UnrealSpeccyPPCis one of theml FuseSP isn't), even exactly the same visual (border coloring) and audio (beeps) effects. In addition, you'll always see the infamous loader (title) screens not possible with snapshot-based games.
1.3.1.2.1 Tape file loading in UnrealSpeccyPPC
To load a tape file in UnrealSpeccyPPC, do exactly the same as you did with loading the snapshot file: that is, click the large Open File button and select the file. Now, however, before clicking Start, make sure you set the drop-down menu between the Open File and the "Reset" button to BASIC 48 (if it's a program compatible with the 48k Spectrum and not requiring a Spectrum 128). After this, instead of the Start (Resume) button you used with the snapshot images, you will need to press Reset (so that the previous program, if present, is removed from the emulator).
Now, you'll be taken to the BASIC prompt of the emulator, which resets itself. After bringing up the on-screen keyboard (click the keyboard icon at the bottom right corner), just click "J". This will result in "LOAD" to be inserted in the command row. Now, press the somewhat smaller "S" in the lower right area of the on-screen keyboard (it, then, becomes red showing it’s in effect) and press " (Symbol Shifted character of the P key). Repeat the same so that you see the command
LOAD ""
on the screen. Now, press the Enter key - it's just under the already-used P key; it's denoted by a ^ character. The tape loading process will start.
Should you make an error during this, just click the small "c" in the lower left corner of the keyboard and, then, click '0' (zero). This will delete a character (or a full command) backwards. Remember to click "c" again if you want to delete more than one character.

1.3.1.2.1.1 Disk file loading in UnrealSpeccyPPC
Finally, loading disk files (in UnrealSpeccyPPC only) is even more different. Start with the usual Open File / selection screen and press Reset. (You will, as opposed to the Tape loading screen, NOT need to set the operating system to something else than TR-DOS!)
You'll be presented a directory list on a green background. Using the 6/7/8/9 buttons on the on-screen keyboard, position the mouse cursor on top of the item you'd like to load so that it is highlighted. (With most, say, Virtual TR-DOS or contemporary, post-Soviet disk images / demos / games, there's only programs in the image and, therefore, you'll only see one image in there.) After this, click 0 (fire) - the given program will be loaded and started.
1.3.1.2.2 Tape file loading in FuseSP
To load a tape file in FuseSP, in the “UI mode”, select Menu / 2 Load Tape and do the same as previously, with snapshot images – that is, select the file to load. Note that you should NOT untick the “Auto load” checkbox. Should you untick it, you would need to, after manually resetting the emulator (Menu / 6 Reset), manually enter LOAD””. This would be pretty problematic – if you don’t have a built-in full thumbboard, the only way of doing this is assigning all the used letters and signs (L, O, A, D, “) to a hardware / phonepad button, one by one and, then, pressing them. As is also pointed out elsewhere in this roundup, this is what makes it (almost) impossible to issue any long(er) custom commands in FuseSP.
1.3.2 Other features / settings
1.3.2.1 Turbo mode
UnrealSpeccyPPC allows for a "turbo" mode in addition to the "100% speed" one. The former will allow for, on current, fast Windows Mobile devices, much (in cases even 1500% of the original Spectrum speed) faster program execution.
Enabling turbo mode also greatly speeds up tape loading. However, it, as with the C64 emulator PocketHobbit, it also results in most importantly character input problems: with enabled turbo mode, you won't even be able to enter almost anything because of the doubled characters. Also, games will be unnecessarily fast.
This means you will only want to enable turbo mode during, say, lengthy tape loading sessions. To do this, just press Application button 4 on your Pocket PC. You will also see the FPS value, continuously displayed in the lower left corner of the screen, to be increased (and the sound muted).
1.3.2.2 Buttons
Better emulators also let for redefining buttons. This is essential when dealing with non-Kempston joystick emulation and on the MS Smartphone platform, where you need to assign original alphanumeric letters to the phonepad / control buttons of the device so that you can use the given letters / numbers at all (assuming your Smartphone doesn't have a built-in keyboard).
1.3.2.2.1 Buttons in UnrealSpeccyPPC
To make any (additional) button assignments in UnrealSpeccyPPC, as is also pointed out in the "Joystick: supported keyboard layouts " row of the Chart, you'll need to click Advanced Settings, tap-and-hold the functionality you’d like to assign and select Assign. (If you no longer need the previous assignment(s) of a button, just select Empty in the same menu.)
You can also manually edit the action_map.ini file in the home directory of the emulator. Make sure you convert the file back to the LF-only (Unix-style) format from the DOS/Windows-specific, CR+LF format, should you use a Windows-based editor also putting CR's at the end of each line. Note that it's quite unlikely you'll need to modify existing button assignments as the built-in, pre-defined ones cover most games.
1.3.2.2.2 Buttons in FuseSP
With the MS Smartphone-based FuseSP, the situation is wildly different. This emulator, unlike PocketHobbitSP2003 (the C64 emulator for the MS Smartphone), doesn't let for arbitrary character input. That is, unfortunately, unlike with PocketHobbitSP2003, you can't just use the phonepad in the traditional text input way.
While the default character mapping, that is, numerals (and the most widely used other control characters: Enter (Talk), Space (hang up)) are assigned to the phone buttons (including the volume up/down keys, the Power button and the two softbuttons), and these assignments generally work great in most games (where you need to use the numerals 1, 2, 3 etc. to select at least a joystick mode), you may need to assign other characters to a specific button so that you can enter other types of characters.
If you encounter situations like this, go to the main screen (by pressing the Back or the Home key while in the main emulation window; this is what the README.txt coming with the emulator calls "UI Mode", as opposed to the in-emulation "Spectrum mode"), invoke the main menu (right soft key), select "5 Define Keys", select a hardware button (for example, Left Softkey) to assign the given original key to, press the Action button to quickly bring up the selection list, select the new assigned key (for example, in here, “A”) and press Done (left softkey). The assignment will change.
Incidentally, this menu can seem a bit complicated at first because, in addition to the plain character assignment operations, it's also here that you can en/disable Kempston emulation (enabled by default) and mirror the D-pad directions to the phone keys so that you can not only control the game via the D-pad, but also with the phonepad buttons 2/8/4/6 for down / up / left / right. If you don't need the latter functionality (because you exclusively use the D-pad to control your player) but would prefer to be able to assign more functionalities / more original keys to the available (few) hardware buttons, you can safely untick the "Mirror Joystick on Keys" checkbox in here, which is enabled by default.)

Also, again, note that it's in here, at the top (with the "Kempston Joystick" checkbox, that you can disable the Kempston emulation. Should a given game not support Kempston, you'll need to untick this checkbox and, right below the checkbox, make sure you correctly assign the four directions (and the Action button) to real, original keys. These assignments, naturally, aren't editable while Kempston emulation is enabled (after all, Kempston isn't character input emulation-based). However, after disabling Kempston, you can freely edit them, should their default value (the traditional Sinclair interface) be useless.
Note that, fortunately, the key binding / assignment settings are separately saved for each game. This is highly useful because games tend to use different button assignments and continuously redefining them can prove really annoying.
Finally, note that, in FuseSP, you can explicitly (it’s disabled by default) enable the use of external, built-in key/thumbboard, as is the case with UnrealSpeccyPPC, where, in order to make built-in keyboards work, you must select the “Keyboard + cursor” control scheme in BUTTONS. To do this, go to Menu / 4 Options and tick “Device has full keyboard”. Note that it will NOT work correctly with the HTC Vox / S710 slide-out keyboard – the numerals will be used instead of the alphabetic keys, only letting some keys to be accessed. Users of non-sliding, Landscape keyboards, on the other hand, reported success with their keyboards.
1.3.2.3 Joysticks
Traditionally, the Spectrum had a wildly different approach to controlling games than the Commodore 64 or most other home computers designed & manufactured after 1982. The Spectrum not having a built-in joystick port, the user needs to use the keyboard for control. By default, the keys 5 (left), 6 (down),7 (up) and 8 (right) are used to direction control in many games (and, of course, in the BASIC too) and, in general, 0 to fire. You can control a lot of games with this scheme; for example, Harrier Attack! and Pssst, just to name a few.
However, this keyboard-based control was really awkward, which were helped in two ways.
First, other blocks of buttons, more closely representing the four directions and separated to the left and right sides of the keyboard, have been used by some games. The most important of these assignment is the QAOPM scheme, where Q is used for left, O for down, P for up, A for right. For firing, traditionally, two keys were used: either M or the space. Should you encounter a game supporting these buttons instead of the standard 5/6/7/8 ones, you will want to reassign the D-pad directions to use these buttons. Note that, with UnrealSpeccyPPC, where there are several pre-defined control schemes (and you can also create your own ones), you will only need to select the one you need in the BUTTONS tab in Advanced Options. If there's no pre-defined schema for a given game, you'll want to edit action_map.ini by conveniently copying an already-defined block of button assignments, giving it a meaningful name (in the first, preset= attribute) and make the necessary changes. After storing the file and restarting the emulator, the new schema will be visible and selectable. Alternatively, you can also do the same from inside the emulator – with somewhat more effort & clicks.
It's also very important to notice action_map.ini assigns the <AutoFire> functionality to the TSOFT1 button; that is, the left WM5+ softkey. As this button may be missing on some upgraded / native WM5 devices (for example, the Dell Axim x50/x51 series and the non-phone HP iPAQ's) and, of course, ALL devices prior to WM5, you will want to redefine it to use, say, the second application button (APP2).
The second, additional hardware-based approach, was adding joystick interfaces in the extension (interface) ports. These interfaces allowed for plugging in the, then, already (except for the IBM PC, which went its own, analogue controller way) industry-standard 9-pin digital joysticks pioneered by the hugely successful Atari 2600 gaming console.
Two main standards (meaning to different hardware joystick interfaces) exists: that of Kempston and Sinclair. The former doesn't map any keyboard buttons but use its own; the latter does button mapping (which is exactly the same as with the traditional key-based buttons, except for the direction "left", which is, instead of key 5, is mapped to key 9.
In general, hardware joystick-aware games support both joystick interfaces, except for the earliest ones, which may only support Kempston only (the earliest interface to hit the market – it was only later that Sinclair released a joystick-enabled interface, ZX Interface II, to the public). Make sure you look for joystick setup questions at the beginning of games so that you can select the most optimal solution not resulting in your having to switch joystick assignment schemes.
1.3.2.4 Changing screen orientation; image downscaling issues
As opposed to C64 emulators, all Pocket PC emulators have one wired-in (either Landscape or Portrait, but not both) screen orientation. It's only the Smartphone-based FuseSP that supports switching between the two orientations using either the # button (in "Spectrum" mode) or Menu / Options / Screen orientation.
In addition, as opposed to the Smartphone C64 emulator PocketHobbitSP2003, FuseSP supports full-screen stretching on QVGA devices in Portrait mode, which is really-really useful in making use of the entire screen estate. Make sure you look for the option "Stretched Portrait" in Menu / Options / Screen orientation (or, while pressing # to switch screen orientations / modes, select the one that fully stretches the image vertically).

Note that, in the default Portrait mode, as the width of the physical Pocket PC (or QVGA MS Smartphone) screen is 240 (with low-res MS Smartphone screens, 176) pixels, while the original screen width of the Spectrum is 256 pixels, shrinking (read: dropping some pixel columns) must be done to fit the original screen into the available screen estate. It's worth pointing out that PocketClive, the only Pocket PC-based emulator (not counting in the not recommended, Russian, TRD-only, GUI-less PocketSpeccy) to use the Portrait emulation, not only supports shrinking, but also, to avoid the (ugly) consequences of it (completely dropped columns)
Finally, it's worth pointing out that FuseSP applies a VERY clever method at dropping lines as it uses some interpolation to render the missing info of the dropped columns in the neighboring columns. This results in the vastly enhanced and eye-friendlies, albeit a bit blurry representation in QVGA mode. On 176*220 screens, of course, this can't really help the situation.
Now that we've quickly reviewed the issues common to Spectrum emulation on Windows Mobile, let's see what emulators there are and how they compare to each other. In the following two chapters, I introduce Pocket PC and MS Smartphone emulators.
2. Pocket PC (Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Classic) emulators
2.1 UnrealSpeccyPPC 1.02
This new, excellent and, outside the ex-Soviet region, absolutely unknown emulator is by far the best Spectrum emulator out there, a port of the also successful and excellent Unreal Speccy. It has all the goodies one would effect from a decent emulator: auto fire, huge and, particularly on VGA devices, (almost) transparent on-screen keyboard (on QVGA devices, the buttons are considerably larger as can be seen in HERE), support for all tape / snapshot and even disk formats.
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The main discussion thread discussing this emulator is HERE (Babelfish "translation" HERE). There are some other threads at other sites; for example, THIS.
What is more, the CAB file can be installed on MS Smartphones too as can be seen in here:
(note that it was only to prove the emulator is running on a QVGA Smartphone that I’ve made the task bar displayed (via activating SPHelper). Otherwise, it’s hidden.)
While the Smartphone version is in no way flawless, you will certainly want to play a bit with it to find out its weaknesses / strengths.
2.2 PocketClive v2B
A famous (but long-abandoned) emulator is PocketClive.
The most important difference between PocketClive and the most recommended UnrealSpeccyPPC is that PocketClive uses the Portrait screen resolution and a full keyboard showing all the original labels. Unless you’re an experienced Spectrum user and you DO want to know how the BASIC commands can be accessed on the original Spectrum keyboard, you may want to give a try to this emulator. (Or, alternatively, PocketSpeccy, which uses exactly the same on-screen keyboard, but is capable of reading TR-DOS disks; that is, TRD files.)
As this emulator is NOT recommended (but not disqualified either), it’s in the Chart that you’ll find the most information on using this emulator, NOT in the first chapter (which only discusses the two recommended emulators suiting the needs of 96-97% of existing users: UnrealSpeccyPPC for the PPC and FuseSP for the Smartphone).
Not many English threads discuss this emulator. The ones that at least mention it are for example "i just played Simcity on my Be300" or THIS
and THIS AximSite threads, THIS PG, THIS (“Pocket Genesis”) and THIS (“Just Chattin' - What games are on your PPC right now? (omit none!)”) threads. In the Russian language area, the situation is MUCH better; see the following threads:
1
2
3
4
2.3 SpectrumAnyWhere 1.1
This is another also-run emulator without any really outstanding features. UnrealSpeccyPPC is orders of magnitude more featureful.
The most important fact you need to know about this emulator that it can not directly be installed on WM5+ devices. This, however, can easily be fixed with a quick hack I’ve described in the Chart. Also note that you will NOT want to use it on WM2003(SE) devices because of the on-screen keyboard coordinate offset problems.
Even fewer existing threads discuss this title; the only English thread I could find was just a mention at Xda-developers (“amiga emulator on your pocketpc”). In Russian, there aren’t many more threads either; in addition to the zx.pk.ru threads linked in the previous section, I also recommend THIS.
2.4 PocketSpeccy
This emulator is pretty new, but already discontinued emulator “only” supports ".trd" disk image files – that is, it can NOT be used with any “old”, “traditional” tape / snapshot files. It has absolutely no GUI: for example, it’s in the config.ini that you need to supply the disk to load (and all the other – not many!) parameters before starting the emulator. Pretty awkward, if you ask me.
As it’s now discontinued and superseded by UnrealSpeccyPPC, I do NOT recommend it and don’t even include in the Chart.
Should you still be interested in the emulator, check out THIS Russian language thread.
2.5 SinclairSpectrumEmulator 1.1
This Handheld PC-based emulator is really outdated (from year 1999) and is, therefore, in no way recommended. Get UnrealSpeccyPPC instead. There is just no point in bothering with it – unless you have a Handheld PC, that is. But, even then, you may want to prefer trying to hack UnrealSpeccyPPC to run on your H/PC (assuming it has an ARM(-compatible) CPU).
3. MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) emulators
3.1 FuseSP 0.22
This is THE emulator you should try first if you have any MS Smartphone model. It’s pretty capable (except for the lack of direct, phonepad-based text input) and highly recommended.
Please consult Chapter 1 for usage tips and don’t forget to scrutinize the Chart for additional tips and tricks.
Related threads: “A few thoughts on useability”
FUSESP in QVGA Landscape 320*240......
ZX emulator FuseSP v0.12a with NumKeys support, I added support for number keys
3.2 PocketClive for SP 2B-0.2
Unfortunately, this emulator seems to be only running on the oldest, 2002 Smartphone version, but not on newer (SP2003+) ones. I was just unable to access any kind of menu on either my WM6 HTC Vox / s710 or WM5 HTC Oxygen / s310. That is, don’t bother.

4. The Comparison & Feature Chart
As with ALL my Comparison & Feature Charts, this one is a MUST to check out as it offers a great way of comparing the reviewed titles. It, as with my past charts, contains tons of screenshots (don’t forget to click the links), usage tips and mini-tutorials.
It’s available HERE.
The test / rows should be pretty much self-explanatory. If you at least superficially have read my past emulation-related articles (if you haven’t, do it NOW – they are just the best emulation-related articles, no wonder even Michu himself made them sticky in the official AximSite emulator forum, and many of them have also been frontpaged by several leading Windows Mobile-related sites.
That is, do yourself a favor – if you DO want to know EVERYTHING you can ever know of an emulator, do check out the chart!
Note that I haven’t listed some other, good, famous games for the Spectrum in the chart. They also run under both FuseSP and UnrealSpeccyPPC without problems.
Some examples (also see the “100 Best games” list; original version also HERE):
Deathchase
ALL OR NOTHING
STOP THE EXPRESS
HEAD OVER HEELS
THE SENTINEL
NEBULUS
Uridium
Impossible Mission
Turrican.

Article updated & cleaned up.

I`m looking for PocketCommodore64 or any other emulator that I can run on my navigation system with WinCE 6.0. Could anybody can help with working link?

REVIEW: Orions: Legend of Wizards expansion pack, Orions: Second Age

All serious Pocket PC gamers know Orions: Legend of Wizards, by far the BEST Turn-based strategy game for the platform, of which I’ve published a Strategy Guide HERE. The homepage of the game is HERE. Unfortunately, there's (still?) no trial version; hopefully, this will be fixed now. However, I think you'll be absolutely pleased with the upgrade, even if you can't play the trial: for $9.95, it's quite a bargain. That is, just go and purchase the update - you won't regret it.
The developers have announced the forthcoming expansion pack, Orions: The Second Age, in late July. Since then, I’ve been waiting it really with anticipation pretty much comparable to waiting for Starcraft’s expansion set, Starcraft: Brood War. Thanks to the developers, I’ve received a Release Candidate version of the expansion pack. And, yes, I LOVE it. It’s REALLY good. (Note that the reviewed version is exactly the same as the final one.)
First, let’s see what has been introduced (The Good), what is (still) missing (The Bad), what has been changed and, finally, I give you some very useful tips and tricks. All this with TONS of screenshots.
The good
A LOT of (THIRTY!) new cards, most of them having GREAT spells (abilities), further increasing the game experience. Now, the game is really like playing chess or a similar board game!
The Campaign mode has been greatly enhanced; for example, the feature requests of Doug Goldring and Ben Stanley have (almost) all been implemented. For example, now, you receive bonuses in your chosen element; you can quickly teleport between words and you can buy any card on “card black markets” any time. (Screenshots of the latter in all stages of pre-building, building and using: 1 2 3 4)
The Dual mode (the one that I play the most) has been enhanced a lot, mostly as a response to my feature requests / complaints. For example, now, you can select between a smaller (4 cards) and a larger (6 cards with spells enabled and 5 without) desk, whether the deck should be uniform or not (in size; non-uniform decks vary in size - some elements can have even 7-8 cards, while others only 3-4) etc. I'll elaborate on these questions later.
There are some welcome game balance improvements; most importantly, Life / Chimera has been made much more expensive and a bit weaker and Life / Cerberus a bit more usable.
The bad
Unlike with, say, the Starcraft: Brood War update, there isn’t new music. Not that it’d be missing – the in-game music is REALLY great (and, if you don’t like it, you can just change it to anything else if it’s a .MOD tracked module file).
The game isn’t compatible with MS Smartphones (WM Standard devices - that is, devices without a touch screen). It wouldn’t be very hard for the developer to create at least a QVGA (no real need for 176*220 conversions any more, I think, as those low-end models are quickly phased out, except for some current models like HP's new iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger) Smartphone-compliant version as the game could be easily played with the D-pad / the Action button and/or the dialpad.
No hi-res (W)VGA support (it'd be GREAT to see the hand-drawn artwork of cards in their full glory on VGA devices - even without the (absolutely gorgeous) particle effects & other animations!)
There's no option of decks bigger than 6 (without spells, 5) cards. I'd certainly welcome even bigger decks - even ones that have ALL the cards.
TCP/IP multiplayer still only supports direct IP connections and there's still no central server (Game Lounge)-based solution like that of battle.net in Blizzard's games. This also means you won't be able to play if both of the would-be players are NAT'ed / behind a firewall.
Unfortunately, there's no LAN broadcast discovery either in order to quickly find your opponent either - that is, without having to look up her or his IP address and entering it directly. Fortunately, the title, once you enter the IP address, will remember it next time you start multiplayer mode; this is definitely good news as, in general, Bluetooth PAN and Wi-Fi peer-to-peer IP addresses don't change if you the same Pocket PC's participate in the local peer-to-peer net.
I REALLY hope the developer WILL (also - keeping direct TCP connections are also important to make it possible to play over Internet connectionless LAN's) introduce a game lounge so that you'll be able to
1, find other opponents to play if, for example, your friends aren't available to play against - just like on most other multiplayer gaming lounges like Battle.net
2, you try to play a remote friend but both of you are firewalled / NAT'ed and, therefore, no direct connection can be built up in either direction.
I also hope he'll add in-game chatting.
(See the Multiplayer Bible for more info on all these questions - why for example in-game chatting can be useful, what LAN broadcast discovery means etc.)
There are some (minor) bugs: for example, Earth / Giant Spider's Spider Web (another pretty useful spell to make a given enemy card unable to attack in the next turn) costs, in reality, three Earth elements - as opposed to what (two) the help page suggests. Also, Water / Leviathan, as opposed to what the card description states, can cast Curing (the price / performance ration-wise, best owner HP increasing ability of all) any time - even when the number of your Water elements is only 1 (which is less than 6). This will work even with Water = 0 because of an internal bug. That is, if you DO have Water / Leviathan, make sure you increase the HP of your owner every time you can do so - against, this is the cheapest way to do so. And, don't forget you can do this even when you otherwise have no Water at all. You can easily make use of this bug if you have at two Leviathans on the board and use both to heal your owner every turn: if your Water is continuously staying at 1, you can gain 8 health for a mere one Water element. (Or, even more, if you have even more Leviathans.)
There's no option of giving the SAME cards to both players in Dual mode. This, while certainly makes duels much more boring (not knowing at first what cards the enemy has adds a lot to the game - for example, if you go for, for example, mass-low level cards and it's only later that you're faced with an Earth / Quicksands spell, your (initial) strategy may turn out to be fatal), may be required by some: mostly people that want to avoid losing just because they were unlucky to get some worse cards, while their opponent got better ones – I know well enough from my (Star)Crafter past that even the slightest game balance nuances like this can result in a LOT of difference in a game between two very good players

(Balance) changes to old cards
Compared to the last, 1.02 version, there are some minor changes to old cards as well to improve the game balance (not to give an unfair advantage to a player that has the luck to possess a given card, while the other doesn’t).
Life / Chimera is no longer Level 11, but Level 13 and has the strength of 10 instead of 11. That is, it’s no longer one of the best cards – in previous versions, it was probably the best card (unless the enemy had the cheap Earth / Forest Spirit to absorb his damage while taking out the card with spells; most importantly, the, against Chimera, most useful / cheapest Water / Sea Justice), particularly if you often used on powerful spells like Fire / Fireball because of Chimera's halving their price.
The level of Death / Grim Reaper has been decreased from 12 to 11. This is also welcome as this card is definitely inferior to, say, Life / Chimera.
Life / Magic healer has slightly increased HP (12 instead of 10) and the same stands for Fire / Cerberus (8 instead of 6). Now, the latter is REALLY usable, particularly when backed up with a Fire / Diablo to continuously restore its health / increase its attack. Then, it really becomes a killer because of the damage done to three cards at the same time and a HP that most other cards can't match in one step to finally get rid of the card.
Note that, in my opinion, Earth / Satyr is, far too cheap for what it offers and its level, 2 (health: 10, attack / strength: 3), makes the game a bit unbalanced, particularly when you compare its level, health, strength and negative side effects to other low-level cards also used to quickly increase a given element. These cards are as follows: Fire / Demon (lvl 5 / HP 12 / strength 2, and it decreases Earth!), Water / Nixie (4 / 10 / 3 with an additional Fire -> Water conversion ability), Air / Nymph (3 / 12 / 1), Life / Priest (4 / 9 / 1, and it also decreases Death!), Life / Apostate (5 / 14 / 4, but quickly empties Life, having a pretty bad Life -> Death conversation ratio), Death / Ghost (3 / 13 / 3, but it decreases owner's life by 5 for every Death increase!) etc.
As can clearly be seen, no other element has the same cheap and powerful "quick increase" card, only Earth. Hope the developers consider raising the level of this card to, say, 4.
New settings
The settings have changed a lot: it received a completely new, second page (which can be flipped with the “Next page” icon):
It’s here that you can, for example, enable “Extended deck” so that each element has six (without spells, five) cards (instead of four).
Also, it’s in here (with "No spells") that you can disable spells. If you find some of the spells too strong and making an adverse impact on the balance of the game (for example, a player having really good destruction / kill spells like Fire / Fireball has a definite advantage over a player that doesn't), you'll want to check in this checkbox. It' greatly contribute to additional game balance.
Note that, should you disable spells, the value / usability of Air / Astral Cloud, Life / Unicorn and Life / Chimera decreases. For example, then, you will only want to use Air / Astral Cloud to negate the, by default, 2 damage of Life / Ethereal because Air / Astral Cloud decreases the impact of direct attack done to it by 2. (Alternatively, you can use the Air / Gargoyle with the (pretty expensive) Petrification ability, which, essentially, does the same and, therefore, adds full protection against Life / Ethereal.)
Without spells, of course, the game MAY become a bit less interesting – as with decent Real-Time Strategies like Starcraft, spells add tio the game experience. Of course, this option doesn't disable card spelling abilities - that is, disabling spells doesn't mean something like taking, for example, away all the very good spells (EMP, Plague etc.) in Starcarft - just the opposite, it may help in balancing the game.
Also, you can instruct the game ("More elements at start") to give you more elements at start (generally, up to 8) so that you don't need to start with low-level cards, but can go straight for stronger ones.
Finally, with "Random first move", you can instruct the game to select the first player to move in random - no longer will you always be the first to cast a card first (or to skip your turn, if there's no decent card to be placed).
All in all, as can be seen some (but, unfortunately, not all) of my previous, particularly dual / multiplayer-related remarks / recommendations have been implemented.

sweet i liked this game

Some tips, also showing (some of) the new cards & spells
(Note that this section is in NO way a full list of all the thirty new cards. I’ll update the official Strategy Guide after having played the expansion some weeks so that the new information I tell you can be as accurate as possible.)
If you can, get at least two (or even more – make extensive use of Fire / Daemon or Fire / Firelord, when available, to quickly bump up your fire elements) Fire / Diablos on the deck. They will be able to strengthen each other very easily. In the following screenshot, I’ve brought five of them to the deck and used their “Diabolic Path” spell to strengthen / heal them in a round-robin fashion:
For example, I’ve cast this spell six times on the third Diablo (just over Grim Reaper); this is why it has the strength of 18 (instead of the default 6) and still pretty high HP.
(Note that I’ve cheated a bit in order to make this screenshot: I’ve edited the “LEVEL” attribute in cards/diablo.inf so that it has the level 1 in order to be able to quickly take a screenshot).
If you don't have the necessary Fire elements to go for mass-Diablos, you may still want to use this ability with any other Fire creature. I recommend the now-healthier Cerberus to be concurrently used with the spell - you can quickly (in 4-5 turns) make it a REALLY powerful, deadly card because of its attacking three opposing cards at the same time.
If you plan to / can (for example, the enemy doesn’t have spells like Life / Gods Wrath or cards like Life / Paladin with both its quick Exorcizm spell and tripled damage to Undead (Death) cards to quickly get rid of your low-level Undeads if you use the abilities I’ll explain now to summon / create them) go the mass-Undead way.
One way to do this is Death / Black Mage’s “Extract Soul” spell to quickly transfer a non-Undead creature to a Death / Ghost with 15 health. This is, incidentally, a very commonly used strategy of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the game. Sometimes, I find, it's overdoing this because it transfers newly-placed, weaker cards (for example, Air / Nymph) to Ghosts even if it could still use the abilities of these cards for some 2-3 rounds at least.
Alternatively, with Death / Necromancer, using its “Dark summon” spell, you can populate the slots with Death / Zombies. This is a lot cheaper (costs only 2 Death elements as opposed to their original, 4 price) than summoning it from your cards (if they're available at all).
If you, in any way (for example, by using the above-explained abilities to summon / transfer cards or just go the traditional way), you can use the, with several Death cards in play, VERY useful and cheap Death / Undead Swarm spell to instruct your undeads to hit their targets twice in the same turn. Again, it's a very useful spell if you go mass-Undead!
Of course, going mass-Undead can be pretty risky if the enemy has spells like Life / Gods Wrath and, if you "only" use (low-level) Death / Zombies and/or Death / Ghosts, Earth / Quicksands. However, changing your cards to (pretty healthy) Ghosts can be a good idea when they, otherwise, would be killed in the next round OR they're very weak and you don't need their abilities any more. Just remember that all attacks on Ghosts will also do some damage to yourself - use them with care (for example, together with Water / Ice Guard to decrease the damage done to the owner by 50%)!
Earth / Python is also VERY-VERY useful, both its default, always-effective ability to quickly decrease the attack strength of the opposite card and its "Suffocate" ability, with which you can quickly kill any enemy card with health less than 6. This, as with Fire / Diablo's, as has already been seen, also VERY good Diabolic Path, doesn't require any elements to use. This card should be one of your most often used cards - particularly if your opponent makes extensive use of Earth / Forest Spirit (original HP: 3; that is, less than 6). You can get rid of the latter cards at once with Python.
Water / Scylla is useful, particularly if you play the AI and it extensively uses this card. Because of a bug? in the AI, it'll continuously be healing itself (even if you only damage it for, say, 2, in a turn, it will quickly re-heal itself for 5), which means it will very quickly increase your Water elements. In these cases, what I recommend is letting the card on the board (don't kill it quickly) so that you constantly receive a LOT of Water elements because the constant re-healing. Just put a card not taking (much) damage from the card in the opposing slot: Water / Ice Wizard (because it only takes 1 damage from Water creatures), Earth / Forest Spirit or the new Life / Etherial.
Water / Kraken is very-very useful – it delivers damage in the following way. If the card opposing it has empty slot on neither on the left nor on the right side, it’ll deliver 10 extra damage to the creature (that is, it'll receive 17 damage by default). If the opposing card has an empty slot on its right, it’ll be immediately be shifted in there (after having been hit by your card) and, therefore, if you have a card in the opposing slot (that is, on the right of your Kraken), it'll also attack the card (instead of the enemy owner) in the same round.
Water / Tython can be a good alternative to other means of healing your cards, particularly if you need a healing up to 15 HP's. Note that you MUST have at least one free slot on the board for this to work - as opposed to most alternative mass-healing means, which aren't card abilities but spells themselves.
The card itself costs 7 Water elements and the Disperse ability (which does the healing) costs another 2. That is, you can have at most four of your cards to be healed for 9 Water elements, which is quite a bargain if you take the price / performance ratio of other healing spells (Earth / Revie, Earth / Restructure (price: 6, +3 HP and 6 healing) or the new Life / Cure Wounds (price: 6; heals up to 6 HP's but not severely damaged cards, which receive no HP at all) and Life / Eternal Light (price: 8 Life + losing 3 Death elements; healing: 5 + causing 5 damage to enemy undead cards) into account. Of course, if you have all your slots filled (no place for an additional Tython) and/or don't need that much HP's and/or you have a Life / Chimera on the board (which, as is well known, halves the price of all spells), you may still want to prefer the latter spells.

Still speaking of healing, Life / Knight can also prove useful - it automatically heals the weakest card by two each turn. (Incidentally, sometimes it has chosen another card to heal so I'm not really sure the algorithm selecting the card to heal is correct or well thought-out.)
Also, if your opponent goes (mass-)Undead and frequently uses Death card abilities (for example, Death / Black Mage’s Extract Soul, very frequently used by the AI, Death / Necromancer's Dark summon etc.), the caster (Death) card will be hit for 3 damage.
In addition, this card has a REALLY useful, mass-killer ability, Concentrate, which is even better than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike (which only delivers 5 damage to ONE target card at the cost of 2 Life). This ability, which costs 3 Life (that is, only slightly more expensive than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike), is particularly useful against all the enemy cards. It delivers 6 damage to the chosen, target enemy card (unless it's a Life creature) and the same damage, divided by the number of cards, to all the others. It has no adverse effects like damaging Knight by 3 upon attacking a Death card either (unlike with Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike); only (default) abilities like the Fire Shield of Fire / Efreet will return half of the damage to it.
All in all, ALWAYS try to get this card on your deck and make sure you always use its Concentrate ability! (Of course, you'll also want to try to bring an Air / Zeus on the deck in order to use its really cool (8 damage) and cheap (1 Air) Lightning ability if your enemy (frequently) uses cards with level 6 or below.)
If you go for mass-Earth (because, for example, your enemy doesn't have Earth / Titan, whose Thunder Fist ability is particularly effective (3 damage for each of them at the expense of 1 Air only) against Earth creatures OR he's preferring the use of the new Earth / Force of Nature spell, which has absolutely no effect on Earth creatures), you'll want to use Earth / Enchanter (level: 7), which also auto-heals other cards - but Earth cards only (as opposed to Knight, which heals any other type) and only by 1 each turn.
It has another feature: it heals all the other cards by five upon reaching one HP (but NOT upon simply dying) through, for example, the Death / Plague spell, other spells or direct attacks, only leaving 1 HP for the card.
Air / Kronos is a VERY useful card, for three reasons:
- its (pretty expensive: it costs 3 Air) Aging ability is particularly useful against high-HP cards (for example, Life / Chimera, Water / Leviathan, Fire / Infernal etc. to quickly reduce their (both maximal and current) HP to the half of the original. As it's the original that is halved, you will want to use the ability as soon as your enemy brings the card to the board - then, your first, subsequent attack will already decrease the halved HP.
Speaking of high-HP cards, you should also pay special attention to the new Earth / Force of Nature spell too, which deals damage to each enemy creature equal to half of its remaining health and is, therefore, REALLY useful. Note that it has no effect to Earth cards.
- attacks creatures of a level less than 10 with additional damage, equal to the HP difference. This means it'll attack for example a level 2 Earth / Satyr with (default) 4+(10-2) damage.
- one of the VERY few cards to deliver direct, and pretty high damage to the, otherwise, very though Earth / Etherial.
Life / Avatar is pretty strange and, frankly, I don't know why it's here at all. I consider it a pretty worthless card because, despite its high (10) level and double damage taking (the owner takes the same damage as Avatar, unless, of course, you have a Water / Ice Guard on the board to divide the damage by two), its strength isn't particularly high (7) and it has no special abilities / features either. Had it ANY extra ability, it'd be a nice card. Now, on the other hand, I in no way recommend it, not even together with the (cheap: 1 Air) Protect ability of the also-new Air / Guardian or the (expensive: 3 Earth) Spider Web ability of the also new Earth / Giant Spider.
Life / Etherial can be a real pain in the back for your opponent to get rid of and is excellent against “tough”, powerful, high-strength units like Water / Kraken or Life / Chimera; in this respect, it's pretty much similar to our old friend, Earth / Forest Spirit (the latter, of course, does receive (some) damage from other cards and spelling abilities).
Note that if your opponent has the Death / Lich card, it’ll deliver 5 damage to your Etherial every turn (but it won't deal any damage when it's summoned - as opposed to other cards). The same will happen with Air / Kronos as well - it'll deliver lvl 10- lvl 7 = 3 damage to Etherial each turn. If Kronos can't attack the card directly (another card is placed against Etherial), it can still use its Aging ability to reduce the health of the card to four (and, then, you can quickly Suffocate it with Python). Also, Earth / Echidna will eventually kill this card because of its poisoning it (poisons also kills Etherial - both used as card (default) ability or full spells). Finally, if you have Fire / Efreet, you can effectively use its implicit fire shield (or, if it's not in the opposite shot, its Fire Shield ability, preferably on another Fire creature to avoid losing health every turn) - it'll send back one damage (that is, damages Etherial by one) each time Etherial attacks.
To my knowledge, these are the only creatures that can do any kind of harm to this card by direct attack. Of card abilities (spells), you can Suffocate it Earth / Python (after damaging it with something like Fire / Fire Spikes, Water / Poison or the new, really effective Water / Poison Storm - or, with the other means (Aging, Fire Shield etc.) outlined above). You can also consume it with Water / Kraken, but the latter also consumes all other cards and, therefore, can only be used sparingly. Finally, you can also use Kronos' Aging against the card. It, however, can't directly kill the card with this ability - you'll need another spell / ability / card to finally kill it.
Installation tip
Make sure you also get and install the brand new version 1.10 of the original game (that is, Orions: Legend of Wizards) BEFORE installing the new pack on top of it. The expansion will NOT flawlessly work with the previous, 1.02 version of the original game.
Cross-posted to (might be worth checking out for additional info / discussions!): PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de.
UPDATE (08/20/2007): PPCT frontpage
UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)

Yet another major article update.

UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)

Yeah, you've guessed right: another update.

UPDATE (11/22/2007): version 1.11 has just been released. It contains several bugfixes and, what is even more important, balance changes. Please read this update BEFORE reading the main review because I haven’t updated the latter in order to keep it consistent.
Fire / Diablo: instead of 4, it only heals the target fire creature for 3 (fortunately, increasing its strength is not changed). Casting the spell costs 1 Fire (instead of 0). This makes this card considerably less recommended than previously.
Fire / Infernal has been made MUCH cheaper (10 instead of 13), which really extends its functionality. While, previously, I had little chance of using this card (I just didn’t have the necessary Fire elements and an additional, preferably low-cost like the now-strengthened “Fire / Imp” cards on the board most of the time), now I’ve found myself using it much more frequently.
Fire / Imp has been made MUCH stronger (14 vs. 9), which makes it much more useful, particularly if, used together with the now much more frequently used Fire / Infernal (you need to wait until you get the necessary Fire elements to summon Infernal) or the, unfortunately, somewhat degraded Fire / Diablo.
Life / Avatar, while it was not only completely useless, but also heavily noxious in the previous version, has become pretty useful now. For 10 Life points, you get a card with a very high HP (and an, unfortunately, pretty mediocre attack). Now, the damage taken is just the opposite of what was before: instead of damaging the owner by the same amount originally received by Avatar, the damage is done in the opposite way. That is, when the owner is damaged, Avatar is also damaged by the same amount. If you can make sure your owner won’t (really) be damaged in the near future, then, Avatar may be a decent pick.
The damage of Lightning Bolt has been increased to 6 (from 5). A decent move – for 4 Air, the previous version was pretty much overpriced, taking the other ways of damaging the enemy owner into account.
As far as Water / Tython is concerned, it’s now slightly stronger. (More HP (16 vs. 15) and attack (4 vs. 3)) and its casting no longer costs water elements. I’m not entirely sure this was a nice idea – after all, Tython has already been THE best and most cost-effective way for mass re-healing. Now, a player )if the other doesn’t have it) owning this card will be next to unbeatable (if he’s playing using the right strategy and is, otherwise, decent)
Bug fixes:
AI no longer casts Scylla's abilities too much. Oh dear, now, we can’t take advantage of this bug to quickly bump up our Water elements…
Leviathan, Nixie, Demon - elemental issues solved. (No more exchange nothing for fire/water).
Fixed cast cost for Spider.

FUN APP: HD2 Pilot Flight Display using GPS

!! FUN APPLICATION, NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL WORLD AVIATION !!
For all those flight-sim enthusiasts out there: I have created this PFD (primary flight display) which shows the speed, the altitude the coards and the attitude similar to a real PFD display in an airplane cockpit.
Although the application has been created and tested on an HTC HD2, it might work on other devices as well. Internel or external GPS and the HTC G-Sensor are required. It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Just keep in mind that this is the first version of the program, so there might be *some* improvement potential.
A screenshot of the program is also attached.
Pls let me know what you think about it.
Thanks.

As a pilot I cannot find any sense in this, sorry m8.
Useless for aviation.
Useful might be an HSI-App, an RAIM-availability-check-App, a NOTAM-APP and so on. An artificial horizon on a handheld device... No, not good...

Title correction...
It is just for fun, not intended for real world aviation.
I will change the title so that it becomes more clear.

As an airbus pilot I like it! Lots of scope for further development, keep up the good work !

when I read your discrip, I had something totaly dif pictured in my mind. guess Im falling back on my sail plane lesson days.
I had round face dial and a yaw bubble pictured.
While this is cool, I would prefer to see the old analog style with an altimeter that you can set your start altitude and a yaw bubble, rather than the HUD style. just IMO.
And yes this is just for fun.
Keep it up, I will follow your project with intrest.
cheers

Good Work mate
While some are critical in their opinion I'm pleased with your app.
Keep up the good work mate and for all others who are not so encouraging ...... what do you want for an app a full blown flight simulator, the guys making an effort to develop something and sharing it for a free with us so to help him out at least .... I mean at least encourage him and make some constructive criticisms.
It doesn't cost to be nice and help to motivate others...........

Customize it
Just as a hint for those of you, who would want to use other bitmaps. I have designed the application in a way which allows you to modify or extend it. If you look into the applications program folder, you will find an XML file describing the layout of the display. You may also change or add bitmaps. The bitmaps are all located in the
HTML:
resources
subfolder. If you change the size of the offset of bitmaps, you will have to adjust some values in the XML file as well.
As you can see there all items are drawn in 3d space.
However, I am working on a HSI as suggested before. I will post it later this week.
Known issue:
- After running the application 3 or 4 times, OpenGL is not working properly anymore (not able to create rendering context). This is an issue of OpenGL. You have to restart your device for OpenGL to work again. If anyone has a solution, please let me know.

leihen said:
It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be awesome!

Cool app
Certainly would be better than no attitude information in the event of a vacuum and/or elec failure.Even if just to make flying the performance instruments a bit easier.
I would defintely like to see a HSI app possibly with an open (editable)waypoint database.Anyone interested!?
Keep up the good work!

I love it. Thanks so much...
I just wonder if settings could be made permanent until being changed again so as to start the application without my having to select REAL and AVERAGE everytime.
And as a proud HTC HD2 owner, the display could me made much
larger indeed...
Congratulations and thanks again.

This is a fine app with a lot of potential esp. for UL-pilots as an emergency backup if UL-airplane-pfd fails.
Would be nice if indicators are bigger and the layout equals to Flymap, Skymap or MGL-layout
There is enough place for a nice big yaw indicator. Maybe You can get some code from GPS-tracker V2.0 (MooNah) in this forum, it already has a full working PFD incorporated.
Good luck with further devs., when next version is online I will try it in my gyroplane.

I think it's fun!!!!!
next step: build a flightsim for wm where we could use this

You will be in real danger....if you do so.
troed said:
This is a fine app with a lot of potential esp. for UL-pilots as an emergency backup if UL-airplane-pfd fails.
Would be nice if indicators are bigger and the layout equals to Flymap, Skymap or MGL-layout
There is enough place for a nice big yaw indicator. Maybe You can get some code from GPS-tracker V2.0 (MooNah) in this forum, it already has a full working PFD incorporated.
Good luck with further devs., when next version is online I will try it in my gyroplane.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As you will easily see, this PFD horizon responds to gravity, that is, to the accelerometers installed in the phone.
It has no gyros, no way to provide PITCH ATTITUDE, WHATSOEVER.
If you keep the phone perfectly vertical and quickly move forward (accelerate) it will SURELY show a pitch up...pretty much the same effects that a stand-by compass shows when changing speed (remember that?...accelerate-north, decelerate-south).
You will have the very same pitch information as the one given by a bottle full
af water suspended from a string, or a can of Coke : and it will KILL YOU as well as your passengers (if any), not to mention people on the ground.
The only usable parts of this FUN APP (as named by the author himself ) in aviation are:
1. True track (not magnetic heading).
2. Altitude (neither QNH, nor QFE related, but of course; unless your flying field happens to be at sea level and actual atmosphere matches the ISA atmosphere parameters exactly). Remember that QNH variations as well as heat will make the GPS readings very different to that of your altimeter, as height of the air column will vary a +/-4% every +/-10 degrees Celsius.
Example. Airplane flying at Flight Level 300. QNH in the area 1023. Terrain at 2000 feet. Atmosphere is ISA+15.
Therefore if we move the 1013.25 setting to 1023 there will be a reading increase from 30.000 feet to 30300 (calibrated altitude, QNH related).
That is 28.300 feet above ground (we start with this as the air column height for the calculation). Since ISA is +15 we add 15/10 times 4% and we have 28300*15/10*4/100= 1698. True altitude is 30300+1698=31988
So we are cruising at FL300, 30.000 feet pressure altitude, 30.300 feet calibrated altitude (QNH related), 31988 above sea level, 29988 feet above ground level.
GPS WILL SHOW 31988 FEET.
3. Ground speed ( neither IAS nor CAS nor EAS nor TAS), as provided by GPS system. Remember that your airplane aerodynamics are related to calibrated speeds....you will stall if too slow ore destroy the airframe if to quick !!!! But you can navigate and make good your track, of course.
Hope I have made myself understood....and that you read this at the earlier !!!

Hi!
It quite very good if the second part under we have the route. I am using the Oziexplore program, it can creates the route, and apear on screen. if this soft applied to that once, could be perfected!
Thanks

great app mate..just for fun...

Nice work thank you. On future can you make like pilot cocpit with all dash boards like in Flith simulator game if this possible. Thank you

leihen said:
!! FUN APPLICATION, NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL WORLD AVIATION !!
For all those flight-sim enthusiasts out there: I have created this PFD (primary flight display) which shows the speed, the altitude the coards and the attitude similar to a real PFD display in an airplane cockpit.
Although the application has been created and tested on an HTC HD2, it might work on other devices as well. Internel or external GPS and the HTC G-Sensor are required. It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Just keep in mind that this is the first version of the program, so there might be *some* improvement potential.
A screenshot of the program is also attached.
Pls let me know what you think about it.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed as an Ultralight-Gyroplane-Pilot I like this app and since the Horizon-tab in GPS-Tracker by MooNah doesn´t work right now this could be alternative as a a last resort-backup if glass-cockpit instruments (MGL-Avionics) fail ...... (better to have this than nothing at all and I also have Flymap PPC on my HD2 if main Moving map Nav. fails)
This app has great potential since it reads the infos from G-sensor and GPS.
For the future dev. if I might add my wishlist:
1. Add to screen: slide-indicator and compass, Altitude
2. slightly more refined graphics
As a start: BRAVO, hope You have the patience to go on developing this nice app ( like Dunc001, that made in 100s of hours of work a professional weather app - Duncans Weather Panel - see there - that is more reliable than many professional aviation weather briefings).
I bookmarked this thread and hope for further developments by U
Congratulations

like the Android solution ixGyro:
http://www.ixellence.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227&Itemid=274&lang=de

JHimmelbauer said:
like the Android solution ixGyro:
http://www.ixellence.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227&Itemid=274&lang=de
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jepp, EXACTLY THIS would be cool on the HD2 on WinMo (Android not running on mine) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

troed said:
Jepp, EXACTLY THIS would be cool on the HD2 on WinMo (Android not running on mine) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a other solution for Windows Mobile is "Inclinometer77" -
visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6677074
This App goes in the right direction, but unfortunately not to use without Gyro in a Plane, but a nice game for pilots ;-)
Happy Landings

ZenFone AR - 3D Scanning

One of the primary reasons I purchased this phone was for its TriCam System which has the ability to create point clouds of data which in turn can be made into a 3D mesh. There are a few apps out that take advantage of this system:
Matterport Scenes (point clouds)
Constructor (creates object mesh with texture file)
Open Constructor (needs some work)
Scandy Pro (creates object mesh)
Of these 4 apps I prefer Constructor. It seems to do a good job of accurately mapping areas and objects. Scans are best taken on non shiny objects that are in areas not brightly lit. This is true for almost all 3D scanners. The scanner in this phone is no where near as accurate as some of the commercial options available today, but can do some impressive things.
Below are some links to scans I took while on vacation in Chicago. I did not clean them up at all and these are the raw files from Constructor. Some of the exhibits in Art Institute of Chicago were most ideal for the phones depth sensing technology. I was able to get some decent detail out of clay and marble sculptures.
Boar Incarnation of God Vishnu:
https://skfb.ly/6tDGp
Statue of the Aphrodite of Knidos(Sorry about the artifacts... I may clean this one up in MeshLab):
https://skfb.ly/6tDGU

That is way cool!

Thanks for a great post dantegl36.
You write that the Asus AR is not as accurate as other devices. Have you been doing some test? What other proffesional devices are you thinking of? DOTDPI?
//Niels

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