[NTLK] A few newbie questions.

From: Stephen Gilman <subscription.dv9z_at_ncf.ca>
Date: Fri Mar 14 2008 - 08:17:30 EDT

I just got my first eMate 300 off eBay for about $75, so I have a bunch
of newbie questions:

1) Looking around for a distro of Linux that runs on an eMate turned up
some discussion from a long time ago about a few folk who were trying to
make ARM Linux or uclinux work, but that the consensus is that it's not
possible, even though folk have been successful getting Linux to boot on
other devices that use the same processer. Does, anybody know if
there's been any progress in this regard recently? The big stumbling
block according to any articles I've read is that Apple never released
the Newton source code, and that you can't boot from the PCMCIA/CF card,
but I don't see why you couldn't (in theory) boot into Newton and then
open up a small distro of Linux residing on a PCMCIA/CF card. With so
few I/O ports on the Newton/eMate, there shouldn't be TOO many drivers
required. But, I'm not a programmer, beyond very simple Javascript or
"Hello World" in Basic or Pascal. ;-)

2) I bought my eMate for use during my weekly d20 Dungeons & Dragons
games. Are there any good d20 apps for the Newton/eMate? I'm thinking
about character sheet database programs and ebooks of the 3.5 System
Reference Document.

3) What's needed to get a Java or Javascript program to run on Newton?
There are quite a few Java programs out there that I would love to use
on my Newton (examples:
http://jai.hordelings.com/dungeontilesmapper.htm, and
http://pcgen.sourceforge.net). Presumedly, these programs use coding
beyond the capabilities of WABA, and may use WAY too much memory, but
I'm no expert.

4) What sort of spreadsheet or database apps are out there for Newton/eMate?

5) Is there an app where I could open up an image on the eMate (say, a
map, for example), and then draw on a transparent layer on top of the
map, and then save the layer I just drew, and re-open the layer on top
of the map later on? Again, this would be helpful for D&D.

6) Has there been any progress on a pdf reader for Newton/eMate, other
than the one I saw that converts each page to an image file? I found a
few Java pdf readers out there. How hard would they be to port to Newton?

7) Is there any limit to how big a CF card I could use with a PCMCIA
adapter? Like, would the eMate be totally confused if I used an 8GB cf
card?

8) As my own programming skills are so damn limited, any advice for
someone trying to write their own Newton apps? Is there a version of
Basic for Newton? Hehe.

Thanks in advance!

====================================================================
The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
====================================================================
Received on Fri Mar 14 08:17:30 2008

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Mar 14 2008 - 15:30:00 EDT