CloudpilotEmu is a web-based emulator for PalmOS. It emulates both Dragonball based devices (OS 1-4) and the Palm Tungsten E2 (ARM-based, OS5). Emulation of Dragonball devices is based on the original POSE emulator, and OS5 emulation is based on uARM. Currently, the following devices are emulated: - Pilot, Palm Pilot - Palm III - Palm IIIxe, Palm IIIx, Palm IIIe - Palm IIIc - Palm Vx, Palm V - Palm VII, Palm VII EZ, Palm VIIx - Palm m500, Palm m505, Palm m515 - Palm m520 (an unreleased prototype of a highres 5xx) - Palm m100, Palm m105, Palm m125, Palm m130 - Palm i705 - Tungsten W (silkscreen version) - Tungsten E2, E3 (a widescreen version of the E2 created specifically for emulation by Dmitry Grinberg) - Handera 330, 330c (the lost color version of the 330c) - Sony PEG-S300, PEG-S320 - Sony PEG-S500C series - Sony PEG-T400 series - Sony PEG-N600C series - Sony PEG-T600C series - Sony PEG-N700C series - Sony PEG-T650C series - Sony PEG-NR70 series - Acer S1x - Legend P168 (no SD card support) The device type is automatically determined from the ROM you load. If there are multiple possible devices CloudpilotEmu will let you choose when you create the session. # Tabs The interface is divided in tabs. Each tab has a dedicated help page that can be accessed by tapping either "?" in the toolbar or selecting "Help" from the menu. ### Sessions tab Navigate to the sessions tab in order to create, manage and launch emulation sessions. ### Emulation tab The emulation tab hosts the emulated device. ### Storage cards tab The cards tab allows you to create and manage virtual storage cards that can be attached to many PalmOS devices as either SD cards or memory sticks. ### Settings tab The settings tab allows you to adjust the emulator settings. # Reloads and emulation state The emulator automatically saves the state of the emulated device every second while the while the emulation is running. If CloudpilotEmu terminates and restarts emulation will resume. # Installing programs and databases Program (.prc) and database (.pdb) files can be installed directly into the emulated device. `.zip` archives containing such files can be installed as well. # Network support CloudpilotEmu can connect OS4 and earlier devices to the network via a proxy server. This configuration supports network hotsync. Please check the [online documentation](https://github.com/cloudpilot-emu/cloudpilot-emu/blob/master/doc/networking.md) for detailed instructions. Network integration is not currently available for OS5. # SD cards and memory sticks Many PalmOS devices support removable storage in the for of either SD cards or memory sticks. CloudpilotEmu allows you to create virtual memory cards that can be attached as eihter SD cards or memory sticks to devices that have the corresponding slots. Please see the help on the "Cards" tab for more details. # Backing up your virtual devices Virtual devices can be backed up by creating either session snapshots or DB backups. ### Device snapshots Saving a session snapshot on the Sessions tab every now and then will protect your data in case anything goes wrong. Re-importing a session snapshot will create a clone of the device at the moment where it was backed up. Changes to the snapshot format are forward compatible, which means that a newer version of CloudpilotEmu can always import a snapshot written by an older version. ### DB backups In addition to full device snapshots you can export a zip archive on the emulation tab. This archive contains all databases and applications in device RAM as portable .prc and .pdb files. # Handling fatal errors The emulator is highly stable, but you may encounter situations in which it crashes. In this caseCloudpilotEmu will stop immediately and show you a dialog that allows you to restart the emulator. Upon restart CloudpilotEmu will not automatically resume your session but will instead start up with the session page. You can resume your session from there. ### Escaping a crash loop In the unlikely event that the emulated device keeps crashing the emulator you can reset the device directly on the sessions page (see the help page there). This will remove the hardware state but preserve the RAM, resulting in a clean reboot. :::div{.no-feature-ios-app} # Requirements and browser support CloudpilotEmu runs on all reasonable recent browsers and can be added to the homescreen of Android and iOS devices as a mobile app. For iPhones and iPads this is highly recommended as Safari may clear the data of ordinary web sites if they are not used for more than seven days. On iOS, CloudpilotEmu is also available as an app from the [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/de/app/cloudpilotemu/id6478502699). On desktops, Chrome, Edge and Safari allow to install CloudpilotEmu as a standalone web app. Again, this will keep Safari from deleting data after seven days of inactivity. ::: # Updates CloudpilotEmu caches all its files locally and does not require a network connection to run once the caching is complete. During startup CloudpilotEmu checks for new versions. If a new version is available CloudpilotEmu will download it and inform you with a notification. After this point reloading will apply the update. In order to force check for an update terminate and restart the app. If you experience any browser bugs related to the update process such as repeated update notifications without the "New version..." dialog on reload or the app not updating to the most recent version, go to the "About" tab, scroll to the bottom and select the "reset worker" link at the bottom of the page. :::div{.feature-ios-app} # Stable and preview builds CloudpilotEmu is available both as a stable and as a preview version (which eventually is released as the next stable version). If you are using the native iOS app you can switch between both versions by opening the "Settings" app, selecting "CloudpilotEmu" and toggling "Use preview version". Data of the two different versions is isolated from each other. ::: # Notes on OS5 emulation OS5 was designed to run on ARM CPUs clocked at several 100 MHz. Those chips were fast enough to play music, decode video and run demanding games and even emulators. CloudpilotEmu pulls many tricks and optimizations to run OS5 as fast as possible, and applications targeting OS4 or earlier will run at comparable speeds on OS5, but native OS5 software requires a fast host. Apple Silicon Macs and recent iOS devices (iPhone 13 or later) run even demanding ARM apps at decent or even faster-than-real speeds, and the same goes for fast x86 desktops, but older and slower devices (which includes most Android devices) may struggle. Many apps still work fine, but your mileage may vary. Note that mobiles may throttle under high load. You can try to counter this by limiting speed and host utilization in the session settings. # Known issues and limitations :::div{.feature-ios-or-safari} ### Issues related to iOS or Safari - Safari on iOS: the home indicator (the white-ish bar at the bottom of the screen) may display on top of the UI if the toolbar is minimized. This is cannot be detected, but there is a setting on the settings page that you can change to work around. - Safari: Safari will delete all data stored by the app if the page is not opened for more than seven days. The only way to circumvent this is to install CloudpilotEmu from the [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/de/app/cloudpilotemu/id6478502699) or as a homescreen app (on iOS) or to add it to the dock (Safari on MacOS). - Safari: On rare occasions there have been issues with Safari handling CloudpilotEmu's service worker. Symptoms of this are either repeated (bogus) update notifications without the "New version..." dialog on reload, or the app not updating to the most recent version. If you suspect this is happening to you, go to the "About" tab, scroll down and select the "reset worker" link at the bottom of the page. - On old versions of iOS, the file picker may gray out some file types. You can work around this by selecting "Don't restrict file picker" in the settings. ::: :::div{.feature-ios-app} ### Issues on iOS - Version 1.0 of the app may refuse to load without internet connectivity. This is fixed in version 1.1. - There may be a slight delay when opening the app while on a bad internet connection. - A browser bug may cause the web app and the homescreen app to stop registering touches for a few seconds. Usually this is extremely rare, but there are a few conditions that can increase the likelihood. This issue is not present in the native app. - On old versions of iOS, the file picker may gray out some file types. You can work around this by selecting "Don't restrict file picker" in the settings. ::: ### Emulation limitations - Audio timing on OS4 and earlier is not perfect and processed at the refresh rate of the emulator. Sound effects that rely on quickly modulating the audio signal may not be reproduced correctly. - On rare occasions installing files or changing the hotsync name can catch PalmOS on the wrong foot and crash the emulator. - Some devices cannot enter and exit sleep correctly. For those, CloudpilotEmu patches PalmOS to prevent sleeping. - On Clié devices, audio is not emulated beyond the usual beeps. - The MQ-1168 video chip in PEG-NR70 series devices is not emulated beyond framebuffer support, 2D acceleration is not available. - Formatting an unformatted memory stick in Clié devices that run OS 3.x locks up PalmOS. CloudpilotEmu formats newly created cards, so there is no need to reformat them in PalmOS. - On OS5, keyboard input, clipboard and network integration are not currently available. - The emulated Tungsten|W does not provide a full 5-way D-pad, even though the skin suggests otherwise. - There is no support for changing the hotsync user name on OS5. Please use MultiUserHack or a similar application for that. # CloudpilotEmu on the web * [Source code](https://github.com/cloudpilot-emu/cloudpilot-emu) * [Webpage](https://cloudpilot-emu.github.io) # License CloudpilotEmu is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.