The "Emulation" tab displays your emulated device. The device is running as long as the tab is visible. Once the tab is switched or the app is sent to the background the emulation pauses (this can be disabled for desktops in the settings). Date and time are synced to the host system, so the clock is not affected by the emulator pausing and resuming. # Interacting with the emulator You can interact with the emulator by touching or clicking the screen and the hardware buttons below. The power button is located in the menu on the top left. A hardware keyboard can be used to type directly in OS4 and earlier devices (see "Keyboard mappings" at the end of this page). This is not available on OS5 devices; on these the keyboard always controls the hardware keys. On browsers that support the necessary APIs the clipboard can be shared with the host on OS4 and earlier devices. Check "Clipboard integration" below for more details. # Locking the UI By default the navigation at the bottom remains visible when the emulator is running. This may cause your fingers to accidentally touch the navigation if you are interacting with your pilot. You can touch the lock icon at the top in order to hide the navigation and make room for your fingers. You can toggle the "Auto-lock UI" setting on the settings page in order to do that automatically on launch. # Installing program and database files Select the "Install file" button on the top right in order to install `.prc` and `.pdb` files into the emulator. You can select and install multiple files at once. `.zip` archives can be selected as well, and CloudpilotEmu will install all installable files it finds in the archive. You can also drag and drop the files that you want to install to the opened emulation tab. Please note that the launcher needs to be restarted by switching to another program and back to the launcher in order for newly installed programs to become visible. On Palm OS 3.5 and above it is sufficient to switch the launcher category. On rare occasions the installation may catch PalmOS on the wrong foot and crash the emulator. In this case you can simply resume the session and retry the installation. Installing while the launcher is open is generally safe. # Switching sessions If you have more than one session you can switch by tapping the session name in the page title and selecting another session. # State saves CloudpilotEmu automatically saves the emulator state every second while the emulator is running. If CloudpilotEmu is reloaded (or the session is switched) the state is preserved and restored. # Saving a backup You can save a backup of all databases in device RAM by selecting "Save Backup" from the menu. This will create and save a zip archive with .prc and .pdb files that can be installed again on any PalmOS device at a later point. There are two types of backup, and CloudpilotEmu will prompt you to choose between them: * Backup only RAM databases. This is an ordinary backup, and you should choose it use unless you specifically want to retrieve the databases in the device ROM. * Include ROM databases. This will include the contents of the device ROM with the backup. This is not required for a normal backup, and restoring it blindly will have undesired side effects. Databases must be closed in order to back up, so if you are backing up while an application is opened, the corresponding DB files will not be included in the backup. CloudpilotEmu will notify you if this happens. Backing up databases interacts with PalmOS, and there is a (very) slim chance of crashing the emulator, depending on the state of the virtual device when the backup is run. In general it is best to run the backup while the launcher is open. # Device reset The device can be reset by selecting "reset" from the menu. This is equivalent to pushing a pin into the reset hole on a real device. The different options correspond to different key combinations held while the device resets. ### Reset No key held. This causes a plain reset. ### Reset (no extensions) This corresponds to holding "down" while resetting the device and will disable the loading of system extensions during startup. This is very useful to recover from a bad hack or system extension. ### Hard reset Corresponds to "power" being held during reset. This will trigger a prompt that will allow you to factory reset the device. # Power button The power button can be pressed by selecting "Power" from the menu. CloudpilotEmu does not support sleep for some devices, and the menu item is not available in this case. # Hotsync button The hotsync button on the cradle can be pressed by selecting "Hotsync" from the menu. CloudpilotEmu does not support this on OS5, and the menu item is not available in this case. # Audio The "Enable audio" / "Disable audio" option in the menu allows to toggle audio emulation on / off. CloudpilotEmu always starts with audio disabled (unless configured otherwise in the settings), and the option must be selected to enable it. The volume can be changed in the settings. On iOS, muting the phone also mutes audio from the emulator. # Memory cards Virtual storage cards can be attached to devices that have a SD card or a memory stick slot by choosing the corresponding option from the menu. Ejecting works the same way. **Important**: Ejecting a card while PalmOS is accessing it may result in file system corruption. The best place to eject a card is the launcher. # Session settings The "Settings" option from the menu gives you access to the session settings. The settings are described in detail in the sessions tab help. # Performance issues CloudpilotEmu will automatically throttle the clock of the virtual device if your host is too slow to keep up. In this case an icon in the menu bar will appear to notify you. For OS5, the icon will display when speed falls under the threshold configured in the session settings. # Keyboard input If you are using CloudpilotEmu on a device with a keyboard you can use the keyboard to control the emulator. There are two different modes of keyboard input, game mode and normal mode. In normal mode the keyboard can be used to enter text on the Palm, and in game mode it controls the hardware buttons. Game mode can be toggled by pressing `shift-ctrl`. A gamepad icon will appear at the top while game mode is active. In normal mode the game mode mappings are accessible by holding `ctrl`. On OS5 devices, normal mode is not available, and the keyboard will always control the hardware buttons. In both modes `page up` and `page down` control the up / down buttons of the device. ### Game mode mappings In game mode there are several blocks on the keyboard that correspond to the hardware buttons * **wasd/qe:** The w/a/s/d buttons control up/cal/down/notes and the q/e buttons control contacs/todo. * **uhjk/uo:** The same as wasd/qe, but shifted to the right of the keyboard. * **up/down/left/right**: On OS4 and earlier these buttons control up/down/cal/notes. On OS5 they control the D-Pad directional buttons. * **enter/space** On OS5 this controls the D-Pad selector. * **zxcv/yxcv**: z/x/c/v (or y/x/c/v) control cal/contacs/todo/notes. If unsure take a look at the buttons on the silkscreen --- they will light up while the corresponding button is pressed. :::div{.feature-clipboard-integration} # Clipboard integration (OS4 and earlier) On browsers that support it the clipboard can be shared with the host. This is disabled by default and needs to be turned on the settings page. Note that the option is not available on browsers that do not support it (i.e. Firefox). Once the setting is turned on copy and paste operations will access the host clipboard. Accessing the clipboard is a sensitive operation, and browsers implement security mechanisms around it. On most browsers (including Chrome) a popup asking for permission must be confirmed the first time CloudpilotEmu pastes from the host clipboard. On other browsers (notably Safari) CloudpilotEmu shows a dialog asking to confirm the operation on every clipboard access. This is necessary because those browsers require clipboard access to be the direct consequence of an user interaction. When pasting Safari will show an additional "Paste" widget that needs to be tapped in order to paste. This feature is not available on OS5. ::: # Statistics If "Show Statistics" is enabled (on the settings tab) CloudpilotEmu displays an overlay with performance statistics over the grafitti silkscreen. The statistics are updated whenever a new state snapshot is taken. ### Snapshot statistics State snapshots are taken every second while the emulator is running and preserve the current state of the emulator in the browser's IndexedDB. * **last snapshot**: This is the time at which the last snapshot was taken. * **snapshot size**: The amount of data saved. * **snapshot time total**: The total amount of time the snapshot took to complete. Most of this time is spent by the browser on a separate thread and does not block emulation, so this number does not have a direct impact on performance. * **snapshot time blocking**: The amount of time that was spent blocking on the emulation thread. During this time the emulator cannot execute. ### Emulation statistics The CPU load of the emulator can easily vary by orders of magnitude depending on the code that is currently executing. If the device sleeps the emulator will consume very little CPU as well. If the emulator is busy executing code and shoveling data around the CPU load on the host device increases as well. CloudpilotEmu uses very different emulation cores for OS4 and earlier and OS5, and the information displayed differs between those: ##### OS4 and earlier * **host speed**: Ratio between maximum possible speed and the speed the device is supposed to run at. This varies vastly depending on the workload. * **emulation speed**: The ratio between the actual clock of the emulated device and the clock at which it is supposed to run. * **average FPS**: The average frames per second at which the emulator runs. Note that the screen is not actually updated during every frame; CloudpilotEmu redraws only if the display content has changed. ##### OS5 Speed is given in million instructions per second (MIPS). A real Tungsten E2 runs at about 100 MIPS, depending on how well cache can be utilized. * **current MIPS**: Current speed of the emulator. * **current MIPS limit**: Theoretically achievable speed of the emulator. This varies vastly depending on the workload. * **current load**: Current percentage of a single host core consumed by emulation.