mirrornoir / mu

A new Palm OS emulator targeting compatibility, speed and accuracy in that order.

Palm OS emulator(Mu)

This is a complete restart of my Palm OS emulator, with the last one the code got too messy and the goal too ambitious(to emulate every palm API in software and for compatibility with all Palm OS versions and devices).

The goal of this project

To emulate every part of the Palm m515 that is used by the OS perfectly. This means no hacks like POSE where API calls are intercepted and replaced with those that dont use the actual hardware. It is also written in C for RetroArch so it will run on everything at the start, not just Win95 like POSE and Copilot and is being developed with modern emulator features in mind, save/load state and overclocking are available from the start.

Why the m515?

It is the best Palm brand OS 4 device that has no special hardware builtin(cellphone, barcode scanner, keyboard attachment), it has a color screen, and available ROM dumps.

What about accessories?

The Palm keyboard attachment will likely be emulated later on so the PC keyboard can be used on text fields.

What about OS 5?

I am planning on adding Tungsten T3 support as soon as possible.

Credits

Firebird Emu (ARMv5TE Core)
uARM (PXA260 CPU Peripherals and reference CPU core)
Musashi v3.4 (last version that builds outside of MAME)(68k Core)
blip_buf 1.1.0 (Audio Resampler)
https://www.iconarchive.com/show/crystal-clear-icons-by-everaldo/App-palm-icon.html (Desktop Icon)
https://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library (Palm Action Buttons, All UI buttons)
https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/2317746/chip_computer_cpu_device_frequency_microchip_processor_icon (hwTestSuite Icon)
https://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/cow_235371#term=cow&page=1&position=13 (muExpDriver Icon)
https://findicons.com/icon/164302/cursor (Libretro Port Joystick Cursor)

Building

For RetroArch

Make sure you have done all the steps here https://docs.libretro.com/ under "For Developers/Compilation" so you build environment works.

cd ./libretroBuildSystem
make

For Qt

Install Qt 5.11.1 and Qt Creator(optional) if not installed
Open the .pro file in Qt Creator and click "Run" or build from command line

To build without Qt Creator(untested)

cd ./qtBuildSystem/Mu
qmake
make

TestSuite for Palm OS

Install prc-tools from the below link(self compiled or prepackaged VM)

cd ./tools/palm/hwTestSuite
./make.sh

MuExpDriver for Palm OS

Install prc-tools from the below link(self compiled or prepackaged VM)

cd ./tools/palm/muExpansionDriver
./make.sh

Running

Files

palmos40-en-m500.rom: f50e4d5e4d98dc831f2c34a9107651eb (MD5)
palmos41-en-m515.rom: 83cb1d1c76e568b916dc2e7c0bf669f6 (MD5)
palmos52-en-t3.rom: de46ec84d9aabf655eabdf9b00a3845d (MD5)
bootloader-dbvz.rom: 9da101cd2317830649a31f8fa46debec (MD5)

For Qt

1. Run once to create the directory tree
2. Copy "palmos41-en-m515.rom" and "palmos52-en-t3.rom" to "~/Mu"
3. (Optional)Copy "bootloader-en-m515.rom" to "~/Mu"
4. Run emu and press start button

For RetroArch

1. Download "Palm OS(Mu)" from "Online Updater->Core Updater"
2. Go back, select "Load Core", select "Palm OS(Mu)"
3. Copy "palmos41-en-m515.rom" and "palmos52-en-t3.rom" to the RetroArch system directory
4. (Optional)Copy "bootloader-en-m515.rom" to the RetroArch system directory
5. Run a .prc or .img file

Tools

Prc-tools, Palm OS SDKs, pilrc, pilot-link

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License.

Links

Website
Discord

Also see Mu's sister project

🐿SquirrelJME