Falling In Love With my Big Fat Geek PDA

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.businessedge.ca/ViewNewsItem.aspx?NewsItemID=2248&amp;editionID=1">http://www.businessedge.ca/ViewNewsItem.aspx?NewsItemID=2248&amp;editionID=1</a><br /><br />"It may sound heretical for a gadget geek like myself to admit, but I never found the whole Personal Digital Assistant craze to be all that exciting. I know now, however, that it was I to blame rather than the devices. You see, when you have the social life of an unharvested Tasmanian Perigord Truffle, the ability to store hundreds of names and addresses in a portable electronic database just doesn’t make one yelp with excitement. And with the turn-of-the-century PDAs I could afford, reading electronic books on the dim black and white display was often more of a chore than a pleasure."<br /><br />And so begins the life of another PDA Geek as he is engrossed in the ultimate coolness of the Pocket PC. <i>(This is what I tell myself daily anyway)</i> :lol:

[Foo Fighter]

That changed suddenly, however, as Dell jumped into the booming PDA market by releasing its feature-rich Axim X5 Pocket PC at a price point that has its competitors scrambling to catch up.

Yeah, tell that to Palm and Sony. They seem to enjoy gouging consumers with over-priced wares. I'm getting a little sick of watching them live off the fat of the land, especially in a down economy. :roll:

[Rirath]

However, I wanted to see exactly how much the 400 MHz X-Scale processor could handle. To that end, I installed a Super Nintendo and a Sega Genesis emulator and then loaded up some classic titles such as Super Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog. The result was several hours of gaming fun for unhurried hands like mine, but my dexterous daughter found the games ran too slow.

Why do I get the feeling he's totally making this up? The SNES emulator is a crawl, so unless he has the reflexes of mud I can't see how it was playable. Pocket Genesis won't even run despite my best efforts. I find it very hard to believe this guy (http://www.businessedge.ca/pictures/1386.jpg) got them both working, smoothly.

Perhaps this guy is so far behind the times he doesn't know a NES from an SNES or a Game Gear from a Genesis? :? Though, I have to give him some credit... he likes the Dell, found pocketgamer.org, and used the Japanese name of Donkey Kong Country. Hmm... perhaps there's hope for Pocket Genesis after all? 8O

[McInk]

>Why do I get the feeling he's totally making this up? The SNES emulator >is a crawl, so unless he has the reflexes of mud I can't see how it was >playable.

LOL. Well, I guess I do have reflexes of mud ;-) But I found both SDK and Sonic ran well enough for me to play. Also enjoyed Kid Chameleon on the PocketGenesis. But if you grew up in the GameBoy and GameGear generation, you would definitely be disappointed. They don't run as nicely as say the DOOM conversion. As a distraction, however, I found them enjoyable if not, perhaps, pulse quickening.
Cheers,
Grant
http://www.mckenzieink.ca

[Paragon]

Hey Rirath

Don't you just hate it when the guy who's a$$ you're busting is actually reading what you are saying. :D It makes me mellow out a bit when I think of that possibility

Dave

[Foo Fighter]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call poetic justice. :wink:

[Ed Hansberry]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call poetic justice. :wink:
LOL! Busted. :lol:

And welcome to the forum and the PPC community McInk!

[MultiMatt]

I'm just tickled and delighted that columnists like Grant are putting out these "I'm now a convert" articles about Pocket PCs!
We owe an awful lot of that to Dell, because (it might just be me), it seems that articles of this nature are popping up on a more frequent basis since the release of the Axim.
They made the unit truly affordable for the public (doesn't matter for us geeks - we'll pay whatever it takes!), and we are suddenly seeing a surge in "first-time" Pocket PC ownership.

I'm getting goosebumps! :rock on dude!:

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to upgrade from my 3970 to a 5400! (Geek!)...

Matt

[McInk]

Thanks for the welcome, gang.
I've been getting geeky for this particular publication for the last two years. You can see an archive of my recent columns and illustrations at http://www.mckenzieink.ca/columns.html
My style is a wee bit different from other tech columnists in that I always try to write with a liberal sense of humor.
Cheers,
Grant
http://www.mckenzieink.ca

[yunez]

its nice to see a journalist in touch with the enthusiast community

[Rirath]

Don't you just hate it when the guy who's a$$ you're busting is actually reading what you are saying. :D

To a point, yes... it makes it hard to discuss anything openly when the author is looking over your shoulder. But in this case, no. In fact, he was the best person to answer my questions. I may have worded it slightly different if I knew he was a PPCT reader, but that is all.

LOL. Well, I guess I do have reflexes of mud ;-) But I found both SDK and Sonic ran well enough for me to play. Also enjoyed Kid Chameleon on the PocketGenesis.

I'm amazed you got Pocket Genesis working. I'll keep trying then. I was sure it wasn't possible. As for Bleeding Edge, my best efforts have resulted in little more than a slide show that would take 5 minutes to get off the opening screen. I'm certainly going to give them both another go then. Good news indeed. :)

And if you haven't already done so, give YAME a shot. It may not be the graphics of SDK, but there's something wonderful about Super Mario Bros. 3 (+100 others) running full speed on the go. It's faster and smoother than PokeNES or Morphgear hands down.

[McInk]

I've found for PocketGenesis that (on the Axim) it works best if you use the Beta 1 (rather than 2) and bump up the screen refresh to 150. With those settings, Sonic actually runs great.
Cheers,
Grant
http://www.mckenzieink.ca