XCADE - An Arcade Machine Emulator for Palm OS

Copyright 2002 Codejedi
http://www.codejedi.com

Requirements
------------
1) Palm OS 5.0 or later
2) An ARM processor (such as in the Tungsten T or Sony NX series of units)
3) That you've read the Disclaimer below.

Need help?
----------
Be sure to check the website for additional documentation, the FAQ, and the
mailing lists and web forums we support. Feel free to email
support@codejedi.com to ask for help. Always check the FAQ - it is a growing
resource addressing common questions or things you need or may want to
know.

Background
----------
"XCade" is directly descended from a product we developed almost 6 years ago,
back around 1996 or 1997, as an experiment to understand the inner workings of
arcade machines. At the time, XCade was one of the first (if not the first)
publicly released Unix based arcade emulators. Emulation was a new and black
art and we discovered many fascinating things through long sleepless nights.
As a side effect we built numerous little "emulators", to let you play these
old arcade games on modern equipment, and to provide platforms for developing
new games to run on old arcade hardware.

What is XCade?
--------------
XCade emulates the hardware of many arcade machines. This isn't really too
useful on its own, but if you obtain software to run on this "virtual machine"
you can run it. For instance, if you obtain a "Game ROM" that is appropriate
to the virtual machine, you can run that game within XCade!

Installation
------------
Simply install the XCade.prc into your handheld in the normal fashion; just
double click on it, most of the time.. otherwise use the Palm Install Tool
included with Palm Desktop. You can install XCade to expansion media or into
main memory.

You may optionally install the XCadeSkin.pdb, which is a fancier user
interface for the game launcher. Its about 150 or 200K so is a little on the
large side, but if you've got memory to spare I highly encourage it :) If you
have an SD-card or Memory Stick expansion in your device and a file manager
application, you can actually move the skin into the /Palm/Programs/XCade
directory on the card, and XCade will magicly detect it and deal accordingly.

You will also need to convert some games from ROM-file format into a Palm
ROM database; you'll use "Rommer" to do this, be it the WinRommer for Windows,
"rommer" for DOS (Windows command line), or the OSX command line Rommer tool.
(Hopefully a GUI OSX rommer will be out soon too)

What hardware is supported by XCade?
------------------------------------
XCade supports a variety of hardware platforms, with more being added
all the time. XCade 1.0 supports hardware essentially the same as
used in the "Space Invaders", "Pacman", "Ms. Pacman", "Donkey Kong"
and "Donkey Kong Jr." arcade games. Space Invaders is trademarked and owned
by Taito Company I believe, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. are for
sure still owned by Nintendo Corporation, and the others at some point by
Bally, Midway and other companies. We have nothing to do with them, nor do
we include their software with our product. For some details about these and
other arcade games, see http://www.klov.com . Please support these companies
and help them to produce new and exciting games for the future!

XCade 1.4 supports the hardware needed by about 20 games; see the website
for details.

How do I run games in XCade?
----------------------------
1) Install XCade onto your handheld
2) Obtain game software (ROMs) compatible with XCade
3) Use the "rommer" tool to convert the a ROM set into a Palm .pdb file
4) Upload the resulting .pdb file to your handheld in the normal fashion of
installing Palm OS applications. (ie: Double click on it :)
5) Run XCade and select the game just uploaded

How do I operate XCade?
-----------------------
XCade emulates an arcade machine. That means that if you're running arcade
software in it, the game will expect to receive quarters and otherwise work
as an arcade machine should. Thus, to start a game you must do this:

1) Run the selected game in XCade
2) After the game "warms up", push the "Coin" button to drop a quarter into
the virtual coin slot
3) Push the "Start" button to push the virtual "1 Player Start" button on
the machine and the game should start up
4) When you're done playing, push the "Halt" button to suspend the emulation.
You may then exit XCade or start up the emulation again.

How do I play games?
--------------------
Each game has a different interface. Some games offer left and right only,
while others offer directional movement, while others are different again.
XCade offers controls to match.

In the first version of XCade, left/right are mapped to Datebook and
Addressbook, and Fire is mapped to Memopad. For directional games, ToDo
and Memopad are up and down, as are the page up/down buttons on the unit.
The Tungsten T's 5-way controller also controls the four directions.

Space Invaders:
Left Datebook or 5way-Left
Right Addressbook or 5way-Right
Fire Memopad

Pacman and Ms. Pacman:
Left Datebook or 5way-Left
Right Addressbook or 5way-Right
Up ToDo or PageUp or 5way-Up
Down Memopad or PageDown or 5way-Down

Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.:
Left Datebook or 5way-Left
Right Addressbook or 5way-Right
Up PageUp or 5way-Up
Down PageDown or 5way-Down
Jump Memopad

How do I use "Rommer"?
----------------------
Rommer comes in a variety of formats; new in XCade 1.4 is the WinRommer
version for Windows which should make it easier for a few people. You can
continue to use the original commandline Rommer tools of course. See the
website for help if you need it.

WinRommer is very easy to use. Simply run it, pick a game from the listing
that you have ROM files for, set the path to where those ROMs are (exact path
needed), and hit Convert. A new .pdb file will pop up in the directory you
can WinRommer in, and you need only send it up to the handheld. After
conversion a status screen will pop up.. be sure to read it so you know
if any errors occurred.

The DOS (Windows command line) tool is a little more complex. Also note that
more detail is contained in the FAQ on the website: http://www.codejedi.com

Rommer is a simple command line DOS tool included for conversion of ROM
files into Palm database files. You run Rommer, it locates the ROMs needed,
and out pops a file. Simply double click on the resulting file to upload
it to your handheld (or upload it as you see fit.)

NOTE: Do NOT ask us where to obtain ROMs. We cannot legally help you, and
will not help you find them. We will support XCade, but not obtaining ROMs.
We include no ROMs with XCade, since they're copywritten materials. We may
develop some little games to include, but thats not been done yet.

Run Rommer without any arguments from your commandline and it will list
the games it currently supports. Remember the short-name for a game (such
as "spcinv" for Space Invaders style ROMs).

Run Rommer with the game short-name, and Rommer will attempt to find the
needed ROMs in the current directory. You may also specify a path to look
in and Rommer will look there instead.

If Rommer finds all the necessary ROMs, it will write out a .pdb file
corresponding to the requested game.. such as "spcinv.pdb".

Install the PDB to your handheld, and away you go.

Again:
1) Figure out where the ROMs are on your hard drive (say C:\roms\spcinv)
2) Hit Start Menu, hit "Run"
3) Enter "command" and hit OK. The Command (DOS) window opens
4) "cd" to where Rommer is; say "cd C:\tmp\xcade\" or wherever
you extracted it to
5) Run rommer to get list of games: "rommer"
6) Run rommer for Space Invaders: "rommer spcinv C:\roms\spcinv"
7) You now have spcinv.pdb if you had sufficient roms to create it
8) Double click on spcinv.pdb to send it to your handheld

Lastly...
------
Lastly -- Please enjoy! Support the original arcade companies.. they're
going through a tough time. Buy the ROMs you want to play. Each of the
major vendors offers commercial emulators for many of the great classic
games. Go out and buy them.

DISCLAIMER
----------
We do not condone nor encourage software piracy. Please register this software.

Shadow Plan and XCade are Codejedi products. If you use this software with
software (suchs as Hacks, ROMs, etc) not provided by Codejedi, those products
remain the property of their respective owners. We do not suggest or imply that
we have anything to do with those softwares, nor do we imply any support for
them. We suggest and implore you to obtain software through legal channels.

Codejedi will not tell you where to obtain "Game ROMs", which are software
programs built by other companies. We at Codejedi own the arcade games we
build emulations for and we use ROMs only downloaded from our own equipment.
We suggest you do the same.

Although we try to make the software reasonably bullet proof and test each
release thoroughly with a group of testers across many Palm devices, we do
*not* guarantee it will work as described for any given user on any given
device. This is not a full time pursuit, and rather than charge a lot of
money for support, we offer the software very inexpensively. So understand
that by downloading or using Codejedi software you are at your own risk.
If you lose your files (be they Codejedi product datafiles or not), you are
on your own. In the unlikely event you do crash some files, please contact
support@codejedi.com where we will try and help you recover the data.
Use Hotsync to backup your data regularly. We can't be held responsible for
any data or hardware damage and you use this software at ENTIRELY YOUR OWN
RISK. NO WARRANTY IS IMPLIED OR OFFERED. We reserve the right to change the
disclaimer at will.