Simulator vs Emulator issues

[phoenix3200]

In my intense development of an app, I've been using the Palm OS Simulator [NTRel_enUS.rom] for a lot of my testing. Let's just say that the Simulator crashes on me a lot. And has screen refresh issues, especially if I leave it sitting for a minute.

I switched over to using the Palm OS Emulator [NR70e.rom], and the same build of my application does not create the screen refresh issues. Is this a documented case, or does my app just not behave well with the simulator?

I hope it's not option 2.

[Tam Hanna]

Generally, the simulator is a pculiar thing. Sometimes, it simply dies randomly on my Wi ndfows 2000 machine. Also, it is much more picky about the apps it runs than a device is, and it doesnt support ARMlets either.

Generaly, dont spend too much time "debugging" your app for simulator use-if its little work, do it. If not, simply make a dialog that says that this app cannot run in PalmOS simulator...

[phoenix3200]

Thanks for the info. I figured out that even after re-opening the simulator and not installing anything that it will still have the screen refresh problems.

I don't have any ARM code in my program (and don't have any plans, in order to have OS 4.1 compatibility), so I shouldn't have to worry about that.

It's just that it's a lot quicker to test something on the simulator/emulator than it is to load it to my PDA, test it, hit the reset button, hope that I have a recent backup on my MS, and then start all over again.

If you were talking about entering debug mode on the simulator, I don't even know how to, nor know what good it would do me.

[_Em]

The emulator (fairly) accurately emulates all PalmOS 4.x or lower PDAs, and is probably the best choice if you want your software to work on 68k devices. The Simulator is basicly PalmOS 5 compiled as an NT/Intel app, with some debug code and I/O compiled in; it is good for seeing how your 68k code behaves in the POS5 environment.

This makes me wonder though; would it be possible for the guys at Palm to compile the Simulator for some other ARM-based device? For instance, it should be possible to run armlets under the simulator running on a GBA emulator....

...then again, I guess this is exactly why Palm decided to only let the simulator run on NT/Intel ;)

[phoenix3200]

That's not quite how the simulator works.

In fact, it can't run any ARM code...which explains why they didn't call it an emulator. What you have to do is compile your ARM instructions into a .dll file, dump it into the simulator folder, and hope that the simulator recognizes it.

Since starting this thread, I've switched to primarily using the emulator, and occasionally testing my programs on the simulator, only because the simulator seems to be more picky than the emulator.

[Cyker]

Sadly you can't beat testing it on a real thing :/

If it works on an OS4 and OS5 Clie, a T|3, any NVFS Palm, a Zodiac 2 and that evil Zire with the 2 hard buttons, it should work on pretty much anything ;)

[potter]

Just for completeness, there are two other Palm OS Simulators/Emulators, one older and one newer.

The Old: With Metrowerks Code Warrior for Palm OS, when running on a Mac, one could select to build to a Palm OS Simulator. This would compile the Dragonball (68k) code as normal, but instead of linking to produce a Palm OS application, it would link with a special Mac library, to produce a Mac executable. When run, it would pretty much like the current Palm OS simulator, but it was just the one application, not the entire device.

The New: If one signs up for PalmSource’s new Inside Track program (http://www.palmos.com/dev/programs/insidetrack/learn.html) ($149 USD per year) one can download the Janeiro ARM Emulator and a few Palm OS ROMs for this emulator.