Austin Powers Pinball - $1.50 clearance at Staples

[RD100]

I bought Austin Powers Pinball Palm PDA game for my Sony Clie at Staples.

They had it for a clearance price of $1.50

It has excellent graphics, and plays like real pinball (in a mini-form).

It has around 10 different tables, and sound effects.

It's definitely worth the $1.50 price !!!!

Here is a link to a review of this game, with screen shots.

http://www.gamezone.com/gamesell/p19913.htm

:D :D :D

[timewaster77]

I got that from Staples for the same price about 2 months ago. I tried playing it on my T415 but it looked horrible.

[Flash-57]

I got that program for free about two years ago ($15 rebate). I tried to install it on my Palm IIIXE, but it needed way more free memory than I had. It was part of the reason I bought a Clie.

I installed it on the Clie, but it still needed 2M of RAM to be able to run, even though I used PowerRun. I never have 2M free, so I've still not played it.

Maybe when I get a Clie with 16M of RAM I can run it. If I would have paid money for the program, it would have been returned to the store the very next day.

[RD100]

I only had my Clie S360 for a week ... so I am just experimenting with software. Got the S360 for only $69 at Best Buy as a floor demo. I know the newer Clie High-Res screens look much better than mine ... but for $69 .. for a 16M unit, plus a mini-Targus keypad for another $4.50 (another open item in perfect condition ... originally $40), I can't be happier. It came with the Clie power cable, Clie USB cable, so all I needed to download was Palm 4.1 desktop, and I was in business !!!

One thing I found out about Austin Powers game, is it expects the Palm 4.1 directory on your PC to be named using the default c:\Program Files\Palm directory. I originally loaded the Palm 4.1 desktop software into another drive/folder which I called Sony Clie... and Austin Powers didn't like that, and aborted during the Install. The message was something like "Cant find the User" directory.

So I deleted the Sony Clie folder, and reloaded Palm 4.1 desktop using the Express Install ... letting Palm 4.1 decide where to put itself, and what to call itself, and then retried loading Austin Powers, and the install worked perfectly.

Austin Powers takes up a minimum of 1meg ram, plus around 50K per table (up to around 10 tables). You chose which ones you want to load. So I loaded all tables, and it uses up 1.6 meg. I figured I could always delete the tables I dont like after trying them.

I think it plays teriffic for a mini-version of pinball !!! Granted it is not equivalent to a full-sized PC based pinball game, like Microsoft Arcade pinball, but it is still fun, when away from home, and just wanting to kill a little time.

Of course on a LCD greyscale display ... it isn't eyepopping graphics .. but it still looks very nice. And for $1.50 ... I ain't complaining one bit !!!! It's pratically free at that price.

I plan to buy a Pocket PC (maybe a new Compaq Ipaq or Dell Axim X5) soon too.... so I can use both Palm and Microsoft CE programs. I figured this S360 was just a good cheap way to experiment with PDA's to see how much I would use them.

Now with all of the free programs I downloaded from Tucows, FreewarePalm.com, and a few other sites ... I can see that PDAs are INCREDIBLE !!!! :D :D :D

I love AvantGo for magazines and news !!!

Also love the many eBooks I have downloaded from memoware.com !!!

PDA's are terrific !!!!

And here are a few more money saving tips for PDA's ....

I needed a case for my PDA, and I happened to have a black vinyl eyeglass case (the type with the opening on top and clip on back), which turned out to be the perfect size for the Sony S360.
It is plush lined, and already has a belt-clip, so I was 80% of the way to having a new case. With a little ingenuity, I cut a rectangle about 2 inches from the front top, so the back top could be folded over the front like a flap. Then a little sewing of the edges, a little velcro to hold down the new flap, I had a great looking and pefect fitting Sony Clie S360 case !!! I also softened the plastic belt-clip on the back at the bottom with a cigarette lighter, reshaped it so it hooked inward, and let it cool and harden. Now the belt clip is perfect, and holds securely to my belt.

And by using standard transparency paper for a screen protector, cut out to fit the front of my Clie, I don't have to spend $20 for a pack of screen protector paper. Transparency paper works great !!! And is MUCH cheaper than the type you buy which is designed for PDA's. If you size it right so it is big enough to slip inside the grooves around the inner-edge of your screen face, it will stay secure. And I have written on it many times and it hardly scratches. I even heard there is a website which will print the cut-lines on the transparency(using your PC printer), so you dont have to measure it.