

Zen of Palm (2003) [pdf] - pavlov
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/courses/91.308-fall05/palm/zenofpalm.pdf

======
pierrec
In my youth, the closest thing I ever had to a gaming console was a Palm.
There was a plethora of quirky, indie, and experimental games for Palm OS,
here are some of the best I can remember:

\- All games by Naoki Ito. This Japanese genius made simple arcade-style
games, always with short levels of increasing difficulty, all of them
perfectly balanced and extremely addictive.

\- Space Trader. On the other end of the spectrum, a slow-paced trading and
fighting game set in a generative world.

\- Sigma. A weird little game with dice and a bell-shaped cumulative bar
graph, unusual but once you got the hang of it, it was impossible to put down.
I sort of recommend installing a Palm OS simulator/emulator just to try this
one out.

 _Edit: Alright, here 's some more:_

\- Car. A bare-bones version of GTA I. The best part was that the level editor
came with the (free) game and ran right there on your Palm.

\- Space War. A turn-based strategy game where you move your (Star Trek
inspired) ship on a hexagonal grid, and try to predict what your opponent will
do during that turn.

\- Aldon's Crossing. A fairly classical top-down RPG. It seemed like a tiny
game, but the more you played, the more you realized that the world was
surprisingly huge.

And, of course, tons of remakes of ultra-classic games. Note that I only
played a small portion of the palm-game-o-sphere, and I was limited to those
that would run on my low-end grayscale Visor.

~~~
irq
Please do go on! I remember Space Trader quite fondly. The intimacy of games
for this platform is something I don't quite find in today's marketplace.

~~~
DrewRWx
It was pretty fun re-playing Space Trader in Classic on an HP TouchPad.

And now I'm searching for that Windows port:
[http://ticc.uvt.nl/~pspronck/spacetrader/STFrames.html](http://ticc.uvt.nl/~pspronck/spacetrader/STFrames.html)
.

------
delish
> A proposal to add a menu bar that’s always visible should be vetoed
> reflexively, because the handheld screen is too small.

Practical wisdom from 12 years ago. I have been annoyed by every website that
uses a horizontal bar. It takes up at least 1/5 of my phone's screen!

~~~
digi_owl
Or any other screen. And balloons in size if their third party JS font code
don't load...

------
tumba
This brings back fond memories of Palm OS development. It wasn't the easiest
platform to develop for, but as this document describes, user experience was
emphasized and the thrill of making sophisticated tasks simple using
constrained resources was satisfying.

------
crumpley
Funny that his topic would pop up. Years ago I posted to the PalmAddicts web
site on this very topic. I see it is still there at
[http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/09/return-
to-...](http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/09/return-to-
the-z.html)

You might enjoy reading it. I had almost forgot about it.

------
gelstudios
PalmOS did a lot of things right. One thing I'd like to see make its way to
mobiles again (or iOS at least), is better handling of "app data". PalmOS made
it a point to separate the executable and it's data, in the form of a database
file that could be easily backed up.

