PalmOS Lemmings

(github.com)

138 points | by memalign 19 hours ago

17 comments

  • pipes 7 hours ago
    Odd coincidence, I downloaded Amiga vision on my pc last night, first thing I loaded up was lemmings.

    https://amiga.vision/

    It is basically a curates set of Amiga games, or as the creators say "consolised" Amiga. I'd originally set it up on my mister fpga and it is as close to zero setup on that as possible. Pc version was easy too.

    0mhz is a sister project for dos: https://0mhz.net/

    Anyway, not exactly related to this, but just a personal coincidence.

    • diamondDrill 2 hours ago
      thanks I wasn't aware of the superstationᵒⁿᵉ
  • nkx1 16 hours ago
    Hi, I literally found an old SD card with files last modified from 2005 with a few palm games from then, would anyone find these useful for reverse engineering?
    • HeckFeck 15 hours ago
      Dump them somewhere... the Internet Archive maybe? A lot of Palm stuff is bit rotting. We need it saved.
    • RodgerTheGreat 13 hours ago
      Check https://palmdb.net and if anything you have isn't already accounted for, submit copies.
    • teruakohatu 13 hours ago
      Please submit to the internet archive.
  • chuliomartinez 18 hours ago
    Yeah Aaron is a PalmOS legend.

    I really liked the palmos c libs, MemCopy and WinCopyBitmap just reads so much nicer than memcpy and memset. Also UInt8 and UInt16:)

    Those were fun times, when 16bit ints were enough for everyone (just kiding;)

  • teddyh 18 hours ago
    There was also a version of Lemmings on the HP48 calculator: <https://www.hpcalc.org/details/530> (incidentally by the same author as Alpha Waves, a.k.a. Continuum)
  • rickcarlino 18 hours ago
    This README is begging for historical context and commentary.
  • yitchelle 17 hours ago
    Interestingly he removed some of his clones (Mario brothers and others) on the request of Nintendo. Maybe his clones were too close to the real thing.
  • Tepix 4 hours ago
    I also found a WASM version at https://www.hmilch.net/h/lemmings
  • pjmlp 6 hours ago
    Ah the wonders of memory handles and lock/unlock patterns.
  • VCFundedGenYer 16 hours ago
    Palm OS, not PalmOS.

    Let's not forget nor confuse history.

    • HeckFeck 15 hours ago
      And it is certainly never palmOS ;)
  • user3939382 16 hours ago
    This is awesome, I wish I had it for my Treo.

    I love and miss PalmOS. My current iPhone I can’t wait to get rid of it. It’s half owned by other companies, phoning home in the background all the time, addictive. My Palm devices really felt like mine.

  • ktallett 19 hours ago
    I never quite got into Lemmings (Worms was more my thing) but I love these pieces of software for limited hardware of the day such as Palm, Windows CE, or Newton.

    Edit// Oh this guys profile is full of cool Palm OS stuff.

    • helf 18 hours ago
      Aaron was/is quite the coder. I used to belong to a group he was in as well. Learned a lot. Also took it as a challenge to crack his palm programs :) and he learned techniques to thwart us lol.

      Fun guy.

      • irq 16 hours ago
        Hey there helf! I remember you from the #palmchat era. I went by irq back then too
      • ktallett 16 hours ago
        He sounds great! I love these characters that you find in programming. My niche is more Mac Os System 7 -OS 9 and Be OS but the same sort of people exist in those realms too.
  • blobbers 15 hours ago
    Let me just get my Palm Pilot out so I can play...
  • jdalgetty 15 hours ago
    I loved my palm pilots so much!
  • NooneAtAll3 15 hours ago
    does anyone else encounter github failing to load dark theme on first load, but working fine after page reload?
  • Kuyawa 14 hours ago
    I played Lemmings so much I may be porting it to Swift

    Hold my beer...

  • hollowturtle 6 hours ago
    I'm always interested in projects like this. But how do I know this is not AI code? Let me explain, I read a lot AI produced code at work, when chilling on nerdy things I really wish I could read just human crafted code, for pure learning and joy, but as time goes on I've seen myself questioning more and more stuff, code, videos, even books I go check the publication date
    • tecleandor 5 hours ago
      Seems like most of the code (what you find in the first commit) is 25 years old [0], from 2001, and then there are a bunch of commits with some fixes and updates.

      --

        0: https://palm2000.com/articles/54
    • Brian_K_White 5 hours ago
      I agree but the commits look natural to me, even though it's a lot in a short time.
      • LtdJorge 4 hours ago
        > Fast forward on the Memo key without a 5-way navigator Devices without a 5-way navigator (e.g. the m515) had no fast forward key, as To Do moves the cursor there. On these devices the Memo key now runs fast forward while it is held down; selecting a lemming stays with the stylus.

        > Fast forward: the music keeps its pace The simple music engine of the devices before Palm OS 5 moved on one note step per step of the game logic, so with fast forward the music ran four times as fast too. It now moves on once per frame, in the event loop; the MIDI stream of Palm OS 5 has its own clock anyway

        It's AI.

  • helf 17 hours ago
    aaron also did the Deity3D engine for palmos that was a FPS doom-like. I think the engine was later used for Master Thief 3D which was an incredible game for PalmOS.
    • nottorp 7 hours ago
      Interesting... for motorola palms or did it need an arm palm?