Casio CALEID XM-700 Cell Navigator (1997) ⌘I Get Data
I prefer to suppose all people collects one thing odd. Me? I accumulate hanafuda video video games: digital implementations of conventional bodily Japanese card video games. Principally meaning bodily copies of video games for consoles and computer systems each new and outdated, for handhelds like Recreation Boy Advance, WonderSwan and Palm gadgets, and generally for platforms no one has ever heard of.
Down the rabbit gap
In some unspecified time in the future final yr (shortly earlier than I started penning this weblog submit!) I discovered reference to a hanafuda online game created in 1998 for the Casio CALEID XM-700 Cell Navigator on a random old, Japanese website. It seems this gadget is a long-forgotten handheld pc that was launched in 1997, solely in Japan. The gadget is what you may check with as a PIM or PDA, roughly equal to Apple Newton or Palm Pilot, notably because it featured handwriting recognition. Not what we might think about highly effective at the moment, however good at working database lookups and any undemanding software program written particularly for it. The CPU was Intel 8086 suitable, like other period CASIO handheld personal computers, and an SDK was available. Value of the gadget was 47800JPY, which was round 240GBP or 400USD on the time.
The sport file got here with a reference bitmap exhibiting hanafuda scoring, which was simply the kind of assure and encouragement I wanted to begin searching.
Analysis first
So, after ensuring the associated net pages had been archived to the Wayback Machine, and the downloads backed up, I did a bunch of studying to attempt to determine whether or not or not I might be capable of play this recreation if I purchased a tool.
It seems the gadget arrived across the similar time as USB 1.0. So maybe its growth, and most positively its patrons, existed in a world that predated widespread assist for USB. To that finish, the gadget solely has a serial connection. And never solely that, the serial connection is on a dock that was not all the time offered with the gadget. With out the dock there isn’t a option to switch information to/from the gadget!
For me to face an opportunity at this, I’d want to purchase a tool with a dock and the software program to place information onto the gadget. After some looking out, numerous ready, and extra looking out, one got here up for public sale on Yahoo! Japan Auctions. I purchased it.
CALEID GET!
The display screen is 320×240 monochrome (1-bit) which reveals an odd quirk that lively pixels forged a shadow as a result of the LCD is obvious and the silver backing is a long way away. That is lengthy earlier than the LCD can be fused to the backing. In actual fact, some items you see on the market have creases within the silver backing, I’m unsure what will need to have occurred to these gadgets!
The system software program is a captivating customized OS, that includes a full cell workplace suite, and 2MB of flash storage (1.49MB free for person knowledge). Most significantly it permits user-created Add-ins to be loaded onto it, we might name them plugins or apps at the moment. The gadget even has an enlargement port for communications peripherals, enabling it to do e-mail/fax utilizing a mobile phone or pay cellphone as knowledge connection. A salaryman’s dream in late-90s Japan!
My purpose: sideload the hanafuda recreation, together with anything I can lay my palms on, utilizing the proprietary dock, sync software program and a Japanese set up of Home windows 98!
I like this kind of problem that requires discovery and understanding of outdated {hardware} and software program, and a bit of (however not an excessive amount of) messing round with outdated variations of Home windows.
Set up
You may follow this process in a Twitter thread I created last year which incorporates extra photographs. I’ve additionally created an imgur gallery of photographs and screenshots from the set up course of.
I assumed it will be enjoyable to attempt to do that on interval appropriate {hardware}, so I attempted to make use of my outdated Sony VAIO PCG-Z600RE from 1999, however the battery is coming as much as 20 years outdated and even with mains energy it not activates reliably sufficient for me to do something. I might have needed to set up Japanese language assist into Home windows. So I shortly gave up this folly.
A greater strategy can be to make use of trendy {hardware} working Home windows in a Digital machine, and I already have one set up running Japanese Windows 98. I hit a short lived roadblock while putting in the DATA IMPRESSION for CALEID sync software program: it’s date locked to solely run between the years 1988 and 2010. And right here I’m over a decade late! Fortunately a fast date change and we’re again in enterprise.
The primary run of sync software program post-install requests that you simply run a Comms verify. You need to faucet the menu and folder buttons alternately seven instances to place the gadget right into a particular debug mode, a tip cleaned from an addendum leaflet that got here within the field. With out that leaflet I most likely would have been caught.
I used a USB to Serial cable to handle the connection to the dock and it simply labored, although I do know from first hand expertise that’s fortunate as some low-cost adapters require a little bit of fiddling to work with historic Home windows variations. Information switch is gradual at 9600 baud, that’s lower than 1KB per second. I’ll attempt rising the baud price later, perhaps.
Syncing
Syncing is finished utilizing a customized model of Information Impression 2, renamed Information Impression for CALEID. It has arcane, overly sophisticated person interface together with a mess of interval and cultural quirks.
After a while spent searching and translating the menus I discovered the part of the interface itemizing Add-ins and imported a bunch that I downloaded earlier. There’s some awkwardness to this course of which I’ll describe later.
Syncing was working, however the add-ins weren’t syncing throughout for some cause. My thought that it was most likely one thing apparent was appropriate. Within the DATA IMPRESSION app you should press the button that doesn’t seem like different buttons (yellow textual content) after which allow Add-in syncing! We’re nearly there, I can really feel it.
Add-ins
The final little bits are value bullet pointing, as they require some detailed operation:
- Launch “DATA IMPRESSION for CALEID”
- Choose 電子手帳 (“Digital Pocket book”) from the buttons above the clock on the suitable (2nd from backside) after which:
- Make the mannequin choice カレイド (“Caleid”, default)
- Make the kind of communication データ送信 (“knowledge transmission”, dropdown 2, third checklist merchandise)
- Click on the 動作設定 (“operation settings”, button 3)
- Test the アドイン (“Add-in”) checkbox (backside, alt+D)
- Uncheck all different sorts of knowledge to disable syncing of these
- Choose メモ帳 (“Notepad”) from the menu on the suitable after which:
- Choose the アドイン (“Add-in”) folder
- Choose メモ帳 (“Notepad”) -> アドインデータの読み込み (“Learn Add-in Information”) from the menu bar (alt+M, R)
- Select an add-in file (*.adi)
- Repeat steps 1-3 for a number of add-ins
- Press the スタート (“Begin”) button on the dock. Add-In will probably be forwarded to the CALEID.
Gotchas:
- Serial ports in VMs generally is a trouble, attempt each the host PC and visitor VM ports
- DATA IMPRESSION will let you realize if it may well’t talk over the chosen serial port
- Cursor must be within the Add-Ins folder for the Add-in menu gadgets to be enabled
- Syncing with out an Add-in chosen will end in a failure message
- If you choose an current add-in reasonably than the Add-in folder, the prevailing add-in will probably be overwritten by the newly imported one(!)
- In the event you begin with the demo knowledge you’ll have a bunch of check gadgets within the varied apps, see word beneath
Awkwardness: Add-ins should be transferred one after the other, however a sync of a single Add-in goes quick sufficient after disabling syncing of all different sorts of knowledge (notes, calendar, spreadsheets, and so forth).
Notice: the primary time I setup the gadget beginning with the demo knowledge it will need to have been syncing 25 years value of recurring demonstration calendar occasions. Every sync of a single add-in took a number of minutes. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t need anyone working the sync software program so lengthy after the gadget had been launched?
The ultimate, highest supported baud rate is 38400 (4800 bytes/sec theoretical velocity, 3840 bytes/s precise velocity, that’s 3.75KB/sec). Recreation sizes vary between 3KB and 32KB, averaging 12KB every. So the slowest a part of the method is the GUI busy work to put in the Add-ins in DATA IMPRESSION for CALEID, after which syncing them one after the other.
Recreation on!
Right here’s my Casio CALEID XM-700 Cell Navigator working 花合わせ (Hana-awase) a hanafuda recreation made by すーさん (Sū-san) in 1998. Pixels are barely wider than they’re tall so the playing cards within the recreation show wider than within the picture on the prime of the web page.
…I ponder what number of different folks have performed this recreation within the final 25 years?
In a follow-up submit I’ll element the opposite video games that I used to be capable of set up on the gadget.
CASIO Catalog ‘97-12
- caleid.addins.dim.zip (294KB) a profile for DATA IMPRESSION for CALEID that has all of the Add-ins I’ve discovered thus far pre-installed and able to sync
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caleid.portmon-serial-addin.txt
(44KB) a portmon serial log taken while syncing a single Add-in (the pattern card recreation that comes with DATA IMPRESSION for CALEID)