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Liberty at PalmGear

--SONET
http://www.hbcsd.12.ca.us/peterson/technology

What about a Handspring Visor? I have one and love it, it's cheap (relitively speaking) and it has the Springboard port. Right now there are a number of companies working on wireless Springboard modules. For instance there is Xircom, who is in the process of building a wireless modem, bluetooth modem and an ethernet module. According to their site, they should be released later this summer. Innogear also has some cool products for the Springboard available and under development.

In the meantime if you want movie times and maps there are some apps for Palm OS that you can install. For movie times there is a little program called Showtimes that allows you to download movie times for you favorite theaters from Yahoo! and stores them in a database, on your Visor or Palm, that you can access very easily. It's an awesome program and it is free!! As far as maps go, there is software available from Mapblast.com, called PocketBlast, that allows you to import maps to your handheld device of choice.

I mentioned it in my post below, but you might wanna take a look at DragonBane, here's a link to it at PalmGear.

Hello,

I can confirm that this works fine on my Visor Delux. Very nice. Indeed, small and fast.

You can download it off Palm Gear

PS: Would be nice if the author included a mini-icon (I use launcher3)
--

For those looking for a download place that's not (yet) ./'ed:

Try Palmgear

An alternative download place: PalmGear (the site in the aticle is slashdotted.)

Are you looking for a Babelfish-like translator, with sentence to sentence translation? Or is an English-Insert Language Here-English dictionary enough? I know the Palm OS platform (Palm, Handspring, and TRG) have some excellent examples of the latter. They might have some of the former as well. Search for "dictionary" or "translation" at Palmgear. HTH

I'm fairly certain you can get translating software for your palm device for most languages. check on PalmGear HQ to see if they have what you need.

Check out this palm doc to pdf converter. It's free but it is a plugin for a $30 shareware InstallBuddyForWindows pacakge. I don't have windows, but if someone else who has a Windows box could download InstallBuddy + this plugin as well as the pdf file, convert it and post the link to the doc file, I would be happy.

Edward Patel wrote a 3D modeling tool for the Palm OS which can export to VRML and OpenGL:

http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm? sid=65968720000302182859&prodID=6263

With miniGL and this modeler as examples it's definitly interesting what's next. There's definitely a market for 3D apps on handhelds, there is just time needed to bring the render/calc power of a handheld more up to par :)
--

Hello Katz,

I'd be more than happy to share some of my reading habits with you.

Newspapers have never quite tickled my fancy, I've always had a hard time to tackle an overly large and totally untame sheet of paper. The times I do read something news worthy would be over a person's shoulder or when it appears in a more tame form (ie. cut into pieces).

On the average, being a geek, I'm a real busy person and would give almost nothing to the major newspapers out there (but I'v seen the new Onion), politics and gossip just does not delight me. The only time you do see me get over my boredom and read something in default format would be to turn the newspaper on it's back, and explor the last few pages in the hope of finding something comical to entertain.

The same goes for traditional books. I am an avid reader, but over the last few years, I've been slacking very badly (since it's just not economically possible to read a book anymore nowdays). All sorts of constraints apply when reading a book.

My solutions arrived in the form a small electornic device (which I immediatly dubbed 'garo' -- a long lost feline friend). This device was a PalmOS based Handspring Visor Delux, with 8mb ram and the ability to upgrade using an unique hardware modular slot (even though it's flash is not upgradeable).

After having exhausted my batters in less than a week (of continuous play with the Visor), I decided to explore the waste expances of software available for PalmOS. I installed utility after utility, getting delighted with the slightest twist of a coding wizard (and yes the little mirror program that turned your palm screen black did send giggles up my spine and entertain a whole load of female friends).

One of the delightfully free software that was buzzed down my USB connection into my Visor was AvantGo. Which was a mixture of channel based online newsfeeds and other resources (even /. could be tamed to exist inside my avantgo). I quickly started to apperciate the depth and breath of this free services and the number of channels available on my Visor. This is the time I started to read newsspapers seriously. I have the following channels on my Visor, CNet's News.com channel (updated puter type microsoftish news), ExploreZone (Scientific not so in depth news), HollyWood.com (Movie times for my city! very important -- daily as everyting else), New York Time ( traditional media now readable), PalmCentral/PDABuzz, Slashdot.org (Oh baby .. this could be created by making a custom channel in avant go and putting this URL in), The weather channel (Ok, not so necessary in the desert :))), USAToday (fine with me), Wired News (Some low tech is fine while doing the daily garbage disposal).

I take my visor everwhere, it fits snuggly in my pocket and feels very conforatble in my hand. All channels are updated at least once a day. I usually update early morning and in the evenining. News is read where I happen to be :)

Now that takes care of news.. What about books?! It took me over a month to get into books on my Visor and man.. Now I'm reading almost 2 books a week after that. My fav doc reader would undoubtably be Bill Clagett's CSpotRun, A GPLed reader that is undoubtably the king of all Doc Readers out there. It has the ability to make the fonts closer, to turn the text into every single position known on the pilot (read from the sides or upside down?), autoscroll, drag scroll, scroll using the pageup-pagedown (fun!), and anything you could contribute! Ebooks are fun! Most books from the gutenberg project have been converted into ebooks over at MemoWare also you could OCR any book you own and convert it into doc format using the linux doctoolkit. Others check here. I have read War and Peace (over 1/2 million words) by Tolstoy (free on tolstoy.org), re-read Most books from William Gibson, Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke and various other entities. I've also had the pleasure of reading classics such as ShakesSpeare, SunTzu, Tolkein, Plato, Confucious and many others right on my PDA.

Overall, the handheld computer with it's extreemly large memory (yes books in electornic format are tiny!) has been the only reason why I've gone back and read so many books (not to mention carry around so many techical notes and moste of the relevant HOWTO pages). I would recommend a handheld PDA to anyone who reads it and encorage them to read electornic Newspapers and e-books on a regualar basis.

Enjoy!
--

Of course, the real question is software. Is there the software necessary to solve your problems? It is probably worth a quick trip through a couple of search engines to see if the kind of software you need exists for either Palm (http://www.palmgear.com, search for graphing calculator or scientific calculator) or WinCE. Why lock yourself into a one-function device when you can get something really flexable?

Personally, I'm a big fan of the HP48. But the sad reality is that I haven't used it in well over three years, but my Palm III is on my belt right now...

- Mike

• Secret!
• Strip

• Secret!
• Strip

• Secret!
• Strip

--

I used to run the OmniRemote software by Pacific NeoTek. This tool allows you to record a signal from a device (or a set of signals) and replay them back. So you would point your TV remote at the IR port, hit record on OmniRemote, press "channel up", stop recording and label the "button" you recorded into "Ch+".

The problem was that the built in IR port was too weak. It couldn't control anything more than 2 feet away. So it was just a cute toy that has no practical value.

There are hardware add ons that give you a longer range (or an IR port if you don't have one), but I haven't tried them. There is the OmniRemote Module also by NeoTek for $20 (a lot less than the $300 above, even if you have to buy a used Palm), and TaleBeam for $30 (sorry, $29.95). Apparently there is no software for the TaleBeam yet.

The cool thing about this is that you can have up to 14 different 'remotes' to choose from - and you get to build them the way you want by simply drawing 'buttons' on the screen. Additionally, you can assign 'macros' to buttons that trigger multiple actions. Sadly, it's not free or open source - but $20 is a far cry from $300 (and it doesn't run wince).

Ever since I saw this, I've been wanting to head down to Circuit City and learn all of the remotes down there and then... head down to the local sports bar and keep hitting the 'all TVs to the cartoon network' button. Muhahaha. The bonus here is that you'd look like you were working :)

You might wanner check out Raygin... Not quite Quake, but hey for under 20Mhz it is quite impressive!

Best regards,

• Titrax (hour tallying program)
• PocketMoney (keep track of my spending habits)
• Strip (secure storage of my passwords)
• Date Mate (make me remember birthdays!)
• DiddleBug (paint package)
• Nag Screen (really useful utility!)

Okay...first of all, the most common reason for reverse-engineering something is to remove or bypass the copy protection scheme. I know this because I see the results float by every day on IRC channels. I bought every game Blizzard ever made, but yet I am extremely glad some talented person reverse-engineered their copy to get rid of the damn CD checks...which I just happened to acquire as a "offsite copy for backup purposes".

In the interest of education about reverse-engineering, I'm going to discuss a step-by-step process as it relates to the most popular use for it...copy protection. If you want to flame me, or moderate this down to -2, or post hateful comments go ahead...your local library has instuctions on how to make bombs so I see no reason to feel guilty for teaching something that requires at least ten times the brain power of bomb making.

Not to mention, if you seriously think that someone who has never reverse-engineered a program in his or her life is going to somehow magically take the information I post here and never have to pay for software again, get real. Warez are just a search engine away so if someone actually take the time to LEARN a new skill, I say good for them. Okay, here we go...

Required definitions:

1) PRC : Palm Resource File. Like an EXE. Contains app's code, graphics and forms
2) Form (FRM) : A Palm window filled with text, buttons or dropdowns
3) Alert (ALT) : Popup form, often used to comment on the validity of one's reg code
4) String (STR) : ASCII characters like "Registration Successful!"
5) Offset : Location in the PRC file where we will do some editing
6) ID : 2 byte hex code such as 05 DC that identifies a Resource
7) Trap : Palm function to perform a task such as sysTrapStrCompare

Required tools:

Yes, they are all for Windows, but if you are smart enough to read /. then you are smart enough to have access to a Windows box or know how to VMWare one.

1) PilotDis to thoroughly break down PRC files
2) Prc2Bin to untangle PRC files into Alerts, Forms and Strings
3) Palm Emulator (POSE)to run PRC's on your Windows machine for testing
4) Hex WorkShop to reach into PRC files and change the most delicate parts of them
5) UltraEdit to quickly find text occurrences in files

Now, you don't need to own a Palm to learn how to reverse engineer a Palm program, but the emulator isn't going to run without a PalmOS ROM file. If you can't figure out how to get a ROM file on the Internet, forget about learning to reverse engineer and instead learn how to use a search engine. Of course, if you own a Palm, or know someone who does, POSE has a button to download the ROM from it.

Fire up the Palm Emulator (POSE) and load the OS ROM to begin a new emulation session. Load up whatever program it is you want to reverse engineer. I recommend starting with a nice simple program like Yearly (stand-by for /. effect) because it is easy to understand.

Click the menu button and navigate to the Info menu where you'll find an About option. Choose that option and note the text "Unregistered Copy" (write this text down). Now choose the Register option and notice the test "Yearly Registration" (write this down too). Enter a bogus number like 111 and notice the message "Registration Failed: You entered a wrong code!"...yes, you need to write this down too.

Now, let's see where those resources are in the program file. Run PilotDis with the command "dis yearly.prc". Then run PRC2Bin with the command "prc2bin yearly.prc". If everything was done properly then your should have many .BIN files and a file called "yearly.prc.s"

We know that the "Registration Failed" window is an Alert because it pops up when we enter the wrong number. If you've installed UltraEdit then right-click on one of the Alert files like "Talt138c.bin" and open it. What do you see inside? It says "Registration Successful!" Check out the other Alerts. Open them one by one. You'll notice that A#138D (Alert ID #138D) contains the text "Registration Failed".

Now, where do these ID's show up in the program? Open up UltraEdit and load "yearly.prc.s". Search for $138D to locate calls to the Failed Alert.

Here is the code nearby the call:

00004a02 4e4fa0c5 TRAP #15,$A0C5 = sysTrapStrCopy
00004a06 6100bcf4 BSR L48 ;What is this?
00004a0a defc000c ADDA.W #12!$c,A7
00004a0e 4a6c0028 TST.W 40(A4)
00004a12 6708 BEQ L607
00004a14 3f3c138c MOVE.W #5004!$138c,-(A7) ;Successful
00004a18 60000006 BRA L608
00004a1c 3f3c138d L607 MOVE.W #5005!$138d,-(A7) ;Failed
00004a20 4e4fa192 L608 TRAP #15,$A192 = sysTrapFrmAlert

It is called at x4A1C (Address 4A1C), right after the #5005. Right above it is a call to $138C after #5004. This is our Successful Alert. Where does it decide what Alert to branch to? See the instruction 'BEQ'? That means 'branch if the compare or test equals 0'. The TST.W 40(A4) code above it checks memory location 40(A4). Therefore, somewhere in the program, 40(A4) is set to a value and depending on the value, flags either Pass or Fail responses. In this case, a 0 means we've Failed the check. Let's take a look at the the code immediately above it: L48 (label 48), part of the BSR (Branch Subroutine).

Here is truncated routine L48 that you found by searching for 'L48':

0000071e 3e06 MOVE.W D6,D7
00000720 9e40 SUB.W D0,D7
00000722 426c0028 CLR.W 40(A4) ;Our memory address! ~~~~~
000007fa 4e4fa0c8 TRAP #15,$A0C8 = sysTrapStrCompare
000007fe 4a40 TST.W D0
00000800 6606 BNE L53 ;Leave 0 or make 1?
00000802 397c00010028 MOVE.W #1,40(A4)
00000808 4cee04f8ffe8 L53 MOVEM.L -24(A6),D3-D7/A2
0000080e 4e5e UNLK A6
00000810 4e75 RTS

Noticed that the instruction CLR.W 40(A4) refers to the key address? This makes the memory location equal to 0 which it remains until another instruction affects 40(A4). The only way around it is at x0802 where 40(A4) may become 1. The BNE instruction above x0802 steers the program from the Pass outcome. Farther up, the instruction sysTrapStrCompare is a big tip-off things are coming to a close in L48. Memory location D0 will hold a 0 if the two compared values are equal and a 1 if they are not. The BNE instruction at x0800 means "branch if the compare or test does not equal 0". So, if we can ensure that the routine always returns a 1, it will always Pass.

Let's take the quickest path and plan to get rid of the BNE instruction, ensuring that we will always MOVE.W #1 into 40(A4). When you want to remove an instruction, the easiest thing to fill it with is a NOP, short for no instruction. The 2 byte opcode for NOP is 4E 71.

"Huh?" Well, unfortuately, Palms use Motorola DragonBall processors and the list of instruction codes is copyrighted material. I can't provide a link to it here. If you are seriously interested in reverse engineering on the Palm platform, you'll have to contact Motorola and request a copy from them. I'm providing the NOP number here so that its possible to learn how a reverse-engineering process works.

Anyway, at x0800 we want to place 4E 71. Because our BNE L53 instruction is also 2 bytes we only need one NOP. Open Hex Workshop or another hex editor and go to address x0800. In UltraEdit, type CTRL+G and type '0x0800'. You should find '66 06' there. Type over it with '4E 71' and save.

Now, reload the modified yearly.prc file into POSE. Try to register with any number. Does it work? Of course it does. Check the About screen. It says "Registered" now.

Thus ends the lesson. You now know why reverse-engineering is such a hot topic on the Internet today.

- JoeShmoe

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Okay...first of all, the most common reason for reverse-engineering something is to remove or bypass the copy protection scheme. I know this because I see the results float by every day on IRC channels. I bought every game Blizzard ever made, but yet I am extremely glad some talented person reverse-engineered their copy to get rid of the damn CD checks...which I just happened to acquire as a "offsite copy for backup purposes".

In the interest of education about reverse-engineering, I'm going to discuss a step-by-step process as it relates to the most popular use for it...copy protection. If you want to flame me, or moderate this down to -2, or post hateful comments go ahead...your local library has instuctions on how to make bombs so I see no reason to feel guilty for teaching something that requires at least ten times the brain power of bomb making.

Not to mention, if you seriously think that someone who has never reverse-engineered a program in his or her life is going to somehow magically take the information I post here and never have to pay for software again, get real. Warez are just a search engine away so if someone actually take the time to LEARN a new skill, I say good for them. Okay, here we go...

Required definitions:

1) PRC : Palm Resource File. Like an EXE. Contains app's code, graphics and forms
2) Form (FRM) : A Palm window filled with text, buttons or dropdowns
3) Alert (ALT) : Popup form, often used to comment on the validity of one's reg code
4) String (STR) : ASCII characters like "Registration Successful!"
5) Offset : Location in the PRC file where we will do some editing
6) ID : 2 byte hex code such as 05 DC that identifies a Resource
7) Trap : Palm function to perform a task such as sysTrapStrCompare

Required tools:

Yes, they are all for Windows, but if you are smart enough to read /. then you are smart enough to have access to a Windows box or know how to VMWare one.

1) PilotDis to thoroughly break down PRC files
2) Prc2Bin to untangle PRC files into Alerts, Forms and Strings
3) Palm Emulator (POSE)to run PRC's on your Windows machine for testing
4) Hex WorkShop to reach into PRC files and change the most delicate parts of them
5) UltraEdit to quickly find text occurrences in files

Now, you don't need to own a Palm to learn how to reverse engineer a Palm program, but the emulator isn't going to run without a PalmOS ROM file. If you can't figure out how to get a ROM file on the Internet, forget about learning to reverse engineer and instead learn how to use a search engine. Of course, if you own a Palm, or know someone who does, POSE has a button to download the ROM from it.

Fire up the Palm Emulator (POSE) and load the OS ROM to begin a new emulation session. Load up whatever program it is you want to reverse engineer. I recommend starting with a nice simple program like Yearly (stand-by for /. effect) because it is easy to understand.

Click the menu button and navigate to the Info menu where you'll find an About option. Choose that option and note the text "Unregistered Copy" (write this text down). Now choose the Register option and notice the test "Yearly Registration" (write this down too). Enter a bogus number like 111 and notice the message "Registration Failed: You entered a wrong code!"...yes, you need to write this down too.

Now, let's see where those resources are in the program file. Run PilotDis with the command "dis yearly.prc". Then run PRC2Bin with the command "prc2bin yearly.prc". If everything was done properly then your should have many .BIN files and a file called "yearly.prc.s"

We know that the "Registration Failed" window is an Alert because it pops up when we enter the wrong number. If you've installed UltraEdit then right-click on one of the Alert files like "Talt138c.bin" and open it. What do you see inside? It says "Registration Successful!" Check out the other Alerts. Open them one by one. You'll notice that A#138D (Alert ID #138D) contains the text "Registration Failed".

Now, where do these ID's show up in the program? Open up UltraEdit and load "yearly.prc.s". Search for $138D to locate calls to the Failed Alert.

Here is the code nearby the call:

00004a02 4e4fa0c5 TRAP #15,$A0C5 = sysTrapStrCopy
00004a06 6100bcf4 BSR L48 ;What is this?
00004a0a defc000c ADDA.W #12!$c,A7
00004a0e 4a6c0028 TST.W 40(A4)
00004a12 6708 BEQ L607
00004a14 3f3c138c MOVE.W #5004!$138c,-(A7) ;Successful
00004a18 60000006 BRA L608
00004a1c 3f3c138d L607 MOVE.W #5005!$138d,-(A7) ;Failed
00004a20 4e4fa192 L608 TRAP #15,$A192 = sysTrapFrmAlert

It is called at x4A1C (Address 4A1C), right after the #5005. Right above it is a call to $138C after #5004. This is our Successful Alert. Where does it decide what Alert to branch to? See the instruction 'BEQ'? That means 'branch if the compare or test equals 0'. The TST.W 40(A4) code above it checks memory location 40(A4). Therefore, somewhere in the program, 40(A4) is set to a value and depending on the value, flags either Pass or Fail responses. In this case, a 0 means we've Failed the check. Let's take a look at the the code immediately above it: L48 (label 48), part of the BSR (Branch Subroutine).

Here is truncated routine L48 that you found by searching for 'L48':

0000071e 3e06 MOVE.W D6,D7
00000720 9e40 SUB.W D0,D7
00000722 426c0028 CLR.W 40(A4) ;Our memory address! ~~~~~
000007fa 4e4fa0c8 TRAP #15,$A0C8 = sysTrapStrCompare
000007fe 4a40 TST.W D0
00000800 6606 BNE L53 ;Leave 0 or make 1?
00000802 397c00010028 MOVE.W #1,40(A4)
00000808 4cee04f8ffe8 L53 MOVEM.L -24(A6),D3-D7/A2
0000080e 4e5e UNLK A6
00000810 4e75 RTS

Noticed that the instruction CLR.W 40(A4) refers to the key address? This makes the memory location equal to 0 which it remains until another instruction affects 40(A4). The only way around it is at x0802 where 40(A4) may become 1. The BNE instruction above x0802 steers the program from the Pass outcome. Farther up, the instruction sysTrapStrCompare is a big tip-off things are coming to a close in L48. Memory location D0 will hold a 0 if the two compared values are equal and a 1 if they are not. The BNE instruction at x0800 means "branch if the compare or test does not equal 0". So, if we can ensure that the routine always returns a 1, it will always Pass.

Let's take the quickest path and plan to get rid of the BNE instruction, ensuring that we will always MOVE.W #1 into 40(A4). When you want to remove an instruction, the easiest thing to fill it with is a NOP, short for no instruction. The 2 byte opcode for NOP is 4E 71.

"Huh?" Well, unfortuately, Palms use Motorola DragonBall processors and the list of instruction codes is copyrighted material. I can't provide a link to it here. If you are seriously interested in reverse engineering on the Palm platform, you'll have to contact Motorola and request a copy from them. I'm providing the NOP number here so that its possible to learn how a reverse-engineering process works.

Anyway, at x0800 we want to place 4E 71. Because our BNE L53 instruction is also 2 bytes we only need one NOP. Open Hex Workshop or another hex editor and go to address x0800. In UltraEdit, type CTRL+G and type '0x0800'. You should find '66 06' there. Type over it with '4E 71' and save.

Now, reload the modified yearly.prc file into POSE. Try to register with any number. Does it work? Of course it does. Check the About screen. It says "Registered" now.

Thus ends the lesson. You now know why reverse-engineering is such a hot topic on the Internet today.

- JoeShmoe

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

At CA-World in New Orleans this week, Palm Computing and CA will announce an extension to Unicenter which will support Palm devices.

This is a good move. I forsee easier management and reference with the Palm as a tool. Using the Symbol Technologies Palm Pilots with bar-code readers could be great. What a great way to manager a network!

For a little more info, go here.