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Kind of like what Tapwave tried to do with their Zodiac product. (Note, Tapwave's site isn't coming up for some reason, so here's a review of the Zodiac.)

Zodiac
PSP
Other than the fact that they're both black, and somewhat similarly shaped, it doesn't really look like the PSP.

The only drawback is that video takes up huge amounts of space on your SD cards, which are pricey. But, if you're willing to spring for 'em, there's two SD slots on the Zodiac, so you could buy a pair of cheaper cards instead of one large, expensive one.

1: Yes, it accepts SD cards. Two at the same time, in fact.

http://www.tapwave.com/zodiac_overview.html

2: LINUX IS COMING TO PALM OS!!!

http://www.tapwave.com/

The Tapwave NDA prohibits free software or even freely redistributable software from being released for the platform. In addition, I could not find any Tapwave Zodiac hardware or software on the shelf at any retailer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that I've visited, so it'll be tough to find partners for multiplayer games.

http://www.tapwave.com/

I almost got a PSP cause I wanted to hack it, but with all of Sony's roadblocks, I ended up going with a Tapwave Zodiac. Even now, I'm glad I did. If I want to play the latest games, I'll use my computer. Handhelds are best suited for older games (2d scrollers) and the Zodiac already has a bunch of emulators for it (NES is perfect).

It even has newer, rumble pack enabled games (but they alone aren't worth it). I don't have to hack in a web browser, it comes with one. I still have the widescreen and an analog controller, but I can also run all the Palm software out there. Coolest gadget I've bought in years! I wish I would have heard of it sooner.

The Tapwave Zodiac was (is) a PalmOS machine with an analog game control stick: http://www.tapwave.com/

I say "was" because, though it's still in production, it also seems clearly to have a limited lifespan with the PSP out...

http://www.tapwave.com/

Touch screen based handheld gaming system

Have you heard of texture-mapped three-dimensional graphics where millions of polygons are rendered at 30 frames-per-second? How about an analog control stick, a direction-pad && familiar action buttons?

Bull shit

PSP actually does what HASNT been done in a handheld before. PSP is the redefinition of handheld gaming. Not the DS. The DS is still limiting developers to poor hardware and low space restrictions. PSP on the other hand, has extremely easy-to-develop-for-hardware, extremely advanced hardware, and extremely large space (UMD). It changes how portable games are made and played. DS, doesnt.

As an example, how the hell is this redefining handheld gameplay?

Bull shit

or you could try a tapwave zodiac. i dont know how the gp32 has improved in the past year or so but my friend had one and i found the zodiac to be better. there is also a port of quake in the works. althoug now that i think of it, gp32 has a quake port too. if anybody is interested in a high powered palm device with some decent gaming, http://www.tapwave.com/

i assume that sombody here has to have heard of this little gizmo. if not, its a palm powered pda that is set up to orient itself more toward gaming. a company developing palm software was making a gameboy advance emulator that would run on high end palm devices such as the zodiac, but nintendo sued the company and put it out for a while. perhaps this is why they put up a stink about an emulator being put out for palm but look the other way with PC emulators? http://www.tapwave.com/ if you are in the market for a high powered palm based pda.

That Gizmondo sounds like a very interesting device indeed, bascially the PocketPC equivalent of the Tapwave. That 400mhz Samsung ARM processor should be impressive since the 266mhz Samsung ARM processor in pocketpcs ran games about as fast as a 400mhz Intel chip. GPS, camera, mp3 and movie player all in one.

However at $400+ it'll never sell, no way no how, not when the PSP can be had for $250 with it's excellent range of titles. But if it had a cellphone too...

Remember folks it's not the size it's how you use it, or in this case, it's not the processing power it's the titles. Look how well the b&w gameboy did for years, crushing all competition that was faster with color.

Don't worry. Microsoft will roll out a handheld later this year that has a 600 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, and all sorts of other shit that they claim will make it excellent for gaming and business.

Then they will go the way of Tapwave, which did the exact same thing a couple of years ago with Palm OS and attracted no interest.

Tapwave is trying to do something very similar with a Palm OS-based device. They included two SD slots, some 3D acceleration hardware, and a button layout that's suited towards gaming. They're targeting it at a professional market where people could use their Tapwave device as both an organizer and a game device. Sales have been meager so far. PalmOne still controls most the Palm OS device space, which itself is about half of the total PDA marketplace.

There's no integration with an existing device, but I'm skeptical about the idea of a gaming device being tied to another gaming device. The NeoGeo Pocket Color linked with the Dreamcast (according to the manual) and neither system was successful. The PocketStation linked with the PlayStation, but the PocketStation was never officially released in the US. The Game Boy Advance was supposed to link up with the GameCube, but few games took advantage of that capability.

I picked up a Tapwave Zodiac last year, and was really looking forward to getting back into a Palm device two major OS revisions newer than my old Palm IIIc (which was eventually traded for a Newton 2100) but boy, was I surprised by how little had really changed. Sure, the resolution was higher, the expandabiltiy was there at last (Two SD card slots), it was designed for "gaming" with an actual 8M ATI video chip in it, 320x480, the works and then some. The only things it lacked were WiFi and a camera... ...and a decent fucking OS. Sure, my Zodiac can run in 320x480 - but the actual PalmOS dialogs all run in 320x320 at best, popping up the graffiti area even when not needed. If I use the toolbar to remove the graffiti area, it just puts black space on the sides of the dialog. And speaking of the toolbar, it's just so wonderful that Palm made every manufacturer come up with thier own way of doing more than 320x320 resolution. Apps to modify the toolbar on the Tungsten T2 or Clie series Palms, do fuck-all on the Zodiac. Well, I take that back - they're great for crashing it. You can't skin the graffiti area or toolbar, you -still- can't change your icons from the ones included with the device and applications, and multitasking? Nope, that'll be in PalmOS 6.

The Zodiac is great hardware. It feels right. Well made, sturdy. Quality stuff. But the OS it got saddled with makes me feel like I'm running the PDA equivalent of Mac OS 9. It'll be great for people that require OS 9 apps, but there's a lot more out there. Palm stayed still without INNOVATING for way, way too long.

Well, you can pass this off as a PDA, since it really is one. Prolly has more gaming horsepower too.

There is already a Palm-based one available.

You mean like the Tapwave Zodiac?

The Tapwave Zodiac is superior. It has a much nicer form factor, can use 2 SD cards at the same time, Nice loud stereo speakers, a real 3d GPU, and good battery life. It also has several good EMUs for just about every cartridge console system. made.:

http://www.palmsource.com/interests/emulators/
http://www.palmemu.com/
http://www.kalemsoft.com/
http://www.codejedi.com/

I've been looking at the Tapwave Zodiac for some time, but the current development environment is fairly hostile to hobby developers which is where most emulation dev work occurs... Before I get flamed by the Tapwave faithful let me explain: 1) although it is possible to use an open source tool chain, it is pretty difficult to get everything working together (Tapwave targeted Code Warrior because at the time that was what Palm was targeting), 2) they want their machine to be a gameing console so they incorporated digital rights management that limits what you can distribute (you have to get your app signed before you can distribute it) and 3) until recently they refused to sign apps that were GPL for fear they would have to open their proprietary source. You can run straight up Palm OS programs on the Zod, but they can't use the stick, accelerated graphics, etc.

On top of that many users have reported dissatisfaction with the analog stick. Aside from possible calibration problems, it would seem the consensus seems to be that it is great for 3D games, but not so great for emulated games that originally ran on digital pads.

Any way, I've been searching for an alternative... seems to me there should be a gamepad of some sort that works well with the Pocket PC. Now that Dell has gotten into the game there are some good prices on pretty fast PPCs...

Just curious if anyone knows of anything or is working on anything...

Having knocked the Zod I feel compelled to mention the Little John Z which by all accounts is an excellent emulator for the Zod.

If you want PDA goodness and gaming goodness, then the Zodiac from Tapwave may be worth your attention.

It's a fully Palm-compatible PDA with a nice, bright 480*320 color display. It's also optimized for gaming and media playback, with a Yamaha sound chip and an ATI graphics accelerator. It also has two shoulder buttons, a proportional thumbstick, and a rumble pack (vibrator). The unit can accept peripheral and storage expansion through the two SD slots.

I replaced my Palm-Vx clone with a Zodiac about two months ago, and I've been quite pleased with the unit. The display is just lovely, it plays MP3s well, and it reminds me of my appointments with a nice, loud alarm.

The 32M version sells for USD$300.00; the 128M version is $400.00.

Big Fat Hairy Disclaimer: I am an employee of Tapwave, Inc. But I'd be happy with the Zodiac even if I didn't work for them.

Schwab

Do I have to get a PSP?

Nope. Get a TapWave instead. Its available now, has 3D acceleration, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and has an OS that is remarkably simple to write applications for ...

...the Tapwave Zodiac . Not only it's a decent game machine, it's a nice PDA too!

PSP, you ask? No way in hell I'd buy anything by Sony!

Display on a larger screen with 320x320 resolution. Run software that requires a 300+ MHz. ARM processor. Use a regular SD card for memory expansion of 256 MB (and up?). I'm not sure about the phone, what does it use for mem expansion? What is it's native memory capacity? (The Treos are a nice meld of phone and PalmOS BTW...still with small screens though.)

The one thing that didn't look too good to me with this was battery life - only about 4 hours if used heavily. Also the camera looks pretty bad unless this reviewer got a bad unit.

I'd be interested in other reviews if anyone finds one. The Sony TH55 looks interesting for longer battery life and higher res screen, though it is more expensive and has an even worse camera. The Tapwave devices also seem worth a look. The Zire 72 looked near perfect (for me) until I read the review though. :/

This Zodiac.

Specs:
high-res (480 x 320) 3.8-inch 16-bit color display
Motorola® i.MX1 ARM9 processor (206Mhz)
128MB RAM
ATI® Imageon(TM) graphics accelerator
Analog mini-joystick and 9 buttons
Yamaha sound chip and stereo speakers
Rumble effects vibrator
SD and SDIO slots
Bluetooth

There is also another alternative to the GBA, besides the much-maligned NGage. The Zodiac is a Palm-based PDA with hardware and OS that is optimized for gaming. I use mine for work and for play, and it performs admirably for both.

No, it can't do everything the GBA can do. It is particularly lacking in the area of sprite acceleration... actually, it doesn't have sprite acceleration whatsoever.

The Tapwave Zodiac looks like a slightly better product as its GBA emulator apparently runs at full speed, unlike GP-32's. Possibly this is because the Zodiac has a 3D accelerator which is being used to accelerate the sprites.

There are other reasons for having a GBA-SP of course, such as hooking up to a GameCube. And it's all Nintendo trickery to make you buy it... since you can't play the new Final Fantasy without it, you don't get much choice.

check out the zodiac - Tapwave.com

If any part of the patent is its weak point, I think the "limited capability devices" part will be it. Tapwave Zodiac Specs state:
" Two easily accessible expansion slots let you add anything from memory to content to SDIO cards. Double the fun. Double the expandability. Pump up your memory to 1GB with the latest cards. Drop an SD card into one slot and view a video or a photo album. Use the other to switch between your favorite games. Or maybe add a digital camera. The options are nearly endless."
Nearly endless is a long way ahead of "limited capabilities". If the Zodiac is far more capable than the GBA, does this patent apply to emulators running on it? I'm an anal butt - err - IANAL, but, I think Nintendo thought too small when they drafted the patent and it doesn't cover a lot of modern technology - like the Zodiac.

The first true portable 3D gaming system was released last November. The Tapwave Zodiac is a trully cool handheld 3D gamer + Palm PDA + MP3 player.

2 slots + good midrange PDA + reasonable mobile console = Tapwave's Zodiac. With this delay, it should probably have a better game library by then as well.

thats really too bad! i was hoping to buy one of these!

So, go buy a Zodiac. You can get one now!

There are NES, Game Gear/SMS and ST emulators available for the Zodiac now. Word is, SNES any day now. More games by the day.

To answer your question, according to this page, apparently I was half wrong. They both have the same amount of system memory (12MB), but it is not volitile RAM. It's allocated out of the internal Flash RAM.

Thus, it looks like the 32MB model only has 20MB of "storage" space, for instance.

And then there is the 8MB of video RAM, but that's apart from everything else.

There's an even BETTERER way!

Buy a Tapwave Zodiac, then purchase and install NesEm for $19.99. You can play 300+ NES games (more being added) on a superb 480x320 screen with an analog controller and stereo sound.

You can get a nice Game Gear/SMS emulator from Kalemsoft, too.

I own a Tapwave Zodiac. There is no cooler PDA.

It's a bitch to strap to my arm, though...

... the similarity to the Tapwave Zodiac?

All the Zodia needs is a Bluetooth adapter. Because, soon enough, someone will release a portable 50gig HD enclosure with Bluetooth capabilities, and that's all she wrote ...

Just for curiousities sake, check out the Tapwave Zodiac. It seems to be picking up in the States where the GP32 left off.

Perfect if you're in the need for a PDA, and seems to have a good community of homebrew starting up not to mention 100's of good Palm OS games, and some prilimanary support from Sega for some old Genesis classics.

Here's a good place for more info

This PDA is what I would like, it runs palm OS 5 and looks like it has good gamming controls. Currently Emulates Atari ST. Other Emus on the way. PLays MP3s etc looks very cool.Pitty it is limited to the states at moment.
Check it out here

What about the Zodiac. This looks like a cool system, a gamming PDA. Check it out.. Hopefully MAME will be released on it soon.

Not to mention the Zodiac, which is shipping now, so is no longer vapor.

I have had mine for two weeks now. Outstanding device. Everybody who sees mine wants one.

The screen...is just breathtaking! I have never seen the like on a laptop, let alone a PDA.

Damn, that thing looks like a Zodiac.

BTW, Fedex says they are delivering mine this evening.

Now, we do the dance of joy! Hup! Ho! Hay!

Sadly, the GP32 may be dying. GamePark has suspended manufacture until April. Rumors still persist of a European launch one day. You can get one at gbax.com or Lik-Sang while they last.

The Zodiac however, is now shipping. They have to get through the aparently large amount of pre-orders. I hope to get mine by Thanksgiving.

Since Tapwave is only shipping to U.S. addresses right now, and many emulator authors live outside the country, some emulators may be delayed.

Help out. Sign up as a developer, download the SDK and get coding!

It reminded me a lot of the zodiac, which admittedly looks a bit like the lynx.

Price of GBA SP: $99.

Price of 17" Powerbook and Neverwinter Nights: $3050.

Saving over $2950 and buying a Tapwave Zodiac, for which Neverwinter Nights will be availiable: Priceless.

(well, maybe not priceless, but how the hell else am I supposed to do an MasterCard impreession?!??) /typing on his 12" PB

The Tapwave Zodiac is no longer vapor. It's shipping now.
Games are problematic, most Palm games should run, others are being worked on. It's pretty open for development, so many emulators are possible.

Specs are:
Memory: Zodiac1 = 32MB*
Zodiac2 = 128MB*
* 12MB reserved for system use.
Processor: Motorola(R) i.MX1(TM) ARM9 processor (200 MHz)
Graphics
Accelerator: ATI(R) Imageon(TM) W4200 graphics accelerator (with 8MB dedicated SDRAM).
Display: 3.8 inch transflective display
480 x 320 (half VGA), 16-bit color backlit display (65,536 colors) Portrait and landscape display capabilities Digitizer for enhanced interactive game play, navigation and text input.
Sound: Yamaha(R) audio component and stereo speakers
Standard 3.5mm stereo headphone plug
Earbud-style headphones included
Support for select third-party portable speakers
Vibration: Supports silent notification and interactive game play.
Controls: Variable pressure analog controller (joystick), 2 triggers, 4 programmable action buttons, 1 special function button,
1 home button, 1 power button, and 1 Bluetooth button.
Expandability: Dual expansion slots for MultiMediaCards, Secure Digital (SD) cards
and SDIO cards, including digital cameras and more.*
Zodiac Connector for additional peripherals.
* Slot #1: supports MultiMediaCards, Secure Digital Cards (SD).
Slot #2: supports MultiMediaCards, Secure Digital Cards (SD), and
SDIO cards.
Wireless Connectivity: Built-in Bluetooth radio with dedicated activation button.
Ideal for multiplayer wireless gaming, sharing information and connectivity to other compatible Bluetooth enabled devices.
PC Desktop Connectivity: USB Cable, USB Cradle (sold separately)
Cover: Protective Flip Cover
Wrist Strap: Convenient strap
Battery: High-capacity Rechargeable Lithium Batteries - 1540 mAh
Power Supply: AC Adapter / Battery Charger (120 volt AC, 60 Hz) International connectivity kit (sold separately)
Size/Weight: 5.6" (143mm) x 3.1" (79mm) x .55" (14mm) / 6.3 ounces
Color: Zodiac1 - Slate Gray, Zodiac2 - Charcoal Gray
Software Specifications
Operating System: Tapwave enhanced Palm OS 5.2T
Writing Software: Graffiti 2
Included Software:
Games: Stuntcar Extreme, AcidSolitaire
Media:
Music: Tapwave MP3 player
Photos: Tapwave JPEG Photo Viewer
Video Playback: Kinoma Player 2
Video Creation: Kinoma Producer (Quickly and easily converts AVI, QuickTime, MPEG1, MPEG4 files for use on the Zodiac entertainment console).*
*QuickTime software required to use Kinoma Producer on PC
eBook reader: PalmReader
Organizer: Address Book, Date Book, To Do List, Memo Pad
Other Stuff:
Alarm Clock (Tapwave Alarm Clock with integrated stopwatch & MP3 music feature),
Wireless-based chat & shared whiteboard (PhatPad by Trumpetsoft)
Graphing Calculator (powerOne by Infinity SoftWorks)
Microsoft(R) Word(R)-compatible Word Processor (WordSmith by Blue Nomad)
Connectivity: Web Browser and SMS client for use with compatible Bluetooth enabled phones (bonus software on CD).