In previous blog entries I’ve mentioned Virtualization more than once. VMware Workstation is basically a PC emulator, although on OSFaqWiki they say it is not (see “VMWare PC Emulator“). Well, that is confusing, but I’d like to mention other emulators and simulators which I have come across.

One simulator that many people have heard of is the Microsoft Flight Simulator. The last version of the Flight Simulator I used was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000. Although each version is more realistic than the previous one, I must admit becoming bored with just flying around, and never really becoming good enough to take part in the missions.

When developing for the Palm (quite a popular pastime several years back), there was POSE (Palm OS Emulator) for testing and debugging Palm programs. POSE requires an actual Palm ROM image to boot. This can be obtained from Palm, or uploaded from a real Palm device. POSE only worked up until Palm OS version 4.x, for Palm OS version 5.x and later you had to use the Palm OS Simulator, which was essentially the Palm OS recompiled to run on the x86 (Intel and AMD PC) platform.

There are two other Palm OS emulators which are available for purposes other than debugging programs. One is the commercial StyleTap Palm OS emulator for the Windows Mobile operating system. It is aimed at handheld users who have moved from Palm OS-based devices to Windows Mobile devices. It allows users to install and run Palm applications which then run inside StyleTap on the Windows Mobile device. Another Palm OS emulator is the Palm OS Garnet emulator for Nokia’s Internet Tablets. Released as a free beta by the Access, it allows users of Nokia N770, N800 and N810 to run Palm Applications in a similar fashion. (see “Garnet VM Beta for Nokia N Series“) . Garnet is another name for Palm OS 5.

Posted on March 24th, 2008 by mervyn