Old Hardware Emulated :Psion Model 3 Emulated On Magic DOSBox

 

SIBO Goes To Android (via DOSBox)!

Psion SIBO Emulator running on Magic DOSBox For Android on a Amazon Fire Tablet.

Android Enters The Picture
In the previous article, I covered the installation of the Psion Emulators on DOSBox. The article mainly focused on the Windows port of the emulator. A thought ran across my mind though. Why don't I run the emulator on the portable system. The Psion devices were portable computers after all!

I already brought Magic DOSBox from the Google App Store. So far, the only program that I had installed on Magic DOSBox is Microsoft Word 5.0 for DOS. However, installing this emulator shouldn't take as much work, right!

As mentioned in the previous article, the SIBO emulator need a M: drive. On regular DOS, this drive can be created with the Subst command. On DOSBox, this drive can be created with the following command:
mount m: psion3\S3AEMUL

One of the things I did with the mount commands is that I've used relative paths. These paths essentially point to a the files and directories within the emulator itself, and not hard-coded to the directories on my computer. Relative paths permit allow the folder with the emulator to become "portable" to various other computers.  One can move my folder containing the emulator to various computers without worrying about the file structure of those machines.

This also means that, at least in theory, I should be able to move my Psion emulator folder to my Android tablet with Magic DOSBox. Unfortunately, the emulator refused to work. After checking my configuration various times, I came to the realization that Magic DOSBox doesn't recognize relative paths in my configuration file. This means that the paths have to be hard-coded to conform to the device. Back to my desktop.

I created a few batch files for the individual emulators. Using Notepad, I created a file called psion3a.bat. Editing the file in Notepad, I added the following lines:
mount c: psion3
mount m: "/storage/emulated/0/soft_psion3/psion3/S3AEMUL"
mount a: "/storage/emulated/0/soft_psion3/a"
mount b: "/storage/emulated/0/soft_psion3/b"
m:
S3AEMUL.EXE

After this, I copied the file back to my Psion emulator root folder (dosbox_psion3, which I renamed to soft_psion3 for my Android tablet).Executing the psion3a.bat file successfully brought up the emulator.

Sorry for the blurry photo.

I could have stopped there. However, inspired by a post OESF forums about Magic DOSBox running on a Gemini PDA, I decided to create a few buttons on the screen. This required a little bit of work using the key widget that is built in the Android emulator. Normally, I interact with DOSBox using my Blutooth keyboard. However, I felt this was a opportunity to try out he touch-screen button feature. 

It took a significant amount of work to understand how to set up the buttons via the Key Widget. There was a bit of a learning curve as I never used this feature. However, once I figured out how the Key Widget worked, the button creation went much faster. A YouTube video "How to use Key Widget in Magic Dosbox on Android" posted on the Magic DOSBox YouTube channel is essential in the creation of those buttons and there customization.

I guess they anticipated that many people would need this video in order to understand the key widgets. One could argue that one shouldn't have to resort to a video in order to understand something built into a emulator. On the other hand, the very fact that those on the channel took precious time out of there schedule to make a very helpful video about this worthwhile feature gets a huge thumbs up in my book. The video is linked below.

I applied the screen resolution modification for the S3A emulator to conform to  VGA's standard resolution. In case one forgot how this is done, this is accomplished by making the following modification in the HHSERVER.PAR file found in the root directory of the S3AEMUL folder:
SERVER_PARAMS -X640 -480 -D

Most of the applications included in the S3A SIBO emulator conforms to the resolution. As mentioned before, this screen-hack does not work for the Psion Model 3C Emulator (S3CEMUL). 
Final Thoughts
This is a good exercise in understanding Magic DOSBox. On one hand, I was put off by not supporting relative paths. On the other hand, I still got the emulator to work, and it works very well too. Also, the key widget feature included with the emulator is very nifty. Something that's very worth-while for those using the emulator on a touch-screen device without a Blu-tooth keyboard.

This is the last of the articles covering the Psion emulator. When it comes to hand-held devices, the march of progress continues!

Articles of Interest
Psion Series 3a/Siena Emulator - https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35441

Other Articles Of Interest
DOSBox -https://www.dosbox.com/
DOSBox Configuration File (Dosbox.conf) -https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Dosbox.conf 
DOSBox Mapper -https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Mapper

PocketBook II emulation... - https://www.heyrick.co.uk/software/pb2/emulate.html

Psion SIBO Emulator under DOSBox - https://stevelitchfield.com/emulatxp.htm

SIBO Emulator Tips - https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_tips.html

Psion (SIBO Emulators | Gareth Saunders

Psion Series 3a -https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_s3a.html

Psion Siena -https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_siena.html

Psion 3c - https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_s3c.html

Psion WorkAbout -https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_workabout.html

Psion Series 3 (Classic) -https://psion.info/GJ5/emulator16_s3.html

The Psion Freeware Pages -http://www.sprightly.co.uk/psion3/freeware.html

Psion Software -https://psion.info/GJ5/software.html

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