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Hacker News on Rails, powered by React on Rails Pro. Open the source on GitHub by ShakaCode.

Commit 06fc0df

Rendered at 12:03:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Rails + React on Rails RSC.

PalmOS Lemmings (github.com)

159 points by memalign 2d ago | 35 comments

nkx1 2d ago
Hi, I literally found an old SD card with files last modified from 2005 with a few palm games from then, would anyone find these useful for reverse engineering?
HeckFeck 2d ago
Dump them somewhere... the Internet Archive maybe? A lot of Palm stuff is bit rotting. We need it saved.
RodgerTheGreat 2d ago
Check https://palmdb.net and if anything you have isn't already accounted for, submit copies.
teruakohatu 2d ago
Please submit to the internet archive.
pipes 2d ago
Odd coincidence, I downloaded Amiga vision on my pc last night, first thing I loaded up was lemmings.

https://amiga.vision/

It is basically a curates set of Amiga games, or as the creators say "consolised" Amiga. I'd originally set it up on my mister fpga and it is as close to zero setup on that as possible. Pc version was easy too.

0mhz is a sister project for dos: https://0mhz.net/

Anyway, not exactly related to this, but just a personal coincidence.

diamondDrill 2d ago
thanks I wasn't aware of the superstationᵒⁿᵉ
chuliomartinez 2d ago
Yeah Aaron is a PalmOS legend.

I really liked the palmos c libs, MemCopy and WinCopyBitmap just reads so much nicer than memcpy and memset. Also UInt8 and UInt16:)

Those were fun times, when 16bit ints were enough for everyone (just kiding;)

user3939382 2d ago
This is awesome, I wish I had it for my Treo.

I love and miss PalmOS. My current iPhone I can’t wait to get rid of it. It’s half owned by other companies, phoning home in the background all the time, addictive. My Palm devices really felt like mine.

teddyh 2d ago
There was also a version of Lemmings on the HP48 calculator: <https://www.hpcalc.org/details/530> (incidentally by the same author as Alpha Waves, a.k.a. Continuum)
rickcarlino 2d ago
This README is begging for historical context and commentary.
jamesforestwest 2d ago
I can't help but agree with you
ktallett 2d ago
I never quite got into Lemmings (Worms was more my thing) but I love these pieces of software for limited hardware of the day such as Palm, Windows CE, or Newton.

Edit// Oh this guys profile is full of cool Palm OS stuff.

helf 2d ago
Aaron was/is quite the coder. I used to belong to a group he was in as well. Learned a lot. Also took it as a challenge to crack his palm programs :) and he learned techniques to thwart us lol.

Fun guy.

irq 2d ago
Hey there helf! I remember you from the #palmchat era. I went by irq back then too
ktallett 2d ago
He sounds great! I love these characters that you find in programming. My niche is more Mac Os System 7 -OS 9 and Be OS but the same sort of people exist in those realms too.
yitchelle 2d ago
Interestingly he removed some of his clones (Mario brothers and others) on the request of Nintendo. Maybe his clones were too close to the real thing.
monster_truck 2d ago
Thankfully lemmings is much safer to port and have fun with, and is exceptionally thoroughly documented and preserved
ack_complete 2d ago
It was not at the time: https://www.engadget.com/2010-07-02-unofficial-lemmings-for-...
thrance 2d ago
Looks like at least one survived: https://github.com/ardiri/palmos-maryobros
VCFundedGenYer 2d ago
Palm OS, not PalmOS.

Let's not forget nor confuse history.

HeckFeck 2d ago
And it is certainly never palmOS ;)
kneel25 1d ago
Pretty unappreciated game. To think that GTA of all games has its roots here
Tepix 2d ago
I also found a WASM version at https://www.hmilch.net/h/lemmings
pjmlp 2d ago
Ah the wonders of memory handles and lock/unlock patterns.
blobbers 2d ago
Let me just get my Palm Pilot out so I can play...
NooneAtAll3 2d ago
does anyone else encounter github failing to load dark theme on first load, but working fine after page reload?
jdalgetty 2d ago
I loved my palm pilots so much!
Kuyawa 2d ago
I played Lemmings so much I may be porting it to Swift

Hold my beer...

hollowturtle 2d ago
I'm always interested in projects like this. But how do I know this is not AI code? Let me explain, I read a lot AI produced code at work, when chilling on nerdy things I really wish I could read just human crafted code, for pure learning and joy, but as time goes on I've seen myself questioning more and more stuff, code, videos, even books I go check the publication date
tecleandor 2d ago
Seems like most of the code (what you find in the first commit) is 25 years old [0], from 2001, and then there are a bunch of commits with some fixes and updates.

--

  0: https://palm2000.com/articles/54
Brian_K_White 2d ago
I agree but the commits look natural to me, even though it's a lot in a short time.
LtdJorge 2d ago
> Fast forward on the Memo key without a 5-way navigator Devices without a 5-way navigator (e.g. the m515) had no fast forward key, as To Do moves the cursor there. On these devices the Memo key now runs fast forward while it is held down; selecting a lemming stays with the stylus.

> Fast forward: the music keeps its pace The simple music engine of the devices before Palm OS 5 moved on one note step per step of the game logic, so with fast forward the music ran four times as fast too. It now moves on once per frame, in the event loop; the MIDI stream of Palm OS 5 has its own clock anyway

It's AI.

tecleandor 1d ago
Where did you get that text? Seems like it's not up anymore or somebody push forced over that commit, although it appeared for a second in Google Search.

The latest refinement commits might be a bit more suspicious, bust most of it is a big commit of code from about 2001, when it was made open source.

From what I've seen, the guy that contributed some fixes some weeks ago, seems to write text that feels A LOT like written by an LLM [0], so maybe some LLM text filtered to the docs.

--

0: https://palm2000.com/articles/54

helf 2d ago
aaron also did the Deity3D engine for palmos that was a FPS doom-like. I think the engine was later used for Master Thief 3D which was an incredible game for PalmOS.
nottorp 2d ago
Interesting... for motorola palms or did it need an arm palm?