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This page will end up being a hodgepodge of stuff that doesn't really seem to fit anywhere else.

I used to use an HP200LX palmtop, this was back before the winCE and PalmOS machines became so common. It used a version of DOS as its operating system. On one contract I worked overseas I had a lot of spare time so I taught myself to program in C. It was a slow painful process and I've since forgotten all of it but it kept me occupied at the time. The result of this endeavor is two games designed for the HP palmtop, both were released as postcardware, all I asked was that if people liked them to send me a postcard.

I used HP PAL for the interface libraries. PAL is the Palmtop Application Library and is freeware.

The first game is a version of sokoban, I called it HP-SOK. In this game you have to move a bunch of blocks through a maze into a safe area. You can only move one block at a time and cannot pull a block, only push. I also wrote a small utility so people could create their own levels (I included 60 with the game). If anyone is interested the source code is also available.

HP-SOK screen capture

The second game was CODE BREAK, a version of mastermind. The object being to guess the hidden code in ten attempts or less. If I ever run across the source code for this game I will also put it here.

Code Break screen capture

Using the TSR program CGAGRAPH.COM, which is in PAL above, it is possible to run both of these games on a PC in DOS (I don't know if it will run in a DOS window in Windows). If you should try this you do so at your own risk, I offer no guarantees on how it will operate. I must admit I don't know who would want to try these programs now, they are pretty old games although they were entertaining on the palmtop and a number of people did send me postcards. Should you decide to try these games the menus on the bottom of the screen are for the function keys, for example F1 is help F2 is restart in HP-SOK, etc. On the palmtop they are immediately above those keys so it is obvious.