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Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

Tapwave Closes its Doors 208

Posted by CowboyNeal from the calling-it-quits dept.
ewhac writes "Tapwave, makers of the universally acclaimed Zodiac mobile gaming device/media player/PalmOS PDA formally announced on their Web site that, 'the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005.' The Zodiac was a PalmOS 5.2 device with gaming and media features, including ATI graphics and Yamaha sound acceleration, proportional joystick, two SD slots, Bluetooth, 200MHz ARM CPU (Freescale i.MX1), and up to 128M of RAM. At the most recent Palm developer conference, Tapwave employees were showing Zodiacs running their own port of Linux 2.6.10, with ports of SDL, Python, PyGame, mpg123, and primitive power management. It is unknown what will become of this work."
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Tapwave Closes its Doors More

Tapwave Closes its Doors

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  • An answer looking for a problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by raydobbs ( 99133 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:11AM (#13192279) Homepage Journal
    The problem with this device, as I remember looking at it at the local shop, was that it was an answer to a problem no one had.

    If I want a game system that's pocket portable, I will play with my PSP (better library of games, better gaming platform).

    If I want a PDA, I will use my HP hx4705 (VGA screen, better support by 3rd party programmers, better power management).

    The other features just sucked. It was slow, and it was 'campy' in design. I know - it's hard to come up with something professional and fun to use in a gaming environment. Just because it can/would have been able to run Linux doesn't make it the pancea of the mobile product world. Sorry, but it's true.

    • Re:An answer looking for a problem (Score:5, Interesting)

      by djrogers ( 153854 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:55AM (#13192434)
      If I want a game system that's pocket portable, I will play with my PSP (better library of games, better gaming platform).
      The zodiac was on the market for a couple of years before the PSP - for a long time it had by far the best screen and graphics available in a pocket...

      If I want a PDA, I will use my HP hx4705 (VGA screen, better support by 3rd party programmers, better power management).
      Not sure where you're getting your information - you do realize this thing runs Palm-frickin'-OS, right? There are so many stinkin' 3rd party apps for these it's unbelievable. And power management? Hunh? Where on earth did you get the idea that was a problem?

      • Re:An answer looking for a problem (Score:5, Interesting)

        by maethlin ( 680448 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:28AM (#13192545)
        Absolute truth... the only thing that killed the Zodiac was lack of marketing. If you took that EXACT same device and had the sony name brand and marketing behind it, half the known world would own one and would be exclaiming what a fantastic gadget it was. If people could remove their sony-bias for a moment, they'd see that the PSP isn't really all that exciting (no touch screen, no internal storage, etc.) Ya it's a decent gaming device, but hardly revolutionary if you consider how long ago the Tapwave came out.
        • I had seen tapwave print ads, but never really got what it was all about till a couple weeks ago. I was thinking about getting one, but oh well now :(

          On a positive note, maybe this all just means they're about to release a new, even better, yet similar product that runs Linux no less ;)
        • I agree with you completely. If they'd had a marketing partner like Sony (or maybe Apple), things would have been different. I don't think any of amount of marketing under under their own name would have made a difference, though.

        • Re:An answer looking for a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

          by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki@c o x .net> on Friday July 29, 2005 @02:57AM (#13192766)
          pfft.

          If it was a Sony product, Konami would've developed a Metal Gear game for it. Polyphony Digital would've worked on a Gran Turismo game for it. Rockstar would've made a Grand Theft Auto game for it. Etc, etc. For a hand held that's been out over a year than the PSP has, it sure has a sucky game line up on the shelves. The PSP hasn't been on the shelves for a year in Japan and already it has a stronger following, and it's not even been out in the states for more than 6 or 7 months and it too, also has a stronger following.

          It's not a matter of Sony bias either. Even though I own a PSP, I still use my DS for GBA games, I still use my NeoGeo Pocket Color, and I'm trying to track down a Turbo Express.

          It's more than just 3rd parties(OK, Polyphony digital isn't exactly a 3rd party...), or marketing, it's also attitude. The Zodiac wasn't sold in the gaming section of my local Fry's, it was in the PDA section, and had no games on display. Something tells me this wasn't Fry's decision to label it was a PDA, but it could've been. In either case, there's something about it's design that absolutely screams that it wasn't built by people who were interested in building a solid gaming machine first. The OS, the build of the machine and even the stylus didn't seem like it was seriously built for gaming. The controller felt really weird when using it, I couldn't imagine using it with something like a fighting game where you'd need to do weird motions like f,d,df(before people yell at me, this is an input command for some of the moves in Darkstalkers, not the dragon punch in the street fighter series).

          The focus on gaming is important if you're going to compare it to the PSP as a gaming platform. If it's really a hybrid multimedia machine/pda/game player, then it's not comparable to the PSP. Even though it does media capabilities, who the hell are we kidding, it's a gaming device.

          The lack of WiFi but the inclusion of bluetooth worried me. I had a wifi router, PC with wifi, and even my PSP and DS had wifi, but I didn't own anything with blutooth in it.
          • there's something about it's design that absolutely screams that it wasn't built by people who were interested in building a solid gaming machine first.

            Of course, having it on a processor that very few people develop for besides palm with an operating system that was designed mostly for batch processing would argue differently.

            Do you know how many video media players there are for Windows embedded devices? Do you know how many there are for PalmOS? There's a rather marked disparity, especially considering
        • Now that is Absolute truth. I have a Zodiac, and a PSP. The Sony needs to be coddled and protected. The Zodiac takes the bus like the rest of the tech in my wife's bag. The PSP is gorgeous, I'm not knocking that, but it's a toy, not a tool. There is something very utiliterian about the Zodiac, a "can do" feel to it, and the touch screen makes all the difference. Just like my DS, it's like night and day between the two. The zodiac is also a lot smaller and slimmer, and the screen, while less dazzling than th
        • It's not just because people are biased against non-brand-name products, but would you spend $500 on a product from a company you're not sure will be around in 6 months for support?

          So:
          no confidence in small company = slow sales.
          slow sales = failing company
          failing company = no sales

          It's not rocket science, it's reality.

          MadCow.
        • the only thing that killed the Zodiac was lack of marketing

          You're probably right. This is the first time I heard of it and it looks pretty cool.

        • Re:An answer looking for a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

          by digitalgiblet ( 530309 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @09:15AM (#13194027) Homepage Journal
          "the only thing that killed the Zodiac was lack of marketing."

          I respectfully disagree with this statement. There were many things that killed the Zodiac. A few of them are:

          • Lack of quality marketing
          • Tight lock with CodeWarrior (expensive, not open -- expensive as in imported beer...) to use Zodiac specific features (accelerated graphics, joystick, etc.) and native ARM code = Very few hobbyist developers
          • Insistance on "official" apps "signed" by Tapwave to use Zodiac specific features = More reason why hobbyists didn't play in their sandbox
          • Very bad product/price structure: two versions -- 32 MB or 128 MB -- nothing in between -- You could have good price/low memory or high price/good memory
          • Insistence on marketing it as a top tier handheld game that, oh yeah, was a palm PDA as well. Should have been marketed as the world's coolest Palm Device (which it was) that also rocks at games, music and video
          • Attempting to fight Nintendo AND Sony
          • Honestly, Doom (and many of the other really cool sounding games) were practically unplayable.

          I wanted to love this thing. I tried. I lusted after it from day one until they got it into CompUSA. Once I tried it, I lost most of my interest. Once I tried to develop for it, I lost all my interest and bought a PocketPC from Dell for about half the price... Plus playing for more than two or three minutes made my hands hurt...

          • I'd just like to say that I bought a Zodiac, and you're completely correct.

            I use it as a Palm PDA first and foremost, because it was the only Palm device with a 320x480 screen, Bluetooth, a speaker you could actually hear, and vibro mode for silent alarms.

            It was a kickass Palm PDA. But as a game console, it really sucked. The best games were the ones available for other Palm PDAs anyway.

      • Re:An answer looking for a problem (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29, 2005 @02:48AM (#13192749)
        Not sure where you're getting your information - you do realize this thing runs Palm-frickin'-OS, right?

        You do realise that you had to pull teeth to get the developer's SDK for the machine? They had custom hardware (including 3D acceleration) that was above and beyond "standard" Palm hardware. If you only wanted to write standard Palm apps, you wouldn't be interested in the Zodiac. But Tapwave treated the Zodiac-specific bits of the Palm OS like some sort of magic secret that they'd only give to anybody on pain of death.

        For example, I'm a game developer (published on PC, Xbox & PS2). I wanted to play around with the SDK in my spare time and see if it might be worth buying a machine, but I gave up because it was going to be more hassle that it was worth getting it (note that this was not for official development, so I wasn't going to waste time on it). End result: I, and many others, never bothered giving the Zodiac a second glance.

        I'm looking forward to the first Direct3D capable Windows Mobile 5.0 device that has a PSP-ish form factor and is designed with games in mind - I'll be all over that. Because the documentation is already freely available [microsoft.com] and Microsoft treats developers - even only potential developers - with at least a tiny amount of respect.
    • I bought a Tapwave a few weeks ago. It's a pretty solid design, and for the price I paid, nothing beat it. It does everything I wanted it to do. I don't really play games, but using the stylus to play card games is genius. It can handle quite a lot of media, just about anything I throw at it, including video. The form factor is quite a bit smaller than PSP in thickness and width, and uses SD cards, with dual slots. The PSP has a single memory slot of a more expensive format and the disc drive is curre

  • But if the Zodiac is no more... (Score:5, Funny)

    by GuitarNeophyte ( 636993 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:11AM (#13192280) Homepage Journal
    If the Zodiac is no more, then what do I say, if someone asks me what my sign is?

    *sits here, watching the following thread for the puns and fun answers*

    Luke
    -----
    Have a teaching-about-computer-basics website? Maybe you might want to swap links with ChristianNerds.com [christiannerds.com]?

  • Tapwave, we hardly knew ye... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sensible Clod ( 771142 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:11AM (#13192286) Homepage
    Shame, really. Product so far ahead of its time. But that's why it failed in the marketplace.

    Makes you wonder what kind of market it is that rewards the incrementalists, while punishing innovators.

    • Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DoctorPhish ( 626559 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:23AM (#13192528) Homepage
      "You can always spot the pioneers by the arrows in their backs."

      --William Calvin

    • Re:Tapwave, we hardly knew ye... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spoco2 ( 322835 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:58AM (#13192625)
      "Product so far ahead of its time"
      As my wife loves to say, it can't be ahead of it's time, as it's time is when it existed (ok, she says it better). This 'Ahead of its time' stuff is bullcrap... it's not as if, were this released a couple of years later it would do well... it wouldn't.

      Did you buy one?

      Did anyone you know buy one?

      I'd never heard of the damn thing... the graphics on the website look crap, and the software list (for the game side, not the palm side), well... how many games were available?

      It's not the market's fault... it's the marketing team, or the business developers, or just the entire team as a whole creating a product that either not enough people wanted, was too expensive to make, was not known about by enough people etc. etc. etc.

      The market hardly wants to get a gaming system that they've never heard of from a company they've never heard of, exactly for this reason, they didn't want to be left out in the cold with no company to support their product and no software.

      • Re:Tapwave, we hardly knew ye... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jdigriz ( 676802 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @02:28AM (#13192700)
        Yes, I bought one about 3 months ago at a serious discount. It's a good platform. I bought it primarily as a pda with games being secondary. Game performance is adequate I guess, not a lot of titles made specifically for it, but plenty of Palm OS games work on it. I liked the 2 SD slots, the large color screen (my last Palm was a Visor Pro by handspring) and the surprisingly good speakers. I disliked the graffiti 2 (damn that lawsuit! Bring back the original!) but the virtual writing area is quite good and a nice innovation. The 128 MB inernal ram seemed huge after my 8mb visor.The landscape formfactor is excellent for reading ebooks and the speakers are loud enough to enjoy music and podcasts. I keep a streetmap sd card and a 1gb sd card in it for storage. Thought about getting a wifi card for it, but I think the browser/processor combo is too slow to make for comfortable web access. The only real complaint I have with it is the USB/charging cable and the poor OS X support. The cable is a weird nonstandard connector that attaches awkardly and does not always stay attached. Overall, I'm not sorry I bought it, it's rugged as all hell and will last me a few years, and Palm OS isn't going away any time soon. I don't need "support", I'm a technology professional.I knew the writing was on the wall though when I saw the poor job of promotion the company did. A better marketing team could have pulled it off. Another Amiga.

      • Re:Tapwave, we hardly knew ye... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Divide By Zero ( 70303 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @09:52AM (#13194334)
        I'll pass on the "ahead of its time" thing.

        I bought this a couple years ago at full retail, which was like $300. I've never regretted a minute of it. Selling points:

        PalmOS handheld device. Lots and LOTS of software, quite a bit for free or cheap.

        SLIM. Half an inch thick, maybe. Goes in my jeans pocket no problem. Easy to carry around.

        Game oriented. Analog stick, six buttons, horizontal orientation by default. While the first-party games did suck a fair bit of ass, and second-party support (www.crimsonfire.com and a couple others) was sparse, this thing was BUILT FOR EMULATION. I have SNES, Genesis, NES, GB, GBC and all my legal copies of backup roms for all those systems. Everything from Double Dribble through Golden Axe and Chrono Trigger, and all put together they take up a quarter of the memory. Plus, the de rigeur card games, including a couple decent Hold 'Em games.

        Media friendly. The screen has the wide (480x320) aspect, and built in picture and movie viewers and an OS-integrated MP3 player. It's not an iPod-killer by any stretch, but it does the job well.

        The memory thing was a bit lame (I got the memory-heavy version), but it's got two SD slots to more than make up for it. I never missed wi-fi, as I find PDA surfing frustrating.

        I got one, showed it to a guy I worked with (same demographic) and he bought one. It's not a bad device by any stretch. Serves the need I had: to put work and play on the same pocket-friendly device.

        Locking down the extra Zodiac-ey features, specifically the analog stick, didn't help, but it wasn't what killed Tapwave.

        The marketing is EXACTLY what went wrong. The Zodiac was marketed as a fancy-ass game platform. They looked like they were going for 12-25, but it was custom built for technophiles age 25-40 who want to play games without carrying around an extra gadget. It's hard to pass off that GBA at work, but my Zodiac passes muster as soon as I show the boss my to-do list, address book, calendar, and all the other standard Palm apps. Sitting in meetings, taking notes looks just like playing Hold 'Em if I can manage to keep from looking disappointed when I get busted out. I'm really surprised the Slashdot people didn't pick up on it more.

        My next PDA will probably be much faster with a lot of whiz-bang features, but I will miss the Zodiac when it's gone. Hopefully Tapwave will release the application signing algorithm and we can use it for more while the device still has its developers available.
      • As my wife loves to say, it can't be ahead of it's time, as it's time is when it existed (ok, she says it better). This 'Ahead of its time' stuff is bullcrap... it's not as if, were this released a couple of years later it would do well... it wouldn't.

        The Phaistos Disc [wikipedia.org] was ahead of its time. It is a clay disc printed on both sides, using pre-made seals. The technology is similar to the Gutenberg Bible [wikipedia.org], and was probably created in 1700 B.C., about 3000 years earlier. However, it did not create the sam

      • " it's not as if, were this released a couple of years later it would do well... it wouldn't"

        This is not true. The Apple Newton and the Palmpilot proves this; the Newton was ahead of it's time, and whilst the palmpilot was released later, it was only just as good (and in some cases worse), but was a commercial success.
    • Product so far ahead of its time.
       
      How was it "ahead of its time"? I can't be the only person who thought it was a fairly obvious idea with no real market.
    • No, it failed because:
      - It was marketed poorly and wasn't used to its full potential
      - Tapwave made it too unattractive for game developers by using annoying digital signature mechanisms that hamper homebrew development efforts
      - They waited too long to get wi-fi support working
      - They went with PalmOS instead of PowerPC (or WindowsCE or whatever it's called)

      Personally I don't know much about it other than what I heard from my roommate, who was suckered in and regrets it.

      I also gather that there was quite a fa
      • Seconded, especially the "digital signature mechanisms."

        I wanted this. A PalmOS game-designed machine? It'd be great -- I could do all my school-related PDA stuff (that is, tide me over until I could get to a desktop) AND I could homebrew games on it. But wait, no, I couldn't -- to get access to the nifty features that made it a good handheld game machine, your code had to be signed. "Too bad," said I, and Tapwave lost another sale.
        Let me reiterate: TAPWAVE, YOUR ENGINEERS MADE A GOOD MACHINE AND YOUR M
    • It's incrementalism that killed Tapwave. Instead of going out and creating a future-proof gaming platform, they took PalmOS and stuck on a third party gaming library. How much more "incremental" can you get? PalmOS 5 was an obsolete platform before they even started. And Tapwave followed a long chain of obsolete thinking about proprietary APIs, starting at Apple, then Palm, and finally Tapwave.

      What would an innovative gaming platform have looked like? Something with an open source OS (maybe Linux, mayb

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:12AM (#13192291)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Possible Theory (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hobbitgh0d42 ( 863818 )
      My theory is that it tried to go toe to toe with Nintendo and the GBA. Sure it had the whole touch screen thing before the DS but you just don't mess with the Gameboy.

      Maybe they should have consulted with the makers of the NeoGeo Pocket, Wonderswan, GP32, Atari Lynx, Game Gear, Nomad and various others on how to try to tackle the Gameboy.

      • Re:Possible Theory (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 )
        "My theory is that it tried to go toe to toe with Nintendo and the GBA."

        They did? Has anybody ever seen an ad for a Zodiac (or even a game review) in the popular game mags out there? Has anybody ever seen one at a store like Walmart or Best Buy? Can anybody point out a must-have killer game for that system?

        I've got a dollar that says more people know about Tiger's Game.com system than about Zodiac. If it can't even pass those tests, how could it even think of going toe to toe with Nintendo?
        • Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

          That should give you an idea of the trouble behind it.

          Imagine for a minute you're a hardware developer (maybe you are, but play along) with a great idea for a Convergence Device.

          You know that a PDA that can play games with a game-friendly and generally useful input mechanism and a big screen would ultimately redefine the PDA.

          You have to build this system, and expand on the Palm platform. Lots of hardware testing, R&D, and software development to get games like THPS to run on a Palm
          • now that there is a MAME port for Palm OS. While it's still very Beta-ish, I run arcade classics on my Treo 650 and love it.

            Too bad that couldn't have played up that aspect... If they could have licensed some of the ROMS for classics, I think that might have helped. Of course, I suppose guys like me who were teen arcade junkies when Space Invaders was new are a limited audience. :o)

    • Re:Tapwave? (Score:3, Funny)

      by NaDrew ( 561847 )
      Anyone know why they failed?

      I interviewed with them about a year ago. They didn't hire me.

      This explains why they failed.

  • Here's it's replacement (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:13AM (#13192292)
    This is very sad.

    If you're looking for a replacement, the closest you're probably going to find is the GPX2 [gpx2.com], which is being made by the makers of the GP32. It runs linux and has an incomplete but pretty decent sized fraction of the Zodiac's feature list. They claim they want to sell it for $100, but it seems almost ridiculously improbable they could pull that off..

  • Sure no one wanted them? They're hot items on eBay (Score:3, Insightful)

    by loggia ( 309962 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:18AM (#13192311)
    Not sure if posters can claim this product never made sense... when they are such hot sellers on eBay.

    Well, actually... it will probably become even cooler now that they discontinued.

    Anyone know where I can buy 30 of these?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Standard Response (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:26AM (#13192340) Homepage
    "I hope they do the right thing and open-source the code..."
    • Companies that develop intellectual property consider it an assets (be it movies, music, software, whatever).

      So expecting them to give away software (not that I'm suggesting you expect anything) would be analogous to asking a closing restaurant to give away its plate and deep fryer that they hope to sell to pay debts/recoup losses/etc.

      Its a nice idea, but I get the feeling that a lot of people think shelved software is zero value. Atari would tell you different...but even if that doesn't happen they can

  • The biggest problem was... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mongoose(!no) ( 719125 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:34AM (#13192370)
    Like all other game consoles that failed, they didn't have enough brand-name games. They had quite a few overpriced shareware games, and some ports of older PC games like Doom 2 and spyhunter, and a few interesting original games. The PDA itself was a really good design. I liked the one I saw in CompUSA and I was seriously considering getting one just as a PDA. It had a large ammount of RAM, dual SD slots (one SDIO), bluetooth, a display that matched the high end PalmOne PDAs like the T3. It is a shame the company went under. Maybe they wouldn't have if I actually bought them instead of obsessivly checking their website.
  • I guess the success of the Zodiac just wasn't in the stars...

  • Universally? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @12:57AM (#13192444)
    It's universally acclaimed, and by "universally acclaimed" I mean that neither I nor anyone I know had even heard of it before this article. Maybe everyone who used one liked it, but you have to be ubiquitous before you can be universally acclaimed. Of course, nobody who knows what ubiquitous actually means other than "cool gadget that I saw in Best Buy on two occasions" has ever had a story approved for the front page of Slashdot.

  • What was the point? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chudgoo ( 812186 )
    I must not have been the only one that completely missed the point of this device...
    They seemed only half serious about supporting it as a game console (Doom2?! WTF!) and it lacked the features most would want in a PDA.
    Much like the Ngage it was too many things and wasn't good at any of them.

    I'm not quite sure what is meant when other posters say that it was ahead of its time.
    As far as I can see it was a palm with dual SD slots.

    Can someone enlighten me?

    • Hey, I have Doom II for my GBA!

      Ok, so I didn't actually go out and buy it, just have it so to say.. :)

    • As a few posters mentioned, Tapwave was REALLY restrictive about releasing the SDKs for the Zodiac-specific hardware in their products. As a result it was very difficult to develop for, as opposed to normal Palm apps.

      It was a Palm with:
      Tons of RAM
      Great form factor
      Dual SD slots
      Best display available for any Palm device for quite some time
      *3D hardware acceleration* - the ONLY Palm device with that feature. Unfortunately, you couldn't use it with Tapwave's near-impossible-to-obtain SDK. If Tapwave had been

  • PDA/Gaming (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Nightspirit ( 846159 )
    The only way a PDA/gaming device is going to work is if it still looks professional, like the current non-gaming PDAs. Professionals really don't want their business hardware looking like a toy.

    The only problem I see with current PDAs is they keep shrinking their directional pad and buttons. Put a decent graphics chip in it, make the buttons gaming friendly, give it decent battery life, and make it look professional. Then I'd buy it.

  • predictable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:11AM (#13192504)
    This was completely predictable: a PalmOS machine with a proprietary gaming library was a really stupid idea. It made them dependent on PalmOS, tied them to an outdated software architecture, and meant that they still had to do lots of custom software development.

    I think even if they had started off with Linux on those devices, they would have failed: wrong market, wrong timing. But they would have had a slightly better chance than with what they actually did.

    • Re:predictable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @07:48AM (#13193550)
      Your post makes me remember why many people hate Linux. It's because of the attitude like yours.

      I mean - don't tell me you seriously believe that going with PalmOS instead of Linux for a PDA was a bloody _wrong_ choice? You know - I were seriously considering getting one of those things a couple of months back mainly because it _is_ PalmOS machine - if you grow tired of Tapwave's special HW accelerated games you still have a bloody good Palm PDA with a good screen, plenty of memory and I don't think there are many other models with dual card slots (BTW - I really wanted that several times to move digicam photos for example). Seemingly good battery life does not hurt either.

      Linux is not the answer to everything. I'd hate to be in IT world where it's "Linux vs Windows" as much as I'd hate to be in "Only Windows". Palm and Apple still give me (faint) hope though. Because there is a broad range of people between "idiot consumer" and "Linux geek" that badly needs to be targetted too.

      How much do you guys think these things would cost now? Is it reallistic to order one of those in the US?
      • You do realise that PalmSource is moving to Linux, and has basically said it got it wrong a few years ago when it didn't decide to move to Linux then? PalmSource's plan is to build a PalmOS layer on top of a Linux kernel. Timing is everything though so assuming Tapwave weren't happy to wait for this they didn't have alot of choices (assuming they wanted all the regular Palm software).
        • Yes, and I expect PalmOS (based on Linux) to be about the same to what is normally considered Linux PDA as MacOSX is to FreeBSD, I mean - the good points should probably be retained but PalmOS-over-Linux would be nothing like, EG, Zaurus. And of course PalmOS-over-Linux is not even close to being here, much less it were so in the days when Zodiacs were being developed.
  • Quote a quote, "Zodiac blew us away with its too-good-to-be-true multimedia functionality"

    As the old saying goes...

  • Meh. IMHO DRM helped kill this (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaitou ( 789825 ) <webmaster@noSpAm.animeglobe.com> on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:36AM (#13192569) Homepage
    I had(have) one. Wonderful little device in almost every way. Solid design, good screen (a bit washed out colors, but still), plenty speed for a PalmOS.
    The only problem was the DRM.

    See, software that took advantage of the special hardware accelerator/screen API/system functions in the Zodiac had to have been cleared and approved by Tapwave, they'd turn on the "Not Evil" bit and you could run it. Otherwise, it'd reset your device.
    They blocked access to parts of the OS, so no third party language addons would work (no russian, no japanese in my case).
    Since all programs had to pass by them, they got to pick what they would allow people to run. I remember a big stink when they wouldn't authorize a GBA emulator, because Nintendo had threatened the company that wrote it (not Tapwave) originaly. That certanly hurt them, and I have seen developers stay away from the Zodiac for worry about whether their program would be allowed to run on it. (This is once again, only for programs that changed the OS, or used the zodiac special features, hardware accelerated graphics, and so on)

    Furthermore all software that was authorized to run, could only run on your one zodiac. It'd reset otherwise. I had a hell of a time with that when having to replace my Zodiac for another one.

    In the end it had great hardware, so-so software, and a draconian enough DRM to annoy most users, and a fair amount of developers. Really sad to see it go, but I have been expecting this.
    • This is exactly what killed it. Sure there were no major gaming studios looking to port the latest PS2 titles to it, but there were tons of indie developers interested in putting popcap-style games and last-generation style 3D games on this thing. But you couldn't thanks to the wonderful PalmOS and the signed code system.

      If this had been an open platform based on PocketPC, there would have been alot more games for it. Sad to see it go, my husband and his best friend both own one and got alot of fun out of

    • Re:Meh. IMHO DRM helped kill this (Score:4, Informative)

      by ardiri ( 245358 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @08:07AM (#13193626) Homepage
      The only problem was the DRM.

      i resent that comment.

      as one of the designers of the DRM - it was developed with the developer in mind, and most importantly protecting the content that was published on the platform. as a developer in the handheld space; i've looked at a number of DRM systems - and, the system we contributed with helping tapwave with was secure. it still hasn't been broken, and it shares uncanny resemblances to the new Sony PSP DRM (someone copied). even i had software signed.

      See, software that took advantage of the special hardware accelerator/screen API/system functions in the Zodiac had to have been cleared and approved by Tapwave

      the tapwave was capable of running *all* palmos applications without digital signing. it was only the applications that used the specific zodiac hardware that actually required digital signing.

      Furthermore all software that was authorized to run, could only run on your one zodiac. It'd reset otherwise. I had a hell of a time with that when having to replace my Zodiac for another one.

      the DRM was tailored to support universal signing for all devices - just take a look at some of the games we wrote. you could download a demo which was using the zodiac hardware API's and it would run on *every* zodiac out there. if you wanted the full version, you had to get a version signed to your device.

      the problem is not the DRM - but, what the developers chose to do with the DRM. most developers refused to look into the alternative options that the DRM provided; and, did the simple "hey, you need to be signed against your device id - sucker". there was options in the DRM to allow signing against a user account - which, in the event a user changed their tapwave device, they just need to update their profile on their handheld to ensure that their user account was still valid.

      - software signed against user-account
      - user-account signed against device

      when the user changed device; they could get a new user-account signed - and, the existing application would continue to run. now - my point is that this was *all* in the design of the system. the DRM was also designed for SD card distribution - which, you could take a single SD card between multiple devices. the people you heard bitch about the DRM should have purchased card versions of the software maybe?

      to what extent tapwave made the full design of the DRM available, i dont know - it been a long time since i checked. if you have any questions regarding the DRM - dont hesitate to fire me an email. the tapwave was a great device - that failed due to a lack of marketing and branding. it wasn't the DRM.
      • OK, question... was there any provision for allowing open-source thirdparty apps that used the Zodiac's API and hardware extensions to be promiscuously signed and made available for free at no cost to anyone who wanted to download them? Or, at best, would the developer have been forced to eat some licensing and/or service fee for his altruism? Or worse, be forced to pay Tapwave royalties for each and every download that someone needed to have signed for his machine?

        Put another way, was there an option for
        • In a word, no.

          "traceable all the way back to Tapwave"

          There was no chain of trust. The chain of trust was Tapwave itself. They signed all the apps that required the graphics accelerator or analog stick, and I have no doubt that it was other-than-free-as-in-beer. They could kill pretty much any game by refusing to sign it. I'm told they refused to sign Firestorm, the GBA emu from Crimson Fire, and I can't imagine that helped them any. Whether Firestorm would have worked even with a signature, I won't ven
        • OK, question... was there any provision for allowing open-source thirdparty apps that used the Zodiac's API and hardware extensions to be promiscuously signed and made available for free at no cost to anyone who wanted to download them?

          yes. in a similar way that the demo versions of software that used the API's could be signed and used on any zodiac hardware.

          tapwave did not charge a fee for doing the digital signing, all you had to do as a developer was send your unsigned file to tapwave for signing and the
        • Put another way, was there an option for a developer writing a Zodiac-specific app to do the equivilent of generating an anonymous J2SE code-signing cert and using it to sign apps for free use by anyone willing to accept the validity of the cert?

          i re-read your question - and, i have an answer for it.

          YES.

          you could write a single application that would be signed by tapwave that had the calls to the zodiac API's and provided them via a library/plugin interface.

          for example: zodiac API - signed application -
      • Let me put it this way:

        I bought a Zodiac.

        I think the DRM sucked balls. I didn't buy any Tapwave-only games.

        Perhaps you might want to ponder that when thinking about why you're out of business.
      • You are still in denial. The DRM killed the Zodiac. Face it, compared to Nintendo, Sony, and even (choke) Nokia you were destined to be a niche player, at least with your first generation units. There was a Niche though, there is a strong Homebrew community with PalmOS, and if you put out a device that was reasonably easy to program you could have built a cult following with the device. I wouldn't be a massive GBA style success, but you would probably make enough to get by and develop a generation two p
      • the people you heard bitch about the DRM should have purchased card versions of the software maybe?

        DRM that locks software to a card means if you want to have five games available you have to carry around five cards. I refuse to do that. Any card that can't reside /in/ the device at all times stays home or doesn't get bought in the first place. It's fine for a home machine to have carts, but that's just death for a PDA.

        The Newton originally had card-based apps; they didn't sell either. (As for GBA, I b

      • "and it shares uncanny resemblances to the new Sony PSP DRM (someone copied)."

        And that's the exact problem. Sony is a massive company that's well-established in the industry. If the Sony executives had said to potential developers, "Perform fellatio on every single one of us if you want us to give you an SDK", the developers would've done so.

        Tapwave, on the other hand, was a tiny no-name company with no leverage. To succeed, Tapwave would've had to do everything in their power to *encourage* developers t

  • N-Gage extends its dominance! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:46AM (#13192603) Homepage
    Yet another victim, left unable to sustain itself in the vacuum of the N-Gage's wake, falls before the allmighty Nokian. The powerful N-Gage Arena community bellows a mightly laugh at the plight of the vastly inferior Tapwave. Said Jorma Ollila, "How could any device with a name like that ever hope to succeed? One can be engaged, but not tapwaved!"

  • Oh Tapwave employees... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Simulant ( 528590 ) on Friday July 29, 2005 @01:47AM (#13192604) Journal
    ...now that I'm stuck with a unsupported PDA, the least you can do is release your Linux port.

    Pretty Please?

  • I needed a replacmeent PDA for my Treo (90), another orphan. I looked at what I could get get in a Palm and at the end the Tapwave Zodiac met the mission.

    I wanted WiFi capability while stil having a slot for extra storage. The Zod has two SD slots. You can put a WiFi card in one and flash disk in the other. Ironically PalmOne couldn't do that in the top PDAs. The Tungsten3 can have flash OR WiFi, not both.

    Better, Tapwave wrote drivers for a combo SD card from SanDisk that has both WiFi and 256MB o

  • Failure Factors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SoupIsGood Food ( 1179 ) * on Friday July 29, 2005 @02:13AM (#13192671)
    Zodiac had three problems:

    1) Games. They needed a "Killer App" in the worst way. I mean, even the Saturn had "Panzer Dragoon" and Dreamcast had "Soul Caliber." Instead, they seemed to pursue the most mediocre and middle-of-the-road games they could, the "premier" game being a warmed over version of Doom.

    2) Marketing. There was no buzz. They scored the incredible coup of getting their device prominently displayed in every CompUSA, but failed to advertise it, or even poisition it where it would be visible to it's target audience. (20-something professionals.) Take out a full page ad or two in Maxxim, fer chrissakes.

    3) Not gearing themselves to succeed small, and grow big. They overreached themselves without a killer game and proper publicity. There are high-tech products that survive and thrive despite flying under the radar (see Sony's Qualia division, or McIntosh Audio, or Saleen supercars for good examples.) But, you need to batten down the financial hatches, and realize you're going to live on the edge of solvency for the first five ro ten years. (Alienware is a great example of such a company who actually made it.)

    So, even tho the Tapwave was one of the sexiest pieces of kit on the market (that metal shell felt like a William Gibson wet-dream), it couldn't deliver the killer app, it wasn't advertised to it's target audience effectively, and Tapwave tried to grow too quickly, and drowned in venture capital it had no hope of repaying.

    Ah, well, if I find one on clearance, I'll buy it regardless, because hey, it is a cool little gizmo.

    SoupIsGood Food
    • Fully agreed, apart from one small nitpick. McIntosh is, as far as I know, a division of D&M Holdings, who are not a small company. The D is Denon and the M Marantz.
  • They should have given a pre-announcement, then at least the /. crowd would have gotten a chance to buy their last stock. With the /. effect they now get more visitors, hence more visibility and better chance to sell something, then they apparently had before.
  • I bought one of these for my wife to replace her Palm Tungsten, which is very slick, but has a battery life in the nanosecond range :) Got it cheap from morganscomputers, (who buy it wholsale from companies going bust) so I knew they were up against the wall. It's a really nice bit of kit, no intention of playing anything other than solitaire on it. But it's far lighter then the PSP, and comes with a mail client and a web browser, and the dual slot means one for memory, and one for a wifi card. So with wif
  • Learn from this one folks: without marketing and sales, no matter how good your product is, you will are doomed. The first time I heard Zodiac was their death announcement. In the time they've been on the market I've purchased three PDAs and certainly would have given one of theirs a try.
  • Umm, and exactly what do you mean by "Universally acclaimed?" Please be a dear to show us the list of articles written about this product that nobody outside of Slashdot has heard of.
  • Everytime I've seen the Zodiac I've wondered how they could possibly stay in business. $300 for essentially a NDS/PSP device. It's a bit bulky to be a PDA. It's battery life is terrible if you actually play any games on it. And there are only a few games for it.

    If you make a game system, please remember to license it so you will actually have games when it's released. Also helps if one of those games is a "killer app".
  • True anecdote from 2003, around the time the Zodiac and the n-Gage had both hit the market, and a friend was chatting up an EA employee:

    Friend: So, I see you have a few n-Gage games lined up. What about the Zodiac?

    EA Employee: Well, we're putting focus on the n-Gage only, because let's face it--Nokia's still going to be here in a few years. Tapwave isn't.

    Friend (perplexed): Well... yeah. If no one's making any games for it, it won't.

    And then I read this article.
  • Bought mine after my Clie went back to Sony for the second time, and I noticed the battery wasn't quite getting me through my two-hour commute anymore. (NR70Z, 1st gen twist-and-flip).

    Never got around to making a holster for the Zodiac, but it fits well enough in my old Pilot III / Handera one. Finally looked up the cheats for Doom II recently... Nice to have a half-gig of standard SD plus a pretty good game, I like the color screen... bit odd that the included Acid Solitaire tells me I do not have the u

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