Tapwave Zodiac

Tapwave, founded in Mountain View, California in May 2001, introduced the Zodiac mobile entertainment console in October 2003 cite web |url=http://www.pcvsconsole.com/news.php?nid=2195|title=The Tapwave Zodiac Console Now Shipping|publisher=pcvsconsole.com|date=2003-11-3] . The product was designed to be a "high performance mobile entertainment system” centered on games, music, pictures, and video for 18 to 34 year old gamers and technology enthusiasts. By running an enhanced version of the Palm Operating System (5.2T), Zodiac also provided access to Palm’s personal information management software and many other applications from the Palm developer community. The Zodiac console was initially available in two models, Zodiac 1 (32MB) for $299 US, and Zodiac 2 (128MB) for $399 US. Some of the more noteworthy game titles for the product included: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4; Mototrax; Spyhunter; Madden NFL 2005; DOOM II; Warfare Incorporated; and Duke Nukem Mobile. Due to strong competitive pressures from the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and lack of funding to drive premier game development and compete effectively in the market, Tapwave discontinued the sale of the console on July 25th 2005 cite web |url=http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7990/tapwave-discontinues-zodiac-business/|title=Tapwave Discontinues Zodiac Business|publisher=Palm InfoCenter.com |date=2005-07-27] and sold substantially all of its assets to an undisclosed multi-billion dollar corporation in Asia.

While Zodiac sold less than 200,000 units cite web |url=http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games/features/125748.shtml |title=The 10 Worst-Selling Handhelds of All Time |accessdate=2008-01-17 |author=Blake Snow |publisher=GamePro.com |date=2007-07-30] , the console garnered strong product reviews and received many industry awards. A few examples include: Popular Science’s 2003 Best of What’s New (BOWN) Award cite Popular Science Top 100 Tech Innovations - 2003 best of What's New|title=Best of Whats New|date= Dec 2003] ; Stuff Magazine’s Top 10 Gadgets of the Year for 2004 cite Stuff Magazine - UK Edition|title=Top 10 Gadgets of the Year|date= Dec 2004] ; Wired Magazine’s Fetish Award cite Wired Magazine|title=Palm Boy Advance - Zodiac Plays Hard Works hard|author = Seth Feman|date= Oct 2003] ; CNET’s Editor's Choice Award; PC World’s 2004 Next Gear Innovations Award cite PC World Magazine|title= Tech Visionaries - Next Gear|Editor = Alan Stafford|date= Feb 2004] ; PC Magazine’s 1st Place Last Gadget Standing at CES; Handheld Computing Magazines’s Most Innovative PDA of 2003 cite Handhled Computing Magazine|title= The Best Products of the Year|date= Jan/Feb 2004 Issue] ; Time Magazine’s Best Gear of 2003, and Business Week’s Best Products of 2003.

Timeline

* May 2001: Tapwave was founded in May 2001 by former Palm executives
* May 2002: Tapwave closed initial Series-A funding
* May 2002: Tapwave signed Palm OS licensing agreement with PalmSource
* May 2003: Company was formally launched at Palm Developers Conference & E3
* Sept 2003: Zodiac entertainment console launched at DEMO conference
* Oct 2003: Zodiac console began shipping to customers directly from livescribe.com
* Nov 2003: Tapwave announced that “over 1200 game developers” signed up for the Tapwave developer program
* Feb 2004: PalmGear & Tapwave announced partnership to launch an online store to feature the best applications, game titles and ebooks available on the Palm OS® platform
* April 2004: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 available for Zodiac
* April 2004: Synchronization between Zodiac & Mac OS X desktops enabled by MarkSpace
* June 2004: Zodiac launched into U.S. retail distribution with CompUSA
* Oct 2004: Zodiac launched in United Kingdom and sold through PC World, Dixons, Dixons Tax Free Stores, and Currys.
* Oct 2004: Zodiac launched in Singapore and distributed by ECS
* Nov 2004: Zodiac launched in South Korea and co-branded with Sonokong (OEM)
* Nov 2004: Madden NFL 2005 available for Zodiac
* Dec 2004: Audible announces audio book support for Zodiac
* Dec 2004: Tapwave announce Wi-Fi® SD card for the Zodiac with “enhanced mail application and web browser”.
* Jan 2005: Tapwave and Virgin Digital announced strategic alliance for audio download and subscription services.
* July 2005: Due to strong competitive pressures from the Sony PSP, Tapwave discontinued the sale of the Zodiac mobile entertainment console and sold substantially all of its assets to an undisclosed multi-billion dollar corporation in Asia and wound down operations.

Included Software

In ROM

* PalmOS Date Book, Address Book, To Do List, and Memo Pad* AcidSolitaire
* Kinoma Video Player
* Inkstorm Wireless-based chat & shared whiteboard
* Tapwave Clock
* Tapwave Music
* Tapwave Photos
* WordSmith

On the CD

* "Stuntcar Extreme"
* PalmReader e-book viewer with the "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "The Last of the Mohicans" e-books.
* powerOne graphing calculator (for the first year of manufacture)
* Internet browser
* SMS application

Price

The Zodiac was available in two models:
* Zodiac 1: $299US (Slate gray color with 32MB of internal RAM)
* Zodiac 2: $399US (Charcoal gray color with 128MB of internal RAM)

Differences from other devices

Alarms

Unlike the mainstream Palm PDAs like the Tungsten series and the Sony Clie series, the Zodiac had some unique features out of the box. Its alarms were polyphonic quality, sounding even richer and more realistic than current PDAs. The Zodiac can even play MP3's for alarms (a ROM update fixed the limit of being able to play only the first minute of an MP3 track).

Music

MP3's can be played off either of its 2 SD cards or internal memory (being the Zodiac 2 was the first PDA then and still one of the few Palm PDAs now to have over 100MB of user available RAM, this was quite feasible and convenient). While other Palm devices can also do this, they require 3rd party software like RAMdisk to enable MP3 playback off internal memory and Pocket Tunes to associate MP3s with alarms. The Zodiac uses the music player that's preloaded in ROM for normal use playback.

Input

The system includes a standard touch screen (at 480x320, one of the highest resolutions available at the time) but has additional inputs designed for gaming. Held in a landscape configuration, there is an analog thumbstick and a function button on the left of the screen, four digital buttons on the right, and two shoulder buttons (triggers) on the top of the device. The unit accepts SD format cards as removable storage. The Zodiac's implementation of Palm OS 5 has a radial menu (the analog stick is pushed in one of eight directions to select menu options) with a side list for use without the stylus.

Gaming

While PDAs like the Tungsten T3 and certain Sony Clies also have alarm vibration, the Zodiac is the only Palm PDA to use this feature for PDA games as well. Many of these games were Zodiac exclusive titles (in other words, not available for standard Palm OS handhelds), but some titles also available for standard Palm OS handhelds also had vibration feature added in. These were added via a separate install file for Zodiac handhelds or a global file with an option to turn this on if the game detected you were playing on a Zodiac. There is multiplayer mode which uses bluetooth, 8 players max. for most games.

trength

The Zodiac is more rugged than most contemporary PDAs because of its metal construction, although on some batches the adhesive on the shoulder buttons was known to fail, and the standard flip-top screen protector could do more harm than good if grit became trapped between it and the screen surface - various alternative cases made the ineffective default protector unnecessary. Presumably to save internal space, the stylus is clipped laterally into a recess in the rear of the device rather than locked into a slot as in most PDAs. This sometimes causes the stylus to get knocked loose when the handheld is kept inside a tight pocket or carry bag space, or when the handheld gets thrown around. Modified styli were produced which were attached to the lashing point on the rear of the case via a cord, so that they would not become lost or separated from the unit if they were shaken loose. Some of the third party alternative cases also served to hold the stylus in place while closed.

Compatibility

Most PalmOS 5-compatible games play on the Zodiac, as well as games designed specifically for the Zodiac's hardware. A great deal of freeware and shareware games and emulators are therefore available. For example, there are versions of "Doom", "Quake", "Hexen", "Hexen II", and "Heretic" as well as versions of emulators such as UAE, ScummVM, and LJZ/LJP, a multi-system emulator. There have also been attempts to emulate PlayStation games onto the Zodiac, the most successful emulator being PPSX [http://www.emuboards.com/invision/index.php?showtopic=24315] . It is, however, nowhere near completion and many games are not playable as of yet.

Unreleased Games

A number of games were announced for the platform, but never released due to the Zodiac's discontinuation in July 2005. These games include: MTX Mototrax, a dirtbike racing game; Streethoops, a basketball game; Hockey Rage 2005; the Terminator 3 FPS [http://www.cinergi-interactive.com/html/corporate_page_01_profile.htm] ; Tomb Raider; and Neverwinter Nights. However, some test builds of some games were leaked.

Battery

The device has a total battery life of about 3 hours when using audio, backlight+screen and CPU-intensive tasks, and while running as a dedicated audio player it is closer to 6 hours. The original battery was a 1500mAh Li-Ion; third party replacements with 2000mAh capacity are still available from some manufacturers.

Video

Several after-market DivX and XviD players have been developed for this device, such as TCPMP, which uses the Zodiac's special hardware for video playback. The default Kinoma player was limited to a proprietary file format, and only a crippled version of the necessary encoder was supplied with the device - to use it properly owners had to pay extra for the full version. It has been suggested this crippling of one of the device's two main selling points (full DVD length movie playback, after some compression) significantly diminished the Zodiac's success. At the time of its bankruptcy, Tapwave was working on an MPEG-4 update to support hardware decoding.

Zodiac exclusive games

Games which utilized some or all of the Zodiac's hardware/software are incompatible with standard Palm OS devices. This does exclude platforms outside of Palm OS (e.g., Doom II is also out for PC, but the Zodiac version listed here won't run on standard Palm OS handhelds). This list also excludes standard Palm OS games which are also available for Zodiac handhelds, which were either identical or slightly improved on Zodiac, called "Zodiac tuned" (e.g. a game available for standard Palm OS only has the extra features of vibration and shoulder buttons as extra usable buttons when played on Zodiac).

*Animated Dudes
*Avalanche
*Firefly - Pacman clone
*Gloop Zero by AeonFlame - puzzle game where you direct the flow of liquid slime material to its goal by drawing platform lines and using other tools.
*Orbz - (was shareware, but is now freeware as of Sept. 2006)
*StarPong
*Stunt Car Extreme - 3D, 1st person or 3rd person racing game. Comes with the Zodiac CD.
*Xploids

Zodiac Exclusive titles also available on SD card.
*Adventure Pak
*Doom II
*Duke Nukem Mobile
*Fun Pak
*GTS Racing Challenge
*
*Spy Hunter
*Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4

Homebrew (Freeware)
* ZDoomZ - A ZDoom port to Palm/Zodiac
* ZHexen - A Hexen port to Palm/Zodiac
* ZHeretic - A Heretic port to Palm/Zodiac
* ZHexen2 - A Hexen2 port to Palm/Zodiac
* LJP - A multisystem emulator for Palm/Zodiac
* LJZ - The old version of LJP, discontinued.
* pPSX - The most successful PSX emulator for the Zodiac
* ReverZi - A Othello/Reversi clone for Zodiac
* ZodMAME - A MAME port to the Zodiac
* ZodNEO - A NeoGeo port to the Zodiac
* ZodSCUMM - A ScummVM port to the Zodiac
* ZSpectrum - A ZX Spectrum port to the Zodiac
* REminiscence - A Zodiac port of Flashback
* Thruster - A fast-paced cave flyer.
* Noiz2sa
* Orbital Sniper - Look down from high above and shoot hostiles in a city grid layout while protecting innocent lives. (Freeware)
* Zodtris - A Zodiac only version of Tetris. (Freeware)
* Zap 'Em - A close conversion of Zoop for PC (Freeware)
* ZoT
* Zyrian
* Another World
* ZodTTD - An OpenTTD port to the Zodiac

Unreleased but leaked games
* Street Hoops - Tech demo
* - Complete
* Hockey Rage 2004 - Complete, but crash on exit
* Neverwinter Nights
* Terminator 3 - Demo, six levels
* Tomb Raider - Complete engine, however only a bunch of saved games

Hardware Specifications

Two versions of the Zodiac are available, differing only in the amount of memory and case color

* CPU: Motorola i.MX1 ARM9 processor (200 MHz)
* Memory: Zodiac 1 had 32 MB. Zodiac 2 had 128 MB. Both have 10 MB Dedicated to the System Dynamic RAM
* Graphic Accelerator: ATI Imageon W4200 2D graphics accelerator (with 8 MB dedicated SDRAM)
* Controls: Analog controller (or joystick) with 360 degrees of motion, built-in triggers and action button array similar to other gaming consoles.
* Display: 3.8 inch transflective 480 x 320 (half VGA), 16-bit color backlit display (65,536 colors)
* Sound: Yamaha sound and stereo speakers, 3.5 mm earphone plug
* External Connectors: 2 expansion slots (both are MMC / SD capable, one is also SDIO capable), Zodiac Connector, 3.5 mm headphone jack
*Wireless: Infrared, Bluetooth (Compatible with some Wifi SDIO cards depending on drivers)
*Battery: Rechargeable Lithium Batteries – Dual totaling to 1540 mA·h
*Size & Weight: 5.6" x 3.1" x 0.55" (142x79x14 mm), 6.3 ounces (180 g)
** Compare to the Palm TX which is smaller at 78x15x121 mm due to fewer buttons, but includes WiFi
*Colors: Zodiac 1: Slate Gray, Zodiac 2: Charcoal Gray
*Casing: Synthetic rubber, anodized aluminum, plastic

Software Specifications

* Operating System: Palm Operating System (5.2T),

* Navigation: Zodiac featured a radial navigation system to launch up to 64 titles or applications with two movements of the analog controller. Users could also use the touch-screen to drag and drop applications, interact directly with games, and customize their view.

* Games: Zodiac was bundled with two games, Stuntcar Extreme™ by Vasara Games and AcidSolitaire™ by Red Mercury.

* Music: Zodiac included an MP3 player. Custom play lists could be created by dragging and dropping songs to the list using the touch screen and a music alarm-clock feature enable users to wake up to the song of their choice.

* Videos: The Kinoma Producer allowed users to convert and load videos to their Zodiac (MPEG1, MPEG4, QuickTime, AVI and DIVX videos). With the Kinoma Player users could watch full motion video on their Zodiac.
* Books: Zodiac came bundled with the PalmReader™ e-book application and two ebooks, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Last of the Mohicans. Additional books could be purchased online.

* Photos: Bundled photo software enabled users to share photos or create slide shows with music in the background. JPEG images were transferred from a users PC (using the Palm Desktop Software) or loaded via SD cards.

* Information Management: Zodiac included the “Palm OS productivity suite”, including Date Book, Address Book, To Do List and Memo Pad, plus the powerOne™ Graphing Calculator, Wordsmith™ word processor, PalmReader™ e-book application, etc.

* Communication/Connectivity: Zodiac could connect to a compatible Bluetooth phone or Bluetooth access point to surf the Internet or send messages with the bundled web browser and SMS application.

Peripherals and accessories

*5V regulated DC switch mode battery charger, using proprietary connector.
*USB PC synchronization cable, incorporating pass-through female charger connector (allowing charging from mains whilst synchronizing)
*Car battery charger
*Cradle Attachment for sync cable (poorly designed, unreliable electrical contacts)
*Folding Keyboard (some 3rd party Bluetooth & IR models, unknown whether dedicated keyboard capable of using sync cable connector existed)
*Some SDIO Cameras can be used such as the Veo Camera.

Industry Awards

The Zodiac received a number of noteworthy industry awards. Some of these include:
* Popular Science - BOWN Award
* Stuff Magazine (UK) - Top 10 Gadgets of the Year
* Wired Magazine - Fetish Award
* CNET - Editor's Choice Award
* PC World - 2004 Next Gear Innovations Award
* PC World - Editor’s Pick
* Consumer Digest - Best Buy Award
* Laptop Magazine - Hot Pick
* PC Magazine - 1st Place Last Gadget Standing
* Handheld Computing - Most Innovative PDA
* Business Week - Best Products of 2003
* Business Week - 2004 Design Excellence Award
* Time Magazine – Best Gear 2003

Trivia

The Zodiac was originally going to be named the "Helix" but was renamed. [http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5753 http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5753]

During development of the Zodiac, the code name of the device was "Road Dawg" and the code name of the desktop software was "Elvis".

The AlphaSmart Dana is the only Palm OS device aside from the Zodiac with two slots for SD card media. [ [http://www.alphasmart.com/products/dana-w_In.html Dana Wireless ] ]

The Tapwave Zodiac can also be seen throughout Stargate SG-1 including recently in the 10th Season as a sensor device used by Col. Samantha Carter and Vala Mal Doran.

References