be300.org is dead :(

Hello CE Geek, going okay over here thanks! Been a long time!

RE the calendar thats great to hear! I'm going to dig up my old source code and have a look whats there.

I do recall that one of the Casio "office" objects (could have been contacts) had an unpublished API that I managed to get working in the today screen.

I know you created Today plugins that draw data from Casio Calendar (\Nand Disk\My Documents\Appointment) and Casio Tasks (\Nand Disk\My Documents\ToDo), but I don't recall a Casio Contacts plugin.

Looking for a still-working download link for the MIPS version of Calendar Plus, I found out there were two versions out there almost simultaneously by two different sources. The SBSH version I referenced earlier never had a Pocket PC 2000 version (and thus was ARM only), also displayed Tasks, and wasn't freeware, selling for 8-9 USD. But another version that looked very similar, had an almost identical name (Calendar+, using the plus sign rather than the word), had MIPS and SH3 versions, and was freeware:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050621000725/http://www.mohairsofa.com/default.aspx/document/34

That version is the one I'm using on the BE with the POOM databases installed.

I finally got hold of a cobalt blue BE-500 from Japan, for a mere 32 USD including shipping from Japan to the US through third-party international distributor Buyee. It's in very good condition. Even cooler, the package also included a USB charging cable that fits the power jack of the BE. Pics are below.









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I mentioned earlier in this thread that TodayAgenda isn't transparent in Tcharts Today, but upon further examination I learned that that's not true. There is indeed a transparent background checkbox in the settings; however, I was testing it on a BE-500 in landscape, where that item is not visible in the settings window. It does, however, show up in portrait mode, and so I was able to enable transparency by temporarily switching to portrait mode. In landscape it also renders better in a .tsk-based skin in BeShell than in a .bmp-based skin, not cutting off the text at the 240th horizontal pixel like other plugins do. There are a few landscape .tsk skins that display properly in BeShell, but they don't display properly in Tcharts Today outside of BeShell, even though Tcharts Today 1.x supports .tsk files for the background. tchart hasn't been around here since his last post, but if he stops by again, maybe he can check this out.

A screenshot of tAgenda can be seen on this page:

http://www.mobyware.org/pocket-pc-os/tagenda-for-pocket-pc-pocket-pc-2002-download-84449.html

There are many other settings that can be modified, including number of lines, font size, etc.

Eureka!

I finally solved the mystery of the missing Casio Contacts list display in Bee and EpodXP on the BE-500. I suspected that a missing SIP was a culprit, since the New dialog would close immediately after opening before anything could be inputted. Both keybddr.dll and softkb.dll are present in ROM on the device, but a third DLL file actually supplies the keyboard layout. So I installed QKeys (a third-party English-Russian keyboard that is included in both BeShell and eXpod), flushed the registry, soft reset, and voila! Contacts data showed up.

Not quite sure why this problem didn't crop up in Casio Calendar nor in Casio Tasks. Maybe those two aren't technically dependent on any text entry in order to save an item.

I've seen a few posts about the BE-500. We got the file to change a BE-300 to a BE-500 and a BE-500 to a BE-300. I had a BE-500 and changed it to a BE-300. The work on it should be in the developers den. I miss all the fun we had making the BE the fun unit it was.

There was no discussion there of DispChgDemo, though, which rotates the display to landscape and is free (unlike Nyditot Virtual Display and JS Landscape) but only works on the BE-500 (unlike NVD and JSL).

Hello everyone, as I understand, there is still no way to get the code for the .NET firmware?

Not unless someone has it.

I'm still looking for a few older versions of the custom OEs that seem to have disappeared from the Web (EpodXP 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2b, 1.3, any and all versions of EpodMX, XPod 4.x, and the original non-Cobalt version of Bee 1.1). If anyone has any of these, I want to post them on the BAS site for historical reference at the very least - though I've found that even EpodXP is useful, stable, and adaptable to lots of MIPS programs and most runtime libraries (PVB for CE 2.0, eVB, PocketC, .NET CF 1.0) and VMs (Ewe, Waba). About the only things I haven't gotten to work are NSBasic and eTcl.

I found this website (no download, but extra info)
https://support.casio.com/information.php?rgn=3&cid=009&pid=748


Thus the 4.0 update is called JK-130, but I haven't found anything yet on it

The firmware is available on the BAS site, but it still requires a registration key to unlock the 30-day limit. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I contacted Casio, and they no longer have the code or patch to register the .net firmware.

I admit, I find the BE-300 intriguing.
So a few questions, if you don't mind me poking your brain:
1-Simple-binary-opinion-Ranking from easiest to hack/deal with to most difficult to hack/deal with - the Casio B-300, NTT DoCoMo PocketPostPet and the Casio MC 20 Camera
2-Despite any/all challenges, which of those three is your favorite device?
3-Do the Casio MC20 [or BE-300/500] randomly corrupt SD cards like the PocketPostPet?
4-Does the BE-500 have a CE.net 4.0 upgrade as well?
5-Are there any screenshots of either the BE-300 or BE-500 running CE.net 4.0?
6-Are there any appreciable differences between the CE3.0 and CE.net 4.0 builds in the UI? Or is it mostly obfuscated by Casio's UI overlay?
7-Does the 30 day limit just mean constant reflashing (but with current dates/times working), or is timebombed to be a certain date that you have to backtrack the clock to, and then reflash after that


Edited by torch 2023-02-12 4:56 AM

I can't speak to the MC20 because I've never had one. (They've always been really hard to find.) The BE wins hands down because it's much easier to hack and to back up and restore (including creating backups of custom OEs). You can't create the full CE desktop on the PPP (just the taskbar/system tray/Start Menu). Worst of all, the PPP only takes MultiMedia Cards for external storage (SD cards are thicker and won't fit), which are nearly impossible to find these days. And it's very picky about those, turning lesser-named cards unreadable and unformattable. (See my threads here about the PPP for details.) The BE is cooler-looking, fits easily in one's shirt pocket, and is easily synchronizable. The only downsides are the lack of an infrared port (the PPP has one, but lacks the APIs needed for synchronization through ActiveSync) and lack of full internal speakers (though it does have an earphone jack). On top of all that, the BE is still much easier to find.

Regarding the CE .net upgrade: it just has a slightly fancier version of the bland Top Menu (a version that is also on the BE-500 despite that device running CE 3.0 and having no upgrade). The only other change in the BE-300's CE .net upgrade is the addition of two programs: Windows Media Player 8 and a full version of IE CE 4 (which you can get for the CE 3 version anyway from the ePods hack files). Worst of all, if you don't have the registration code (and so far nobody does right now), you must downgrade back to CE 3.0 before the 30 days are up or the device can no longer be turned on, making it an unrecoverable brick. (And the downgrade process doesn't always work properly.) Have a read of the threads on the BAS for more details.

Thanks for the message! With that in mind, I’d lean toward the BE-300. And you’re right, with that in mind, it sounds like I’d stay with 3.0 too.
The PocketPostPet is the coolest looking device out of all of them but it does have a lot of weaknesses.

Slightly off-topic, do you have any experience with any other CE.net4.0 devices?