Finding some limits...

So.... Still playing with my hp 320. Wondering with win ce 1.0 where the limits are. For example. Can I get some older windows games running on it. One that randomly came to my mind today was Castle of the Winds. For those unaware, it's an old windows 3.x game which I think the screen size, mono chrome or game size shouldn't stop it from running.

Any thoughts?

Blackfox

DOS binaries are x86 architecture where as your 320 uses the Super Hitachi 3 architecture. It's like trying to run a petrol car on orange juice.

The only way you could get a 286 binary working would be via an emulation layer. PocketDOS for Windows CE 1 does exist, it's the 1.02 release in the SCL. As for running Windows executables, you might get windows 1, 2 and 3.0 to crawl along under Pocket DOS. 3.10 and higher though aren't going to work at all at there is no virtual memory. Much later versions of PocketDOS do attempt to support this, but not the original CE 1 versions and most H/PC devices lack the house power to use it anyway.

Hmmmmm... I feel like a brick was bounced at my head and the world started to make more sense.

I did get pocket DOS installed on the system a while back, but I struggle to find software that will run in the strange visual config. my only success thus far has been IBM's Ally cat and wheel of fortune which both run so ungodly slow its near unplayable. I expected as much a platformer. but it takes Ms White a good 30 seconds or better to turn a single letter. I figured this is a rather normal experience, But does anyone else know any games that fair better in pocketdos?

You will not be able to get much performance out of a SH3 to x86 emulated interpreter off of a 33MHz CPU. Especially from an early version of PocketDOS. They stopped making CE1 versions pretty quickly. PocketDOS was designed really to allow old HP 95,100 and 200 LX users to keep their old DOS apps going. It was never meant for gaming.

As you have pointed out yourself, the strange resolution makes it even less likely to be successful given that DOS games had to be hard coded for certain resolutions and line modes. Your best bet would be in finding text mode games from the 186/286 era I suspect.