well, i found a casio mc20b aka vodafone messagecam NIB locally.
it was cheap and i heard it has ce 2.12 so thought why not have a look at it.
specs here:
http://www.compuseum.de/mc-20b.html - but it runs CE 2.12, not 2.11!
also has a very nice screen, i cannot believe it is dstn, maybe it is not? sure looks like a tft to me
to my surprise it had basically no trace left from the normal CE looks / shell. if i hadn't been told i wouldn't have realized it was a CE device.
i found traces of the CE looks only in about two programs and they must have been accidentally left there.
even worse, no file explorer or even a decent fileopen dialog or anything of course. naturally some programs have to have an open dialog but those were really limited again, they wouldn't even see stuff in other folders than the default
(hardcoded
) ones. or if i copied my own files they wouldn't see those either!! just the files that had been created on the device or downloaded to it
(in the case of html page saving
). by the way it has worldtalk for a browser, not IE. and even though i found an uninstall dialog in the modified "control panel"
(very much modified, it isn't even made out of the real CE control panel
), there was no way to install apps, the manual told me about the uninstall, but didn't mention installing, lol..
so, this absolutely looked like there was no way out of the proprietary casio shell
but then i talked to TFGBD and it turned out in the end that the trick was the same as on the BE300
just create a CE/R4100 path on the mmc card and put some program there renamed to Autorun.exe - then insert card & do a soft reset
(BE300 doesn't need it, this one does
) if it is a file explorer well then you've got everything to start!
a few more tricks and a lot more got achieved... biggest problem was that for a while i had to work without a virtual keyboard or any other input method as the default SIP
(real SIP but modified
) would not come up manually only automatically and only in the proprietary casio apps. so nothing outside the proprietary apps! also, no sync program or method or cable is available, so no remote hacking / debugging.
what's more, no explorer.exe was present in rom
(!
), epods hack package helped there
i first tried to find programs to create a taskbar to switch between apps as that was not possible by default
(special version of SQ for casio pocketpostpet, a similar ce 2.12 device
) and get a software keyboard
(PQBox again a special build
), on japanese pages but the links are broken..
so we got explorer.exe hacked on it
(which is a much cleaner solution anyway
): needed was explorer.exe, asform.dll and ceshell.dll, all from the epods packages.
a little japanese exe
(trice 1.0
) helped with remapping the hardware buttons without inputting anything as it was able to import some custom registry entries specifically made for this purpose, which i modified to my taste.
we could not get the ms sip to work as the systray will not display anything on it except the battery warnings
microcheng's mc21key was the solution for a working keyboard in the end
(both inside and outside the casio shell!
)...
the file dialogs are still crippled, i.e. not working at all in most apps, gsgetfile.dll and such dlls do work, but only in programs that are compatible
(gsfinder for example
).
wceload works now for cab installing as well
(with some limitations that will probably be overcome
).
next time i will check if pocketpc apps run
in this regard, too bad the screen is landscape 320x240 and not the other way around.. otherwise it is nice to have landscape mode!
if someone else ever gets one of these little things, this story may help.
the process is similar for the casio pocketpostpet too. documentation for both devices is available only in japanese
(the messagecam is called toricomail over there
).
screenshots
(well, no, photos, easier that way
): from proprietary shell to real usable CE shell
& nice CE 2.12 system info!!
Edited by cmonex 2006-08-24 5:02 AM