iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Extremely jealous 🤣🤣🤣

I just patched a bunch of incompatible MIPS 4000 apps to run on the MIPS 3910, plus some other basic compatibility patching. What handheld do you have? I also have a full Windows CE 2.0 bootable ROM for my Velo 1 emulator, with app paths patched so it doesn't need the flash card. 😆

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 6h

Oh it is absolutely dismal, unusably awful, I think that's part of the charm!

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 7h

Made sense to build a CE 2.0 app bundle too. Like a Shareware CDROM except running on a 90s handheld. I have a sinking feeling the one I ordered from eBay will be missing more than the stylus.

"Velo Library (CE 2.0)" Showing a list of 196 Windows CE 2.0 MIPS programs patched to run on the Velo's CPU.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 19h

Look I'm not saying I've spent a disproportionate amount of time gently convincing a computer that writing a cheesy musical keygen for 35 year old apps is a fantastic idea as a punchline in a conference talk about 1990s copy protection. But I may need an intervention.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 20h

I have ordered an "Untested" Velo 1. I am not a smart man.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 21h

Out here blowin' a few minds tonight

A custom on-device Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows CE Evaluation Edition installer, with executables patched to run on the Velo 1s R3910 (they only ran on R4100 with 1K page alignment)

The installer launched, with the Install button all juicy and ready.

$The contents of \Program Files\Games post install.$ Minesweeper... I mean PegMine... running in the Velo 1 emulator.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

SHARP Basic from the OZ-750/ZQ-770 running in SHAM OS running on MicroPython running on a Philips Velo 1 emulator...

Mostly a rectangle with a few dots as a Sierpinski slowly but surely fills onto the screen.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

*Waits an eternity for a ~30MHz MIPS CPU to boot 10k lines of Python...* *MEMORY ERROR MEMORY ERROR MEMORY ERROR*

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

Hear me out, what if my fantasy handheld ran in a port of MicroPython in an emulator of a real handheld????

A Philips Velo 1 emulator running a port of MicroPython, equipped with SHAM's drawing API- drawing text, patterns and shaded squares to the screen.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

Doing a bit of explorative archival recovery

The DCC configuration screen of mobileIRC, the MIPS version running in an emulated Philips Velo 1 handheld with a realistically naff, green backlit, low contrast display.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

Can use a DRAM card to get 16MB extra, and configure the VELO with 16MB internal. 32MB total 😱

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

I seem to have memory holed that everything was in DRAM and you had a slider between storage and program memory 🤣 Don’t need a belt and braces memory wait states hack anymore though!

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 29/09/2026

I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes

Solitaire on an (emulation of a) miserable 4-shades of grey, green-cast LCD from the 90s.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 28/09/2026

Oh god it's terrifyingly accurate except that I can actually see the screen

Windows CE desktop, monochrome, backlight blue green, horribly low contrast, running in an emulator.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 28/09/2026

Period accurate unintelligible low contrast nonsense

The HPC Setup Wizard Introduction screen showing as a painfully low contrast green backlit nightmare.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 28/09/2026

The ISO return key is what happened to the last ANSI that tried

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Cont bsky.app/profile/gadg...

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Backported all my work to the fantasy console and gave it +20 extra screen rows

Prior the rework the screen has grown taller and fills the lid beter, and the keyboard fully matches the original. LID buttons have been reworked to accommodate the larger screen and provide a d-pad style setup for games- in the kind of period-accurate way a D-Pad might be well intentioned but awkward.

Fantasy handheld PC layout, before a rework to make it true to the original, real handheld (a ZQ-770). It's pretty squashed, the keyboard is cramped and the keys aren't very round.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

My very business uncle and aunt would always have a couple lurking around the house and I would absolutely find them 😆

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Well after a couple of tweaks to my SVG reference and a lot of refactoring and many, many long, winding roads of subtle tweaking... I have got outrageously close to perfection

An almost perfect slightly cartoony 2D rendering of a SHARP ZQ-770 handheld personal organiser. It's slightly blue-grey clampshell with a very big hinge (for AA batteries) and a scooped lid to close over the keys. The lid has a 239x80 pixel LED matrix display and a luscious blue-green backlight.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Yeah I never had any compelling reason to own a personal organiser and there is basically zero actual organisational info, no calendar events and no real memos on my 25+ year old unit... but man I loved it all the same. It had apps! APPS! In the early 2000s! Everything is dull now.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Touch of morning masochism

A fully laid out handheld pocket organiser with a QWERTY keyboard, screen, lid buttons and more drawn as vectors into Inkscape.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

This is the exhaustively pedantic definition I needed 🤣 thank you! I think I’m the anti corpo home brewer but also Sony VAIO P series 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

And, of course, the endgame of transparent borderless window

An emulated personal organiser in a semi-faithful graphical recreation of the original handheld sat over the top of a terminal window.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 27/09/2026

Slowly dialling in the lid buttons, too. Not sure if I'll go so far as to accurately draw the hinge but I guess that'll be easy after all this faff.

A little personal organiser emulator with accurately placed and shaped buttons resembling a real SHARP ZQ-770.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Hand traced every keycap and icon from my reference photo to get the keyboard accurate 😭 The key shapes are WEIRD and extremely tricky to get right. I did the best I could.

The SHARP ZQ-770 emulator now has accurate, sorta-oval keyboard keys, with a true to life absolutely wild mix of shapes and sizes.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

I’ve seen a few that qualify but totally neglected to actually look into it 😵‍💫 Highly relevant to my interests, but I’m definitely more into finding a weird janky old electro luminescent backlit LCD matrix display 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

What actually is a cyberdeck? I always kinda assumed I knew 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

I have not! I still have two OpenPandora handhelds I rarely turn on. O.G. cyberdeck 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Dump was successful but the ZQ-770 both differs from and has similarities with the OZ-750 so while I’ve got the link running there’s a bunch of hardware probing left to do. OS version is 2.1 and boots in the emulator though…

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

(And that’s ignoring all the real hardware I’ve programmed and contributed to that you can use like a fantasy handheld 🤣🤣) Childhood me would be in awe of what I do. So why am I so coldly apathetic? 😵‍💫🫠

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

I used to draw fantasy handhelds in MacroMedia Fireworks, never imagined I’d understand all the pieces necessary to actually make one functional 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Naturally that also includes a MicroPython SHARP BASIC interpreter so a subset of original .wzd apps and games will still run!

Klondike, written for the OZ-750/ZQ-770 running in a MicroPython SHARP BASIC interpreter and drawn in a window onto the higher resolution fantasy console display.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

In other news I made some changes to my fantasy console version of the SHARP organiser, bumping the display resolution up to a whopping 299x100 to complement the four shades of grey and reimagining the lid controls for better game support 🤣

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Dump is now running…

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

After all that it was a parity issue Switched to a Pico- which I could have used instead of spending £7 on a crap RS232 cable.

A mess of Pico, wiring, sticky tack, and TRRS cables to try and dump the ROM of a personal organiser.

The personal organiser in question- showing an OZDump app successfully upload alongside the existing decades old app installs.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

It was not fine. This however… getting closer

A TRRS audio jack tacked to a mini breadboard with DuPont “Jumper Jerky” wires tacked down to contact its conductors.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Guess my screen could be in worse condition given how old this thing is! I scarcely remember buying it but looking at the manual I turned up it was far from my first organiser. Couldn’t get enough of these things as a kid 🤣

A SHARP ZQ-770 showing the PC sync graphic on its weird 239x80 pixel screen. Three screen columns are missing, presumed dead.

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 26/09/2026

Of course I have lost or thrown away my ZQ-770 serial cable 😭

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Gadgetoid @gadgetoid.com · 25/09/2026

I don't think they're expected to stop working, but I expect you have to take 75% of the car apart. That said I had to reach inside an old Micra to turn off CONTINUOUS BLASTING HEAT recently (a proper fix requiring unholy amounts of disassembly), cars being a pain in the ass is not a new problem 😭

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