Homebrew Palm OS E6-B

I was just dropping someone a line on Palm programs. There are a couple of
nice programs for Palm OS that allow you to program aviation formulas.

I have recently gone back to using a Palm OS (Sony Clie T27) organizer
rather than a Pocket PC. Being less expensive and smaller, I am more likely
to carry it with me and have it when I need to jot down a note, address,
appointment, etc. The other reason that I like Palm is that there are a lot
of little applications that are quite handy. Anyway, I don't want to get
into a debate between which is better Palm or Pocket PC. There are
certainly some aviation applications, such as Anywhere Map,
http://www.anywheremap.com/ and NavGPS, http://www.flynavgps.com/ that are
strictly Pocket PC.

There are also some good Palm applications which are very different in scope
from Anywhere Map and Nav GPS, such as CoPilot by Laurie Davis for Palm.
www.palmflying.com is a good source for various programs.

For those of you who just need a function or two or enjoy playing with such
thing,s there are two programs for Palm that make programming basic aviation
functions very easy.

The first is APCalc, http://www.halcyon.com/ipscone/apcalc/overview.html .
It is a $20 programmable calculator program. For example, to find a cross
wind, it is a simple matter of one program line: WS?*sin(WD?-RD?). In fact
you could just enter this directly and recall it from the history when you
need it. However, it is relatively simple and much more effective to assign
it to a key.

Another is HotPaw Basic, http://www.hotpaw.com/rhn/hotpaw/. This is a small
basic interpreter that allows you to write simple basic programs on the
Palm. A simple program can be written and programmed in the memo pad such
as:

#crosswind.bas
ws=val(input$("Wind Speed"))
wd=val(input$("Wind Direction"))
rd=val(input$(Runway Direction"))
print "crosswind component", ws*sin(wd-rd)

A good source of these formulas is Ed Williams excellent page:
http://williams.best.vwh.net/avform.htm.

There are also some spreadsheet programs such as MiniCalc,
http://www.solutionsinhand.com/, that can be used.

I have no relationship with any of the producers of the programs I have
mentioned. I just thought some of you might find this useful or
interesting.

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com

I was just dropping someone a line on Palm programs. There are a couple of
nice programs for Palm OS that allow you to program aviation formulas.

[snip]


I have no relationship with any of the producers of the programs I have
mentioned. I just thought some of you might find this useful or
interesting.

There is a program that IMHO beats all the ones you've mentioned -
it's free and much more feature-rich. It's called CoPilot, developed
by Laurie Davis and the open database for it generated by Paul
Tomblin, our own r.a.* folk.

http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/
BTW, there is an interesting link up on the page, about Plane and
Pilot Magazine readers poll placing CoPilot 2nd on the list. To let
you know, in the said poll copilot wasn't an option, but so many
people mailed it in as an "Other: write the name of your favorite
program" that it made it to the 2nd place!

I'm a very happy user of CoPilot. It is a great aid in preflight
planning, and is also a cool help in the cockpit - unless you're in
turbulence or otherwise having your hands full.

I tried tipping AOPA pilot about it, but in vain. Maybe if enough
folks write them an email about copilot, it will get recognized there
as well.

There is also a "palm pilot for aviators" page,
http://www.zenithair.com/ppilot/index.htm
but it seems outdated a bit - e.g., the copilot link on it no longer
works.

A great program to have on your Palm when flying is also BigClock.
Great backup to your wris****ch/timers, with multiple timezones and
convenient really BIG fonts and BIG buttons, this one is usable in the
cockpit in really rugged conditions.

"
There is a program that IMHO beats all the ones you've mentioned -
it's free and much more feature-rich. It's called CoPilot, developed
by Laurie Davis and the open database for it generated by Paul
Tomblin, our own r.a.* folk.

I only disagree with you in one respect -- that is that I did not mention
CoPilot. I actually mentioned it in my first post. CoPilot is an excellent
program and Paul Tomblin's data site, navaid.com is an excellent source for
not only CoPilot, but also for using non-aviation handheld GPS.

APCalc and HotPawBasic offer two things. If you want to play with the
formulas and see how the numbers are generated, either program offers a way
to do this with minimal programming knowledge. The other thing is that they
both offer the opportunity to run a calculation that you may not be able to
find in a pre-packaged program like CoPilot.

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 17:21:06 +0000, John Bell wrote:


"
There is a program that IMHO beats all the ones you've mentioned -
it's free and much more feature-rich. It's called CoPilot, developed
by Laurie Davis and the open database for it generated by Paul
Tomblin, our own r.a.* folk.

I only disagree with you in one respect -- that is that I did not mention
CoPilot. I actually mentioned it in my first post. CoPilot is an excellent
program and Paul Tomblin's data site, navaid.com is an excellent source for
not only CoPilot, but also for using non-aviation handheld GPS.

APCalc and HotPawBasic offer two things. If you want to play with the
formulas and see how the numbers are generated, either program offers a way
to do this with minimal programming knowledge. The other thing is that they
both offer the opportunity to run a calculation that you may not be able to
find in a pre-packaged program like CoPilot.

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com

Guys, don't forget that Python has been ported to PalmOS too!
http://pippy.sourceforge.net/

Most consider python to be as easy as basic to learn, but offers much more
powerful, native syntax. Not to mention, Python is hip, cool and now! :-)

Cheers!

There is a program that IMHO beats all the ones you've mentioned -
it's free and much more feature-rich. It's called CoPilot, developed
by Laurie Davis and the open database for it generated by Paul
Tomblin, our own r.a.* folk.

I only disagree with you in one respect -- that is that I did not mention
CoPilot. I actually mentioned it in my first post. CoPilot is an excellent
program and Paul Tomblin's data site, navaid.com is an excellent source for
not only CoPilot, but also for using non-aviation handheld GPS.

OOPS. You did, indeed. Sorry! I actually had clicked through your links,
but missed the CoPilot dismissing it as part of annotating text to the nearby
link...

Most consider python to be as easy as basic to learn, but offers much more
powerful, native syntax. Not to mention, Python is hip, cool and now!
:-)



I took a quick look. It looks interesting.

Thanks

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 16:46:00 +0000, John Bell wrote:

Most consider python to be as easy as basic to learn, but offers much more
powerful, native syntax. Not to mention, Python is hip, cool and now!
:-)



I took a quick look. It looks interesting.

Thanks


No problem! I Should also offer that you can install python on your
desktop machine and develop whatever on that. Then, when you're done, you
can easily move it to your palm for portable execution. You can go to
http://www.python.org for more details, including tons of documentation
and other links.

You can download using,
http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.4/Python-2.3.4.exe and
http://starship.python.net/crew/mham...n32all-163.exe to get
python and Win32 specific extras, including an Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) with context help, etc.

If you do all that, keep in mind the current desktop version is 2.3.4 and
the palm version is a port of 1.5.2. So, some current language features
may not be available.

Have fun and good luck!

Cheers,

Greg