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The Tapwave Zodiac 2
The Tapwave Zodiac 2

Tapwave, founded in May 2001, introduced the Zodiac mobile entertainment console in October 2003 [1]. The product was designed to be a "high performance mobile entertainment system” centered on games, music, pictures, and video for 18 to 34 year old gamers and technology enthusiasts. By running an enhanced version of the Palm Operating System (5. 2T), Zodiac also provided access to Palm’s personal information management software and many other applications from the Palm developer community.

The Zodiac console was initially available in two models, Zodiac 1 (32MB) for $299 US, and Zodiac 2 (128MB) for $399 US. Some of the more noteworthy game titles for the product included: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4; Mototrax; Spyhunter; Madden NFL 2005; DOOM II; Warfare Incorporated; and Duke Nukem Mobile. Due to strong competitive pressures from the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and lack of funding to drive premier game development and compete effectively in the market, Tapwave discontinued the sale of the console on July 25th 2005 [2] and sold substantially all of its assets to an undisclosed multi-billion dollar corporation in Asia.

While Zodiac sold less than 200,000 units [3], the console garnered strong product reviews and received many industry awards. A few examples include: Popular Science’s 2003 Best of What’s New (BOWN) Award [4]; Stuff Magazine’s Top 10 Gadgets of the Year for 2004 [5]; Wired Magazine’s Fetish Award [6]; CNET’s Editor's Choice Award; PC World’s 2004 Next Gear Innovations Award [7]; PC Magazine’s 1st Place Last Gadget Standing at CES; Handheld Computing Magazines’s Most Innovative PDA of 2003 [8]; Time Magazine’s Best Gear of 2003, and Business Week’s Best Products of 2003.

Timeline


Contents

Included Software

In ROM

On the CD

Price

The Zodiac was available in two models:

Differences from other devices

Alarms

Unlike the mainstream Palm PDAs like the Tungsten series and the Sony Clie series, the Zodiac had some unique features out of the box. A graphing calculator (also known as a graphic calculator or graphical calculator) typically refers to a class of handheld Calculators that are capable of A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text images videos music games and other information typically located on a Short Message Service ( SMS) is a Communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. Its alarms were polyphonic quality, sounding even richer and more realistic than current PDAs. The Zodiac can even play MP3's for alarms (a ROM update fixed the limit of being able to play only the first minute of an MP3 track).

Music

MP3's can be played off either of its 2 SD cards or internal memory (being the Zodiac 2 was the first PDA then and still one of the few Palm PDAs now to have over 100MB of user available RAM, this was quite feasible and convenient). While other Palm devices can also do this, they require 3rd party software like RAMdisk to enable MP3 playback off internal memory and Pocket Tunes to associate MP3s with alarms. The Zodiac uses the music player that's preloaded in ROM for normal use playback.

Input

The system includes a standard touch screen (at 480x320, one of the highest resolutions available at the time) but has additional inputs designed for gaming. Held in a landscape configuration, there is an analog thumbstick and a function button on the left of the screen, four digital buttons on the right, and two shoulder buttons (triggers) on the top of the device. The unit accepts SD format cards as removable storage. Secure Digital ( SD) is a non-volatile Memory card format developed by Matsushita, SanDisk, and Toshiba for use in The Zodiac's implementation of Palm OS 5 has a radial menu (the analog stick is pushed in one of eight directions to select menu options) with a side list for use without the stylus.

Gaming

While PDAs like the Tungsten T3 and certain Sony Clies also have alarm vibration, the Zodiac is the only Palm PDA to use this feature for PDA games as well. Many of these games were Zodiac exclusive titles (in other words, not available for standard Palm OS handhelds), but some titles also available for standard Palm OS handhelds also had vibration feature added in. These were added via a separate install file for Zodiac handhelds or a global file with an option to turn this on if the game detected you were playing on a Zodiac.

Strength

The Zodiac is more rugged than most contemporary PDAs because of its metal construction, although on some batches the adhesive on the shoulder buttons was known to fail, and the standard flip-top screen protector could do more harm than good if grit became trapped between it and the screen surface - various alternative cases made the ineffective default protector unnecessary. Presumably to save internal space, the stylus is clipped laterally into a recess in the rear of the device rather than locked into a slot as in most PDAs. This sometimes causes the stylus to get knocked loose when the handheld is kept inside a tight pocket or carry bag space, or when the handheld gets thrown around. Modified styli were produced which were attached to the lashing point on the rear of the case via a cord, so that they would not become lost or separated from the unit if they were shaken loose. Some of the third party alternative cases also served to hold the stylus in place while closed.

Compatibility

Most PalmOS 5-compatible games play on the Zodiac, as well as games designed specifically for the Zodiac's hardware. A great deal of freeware and shareware games and emulators are therefore available. Freeware is computer Software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee The term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to Copyrighted commercial Software that is Distributed without payment on a trial An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to For example, there are versions of Doom, Quake, Hexen, Hexen II, and Heretic as well as versions of emulators such as UAE, ScummVM, and LJZ/LJP, a multi-system emulator. Doom (officially cased DOOM) is a 1993 Computer game by Id Software that is a landmark title in the First-person shooter Quake is a First-person shooter Computer game that was released by Id Software on June 22, 1996. Hexen Beyond Heretic is a First-person shooter Computer game developed by Raven Software, published by Id Software, and distributed Hexen II is a First-person shooter Computer game developed by Raven Software from 1996 to 1997, published by Id Software UAE is a computer Emulator which emulates the Hardware of the Commodore Amiga range of computers ScummVM is a collection of Game engine recreations Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system (the VM in There have also been attempts to emulate PlayStation games onto the Zodiac, the most successful emulator being PPSX [1]. The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console It is, however, nowhere near completion and many games are not playable as of yet.

Unreleased Games

A number of games were announced for the platform, but never released due to the Zodiac's discontinuation in July 2005. These games include: MTX Mototrax, a dirtbike racing game; Streethoops, a basketball game; Hockey Rage 2005; the Terminator 3 FPS [2]; Tomb Raider; and Neverwinter Nights. Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines, commonly abbreviated as T3, is a 2003 Science fiction / action Film directed A first-person shooter ( FPS) is an action Video game from the Shooter game The initial development of Maze War Tomb Raider is a Video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. However, some test builds of some games were leaked.

Battery

The device has a total battery life of about 3 hours when using audio, backlight+screen and CPU-intensive tasks, and while running as a dedicated audio player it is closer to 6 hours. The original battery was a 1500mAh Li-Ion; third party replacements with 2000mAh capacity are still available from some manufacturers.

Video

Several after-market DivX and XviD players have been developed for this device, such as TCPMP, which uses the Zodiac's special hardware for video playback. DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX Inc (formerly DivXNetworks Inc Xvid (formerly " XviD " is a Video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard The Core Pocket Media Player ( TCPMP) is a software media player The default Kinoma player was limited to a proprietary file format, and only a crippled version of the necessary encoder was supplied with the device - to use it properly owners had to pay extra for the full version. It has been suggested this crippling of one of the device's two main selling points (full DVD length movie playback, after some compression) significantly diminished the Zodiac's success. At the time of its bankruptcy, Tapwave was working on an MPEG-4 update to support hardware decoding. MPEG-4 is a collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual (AV digital data

Zodiac exclusive games

Games which utilized some or all of the Zodiac's hardware/software are incompatible with standard Palm OS devices. This does exclude platforms outside of Palm OS (e. g. , Doom II is also out for PC, but the Zodiac version listed here won't run on standard Palm OS handhelds). This list also excludes standard Palm OS games which are also available for Zodiac handhelds, which were either identical or slightly improved on Zodiac, called "Zodiac tuned" (e. g. a game available for standard Palm OS only has the extra features of vibration and shoulder buttons as extra usable buttons when played on Zodiac).

Zodiac Exclusive titles also available on SD card.

Homebrew (Freeware)

Unreleased but leaked games

Hardware Specifications

Two versions of the Zodiac are available, differing only in the amount of memory and case color

Software Specifications


Peripherals and accessories

Industry Awards

The Zodiac received a number of noteworthy industry awards. Some of these include:


Trivia

The Zodiac was originally going to be named the "Helix" but was renamed. [9]

Even before the name "Helix" the Zodiac was going to be named the "Road Dawg"

The AlphaSmart Dana is the only Palm OS device aside from the Zodiac with two slots for SD card media. The AlphaSmart is a brand of portable battery powered word-processing keyboards manufactured by AlphaSmart Inc The AlphaSmart is a brand of portable battery powered word-processing keyboards manufactured by AlphaSmart Inc [10]

The Tapwave Zodiac can also be seen throughout Stargate SG-1 including recently in the 10th Season as a sensor device used by Col. Samantha Carter and Vala Mal Doran. Vala Mal Doran is a Fictional character in the American Sci-Fi Channel television series Stargate SG-1, a science fiction show about a military

References

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