These are some frequently asked questions about Elite for PalmOS.

Q: Where's the PalmOS Elite web page?
A: It may be moving around, but you should always be able to 
   find it via http://www.harbaum.org/till/palm/elite

Q: How close is this to the original elite?
A: Very close. Some parts are even based on code disassembled from
   the original elite.

Q: I have difficulties reading the tiny font. Why didn't you use the 
   bigger palm fonts?
A: I had to squeeze the trading system, the equipment etc. which were
   designed for a 320x200 screen into 160x160 pixels. I could have used
   multiple screens, but i preferred the way it is now since it comes 
   as close as possible to the original screen layout.

Q: Will you make a version that runs on my Palm Personal, Palm III, 
   old Visor, ...?
A: I will very likely never make a version with 2bpp support (black, 
   white + two levels of gray), which is necessary to make the game
   run on very old 68328 based palms like the Palm Personal, 
   Professonal and the Palm III (without x,e or c).
   And since the game does not directly access the hardware (like
   e.g. mulg does), it requires OS support for the video mode it's
   using, which means that it requires at least PalmOS OS 3.3.

Q: Why doesn't the game run on my PalmOS 2.x, 3.0 or 3.1 equipped 
   machine?
A: See last question.

Q: Did you ask for permission to do this?
A: Yes! I asked Ian Bell and Dave Braben, the original Elite authors
   and Christian Pinder, who disassembled some of the original 
   elite code.

Q: What's your contribution to this? Didn't you just recompile the 
   Elite NewKind code disassembled by Christian Pinder?
A: Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. I replaced the whole 3d engine
   with my own old "space" engine, i had to write a complete new set
   of graphics functions for fast polygons, circles etc. and e.g.
   support the tiny font. And lots of code had to be re-written to
   cope with the palms memory layout, the lack of a file system,
   the tiny screen, the digitizer input etc etc ...

Q: Will you ever make a version that makes use of the 320x320 screen
   of the sony clie?
A: Maybe, but since i don't own such a beast, probably not soon.

Q: I want to thank/support you, how can i do that?
A: There are three things: 

   a) I would love to get some of the original elite versions,
      manuals, disk sets etc ... So if you have some Elite related
      stuff you don't need anymore, please see the PalmOS Elite web
      page for details on how to forward this stuff to me and to make
      sure, that you aren't going to send me something i already
      own. You might even get some cool t-shirt, mug or the like in
      return.

   b) Buy the PalmOS-Elite-T-Shirt, a mug or whatever cool stuff you
      can buy via the PalmOS Elite web page.

   c) Send me as much money you want. I don't own many palms and i
      give my palm software away for free. Since it's only a hobby, i
      don't spend all my money on new palms. This has the great
      disadvantage, that the code is only tested on few machines and
      that the game does not take advantage of additional hardware of
      other machines (like e.g. rumble/vibration support on non m50x
      palms, higher video resolutions, or special input devices like
      scroll wheels and extra buttons).

Q: A real Elite clone has to play the danube waltz during a computer
   docking sequence. Can you change that?
A: Probably not. The PalmOS sound support is very VERY bad and it's
   not possible to play a song with the PalmOS sound routines while
   the game is running. If you have some spare asynchronous 
   sound/music routine for PalmOS that does not eat up all the CPU
   time, then please contact me.

Q: What's your favorite Elite version? 
A: I have only seen the C64 and the Atari ST versions on the real
   hardware and i really liked the game on my old Atari ST. But i
   think the PalmOS version is my favorite :-)
 
Q: Are there missions in the game?
A: Yes! This Elite version is very close to the original BBC
   version. Please try to find the Elite FAQ on the net for infos about this.

Q: What does the "hoopy casino" setting mean?
A: The planet info in elite is generated via a pseudo random generator.
   This makes the planet data look random, but be 100% reproducable.
   In the original elite game series, there were two major versions of 
   this random number generator. One of them made Lave to be "famous
   for its hoopy casinos". Hence the name of this random number generator. 

Q: Your english is awful!
A: I am not a native english speaker, feel free to improve my in-game
   texts, manuals, readmes etc.