Post by Joe_news on Jul 31, 2005 7:18:57 GMT -5
A dream...
Tapwave is the relativily new company behind the Zodiac located in Southern California, founded by Peng Lim, Byron Connell and many ex-Palm employees. Their goal was to create a new product that could fill a perceived market gap of young adults interested in PDA's with advanced gaming capability. Their project was initially called 'Helix,' but the final commercial product is now called the 'Zodiac.'
The vision...
Zodiac is the first true combination of state-of-the-art Personal Digital Assistant functionality and powerful next generation portable gaming technology. Breaking away from the common mould of run-of-the-mill Palms and Pocket PC's, the Zodiac features an ergonomically designed case with analog thumbpad, an SNES style button layout, and many other game-centric trimmings.
At the same time, it also includes top-of-the-line features for PDA's, including the latest Palm Operating System v5.2.6, a large high resolution color display, integrated blue tooth and SDIO functionality. The 128MB model includes the largest internal memory ever announced for a PalmOS device at the time.
The Tapwave Zodiac, along with other systems like the less powerful cell phone based Nokia N-Gage, represent the convergence of mobile productivity and gaming devices, testing new markets and boldly experimenting with new designs.
The end?
We are sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005.
Resources that may still be helpful to you can be found at www.tapwave.com/resources and www.tapwave.com/support. This includes links to websites where you can find a variety of useful tips and information as well as purchase e-books, Audible books and magazines, Palm OS applications, Zodiac skins, and third party Tapwave Certified games.
Additional products, accessories, and game cards may still be available from COMPUSA, Fry's, and J&R while supplies last.
We thank you for your past interest and support and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. If you have an outstanding claim with the company, Ueker and Associates will be contacting you shortly.
Sincerely,
The Tapwave Team
So you got a brief history of the company behind it, a short but detailed product over view and now read the comments of one fan comparing it to the Yet to be released GPX2:
Web browsing: Zodiac.
Zodiac has twice the resolution and a touch screen. I'm not even sure if the GPX2 can browse the internet (it will have to be am SDIO slot for the WiFi card to work).
Video: Zodiac.
Zodiac has twice the resolution and dual SD slots.
Music: Zodiac.
Zodiac has Dual SD slots.
Gaming: Zodiac.
Zodiac has analog controller and some decent games
Emulators: GPX2
GPX2 has a slightly faster processor and a d-pad.
Misc advantages:
Zodiac is thin and sexy, runs Palm OS, and has a rechargable battery. GPX2 claims a very long battery life.
Edit: Here's my summary. The Zodiac is best for videos and PDA stuff, the GPX2 is best for emulators.
But is there hope? Yes.
The many small developers that made content for it are still able to release software to the its many users, hopefully they will be loyal to the Zodiacs fans and in return still develop for it. A few have already said they will and infact more are still signing up! While officially your chance to get a development kit is over you can still e-mail one of the members of the hardcore team behind it and still develop for it. Plus, since it runs off a Palm OS you will be able to enjoy the many Palm games being released for years to come and finally, a member of the team has said he will continue running the website and keep it going and getting games released on it (unofficially now since Tapwave is gone).
Sleek and sexy...
And now, where to buy:
www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3987388
(Games liek Tony Hawk 4, Duke Nukem and Spy Hunter sell for a cool 15 dollars each)
and finally, the website that made me a believer (and ITS AMAZING FORUM) - zodiacgamer.emuboards.com/
If I can get a damn job in this hell hole, Im certainly going to pick one of these up...just do damn cool not too.
Tapwave is the relativily new company behind the Zodiac located in Southern California, founded by Peng Lim, Byron Connell and many ex-Palm employees. Their goal was to create a new product that could fill a perceived market gap of young adults interested in PDA's with advanced gaming capability. Their project was initially called 'Helix,' but the final commercial product is now called the 'Zodiac.'
The vision...
Zodiac is the first true combination of state-of-the-art Personal Digital Assistant functionality and powerful next generation portable gaming technology. Breaking away from the common mould of run-of-the-mill Palms and Pocket PC's, the Zodiac features an ergonomically designed case with analog thumbpad, an SNES style button layout, and many other game-centric trimmings.
At the same time, it also includes top-of-the-line features for PDA's, including the latest Palm Operating System v5.2.6, a large high resolution color display, integrated blue tooth and SDIO functionality. The 128MB model includes the largest internal memory ever announced for a PalmOS device at the time.
The Tapwave Zodiac, along with other systems like the less powerful cell phone based Nokia N-Gage, represent the convergence of mobile productivity and gaming devices, testing new markets and boldly experimenting with new designs.
The end?
We are sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005.
Resources that may still be helpful to you can be found at www.tapwave.com/resources and www.tapwave.com/support. This includes links to websites where you can find a variety of useful tips and information as well as purchase e-books, Audible books and magazines, Palm OS applications, Zodiac skins, and third party Tapwave Certified games.
Additional products, accessories, and game cards may still be available from COMPUSA, Fry's, and J&R while supplies last.
We thank you for your past interest and support and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. If you have an outstanding claim with the company, Ueker and Associates will be contacting you shortly.
Sincerely,
The Tapwave Team
So you got a brief history of the company behind it, a short but detailed product over view and now read the comments of one fan comparing it to the Yet to be released GPX2:
Web browsing: Zodiac.
Zodiac has twice the resolution and a touch screen. I'm not even sure if the GPX2 can browse the internet (it will have to be am SDIO slot for the WiFi card to work).
Video: Zodiac.
Zodiac has twice the resolution and dual SD slots.
Music: Zodiac.
Zodiac has Dual SD slots.
Gaming: Zodiac.
Zodiac has analog controller and some decent games
Emulators: GPX2
GPX2 has a slightly faster processor and a d-pad.
Misc advantages:
Zodiac is thin and sexy, runs Palm OS, and has a rechargable battery. GPX2 claims a very long battery life.
Edit: Here's my summary. The Zodiac is best for videos and PDA stuff, the GPX2 is best for emulators.
But is there hope? Yes.
The many small developers that made content for it are still able to release software to the its many users, hopefully they will be loyal to the Zodiacs fans and in return still develop for it. A few have already said they will and infact more are still signing up! While officially your chance to get a development kit is over you can still e-mail one of the members of the hardcore team behind it and still develop for it. Plus, since it runs off a Palm OS you will be able to enjoy the many Palm games being released for years to come and finally, a member of the team has said he will continue running the website and keep it going and getting games released on it (unofficially now since Tapwave is gone).
Sleek and sexy...
And now, where to buy:
www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3987388
(Games liek Tony Hawk 4, Duke Nukem and Spy Hunter sell for a cool 15 dollars each)
and finally, the website that made me a believer (and ITS AMAZING FORUM) - zodiacgamer.emuboards.com/
If I can get a damn job in this hell hole, Im certainly going to pick one of these up...just do damn cool not too.
