Seapegasus Blog

Sunday July 30, 2006

How Much RAM Does Your Mobile Have?

TastePhone is a useful Java ME application that displays virtually everything that can be detected about your phone. Most people vaguely know what version of CLDC and MIDP their phone supports -- But have you ever wondered how fast you phone would be if it was a PC?

Now I know my phone's (Nokia 6822) Java virtual processor speed is 0.7 Mhz, which allegedly is equivalent to a PIII at 12.6MHz! :-D My RAM heap is 512kb, of which 466kB are free after startup, and it can read and write about 0.370 MB/sec from and to memory. The screen supports 4096 colors, and TastePhone gives you an overview of which keys are used for what in a mobile game (like UP, DOWN, FIRE, etc).

It has some minor bugs, such as claiming my time zone offset is -3600000 (oops, my Time Lord identity has been revealed!); and it also says my phone does not support audio and video recording, which is does, admittedly in bad quality, does that not count? :-P

Still a pretty useful piece of software if you're programming for the Java ME platform and need more detailed benchmarks than what the brochure at the store gives you, not only about RAM and speed, but all that crazy stuff like whether you can use PointerEvents, PointerMotionEvents, RepeatEvents, or whether the device can run a Midlet in the background or supports a double buffered screen. This app detects more features than I knew existed...

The Eighties Need Some Fixing

If you had control, what would have been your perfect Eighties TV show? I'd go for KITT and Patrica McPherson from Knight Rider, teamed up with MacGyver instead of D.H. Bonnie is a hacker and gets some real dialogue, and KITT is the ambivalent cyberpunkish AI in the background. The setting is Earth and sometimes the secret base, Battlestar Galactica, hidden cleverly on the backside of the moon opposite a nuclear dump, whose explosion (caused by MacGyver with a piece of bubblegum) blasts the moon on a journey through the galaxy after a breathtaking cliffhanger at the end of the first season. The bad guys are played by Nimoy and Landau, while KITT may or may not be pulled over to the dark side by Matt Frewer. At the end of the second season (that's the one in space), McPherson disapears under mysterious circumstances, and is replaced for one season by Jessica Steen, who has been heroically saved by MacGyver from an annoying life among alien robots. The title theme is of course from Doctor Who. ... See! It's so easy to come up with good ideas. Why didn't they record a show like that 20 years ago, hm?

And look! I found another thing from the eighties(?) that needs fixing, my old harmonica. Sorry harmonica, this blog category is labled Hacks, and this means I have to take something apart, and this time it's you. I found it again in a box and (despite never having learned how to play) I tried to elicit some notes. Turns out that some notes didn't sound anymore. At least not more than a faint eep. Bummer.

But since we live in the age where information's at your fingertips, I go check out a webpage by a harmonica enthusiast and am told that the problem's obviously due to the reed gaps being to wide. Of course! It's that obvious! ... Alright. ... What are reed gaps? Only one way to find out. >:-) *Takes out Swiss army knife*

Look, reeds! And gaps! Everywhere! So what I learned this weekend was: The perfect reed gap must be as wide as its reed is thick. It may be a fraction wider if you play loud, and a trifle less, if you play softly. Also I learned that the reeds on the outside produce most of the sound when you inhale, and the ones on the inside when you exhale. Oh, and if the base is on the right side, and the high notes on the left, the cover is the wrong way round. >:-) *Takes out Swiss army knife again*