[ANNOUNCE] Pre-release of Lua EPOC Kits (fwd)

[Reuben Thomas <rrt1001@...>]

I'm happy to announce pre-releases of my Lua kits for EPOC. These comprise
the first port of a language to EPOC that I am aware of that fully
integrates with EPOC's native languages, C++ and OPL.

EPOC is Symbian's operating system for PDAs and other mobile devices, and is
currently used in the Psion Series 5 and 7, the Psion Revo, the Oregon
Scientific Osaris, and Ericsson MC128. It is robust, compact, and modern,
with a C++ API, and supports memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking and
multi-threading.

Two kits are provided:

1. The C++ Kit (as a self-extracting Zip). This includes full source, and is
used with the EPOC SDK. It allows EPOC C++ applications to use Lua via a
pair of DLLs.

2. The OPL Kit (as a SIS file). This can be used for development on an EPOC
device. It includes an OPX for access to Lua, so that programs can be
written in a mixture of OPL and Lua: typically, OPL would be used for the
user interface (as Lua has no built-in access to Eikon), and Lua for the
computational part of the application (it is both faster than OPL, and its
powerful tables are much more convenient to program with).

Separate SISs of the DLLs and OPX are also provided for distribution with
applications.

EPOC Lua has already been used to write a sea navigation program, with the
front-end in OPL and computational parts in Lua; its author says: "[EPOC
Lua] turns the [Psion] NetBook into a fun platform for writing code".

Although this is a pre-release, the kits have been well tested already, and
are considered stable. However, as usual for free software, they come with
no warranty.

I'd be very grateful for bug reports and suggestions for improvement; the
Kits will be released by FreEPOC (http://www.freepoc.org/) as part of their
new line-up of development tools on 5th March.

-- 
http://sc3d.org/rrt/ | maxim, n.  wisdom for fools