From: Brian G. (briansnewton_at_gmail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 11 2004 - 09:21:58 PDT
Jon
It's been available in the US market for online sales since last
October. The Zodiac has been available in brick and mortar retail
stores (CompUSA and J&R music) since June 26, 2004. Tapwave recently
announced they will be expanding to European markets starting "this
holiday season" in the UK, with latest reports indicating a 6-8 week
timeframe.
Tapwave has expressed at a recent New England Palm Users Group meeting
that they plan on expanding into other European markets soon but will
be concentrating their early expansion efforts in countries where they
can market the English localized version of the Zodiac. I was present
at the meeting.
One encouraging detail about the Zodiac considering Paul and
Nicholas's Einstein project is that the Zodiac uses a Motorola i.MX1
ARM9 processor at 200 MHz. The Zodiac has a rather substantial
following for game emulation using Zodiac optimized emulators such as
GineaPig and LJZ, although this is another legal gray area.
My question would be if the Zodiac can handle ARM code natively, what
kind of performance could be expected using Einstein? The Zodiac has
its own ATI graphics accelerator and Yamaha sound chip, leaving the
ARM9 processor to handle emulation.
IMO the Palm OS (and more specifically the Zodiac as a device) would
be a perfect vehicle for Einstein/NewtonOS due to the popularity of
the platform and its more Newton-like Zen philosophy and user
experience. If we want to see NewtonOS survive and flourish in the
future and attract more users, getting exisiting Palm OS owners as a
userbase would be a tremendous asset IMO.
Regards,
Brian G.
On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 17:23:29 +0200, Jon Glass <jonglass_at_usa.net> wrote:
> On Sep 11, 2004, at 2:42 PM, smoerk wrote:
>
> > it fits really well. same screen resolution and bigger display than
> > many other PDAs. not too expensive. biggest disadvantage: no linux for
> > it.
> >
> But, for goodness sakes, it's a _PALM_!!!!! Unbelievable! I didn't know
> such a thing existed! How long has it been out? Weirdest thing I've
> ever seen!
> --
> -Jon Glass
> Krakow, Poland
> <jonglass_at_usa.net>
>
>
>
>
> --
> This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
> Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
> WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
>
>
-- Tapwave Zodiac 2 & Newton MessagePad 2100 Owner Visit www.tapland.com, the first Zodiac community. -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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