On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, Andrew Chen wrote:
> And so the iBook/eMate isn't exactly a PDA...
> As for a PDA, how about a Springboard Module? We stick a processor,
> and decent ROM, and some good memory (maybe even a PCMCIA slot) and
> we have a place to put a Newton, with power, display, and input taken
> care of for us by the Handspring Visor.
I don't see anybody yet talking about what seems like the most obvious
thing to me: Wince toys. There's some pretty nice hardware runnning that
pathetic OS out there. A lot of it now has strongarm CPUs at around
200MHz. Many of the devices can run NetBSD. I have yet to find a Wince
toy in the Newton form factor with two PCMCIA slots of any kind, which is
a significant problem for me, but probably won't be for most
others. Wince toy with a Microdrive for development work, color screen,
good networking. Battery life will be troublesome, especially since even
with power management the Wince toys don't get much. SOme of them are
using lithium ion polymer batteries, the newest and highest capacity out
there, and still only getting 5h or so.
> Is anybody here working with the GNUton project? It sounded
> interesting to me, but I unfortunately lack the time to contribute.
> GNUton on Springboard could be the palm-sized Newton we all wanted?
GNUton is, IMHO, the wrong direction to go. I do not think that being
able to directly run all the old Newton stuff is worthwhile right
now. The effort invovled for binary compatibility is high. I would much
prefer to see something nominally newton-like but achievable and with some
of the Newton's problems solved. I don't mean to criticise the work
that's been done; what I've read about the project sounds really good and
very impressive. It's the concept of total compatibility with Newton
stuff that makes me think a huge amount of effort will need to be expended
towards an end that seems less than essential.
gopi.
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