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Handhelds Hardware

Project Pengachu: Handheld Linux for $50? 84

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-see-it dept.
ContinuousPark writes: "The folks at the MIT Media Lab have been working on a $50 handheld Linux computer. 900MHz, 1mW, 200Kbps peering or hub-and-spoke internet gateways for wireless mode and a RS-485 wired LAN: 1Mbps multidrop. Loads of software on less than 1Mb footprint. They've called it the Pengachu Project: Cheap Wireless Linux for Everyone. Read about it here, an article on the kickoff event for the Digital Nations project."
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Project Pengachu: Handheld Linux for $50? More

Project Pengachu: Handheld Linux for $50?

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  • ... will it electrocute anybody who it doesn't know as a security measure, just like that another *chu we all despise.

    J

  • Re:Proliferation. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Most consumers don't care about which OS their hand held toys are running on. This little gadget may do well with the nerds that visit this site, but a $50 toy is more likely to attract those that can't afford anything better.
  • I'm just wondering; will this thing cause interference with 900Mhz CPUs ?
    Anyone ?

  • I do believe "Correction +1" should be a moderation option.

    Just so long as they also add the "Wrong -1" moderation option. I've seen so many posts that I've wanted to mod down because they contain information that is just plain factually incorrect but can't because that's not an option. Maybe they could call it "Misinformative -1", but whatever it's called it's desperately needed.

  • up up down down , left right left right, b, a, select, start, and it cheats on your tax return for you!
  • Umm, a LOT of OSs are small. If all they wanted was small, they could have used QNX (if they want to pay the exhorbent license fee.) It fits into like 512k of ROM. I think they just want a free OS, plain and simple. Linux doesn't have nearly as many advantages in the embeeded market as people like to believe, other than the fact than its free.
  • Damnit. People really shouldn't use JavaScript on crappy-looking sites. I had to open up Opera to look at the page. New people. If your going to design a site that doesn't look very nice, please don't use cool technology that limits your audience.
  • >Software Footprint: 1 MB!!!!
    >...emacs...

    Since you only have the OS, a web browser, TCP/IP software suite, NFS, web server, C compiler, vi, emacs, and Scheme interpreter, why not throw in a Napster client and perhaps a SETI@home screen saver with what's left of the 1 MB?!

    Emacs on my Slackware 7.1 box by itself takes up about 2.7 MB!!!! Maybe you confused "emacs" with the venerable "ed", which is only about 67K. :-)

  • Umm, a DragonBall runs closer to 20MHz than 100. What I really want to see is somebody reserect the Z380. At 66MHz, you could make a damn nice TI-83 compatible machine! Think about it, znibbles at 66MHz!

    (On a related note, I think the KDE and X programmers should be forced to spend time coding for these calculators. Fast, tight, optimized code. That's how REAL men program. Some guy wrote Mechwarrior for the Ti86, which has around 32k of RAM and a 6MHz processor!)
  • Grammar is just bizarre enough to get lots of "WTF ARE YOU SAYING????" comments, plus you attack the OSS movement. A good attempt on all fronts.
  • like I said, it being free was a small portion of the deal... They wanted an open-sourced, free, small OS. It already has a lot of tools for porting applications, and many have been extremely successful at bringing over basic apps to the handheld market (ala Mutt, etc).
  • Or maybe Be, Inc. should start allocating some of their ever so scarce devteam and implement a friggin' JVM. Or better yet, you could always write one yourself.
  • That's weird. Monitors emit in the AM range.
    ---
  • Hmm.

    Well, looking at the page a bit, I like the fact that they used Linux. With the wireless networking stuff in there, this would be a neat thing just to use around the house. I could run vi or emacs to type stuff out on it anywhere, send it to my main computer and compile it or print it/whatever. Just using it as a wireless terminal would be damn cool.

    Not that you couldn't do such things with other OS's but Linux is pretty well suited to the kind of things you would do with it. Hm, you could even use console software like micq and lynx for pretty good Internet connectivity.

  • Hi,
    Wireless connectivity is great, however, 900MHz in Europe
    won't work -- this frequecny is occupied by
    the GSM mobile telephony network.

  • Windup radio (Score:3)

    by XNormal ( 8617 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @02:04AM (#602933) Homepage
    This reminds me of the windup radio developed by Trevor Baylis [britishcouncil.org] for use in regions such as Africa where radio is the primary method of distributing important information but electric power and even batteries are difficult to get.

    The windup radio was sold in the west for a pretty high price as a curiousity to subsidize the distribution of these radios in Africa.

    The Pengachu has short-range IP wireless commuication. What about wide area communication in infrastructure-poor areas? The two options I can see:

    1. Satellite communication - a VSAT terminal that is shared by multiple Pengachus using the short range wireless link.

    2. Terrestrial radio. Yes, this is one-way, but it's a very cheap and effective way of distributing information, software upgrades, etc. You can piggyback the data onto existing transmitters (RDS for FM, phase modulation a-la AM stereo for AM)


    ----

  • Notes from a Pengachu co-designer (Score:5)

    by matt.reynolds ( 257832 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @03:16PM (#602934)
    A couple of comments and clarifications from a member of the Pengachu team:

    1. The $50 price tag is OEM cost in bulk. Our goal for this project is to build these devices and give them away to people in the developing world as information access devices. We're therefore not including the 300-400% markup that a commercial product would experience. If you consider the bill of materials cost for a Handspring Visor you will find that something around $30-$40 OEM cost in volume translates to the $110-$120 retail price.

    2. The LCD is the single most costly component of the device (about $10 of the $50 cost target). While it would be nice to have a bigger display, you pay dearly for it. So it makes more sense to figure out how to build a decent UI model for limited screen real estate than throw all your budget into the display, which will cost more, break more easily, and eat up more power. This is especially important if you charge your batteries from a solar or wind-up power source!

    3. This made it to Slashdot before we finished a proper documentation set. We wish to acknowledge the uClinux/Lineo team and TomW (http://www.openhardware.net) for doing the groundwork that made it possible to build these devices. TomW's commitment to open source hardware is especially laudable. Our device is not based on their netlists or board layouts, but their work with other uClinux hardware made it much easier for us.

    -- Matt Reynolds, matt@media.mit.edu (hardware engineer for Pengachu)

  • -Has to compete with Palm...This may be overcame, but it will be hard.
    Maybe, maybe not. I like my Palm, but it doesn't offer wireless networking, and it costs a *lot* more than $50. :>
    -Major mods needed; the Linux kernel just isn't meant for these kinds of systems.
    The kernel mods have already been developed - they seem to be using the DragonBall in this version, but mention it could easily be adapted to Arm or ColdFusion (Motorola). Linux is already supported on all of these platforms. Anyway, since when has "major mods needed" stopped any linux project? :>
    -You've gotta pay for all this. Even if major effort comes free, it will still cost a whole lot. You've got to not only equal the competition, but surpass it enough to stand out.
    No real argument here, but manufacturing costs are relatively cheap - there's plenty of places that can put together something like this with minimal retooling. There's nothing exotic in the design - a custom plastic case (cheap to design and implement), a custom motherboard (not too bad to manufacture, already designed and it uses "off the shelf" components), and a bunch of off-the-shelf chips and components.
    -Can you imagine recompiling the kernel for you palmtop?

    Why would you want to? This is a dedicated device - once it works don't mess with it. Upgrades can be easily downloaded. You could develop for it/tinker w/ the software if you want; but it's not a requirement. That's a good thing - this isn't a "geektoy", it's a consumer device with the potential to be a "geektoy". :>

  • Palms are great - I really love them. But they're not perfect. I don't know a whole lot about them, but do they have a TCP/IP stack? I don't think so, but I could be wrong

    Yes...they do.

  • By the time this thing is out, m100plus will be something like 59.99. And Tiger Electronic will be selling purple Barbie Palm.

    Vtech had a PDA for the kid/young teen market called Phusion for around $100. It had a built in digital camera and could sync up with a PC. The product page for it at VTech seems to have been dropped into the bit bucket, so it may have been discontinued.

  • I myself share in your amazement. I don't mind getting compliments, but this kind takes the joy out of getting modded up. Watch them mod it right back down now, and my Karma will drop because I'm at the cap. An interesting place, this /.
  • Glad to know there are real Cheap OSS PDA project which target the low end market. But wait ...

    I've played around Linux + DragonBall + 4~8MB Flash + LCD Panel + Wireless design for 3 years. With 2 designs onhand, 1 aborted prototype, 2 boss(es) and at least 6 OEM vendor meetings I can tell YOU BIG BOY OF AMERICAN cannot easily find this product off the shelf:

    #1 : Buyer from American
    • PDA is NOT a toy. Most people buy for personal use. They are mostly middle class, geek, engineer and student. Poor men don't need a Personal DA. For US and EU market, when a electronic product sell To sell any IT-grade electronics stuff in US, you need a support network that span the whole America continent. Any manufacturer who make this stuff need to talk to big agent. A less-then-$50-PDA-directly-compete-with-Palm-and-O SS-inside is absolutely not CONVINCING!

    #2 : Buyer from !(US || EU)
    • You need localized version of software. This is petty hard for CJK character: Smart IME, big font image size, ... This effectively cut out cost-benefit of OSS kernel. Any one ever try to make a handwritten recognition algorithm for CJK character set know what I mean.
    • A PDA must talk to PC to get new software and upgrade. Many Asia, Afica and some Middle East contries just don't have this condition. Any non-PC based content and software distribution is relatively expensive.
    • A low end PDA is not much than Game Boy+Memo(Calendar)+Talking Dictionary. For the price of 8M Flash you can buy a electronic memo, a DragonBall can buy a talking dictionary. Why? because there are cheap single-or-two chips design from Taiwan and Korea. Any DragonBall based design, though interesting for any embedded system designer, just cannot compete in real low end market.

    #3 : OEM factory
    • OEMs which can handle PDA manufacturing are either contracted to [any big brand you name it], or only talk to big agent (see #1).
    • SME (Small/Medium Ent.) which really want to consider immediately face these:
      • The production cost of making a Visor and a U-NAME-IT-OSS-PDA are not much different. There are cost in Inventory, strict QA + QC, testing, import/export/FCC certification, etc. Added up, most SME are out of question.
      • Let material cost / unit = $50 x 80% = $40. In 100K quantity (If you don't know why no manufacturer want to take 10K order, stop reading) it add up to $40 x 100K = 4 Million US Dollars! Unless you get good deposit from big buyer NO SME CAN take this amount of Payable.
      • Motorola is a REAL-HARD-TO-TALK-TO big ass. If you don't have a contract/PO onhand from recognizable Brand DON'T EXPECT ANY technical support / pre-sales meeting, at least in Hong Kong and China. That said, any SME OEM must tackle ALL technical problems in post-design and pilot-run stage without vendor support.

    #4 : You geek

    You can't expect much people work on OSS project other than Eng-German-Japanese speaking guys :-( OSS Linux based PDA still need many works in UI and usability design. To make it into international market/community, you need many people to work on different area.


    As I know quite many OSS based consumer devices are killed in design/prototype stage for some or all of this reasons. That's why you need to pay that much to buy a car Mp3 player or TiVo. To sell it you need to put many STAE-OF-THE-ART technology inside - from custom ASIC to special LCD panel to hard-to-license-band - no matter the consumer need it or not.

    That's what I think: If this project is REALLY for 3rd countries with not-for-profit fund support, that's GOOD. If you want to make it a commercial product, think twice.

  • Russian experience with ZX Spectrum clones (Score:4)

    by mike449 ( 238450 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @06:56PM (#602940)
    In 1987-1994 Russian market was flooded with hobbyist designs of ZX Spectrum and ZX 128 clones. I was in the university back then.

    That cheap, small Z80-based thing had HUGE impact on my generation. The parts cost (including blank PCB and keyboard) was about 20USD. Almost every student in every technical school built one of these and played games nights away. Many learned to program using these. Many went to sell them on the black market and earned seed capital for their later, more interesting ventures. This was truly a quiet revolution. Russia owes large part of its technical and enterpreneural talent to ZX Spectrum.

    The moral is : a good affordable computer design CAN make a differnce in 3rd world countries.
  • guess you did not actually check out the homepage (http://rehmi.www.media.mit.edu/~rehmi/pengachu/fr ame.htm [mit.edu])

    snip
    Software Footprint: ...
    Processor core containing Motorola Dragonball, 8MB flash, 8MB DRAM, running Linux
    /snip
    ---
  • You probably have the cover on, though, providing EM/RF shielding
    My friend runs his box coverless. It runs at a 100MHz FSB. He can't get any radio stations in the 100MHz range. :P

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • errmm...
    damn HTML! it should have read:
    Software Footprint: less than 1MB...
    ---
  • This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.

    This from http://rehmi.www.media.mit.edu/~rehmi/pengachu.htm l which appears to be where any serious info is.

    Please explain to me why something apparently Linux-friendly would bar lynx or all things.

    Looking at the page source, it seems very ridden with MS crap.

    Not a very good impression, sorry.

  • 128x64 pixel onboard LCD, possibly VGA or NTSC output in next version

    I don't think so... Maybe the next version will appeal to those used to dedicated monitors, but they probably won't cost $50!

  • If you're running your computer coverless, yep.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • Do you really want to use vi/emacs with slow handwriting recognition? Or a command line at all?
    There was an article on /. about this a few months back...general consensus is that you'd use the OS kernel and build a new GUI on top of that, instead of using commandline, as that paradigm Just Doesn't Work(tm) for handhelds.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • The project's goal is to be able to make many for a low per-unit price so their sponsors (or the foundation funded by those sponsors) will be able to buy many for distribution in the countries where they are needed. How much sense would it make to try to bootstrap an informed user community in these desperate lands if only a few could be distributed because of high cost?!
  • One of the things to remember is that Spread Spectrum data communications is illegal in many countries. This is because those governments don't have the ability to listen in when they want to. In the US, Spread Spectrum is restricted in the use of its spreading (scrambling) codes, and the section of the transceiver where to code is located has to be made tamper-proof.

    It may be better to simply use G3RUH amateur radio
    type 9600 bps packet radio, and possibly PSK31 for greater distances (using NVIS propagation) over HF.

    My reservations about this project are dealing with Motorola. It's a really evil company. And doesn't the dragonball lack an MMU? I'd rather use
    a little bit better processor such as the strongARM. They use a bit more power than the dragonball but you get a lot more out of it. But hey, don't mean to be so critical....Pengachu looks like a great project! Its along the lines of stuff I've had in mind for a while. sinister.com/radio and other stuff
  • Lynx gives you the choice of displaying one of the frames. I've never had any sort of trouble browsing framed pages with lynx.
    -adma
  • It is in fact possible to do this for right around the $50 OEM cost target. The typical markup is 3x-4x rather than the 10x you specify. At the moment RAM and Flash are both available at about $1/MByte on the commodity market.

    In the endgame we want to develop our own ASIC that will integrate many of the peripheral functions on to the same die as the processor.

    -- Matt Reynolds (Pengachu hardware engineer)

  • A little misleading... (Score:4)

    by ca1v1n ( 135902 ) <snook.guanotronic@com> on Friday November 24, 2000 @01:57PM (#602952)
    That 900 MHz is for the radio band, not the processor speed. This is still cool, but I'm not drooling quite so much any more.

  • Pengachu I pick you! (Score:3)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @02:01PM (#602953) Homepage Journal
    Pokemon Pengachu vs. Pokemon Itsy! [compaq.com]
  • Just fifty bucks for a computer? Hell, I'd buy that even if it didn't work. :-)
  • 50 bucks IS dirt cheap compared to any other PDA out there including the the palms and visors, and don't even get me started on the ipak! sounds awsome.. wheer do i sign i want one!
  • That is just awesome. Great speed, good usability - I just have to say it on behalf of us all, some of whom have become bitter from the atrophy - Linux and all things Linux ROCK.

    1. humor for the clinically insane [mikegallay.com]

  • Why LINUX? (Score:4)

    by My_Favorite_Anonymou ( 36494 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @02:05PM (#602957) Homepage
    You know, Palm already can sell the m100 at 100 and still make a profit. They simply don't have any competition at the low end market.

    By the time this thing is out, m100plus will be something like 59.99. And Tiger Electronic will be selling purple Barbie Palm.

    More low-end keyring PDA to keep Palm honest, yes. A better OS than PalmOS, I don't think so.

    CY
  • Assuming that it has adequate performance regardless of processor speed, at just $50 they could very well saturate the market place. At least that many more people will be learning Linux. Can anyone say the youth market - ages 8 -18? $50 computer would make great stocking stuffers.
  • The system sounds like it would be a huge hit, but I really have to wonder if it could actually be sold at $50. That is a prety low price. Cell phones cost more and the companies mass produce them and make the money on contracts. Still, for $50, this could put linux in a lot of peoples hands.
  • Definately put me down for one. I don't see HOW they can do it for $50 though. But then, there is no need at all to pay royalties for Linux. I'm sure licensing for CE and Palm constitutes a substantial cost for the CE/Palm PDA's.

    If they can do all this in less than 1MB of RAM, and still have usable storage for your data, all I can say is WOW!. They must have found some of those miraculous Commodore 64 programmers who seemed to be able to produce quality sound/graphics out of 64K and a 8 bit CPU that similar programmers were doing on the much more powerful PC at the time.

    I'd like to see them offer more RAM though, for no other reason than to increase the power of the PDA. If they can put together a cool little wireless-internet capable Linux PDA with 2-4MB RAM and sell it for under $200, they won't be able to make enough of them for the demand.

  • it has a 100 kb/sec 900 Mhz radio .
    as in 900 MHz cordless phone - not processor.

  • Small screen!!! Specs URL (Score:3)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @02:17PM (#602962) Homepage Journal
    The screen size is going to be 128x64. Come on, you can't get even 40 coloums of text in there!

    The specs for Pengachu are here [mit.edu]

    --
    WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";

  • Re:Why LINUX? (Score:3)

    by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @03:27PM (#602963)
    Palms are great - I really love them. But they're not perfect. I don't know a whole lot about them, but do they have a TCP/IP stack? I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

    The reason why Linux is being ported to these small devices is FLEXIBILITY.

    Never, and I repeat NEVER doubt the usefullness of flexibility. If you want a personal organizer, sure you can buy one on the cheap from Palm. But what if you want something with a similar form-factory, but you need it to run only one application? And you can't get license a la Handspring from 3Com(makes of the Palm)? Well, you've got to invest millions in R&D, software, hardware, fabrication plants, etc., etc..

    With a Linux-based portable unit, you have a great deal of flexibility. All of a sudden, instead of paying millions of dollars. you only have to pay(at most) a few hundred thousand for a good development team to write the appropriate Linux-based apps. Plus, you can make them portable. Have you tried to compile a Palm app to run under Linux? Yeah, thought so.

    Dave
    'Round the firewall,
    Out the modem,
    Through the router,
    Down the wire,
  • I love replying to replies...

    To answer the overcoming palm section, read the post from Matt Reynolds, the MIT dude. They won't SELL it for $50. It's $50 in hardware costs for the OEMs. I doubt this includes labor. And of course, you've got to make a profit - in this case a large one. Hence the markup percentage noted by Matt.

    Next: You're rewriting the code for a system with a totally unsupported file system. Gotta write that in. Then you've got to make it talk to the processor. Only 2 key points, but major ones.

    The payment thingy...look 2 paragraphs up. Hardware is already seen as low-cost, but remember that you need LABOR...

    Recompiling the kernel: sure it's dedicated, but I suspect modularity will be a key point. As new toys are added, they are mearly added in.

    Geek factor: First the geek factor, then the usefulness. It happened to Palm, it will happen here. First will come the CEOs and the hackers (and boy will they come - you can tweak this one!), then will come the public once they see it in the hands of the others.
  • That is one click I will never get back.

    Damn you.

  • Wasn't that the level select code for Sonic 3? :P
    Yeah, I played waay too much sega.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • Uh, JavaScript is in no way related to java. It used to be called LiveScript, then NS renamed it in an effort to catch on with the Java hype.
    It's a simple, interpreted scripting language.

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • Are you serious? MW for the 86?
    Gimme a link, I -have- to see this. :P

    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • I paid nothing for IE and look what I got.
    Oh yea thanks for reminding me about all those windows forks. I guess that's what a centrally controlled developement structure gets you. A bunch of slightly incompatible forks.
  • The lack of a console is one of the worst part of a PDA. I am a command line fanatic, and I cant stand using an OS without a built in console. I wanted to get an old Hewlet Pakard Dos based palmtop because of this. BTW: Are there any shareware console interfaces available for Win CE (if anyone is still writing for it), Palm (doubtful), or even, say, some of the Nokia phones?

  • $50 cost? I don't think so. (Score:3)

    by cananian ( 73735 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @11:04PM (#602971) Homepage
    This is a copy of I mail I just sent to rehmi@media.mit.edu.

    do you really think you can build pengachu in volume for less than $50? It seems to me that the memory resources alone (DRAM/Flash ROM) add up to more than $50, and these are commodity parts whose price is unlikely to decrease with anything other than time. Perhaps you should clarify that you mean "$50 two years from now" which is very different from "$50 today".

    Added to this objection is the electrical engineering rule of thumb I learned as an undergraduate: a design's cost is roughly ten times its component cost, once all manufacturing factors are added in.

    As a data point, palm pilots based on a subset of your technology are sold for $150 retail. But the devices sold for that price (which may well translate into a $50 "direct to developing nation" cost) include only a quarter of the memory pengachu does and none of the specialized media hardware.

    I'm curious for a cost justification.

    --s

  • Mike, this is exactly what we had in mind- except that modern surface-mount parts require a lot more soldering skills (and a stereomicroscope) than the DIP packages used in the "old days".

    The Pengachu team grew up on the Vic20 and the C64 and we miss the days when the hardware was as hackable as the software. One of the main uses we envision for such a system is as a low-cost tool for computer science education- because one person can completely understand the whole system, both hardware and software.

    -- Matt Reynolds

  • You've hit upon the two main means for content distribution that we've thought of. A hub-and-spoke model for distributing data from a VSAT terminal works as long as the intervening terrain is reasonably flat (and it can give a 2-way link to the 'net)

    The terrestrial radio option is a good one. We've considered using subcarriers on existing shortwave or FM broadcast systems to provide a continuous stream of (for example) news and weather information. But the backchannel to the 'net is the big problem...

    -- Matt Reynolds (Pengachu hardware engineer)

  • Holy shit.. is that why I can't pick up this 100.3 FM station at my house where my computer is? I have a 100MHz BUS..?
  • The moral is : a good affordable computer design CAN make a differnce in 3rd world countries.
    My how times have changed when Russia is considered a 3rd world country.
    Although you have to admit that 'N world country' is one of the worst-defined terms in the language.
    --
  • See ticalc.org [ticalc.org] to satisfy your curiosity.

    For what it's worth, the MechWarriorCheck out some of the ASM programs for the various calculators. There are several impressive ones on the [ticalc.org]top downloads list [ticalc.org], but there are also some less popular gems buried in the archives [ticalc.org] that never got as much exposure.

    Enjoy!

    -Isaac

  • gesundheit...oh, wait, i'll have to sue you...
  • /. mangled my post and sodomized my links. Here's take 2.



    See ticalc.org [ticalc.org] to satisfy your curiosity.

    For what it's worth, the MechWarrior [ticalc.org]
    game for the '86 isn't as impressive as it sounds - yer standard TI-BASIC fare.

    Check out some of the ASM programs for the various calculators. There are several impressive ones on the top downloads list [ticalc.org], but there are also some less popular gems buried in the archives [ticalc.org] that never got as much exposure.

    Enjoy!

    -Isaac

  • Umm, BeIA already have Java2 ported, and a BeOS version of Java2 SE is forthcoming. Additionally, Kaffe already runs on BeOS. Mine was a site design issue, not a BeOS issue. All those people running older browsers have the same problem. My point is that unless you're going to use Javascript to make something cool/useful, don't use it at all.

    PS> This all neglects the fact that Javascript has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Java.
  • yuo may be riht, but there is a lot of stuff you could remove from emacs and still have an editor. If for nothing else then to say it has emacs.

  • Do you really want to use vi/emacs with slow handwriting recognition? Or a command line at all?

    vi/emacs w/ handwriting recognition? No, definatly not. I do want one to be available though. The best approach to that is to have cli tools w/ GUI wrappers. I say that because I have yet to see a GUI that truly has the versatility for use or development that cli does.

    A well designed CLI program can always be wrapped in a GUI, most GUI apps cannot be wrapped in a CLI. That could just reflect poor design of GUI apps, but I suspect it is either inherent or close to it.

  • That's weird. Monitors emit in the AM range.

    Vertical Refresh: 35-150 HZ
    Horizontal Refresh: 35-90+ KHZ
    Dot Clock: 20-200 MHZ.

    So while your heavally shielded monitor is blocking the 35 hz to 90 KHZ emissions, that crappy HD15 connector is happily broadcasting over top of your favorite radio stations.

    --Dan

  • that dosn't explain it. TV for example, broadcasts AM and FM at the same time on the same freq. for each channel - AM for video, FM for audio. Monitors should be leaking AM in those ranges you mentioned, not FM. The frequency range does not specify am/fm.
    ---
  • kinda reminds me a little too much of a gameboy crossed with etch-a-sketch.

    --
  • from Pengachu PDA block diagram found at http://rehmi.www. med ia.mit.edu/~rehmi/pengachu/v3_document.htm [mit.edu]

    it uses a Dragonball CPU, the same used in the Palm handhelds. much less then 900mhz, probablly more like 100 or so.

    it also has a 128x64 LXD screen. not to usefull by it self, but does provide moniter hookups

    it has 8M Flash RAM, pretty cool. Linux is going to eat up about 1M of that.

    The neatest thing is that it can use "winup" power.. I can't imagine running a stable web server off winup power, but if you just lugging it somewhere and want to read your mail, what could be better?

    -Jon
  • winup = wind-up.. woops

  • That 900 MHz is for the radio band, not the processor speed.

    I like how actually reading the article is considered "Insightful" ;-)

  • The 900mhz was referring to the radio band it operated on, much like many cordless phones. You didn't think you were buying an awesome processor when you last bought a phone, did you?
  • The reason why Linux is being ported to these small devices is FLEXIBILITY.

    Huh, the reason they are using Linux is because it's free. That and bunch of schmuks are willing to to work on the OS for free. And it has been my experience that you get what you pay for, ask yourself "what kind of job would you do if you weren't getting paid".

    This Thanksgiving I want to thank Windows for giving me choices....2000, NT, ME, CE, 95, 98, 98SE, and coming soon Whistler, oh my glorious Whistler.

  • it has a 100 kb/sec 900 Mhz radio

    Congratulations, Sir.
    You and post #3 beat the Editors to the act of reading the article. I do believe "Correction +1" should be a moderation option. It seems to be used/needed so often on /.

  • Well, Mobile Linux will only be useful if it is done right... so that it is actually stable, usable, and as "idiot-proof"/easy to use as WinCE and PalmOS... Palmtops are a user-driven market, and most of the users are not engineers... While Linux gives access to cheaper, more familiar development environments (Gnu compilers, etc.) for OpenSource engineers, there needs to be more than just that...

    Some more Linux Handheld links, including the actual specs of Pengachu, which reveal that 900mhz is the RF band (in case you thought it was the clockspeed), etc...

    The Project Pengachu home page [mit.edu] (specs, etc.)

    MobiliX [mobilix.org] has various Mobile linux links / resources.

    Gmate [gmate.co.kr], the Korean company producing a (somewhat expensive) Linux PDA that looks rather a lot like the one from Samsung [samsung.co.kr]

    Compaq Itsy [compaq.com]

  • no, they are using Linux b/c it is useful for machines that are small (like this one). The fact that it is free is only a small portion of the reason.

    It is a known fact that Linux can run in a small bit of space.. Why would they want to waste more memory than they have to (as the PocketPC's are using 16M of ROM to have WinCE+apps+crap). Linux is going to be in about 1 to 2M of ROM.

    Linux may not be the OS choice for Desktops, but I really see it as an up-in-coming option on the handheld market. The apps at this point in time are scarce, but they shouldn't be hard to code (look at the availability of Palm apps).

    Eventually Linux could be a major player in this market. I have faith in Linux on the Handheld. I do not have this faith w/the desktop market (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/11/21/2044 234&cid=201)
  • I got a 1280x1024 monitor to emit about 107.1 MHz by tweaking XF86Config and it definitely crashes a nearby FM radio.

  • Huh, the reason they are using Linux is because it's free. That and bunch of schmuks are willing to to work on the OS for free. And it has been my experience that you get what you pay for, ask yourself "what kind of job would you do if you weren't getting paid".

    Looking at it from the reverse angle, shouldn't you be worried about projects where people work on them only because they are getting paid? If it is not a pleasant project to work on, isn't it likely that they won't try their very best? After all, their concerns might be keeping their jobs and making money instead of producing good code.

    The above shouldn't be considered a rule of course, there are many professional coders that produce good quality work. And working for free certainly isn't a guanantee of good work.

    It is just that there are no absolutes either way.

  • The reason why Linux is being ported to these small devices is FLEXIBILITY.

    I think that availability has more to do with it than flexibility. Linux is an available, off-the-shelf kernel that already runs on a lot of lightweight processors like ARM and Dragonball. That means that you can put essentially zero development time and effort into designing your kernel and devote it to other aspects of the project instead. For a small project like this (IIRC from the web-site it was developed in 2 months by 3 people) that's a huge advantage.

    IIRC, one of the other stated goals of the project was to make it open so that other people could develop it further. That pretty much demands a Free Software OS like Linux; they specifically mentioned the GPL as an advantage which I assume cuts out NetBSD as an alternative.

  • The moderators are on crack I'm assuming..
    -1: Offtopic.. This could be -1: Stupid but it was on topic, making light of their name. I do have to say that naming a PDA after a Pokemon is grounds to not own one.. especially after nintendo sues them for their patented use fo the word "chu" as a suffix in any word.
  • haha, ya. bigfreakinserver is a dual proc celly. it's not a monster machine. it was a place where I would run as many servers and junk as I could. kind of a testbed for tech. Right now it's down as I have moved to Austin and haven't got the DSL hookup yet.

    anyway, it's a joke name. laugh.

    -Jon
  • ..whats okay until you remember you need to lug around that 1000 page manual 'cause you haven't quite got the hang of all the commands yet. :-)
  • Not necessarily this particular item, but cheap machines in general. For example, this whole election fiasco in America could have been resolved if simple voting software could be installed on units that were $50 apiece. No "it's too expensive to deploy" excuses, the entire nation could be outfitted with these machines for less than the price of George Bush's campaign.

    Heck, there are probably millions of old machines sitting idle that could do this kind of job. If recreating new low-cost machines is a money losing proposition, how about tax incentives or such to create a nationwide repository of old machines that still have some use to them? Not every application needs a 1Ghz trillion color 512MB RAM Beowulf cluster. Send all the VIC-20's to Palm Beach County! (Big characters that senior citizens can read!)

  • Console? (Score:3)

    by DNAspark99 ( 218197 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @02:55PM (#603000)
    I can just see it now; people complain about comand intuitiveness now, what's it gonna be like with a device like this? Can you get a console on it? tilt left,left,right,up,up,down,left for directory listing. tilt right,down,up,right,left,followed by a shake,left,up,more shaking, right, and up once more to change dirs. throw it in the clothes dryer to randomly recompile the kernel. God forbid you drop the thing down some stairs and accidentally issue "nohup rm -rf /&"

    --
  • Sounds great, but it hasn't got that much in it from what I can tell (based on current specs). The fact that it's using Linux will actually make a difference - not only for the geek factor, but because it's less costly. While some major work will obviously have to be done (I don't think the current kernel supports the stuff in these kinds of systems), it will likely pay off.

    Summary:
    Pluses: -Uses Linux, this means less cost and a
    major "geek" factor.
    -Has modularity extreme, strong point of
    the kernel.
    Minuses: -Has to compete with Palm...This may be
    overcame, but it will be hard.
    -Major mods needed; the Linux kernel
    just isn't meant for these
    kinds of systems.
    -You've gotta pay for all this. Even if
    major effort comes free, it will still cost a whole lot. You've got to not
    only equal the competition, but surpass
    it enough to stand out.
    -Can you imagine recompiling the kernel
    for you palmtop?

    In conclusion: It's got good potential, as long as the obstacles are overcome - but they sure are some pretty huge obstacles.

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