gulik wiki / Hardware toys

It's always good to remember that hardware is just what good software runs on. If your software is good, it will run on any old commodity hardware.

The Perfect Laptop (/HPC)

I sometimes find that I'm sitting around somewhere waiting - for example commuting, travelling, staying at boring friend's houses... I'd like to take a laptop with me. However, laptops are too expensive, heavy and need recharging every 3 hours.

(Update: since I wrote this, mini-notebooks have become all the rage!)

The perfect laptop would have:

10 hours of battery life.
Be small and light.
Inexpensive (if it gets stolen, I just get another...).
No moving parts that break.
At least a 640x480 screen.
A real keyboard, a touch pad, mouse.
Would be able to run Squeak.

Other possibilities include:

The Sharp Zaurus.
The new Palm folia.
A laptop with the hard disk ripped out and replaced with an extra battery.
The OLPC (or XO). This is for kids in developing countries, but the features make it better than most commercial laptops!
The EEE-pc, or something similar. Unfortunately, it's x86 based (yuck!), and the keyboard and trackpad buttons feel tacky.

My Jornada 820

Currently I'm using an JP Jornada 820. It has:

16MB RAM, 16MB ROM, and no permanent storage!
A StrongARM SA1100 CPU.
CF, PCMCIA slots. I use a 1GB CF card.
Windows CE 2.11, with Pocket office and IE in the ROM (!). This little Jornada reacts faster than most desktop machines do.
A 640x480 LCD screen and VGA out (also 640x480 :-( ). The screen is pretty bad compared to modern LCDs - very slow refresh etc.
10 hours of battery life.
It cost me NZ$60 - beat that! If it breaks or gets stolen, I just buy another. In fact, I was thinking of keeping a few spares at home :-) (j/k).

Getting Squeak running on a HP Jornada 820: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/2436. Squeak runs and I can write code in it, but it is pretty slow.