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Hardware toys

Page history last edited by Michael van der Gulik 14 years, 6 months ago

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.
The touchbook: https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
The Pandora: http://openpandora.org/

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).

Available applications: Linux console apps (ssh, editors, interpreters), and what is in ROM. Forget anything else. TCPMP is a media player, but the sound is through a mono speaker only. Ansyr Primer is a PDF viewer, but they went bust and the product was commercial. I've had no success getting it going.

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.

Writing applications for the Jornada: options are Linux or Windows CE.

Linux: http://jornada820.sourceforge.net/. I currently use Debian in single-user mode; multi-user mode won't work. Use Debian version (something?) - you need to download the CD from the archives.

Windows CE: you need Microsoft Embedded Visual C++ version 3.0, exactly. I'm not aware of any other way of compiling applications for Windows CE 2.11 on ARM. It's somewhere on the Internet, possibly http://hpcfactor.com/. License key is TRT7H-KD36T-FRH8D-6QH8P-VFJHQ (Microsoft has released this publicly).

Installing Embedded C++ under Wine: use this trick: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2538.

Cut and pasted here:

1.) Save the following snippet to a text file, for example "vc6-installer-fix":

set $x=0x410000

set $end=0x420000

while(*++$x != 0x07B0B18B && $x < $end)

end

if $x != $end

set *(int*) $x = 0x5BC0335E

set *(int*)($x+4) = 0x900004C2

end

cont

2.) run the following command, assuming you saved the snippet to "vc6-installer-fix":

$ winedbg --gdb setup.exe < vc6-installer-fix

The installer will then run to completion (or actually consume 100% CPU indefinitely when it finishes).

Visual C++ won't actually start though: it says that no SDKs are registered?

But you can run the compiler: after installation, search for WCEARM.BAT which will set up a compilation environment for you. I never got as far as compiling anything though; it couldn't find windows.h and I gave up.

To be honest, the Jornada is good as a typewriter. Doing anything else on it is a waste of time.

Windows CE cross compiler:

http://wince-xcompile.sourceforge.net/build-process.html#sdk