New PPC/Linux PDA Reference Design From IBM 254
kinema writes "It looks like IBM has released a new Linux/PowerPC based PDA reference design called e-LAP ("embedded Linux application platform"). It features a PowerPC 405LP, 30MB SDRAM, 32MB NOR Flash, 64MB Disk-On-Chip Flash, 240 x 320 color LCD, Stereo speakers, Microphone, USB (both host and client ports), a 3000 gate Xilinx FPGA, SDIO slot and last but not least a TCPA security chip. I for one would love to see some good PowerPC based PDAs on the market."
PowerPC Advantages? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Aren't PowerPC chips more expensive? Is there a major benefit that I'm not seeing? Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?
Is anybody going to make one? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wishes and Dreams (Score:2, Interesting)
FPGA? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know these are stupid questions, I'm just curious.
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:1, Interesting)
The latest desktop x86 PC CPUs (all x86 CPUs ever made come to think of it) have been extremely inefficient in comparison to other types of processors. PowerPC chips, Alphas, SPARCs and ARMs all have a much higher MIPS/mW rating than any x86 processor. Also PowerPC assembly is nicer
crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments. They're built from the ground up for low power consumption in preference to blazing speed. The PowerPC is exactly the opposite, as anyone who has sat down at a recent G4 can tell you -- these things scream.
Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.
It's a good idea, but I'd like to see them take a more sensible approach.
Intriguing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Power/Battery Life (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:4, Interesting)
For one, IBM has a large hand in the development of the PowerPC, and I can't say I blame them for wanting to use one of their own chips. In terms of real advantages, the PowerPC has a few in general, but I'm not sure about the embedded series of chips.
From a programming perspective PowerPC can be somewhat annoying (I believe you can only load 16 bits of a register at a time -- I read that in an IBM DeveloperWorks article, I believe) if you're writing assembly, but I find it a wonderful platform for my daily projects (Darwin/PPC and Linux/PPC mostly).
I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
TCPA + DRM = crippleware
I prefer my Zaurus anyway. I can surf the net via
802.11, I've got a big ass 256MB MMC card.
And some some apps I serve off my LinuxPPC (Apple 9600) Server. I built my own amplified stereo speakers. No TCPA or DRM technology embedded in it.
And it's plenty fast enough to stream mpeg2 and mpeg4 video off my server!
If IBM removes the DRM technology maybe they'll
get some market share. But anything with TCPA and DRM technology is just crippleware in my eyes. This would probably start a home brew revolution.
We should stick together any never but any hardware that supports DRM.
Re:PowerPC + PDA == ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why?
Has Apple announced it's not going to make a PDA? They've got laptop expertise from the ti-book, small portable commodity electronics expertise from the iPod, etc.
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:5, Interesting)
Price isn't as much of a concern since you would normally trade cost for portability, and vice versa.
The other benefit of the PPC architecture is the fact that you don't have the kludge of an ISA that is the x86 ISA... meaning that developing apps for a PPC (or an ARM) architecture may not be as bad... and I think code written for the PPC architecture can run on any other PPC processor, provided that you don't include processor specific extensions.
Re:FPGA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someday I'd like to see FPGAs in all sorts of things. The classic (albeit somewhat silly) example I like to use is you're driving down the road and you go through a puddle of water which disables your car's computer. So you download the controller core from GM's (or whoever's) site, load it into the FPGA on your PDA, and use it to drive to a service shop.
Kind of a contrived example, but my ultimate point is that with pervasive FPGAs, and perhaps some kind of pervasive "universal connector" wired to the FPGA, you can reconfigure a device to do things it wasn't specifically designed for.
Blue sky thinking aside, I can think of other uses for it, such as the "cell phone" model where you alternatively use it for digital and analog control stuff by reprogramming it. That way you only need one part in the device instead of two, and it makes interconnection circuitry simpler.
You might also program it to be a DSP-microprocessor today (for maybe the media player or something), and then reprogram it to be the cell chip for a Treo-like device tomorrow.
That kind of thing...
Not bad -- but give me my Zaurus! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't think, though, these are PDAs. These are not really Palm competitors. These are true development platforms for handheld computing solutions. Also, the killer app on these is the web browser. Opera 5 (and I'm playing with a beta of 6) is incredibly fast and feature rich, especially compared to PokeyIE on PokeyPC or anything on the Palm (though I haven't seen OS 5.0 to be honest).
I love taking my Zaurus to a HotSpot (like T-Mobile's at the ubiquitous Starbucks) surfing, SSH'ing, web serving (from the unit), and...well...playing Scrabble ("Word Game").
Maybe Scrabble is the killer app...Anyway...
Versatility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:lower power consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
Say an Intel Mobile P4 costs $X and runs at a certain speed (not MHz, but actual performance). However, when you unplug it to run on batteries, performance drops in half, to save battery usage.
Say a PowerPC chip costs $(1.5 * X) and runs at the same speed while running on AC power, but when you unplug it and run on batteries, it doesn't cut performance because power usage at full speed matches the P4 at half speed. So, you get the same battery life from both, but the PPC costs more. When both chips are running at full speed, they're the same speed, but when the P4 is at half speed to conserve batteries, the PPC is much faster.
Now, use a slower model of PPC that costs less to produce. Drop the price down to match, and (when the P4 runs at half speed to get decent battery life) the PPC is faster.
In a laptop, speed while running on AC power may be important, so yes, the PPC may be more expensive for the same speed. But in a PDA, that's not important at all, so the PPC has the advantage.
This is why Apple has started pushing laptops this year. There may be faster PC laptops while plugged in, but while unplugged, PowerBooks are either much faster or have much longer battery life.
Disclaimer: I don't actually know what I'm talking about and anything I said that looks like numbers was completely made up arbitrarily.
Re:I've literally got to ask! (Score:3, Interesting)
Running Linux on PowerPC? Why not?
One of the issues with Ogg support, as I understand it, is that until recently there wasn't a good Ogg decoder that didn't require floating-point operations, and many embedded chips don't handle float. The PowerPC handles float just fine.
Similar announcement on the same site (Score:3, Interesting)
Motorola/Metrowerks unveils Linux-based PDA reference design [linuxdevices.com].
Re:FPGA? (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM software could use the FPGA in conjunction with the TCPA chip for access control. However, the TCPA chip has much less nefarious uses as well, such as hardware encryption/decryption and secure key storage to name a couple. If a newer, better encryption algorithm comes along, it could be implemented in the FPGA, making this platform extremely future-proof.
I wish IBM the best in this. It sounds like a truly marvelous platform.
big corporation loses plot again (Score:3, Interesting)
IMO these two features are indispensable for the serious PDA user. Bluetooth so I can access the internet one-handed with my cellphone sitting inconspicuously on my hip, CompactFlash slot which holds a 1GB Microdrive with my entire CD collection ripped to MP3.
The new IBM design supports "SD", i.e. "Secure Digital". What fricking use is a big storage device if you can't store your MP3's on it?
Bluetooth needs to be built in rather than provided by a card because then you get in situations like wanting to download this large file straight onto the drive but you can't have both the Bluetooth device and the storage card fitted at the same time.
The Sharp Zaurus C700 would be interesting, if only it had built-in Bluetooth. But IBM's new design is underspecified and just too dull for words.
Re:lower power consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
All in all a much better solution than the 'if I am unpluged then drop to half performance' routine uses by the non-mobile version of the P4 that is used in high performance PC laptops.
Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus (Score:3, Interesting)
First and foremost, the Zaurus uses a non-standard connector.
As opposed to your palm which had a standard DB9 and USB connector taking up a huge amount of space at the bottom? I'd much rather have the zaurus be the size it is and pay for a cable then make it huge by adding standard sized connectors. I do wish the connector on the bottom wasn't as super-rare and it is, but is necessary to use small connectors if you want a small device. I wouldn't mind a USB host controller, but I don't think I would have wanted to pay more for it. I bet it would have cost significantly more too. Adding a USB host isn't simply a matter of adding a bigger battery. They also would have had to beef up the step-up circuitry the brings the battery voltage up a a higher voltage. To be a standard USB host the device must be able to source 5V 500mA (minimum). That's 2.5 watts. Flip over your Zaurus and read the wattage: 2.5W (Battery). They would have needed to double the power supply!
Or, I can get an IRDA keyboard. Which practically doesn't exist.
Read here [zaurus.com] for info about getting a folding IRDA keyboard for a good price. (It's not quite ready yet, but it should be within a couple weeks.)
Finally, the Zaurus' handwriting recognition stinks.
It's handwriting recognition is just not that great until either:
(a) You learn the default way to make all the characters.
or
(b) You teach it your handwriting.
You took the time to learn graffiti, so it's not fair to make a comparison if you're not willing to learn the Zaurus' input method. I personally almost always use the keyboard. I find single character handwriting recognition very inefficient becuase you always have to move backwards after each chacter entered.
Then, the Zaurus' use of an obscure ethernet-over-USB protocol gave me quite a headache.
This is a legitimite gripe, but it has supposedly been fixed on the sl-5600 model.
You did leave out one other problem though: the battery size. It's just too small. They gave the sl-5600 a much bigger battery but I don't think it will work with my 5500
TCPA/DRM makes all this irrelevant though. Given the choice between the possibility of undefeatable (basically) DRM and none, the choice seems pretty simple to me. Too bad they shot themselves in the foot like that, since having an FPGA to play with sounds cool.
Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
TCPA != DRM. Sure you can use TCPA for DRM, but you can also use it to turn your 802.11 enabled PDA into a secure, portable terminal.
This is exciting technology... (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple, are you listening?
Re:DOA (Score:3, Interesting)