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?
lower power consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the most obvious one that comes to mind. That translates to longer battery life. If I had to pay a bit more money (and I'm not sure that your "more expensive" claim is true) in order to have more "on the go" time, it might be worth it.
Re:lower power consumption (Score:3, Informative)
The 405LP PR [ibm.com]
Re:lower power consumption (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? I would think that the most obvious answer is that PowerPC is an IBM product. If you're going to build a design spec, then you might as well make sure it lines your own pockets.
The fact that it has lower power consumption is a nice "public" explanation.
Re:lower power consumption (Score:4, Troll)
IBM: Reference design uses PPC
YOU: Pick one you like best. Weigh all factors, cost, features, speed, power consumption. There ARE differences.
More choice is always good.
Re:lower power consumption (Score:2)
At least it can run linux (not that I had the guts to try it yet).
Does anyone know if there is a working distro (and GCC) for the XScale IPAQs (3900 and newer)? Never heard about this XScale thing before, so I assume it is a new architechture. PPC seems fair game, since there is already GCC for it.
cheers
Re:lower power consumption (Score:3, Informative)
Re:lower power consumption (Score:2, Informative)
There is a working distro [handhelds.org] or two [handhelds.org] for the 3900 [handhelds.org] . The 1900 [handhelds.org] and 5400 [handhelds.org] use the same cpu but the onboard peripherals are different. No one has started the port for these 2 but it could potentially go quickly because a lot of the groundwork is done.
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:lower power consumption (Score:2, Informative)
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:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean an x86? They eat too much power to use portably.
There are a couple of low-power x86 compatibles - the Transmeta Crusoe and VIA Epic - but don't know if they're low power enough. Plus they're someone else's technology whereas PowerPC is IBM's own.
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:2)
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).
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank you for clarifying that -- I seemed to remember it from doing some MIPS assembly years ago, but I wasn't sure.
On the whole, though, it's more of an oddidity than a real annoyance -- one just has to write a "load immediate" macro, and away you go.
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:PowerPC Advantages? Power Consumption... (Score:5, Informative)
The first product to emerge from the Low-Power Computing Research Center is the low-power 405LP chip, which enables system software to control and reduce active power by dynamically scaling processor performance to the level required to support the application. Wherever possible, the 405LP offloads processor demands by use of hardware accelerators and aggressively shuts off portions of the device when not in use. Standby power is also reduced. The 405LP includes a mode in which power is reduced virtually to zero while still providing "instant-on" response to an external stimulus, such as a pen stylus on a touch screen.
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, anecdotal "PowerPC chips are more expensive" _may_ hold for the PC market, but remember that this is a radically different chip geared for a radically different market (the article mentions a top speed of ~380 MHz!). In reality, IBM has priced this particular chip very reasonably -- wholesale price $100. Those numbers ought to be available soon.
Development of this chip was on Linux right from the beginning, and people were using them around the lab as MP3 players throughout! A great platform for hacking around with.
PowerPC's major market is embedded devices (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:2)
Re:PowerPC Advantages? (Score:2)
Hopefully this will be as popular (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hopefully this will be as popular (Score:2)
Or maybe the HP iPAQ which was the banner ad I first saw when reading this article - ironic, I know.
I've literally got to ask! (Score:2, Funny)
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.
PowerPC 405LP has no FPU (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't This... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Isn't This... (Score:2, Funny)
Point taken . . .
Why would I buy this when I can buy a 100Ghz P4 for the same money?
--some a**hole
Re:Isn't This... (Score:2)
Price? (Score:2)
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:FPGA? (Score:3, Informative)
I learned a bit about these when I was in college...when set up right, they are much faster than microprocessors, and can be changed on-the-fly by writing new array logic to it.
Future DRM?
That would be the TCPA chip, my friend. Palladium anyone?
llamafresh
Re:FPGA? (Score:2)
Not true. They are MUCH MUCH MUCH slower than microprocessors. They are semi-custom, so they can do one task well, but for anything else they are dogs. They are used because they are CHEAP (both in hardware cost and development cose, not because they are fast).
Re:FPGA? (Score:2, Informative)
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...
Re:FPGA? (Score:2)
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.
The developer sled (Score:3, Insightful)
I am really looking forward to this unit, in part because of the developer sled. The ability to hack a handheld device is of utmost importance to me, as there are so many specialized uses for them. It is nice to see a unit with that sort of hacking convenience.
I also noticed that one of the host USB ports is disabled. Would that be for power saving, or is it a limitation of the chipset? If it's for power saving, would one be able to enable it when one has a use for it?
Re:The developer sled (Score:2)
Apple PDA (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Governments!! (Score:2)
Preference could also be replaced with reference.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
and now Apple is leading the pack with the Powerbooks. Now if only Steve Jobs would relent and give us an update to the Newton.
Re:crazy (Score:2)
Now thing of what that could do in an age with 512 Meg flash cards running pretty cheap and the general avalibility of wireless (Nextels flat rate service for 60 a month with good coverage per bit is a horid idea for a consumer great for providers though) Roll that up into something that dosent need to fit in my shirt pocket but pretty much needs a screen, a way to get a lot of memory into it, good rechargable battery life and a good OS (maybe Palm emulation if the hardware can deal and old school newton emu as well) I would pay 500 or so for this without the big memory card etc. If they can get it to sub 300 it makes mass market.
Think about it the ability to use Palm and Newton Apps + new apps for the platform. I dont realy need an orginizer I need a portable web browser / pdf reader / email / Terminal emu (OK I'm a network Engineer the serial port on my Newton keeps it in my tool box to this day along with an ugly 8pin to rj45 adapter dongel I made)
Re:crazy (Score:2, Insightful)
They aren't getting into the PDA market. This is a reference design that other OEMs will license so they can jump into the PDA market. I'm sure IBM will be happy to sell them parts too.
The more devices that run linux, the better the chances of linux continuing on in the future. I don't think the use of linux in small devices such as this or a Tivo hurt its chances of being used elsewhere, like, an IBM mainframe.
Re:crazy (Score:2)
He, he... this is amusingly wrong in several ways.
Re:crazy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an embedded version. It shares design elements with your G4 processor, but it's not nearly the same thing.
Nope, it was designed for Linus Torvald's desktop '386 - a machine that was considerably less powerful than this device. Since then a lot of work has gone into scaling it both up and down.
tablet/oqo (Score:2)
if ibm and apple can come up with some jointly utilized platforms, costs could be substantially reduced. as for linux and servers, doesn't everything become essentially a "server" when the network is the computer?
Re:crazy (Score:2)
My Tivo has a PowerPC CPU, and it hardly screams. Then again, it's only running at 50 MHz or so.
Most G4's these days are running at 800+ MHz, and the slowest ones to my recollection are maybe 400 MHz. This chip tops out around 380 MHz, and slows down to 152 MHz when necessary. That's far from "screaming." I don't even know if this 405LP has an FPU, though, since it's not a low-power G4 chip. It's probably closer to the early PowerMacs than the G3, and more crippled from there to save power.
Most CPU cores have low-power variants. Ask anyone with an HP 200LX, for example. As it stands, the PowerPC architecture can be very fast, but it can also be tuned down and still provide acceptable processing power in a handheld. You just have to determine what you need. It's not like people will be carrying around G4 handhelds too soon, although it's certainly possible in the future.
Re:crazy (Score:2)
Re:crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux is not specifically "architectured" for desktops or servers. If you strip away a lot of the modules, utilities and GUI fluff, it's a pretty small OS actually. Someone has a single floppy firewall distribution based on Linux. I mean, try getting Windows on a single floppy, not to mention Solaris, MacOS, etc.
Regarding why IBM would do this, I believe they're just poking Microsoft in the eye. IBM's always been the premier marketing organization despite their prodigious technical resources. So they spent a couple of million designing a "reference PDA"; that's a tiny drop in the bucket for them and it encourages lots of hungry manufacturers in Asia (and, one would like to hope, in the West as well) to jump on the Linux bandwagon and, hence, weaken PocketPC. Seems like a pretty smart and sane move to me.
Linux handhelds (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only the Sharp Zaurus, but the Agenda VR3, the iPAQ running any of two or three different distros, and there are most likely more that I'm not aware of.
The point is that Linux isn't only good for larger devices, but can be made small enough for PDA use. uCLinux is a good example of an attempt to make it even smaller and use microcontrollers (which have no MMU), making it possible (but absurd overkill) to use Linux in a home digital thermostat or camera, for example.
Here's the IBM press release (Score:4, Informative)
Intriguing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Power/Battery Life (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Power/Battery Life (Score:2, Informative)
According to this [ibm.com]
Re:Power/Battery Life (Score:2)
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:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM (Score:2)
Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM (Score:2)
Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM (Score:2)
IIRC, Palladium has this feature but TCPA does not.
TCPA security chip? (Score:2)
Eh, regardless somebody port Darwin to this |-)
developer sled (Score:3, Informative)
-----
Additionally, a plug-in "developer sled" adds the following options, for development and debug purposes . .
USB 1.1 host
10/100 Ethernet
Serial port
8- or 16-bit PCMCIA slot
JTAG debug port
Flash programming port -----
DOA (Score:4, Insightful)
Just look at the POP reference design [openppc.org] they made a few years back. Nobody I mean Nobody ever produced a single board. The fact that they used a virtual non existant Northbridge didn't help.
Nothing to see here Move On, or call IBM and try and get a quote for 500 pcs PowerPC if you doubt me.
Re:DOA (Score:3, Interesting)
Newton (Score:2)
I remember playing with Newton 5 years ago - it recognized my handwriting much better than any modern PDAs and you could teach it to recognize better.
Re:Newton (Score:2)
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...
Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus (Score:5, Insightful)
The Sharp Zaurus has several disadvantages that the IBM reference design appears to avoid.
First and foremost, the Zaurus uses a non-standard connector. I wasn't looking hard, but I doubt that I can buy the connector in a shop for electronics parts, and I consider that a major problem. It already was a problem for the Palm.
A simple serial or USB cable [serialio.com] costs a whopping 40 Dollars in the US and 50 Euros in Europe.
Then, the Zaurus features USB, but only as a device, not as a host. Oh, the thousands of possibilities that the Zaurus designers gave away with this design decision! If, oh, if only they had incluced full host support for USB! I for one would love to simply plug in a USB keyboard in my Zaurus and start typing. (I'm aware of the power consumption issues with USB host support. But that's a question of adding a battery, that's it.)
So, to use an external keyboard, I'd have to buy a 50 Euro serial cable and an expensive keyboard that uses RS232, which is also hard to find and hard to get from Europe.
Or, I can get an IRDA keyboard. Which practically doesn't exist. Well, there are two companies offering an IRDA keyboard, but one of them appears to be vaporware and the other one does not work well with the Zaurus.
Then, the Zaurus' use of an obscure ethernet-over-USB protocol gave me quite a headache. Both the Windows 98SE and the Linux desktop drivers used to crash frequently, with the Linux driver being close to unusable, at least on my machine. It seems to be working perfectly now with 2.4.20, but it was a royal pain with previous kernels. So to use my Zaurus, I had to install XP. Yay. Which still crashes now and then as a result of using the Zaurus cradle and sometimes hard-resets the desktop the moment I put the Zaurus in there.
Finally, the Zaurus' handwriting recognition stinks. I learned Graffiti in 15 minutes, I still haven't mastered the Zaurus input method for handwritten letters. In fact, I still keep my Palm for the "actual" calendar and address management and use the Zaurus mostly for games: The SCUMM virtual machine is my personal killer app. Right now, I'm playing Monkey Island 1 during the bus rides to my office and back.
The Zaurus was the first useful Linux PDA, but it has some serious design mistakes. The missing USB host is the main mistake in my opinion. Can't wait to see the IBM reference design catching market share.
Best part appears to be: Zaurus applications' source should be easily ported to the IBM platform. And the Zaurus collection of ported software is already impressive.
Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus (Score:2)
I own a Zaurus, and it does real handwriting recognition - not the pseudo one that is graffiti.
Why don't you take the time to teach it your writing style? If you love graffiti all that much, teaching the Zaurus to do graffiti is not at all difficult.
Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus (Score:2)
I also don't care about the handwriting recognition -- and too bad you learned Graffitti, 'cause it's gone from Palm as of a week or so ago.
I have never used a PIM, and don't use the Zaurus for that. Yesterday a relative of one of my employees asked if he should buy a Zaurus. Considering what he wanted it for (PIM stuff) I told him to get a PocketPC. He loves it.
But nothing competes with it as a WiFi-enabled vertical application unit. Nothing I've seen.
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:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus (Score:2)
You're talking about normal USB cables. The Zaurus doesn't use a normal USB connector, see the link in my post. That was one of the points I made in my original post.
FPGAs with PPC cores built in (Score:2)
So, 1 chip and you could have an SMP PDA - do all the interfacing logic as part of the FPGA core. I suspect that is what this device is.
(Granted, the cores aren't floating point cores, more like what the Series 1 TiVO has, but still....)
Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in (Score:2)
(Only joking. I am a Mac user.)
Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in (Score:2)
Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in (Score:2)
I suspect you're right about it being used as an I/O router.
Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in (Score:2)
Granted, the high-end Xilinx parts are expensive - but my point was that the core of this device is probably derived from the same technology.
And while the Virtex II parts may be US$3K today, they will fall, and they have plenty of oomph to do SMP designs.
Photos! (Score:3, Informative)
Photos here! [rit.edu]
Versatility (Score:2, Interesting)
Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD (Score:2, Informative)
CPLDs have a pretty firm definition of having several large blocks, holding many macrocells, with feedback to a global (and often also local) switch matrix.
FPGAs don't have a firm definition, but Xilinx ones use SRAM based LUTs connected in a grid pattern with manhatten routing. Most of Altera's FPGAs have a more CPLD bent, while Actel uses antifuse and flash technology with more of a "sea of gates" look to the developer.
Similar announcement on the same site (Score:3, Interesting)
Motorola/Metrowerks unveils Linux-based PDA reference design [linuxdevices.com].
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:big corporation loses plot again (Score:2)
yet, somehow, you managed to spew some.
Yes, If it is not exactly what YOU want, nobody else could possible use it.
Re:big corporation loses plot again (Score:3, Informative)
You need to look up what Secure Digital cards really are before assuming that they're automatically a DRM thing. Secure Digital [sdcard.org] is a card format that has the ability of doing DRM, but not required. It's a follow on to the MMC cards. Happens to be the same card as the Palm units. See SanDisk for more info. [sandisk.com]
I have Bonzai USB Mini-Drive [simpletech.com] that uses SD cards and I am not restricted in what I can cart on it. Works great as a bit-bucket to carry stuff around and I'm not stuck at a fixed capacity like the more popular Disk-On-Key Flash memory USB things.
Also, don't forget that this is a reference design. If an OEM wants to built in CF or Bluetooth, there is nothing stopping them except for some engineering.
stereo? gimme a break! (Score:2)
too many shortcomings (Score:2)
320x240 screen: Sony clie has 320x320 screen for a long time and new ones have 320x480 screen.
slow processor: current generation of PocketPC processors run upto 400 MHz, which is faster than proposed IBM processor.
power supply: no word on power supply
Bluetooth: why not 802.11b?
no hard drive: Shouldn't the futuristic PDA have a hard drive? I know HDs are not as reliable, but they can be used for less essential stuff like photos, videos, songs etc
USB 1.1: Shouldn't we have USB 2.0 or Firewire?
AC Power in: do you really want to input 110/220 V to this device?
No keyboard, No camera: Sony Clie users would surely miss them.
MS Office docs support: Not really relevent to slashdotters, but many would need them. Even Palm OS based devices have support for them
nothing new: there is nothing new compare to Zaurus, PocketPC, Sony Clie etc.
What? (Score:2)
Theres nothing there which isnt present in PDAs in the shops today. ARM is a much more sensible platform for battery life etc. Only Sharp have seriously tried to use Linux as a PDA platform, no one else is going to pick this up cos Wince doesnt run on it and theres no apps.
Sound like a dubious research project they've thrown a bit of money at in the hope of making some extra out of powerpc. (Shrug)
That is unless Apple picks it up and makes a PDA (cough)
QTopia/Zaurus compatibility? (Score:5, Informative)
It looks to me from the pictures as it the machines is running Trolltech's QTopia [trolltech.com] palmtop environment, just like the Sharp Zaurus [zaurus.com]. This is good from at least two points of view. Firstly it means it's easy to port the existing software [killefiz.de] for the Zaurus, and relatively easy to port KDE [kde.org] and other Qt based apps; and secondly because it means that people producing software for Linux palmtop devices get a wider market with a consistent UI look-and-feel.
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 + PDA == ? (Score:2)
Not that it means much, but yes they did [appleturns.com], two months ago. But don't forget Inkwell [apple.com]...
Re:PowerPC + PDA == ? (Score:2)
Yes, Steve Jobs said smartphones like the P800 are the future of PDAs and that other companies are doing a great job on them, so Apple probably won't make their own.
Re:TCPA + Linux? (Score:2)
Try getting a clue before posting, wait no, then no-one would post
Re:TCPA + Linux? (Score:2)
Yes there are a great many things that can be done with it, however, business will use what ever means they can get away with to control consumers.
Carrot007, Licensed to ?
Re:FPGA? (Score:3, Insightful)