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We had computers with limited graphics resources - so no games like the ones today. And most of all we had BASIC IN ROM !

If you want your kids to have a *fun* computer for playing with, and a built in programming language and editor - get a Psion handheld. Little keys are easy for kids. There are many, many sites on programming for it, it's easy to learn OPL, and you can quickly make genuinely useful apps.
You can pick up a 3a for less than $100, with all the accessories. Most Linux distro's include connectivity software. And if you get tired of a Psion5 - you can install Linux on it!
- Derwen

Two of the many projects can be found here and here.
However things have been moving more slowly with the new chips on the 5mx (see the mailing list).

You can of course connect your psion 3 or 5 to your Linux desktop, without supplanting your PDA's OS.
Derwen

Two of the many projects can be found here and here.
However things have been moving more slowly with the new chips on the 5mx (see the mailing list).

You can of course connect your psion 3 or 5 to your Linux desktop, without supplanting your PDA's OS.
Derwen

I don't know much about this stuff, but does anyone know how much it's like the PS7110? I only ask because of the Linux7k Project. Would this be helpful to them at all?

Chris the MathFreak

The Psion Series % has had linus running on it now for about 18 months. Pop over to Calcaria to see progress information, and some screenshots.

I've been using the Psion Series 5mx (and previously the 5) for several years now. It does everything I want in a Palmtop. Can run more "real" apps than the Palm, and does them better than the PocketPC. Why does this great tool go unnoticed?

Just to give a few software examples, it's got a fine word processor, spreadsheet and flat-file database. (A relational database is available aftermarket.) It comes with calendar, contacts, email, web browsing ... all the expected items from a "connected organizer" And it does synchronize with many desktop apps.

After the standard software, things get interesting. There's a large and dedicated bunch of people making amazing things for the Psion. I've got Doom (yes, you can get it for CE, too), a PDF viewer , and pretty much anything else you'd ever want. It's a real computer, with real applications for it. And the crowning glory is that the Psion has Perl. There is even a project to put Linux on the Psion, but the built in OS is really quite good.

On to hardware: The best thing about the Psion is its keyboard, a real one. I can even touch type on it. No chiclet keys these, but full-travel good feeling keys. Yes they're close together, yes you have to do a key combination to get slash, but I can type so much faster than I can graffiti, it's worth a few adjustments.

The 5mx is as speedy as I need, 36mHz ARM processor; 16 megs of RAM built in, with a slot for Compact Flash cards. And the screen ... well, it's big, and useful, 640x240. The 5mx is brighter than the 5, but they still could learn something about bright screens from Palm. Oh, 16 shades of gray, too, makes viewing images much nicer. Finally, battery life: I get a month out of 2 AA batteries: somewhere between 20 and 35 hours depending on how much I use the backlight.

As far as palmtops go, I've never seen one that does everything I need it to do, and does it the way I expect it to be done, as does the Psion Series 5mx. Psion also makes other palmtops, the more consumer oriented Revo, and the larger, color, Series 7, but I still think the Series 5 is the best of the bunch.

The URL is http://www.calcaria.net/. They've got the kernel working and basic apps, and touchscreen support, but it's still pretty worthless. No apps.

Make sure he checks out www.calcaria.net/ for the port to Psion 5mx hardware (ARM710) - Netbook is StrongARM, AFAIK.

Linux has a chance to take the Palm/PDA world by storm if we can only get our collective butts in gear!

The following projects are critical and need our support -

Microwindows/Nanogui

uLinux

LinuxCE

flash memory drivers

And the existing Linux7k project.

Let's get the ball rolling!

I've seen a few pretty bad stories posted on Slashdot befoer, but this is.. well.. embarrassing.

Before you even consider a port of Linux to another architecture, it might be good if you had a little look at the source, and did one or two web searches.

As for the story.. well it has been pointed out that there are already ports running.

Guess what a search on linux EPOC port on www.google.com turned up?

Calcaria Linux7k
...a project to port the unix-like operating system Linux to a small...
...running on the 5mx, but changes in the EPOC OS mean that our boot loader,...
www.calcaria.net/ Cached (5k) New! Try out GoogleScout

Calcaria Linux7k
...the Linux 7k project. A series of developers have set out to port...
...the EPOC operating system, since it will be replaced by Linux....
www.calcaria.net/engppro.html Cached (15k) New! Try out GoogleScout

As the first two results. Cliff, normally your stories are good. It would take two seconds. Enough said.

--Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com

I've seen a few pretty bad stories posted on Slashdot befoer, but this is.. well.. embarrassing.

Before you even consider a port of Linux to another architecture, it might be good if you had a little look at the source, and did one or two web searches.

As for the story.. well it has been pointed out that there are already ports running.

Guess what a search on linux EPOC port on www.google.com turned up?

Calcaria Linux7k
...a project to port the unix-like operating system Linux to a small...
...running on the 5mx, but changes in the EPOC OS mean that our boot loader,...
www.calcaria.net/ Cached (5k) New! Try out GoogleScout

Calcaria Linux7k
...the Linux 7k project. A series of developers have set out to port...
...the EPOC operating system, since it will be replaced by Linux....
www.calcaria.net/engppro.html Cached (15k) New! Try out GoogleScout

As the first two results. Cliff, normally your stories are good. It would take two seconds. Enough said.

--Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com

There is already one project with similar goals, which has been able to run Linux on a Psion Series 5, which is originally an EPOC (sp!) device. See Calcaria Linux 7k Project for more information.

A project that is worth pursuing without reinventing the wheel would be to fix the ARLO boot loader so that it works on the OS5 release of EPOC/32 used in the Series 5MX, Series 7, Revo, and NetBook computers. Because of substantial device driver changes in this release, ARLO doesn't work any more and some porting work is required.

The Calcaria Linux project already boots linux on the psion series 5. I'd have tested it, but I'm lazy. ;) Also, I can't quite understand the use of linux on this device. The Epoc32 operating system already interfaces with the touch screen, which Linux doesn't (yet.) Epoc32 has a lot of very useful apps built in, that the Linux command-line would have trouble replacing... and I hardly see the advantage of running Linux /and/ and X server on the palmtop, just to replace the word processor that Epoc already provided in the rom. The file management is well-enough thought out that you don't need to do anything through the command line (no, not that linux console is only command-line-based, but that midnight commander won't do a better job than epoc's file manager.)

The one advantage of Linux that I can see is the interfacing. if you were running linux on the palmtop and on the desktop, you could do nfs over the serial port for easy backups and access to data like that *snaps fingers*

In fact, that's the one thing I regret about the psion- it doesn't have any easy way to access the gigs of data I have on my hard drive. Granted, I've got desktop apps for that, but it'd be /kinda/ cool to have the interoperability in both directions :)

anyway, sorry for the rant...

The Linux7k Project is already working on a port to the Series 5. I've had Linux booting on my Psion before, but it's not very usable. They're after help on the Series 5mx if anyone's interested.

Linux was already ported to the Psion 5 :-)

See Calcaria Linux7k project.

Check it out at http://www.calcaria.net/ Linux looks pretty good on it. I am actually thinking of buying a Psion 5, but I can't find a supplier. :-(

I wonder if this will run Linux 7k or is there a strongARM port of linux yet - 100MHz off a palmtop in linux - love to see the compile times on that, actually, love to see X run off that!

ok linux gurus - how does this compare to the current state of the project to get linux working on a Psion 5 (http://www.calcaria.net/)? They've had a kernal running for a few months now. With the new Psion netBook (StrongArm 190Mhz, 64mb RAM, colour screen) due any day now, this may be the best bet for an instant-on, ultra-portable, long battery life linux protable.

ok linux gurus - how does this compare to the current state of the project to get linux working on a Psion 5 (http://www.calcaria.net/)? They've had a kernal running for a few months now. With the new Psion netBook (StrongArm 190Mhz, 64mb RAM, colour screen) due any day now, this may be the best bet for an instant-on, ultra-portable, long battery life linux system.

There are two X alternatives that I can think of besides the Berlin mentioned. One of them is The Y Window System, by the Hungry Programmers (specifically Christoph Toshok), which isn't very far along and as far as I can tell hasn't been worked on in a while (since about February 1998). It promotes the use of a single fixed depth, which I think is a bad idea. It does have some good ideas though, like a somewhat separate memory architecture. Download here.

The other one, NanoGUI, was originally developed by Alan Cox. It was designed with a lightweight memory footprint in mind. I'm not sure if it supports networked display, though, but I believe they're going to at least port VNC. It's being used on the new Linux7k project, which is attempting to create a usable Linux system for the Psion 5 series palmtop (it uses an ARM7 processor). It seems to be undergoing active development. Download here.

So I hope that's a good starting point.

Calcaria is a project to port Linux to Psion Series 5 and Geofox One palmtops. The thing is called Linux7k, check it out.

It seems to be well underway.

http://www.calcaria.net/

Well, maybe in a totally unrelated but still midly similar way, I remember checking out some information at http://www.calcaria.net/ about getting Linux to run on the Psion 5's. Sounds like the perfect solution to me - why develop sync utilities when you can just run your favorite Linux scheduling software on your palmtop? :) [Unless that software doesn't exist yet...] (And of course I know that the Linux7k kernel is far from being totally complete, and I'm sure most of your favorite console apps haven't been ported yet, but hey - That's why you hack away at code, right?)

--Chris

(I don't have the project website on me - anybody?)

The Linux 7K project is at:
http://www.calcaria.net

/Bergie

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It seems like the company that makes Psions is actually providing hardware information and helping to port Linux to these beasts.

Linux already runs on these machines.

Take a look here. They have screenshots of the machines running Linux, too.

Very very cool!

It seems like the company that makes Psions is actually providing hardware information and helping to port Linux to these beasts.

Linux already runs on these machines.

Take a look here. They have screenshots of the machines running Linux, too.

Very very cool!

If taking memos is too slow, perhaps you need to overclock your hand, or perhaps get something with a real keyboard.

There's also a Linux port underway. With a real keyboard and an 80 character screen this is a real hackers palmtop. Forget cheezy colour that will eat your batteries or wimpish pen based entry systems for people who can't type. You can get a flash disk up to about 100MB for your ext2fs and 8 MB RAM is available now, 16 and 24 soon. (Btw. I don't actually own one yet!)

If you want the mobile stuff wait for the next mobile phones with basically a built in Psion from Ericsson.

Try here.

Linux for CE? Pah.

Linux CL-PS7110!

:-)

I'm not trying to start an advocacy flamewar. Pilots are very good as PDAs if you only want diary, databases etc.
However, people willing to put up with something a bit larger should consider a Psion Series 5.
They've 8MB of memory, a Compact Flash slot (type I, up to about 80MB at the moment), come with a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, spell checker etc. and has the best keyboard of any PDA (as well as a touch-sensitive screen).
There's a useful Linux port underway (i.e. with memory management) http://www.calcaria.net/
But as I said, it's quite a bit bigger than a Pilot, and it's also a bit more expensive, so take your pick, people's needs differ. I like the Psion, but it can be awkward to carry around at times.