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ricembr noted that compaq has finally provided a FAQ to the world to ask that long standing question where is the any key? Pray that this was added to the FAQ as a joke, and not in response to legitimate need ;)

arashiakari asks: "I have to buy a new laptop soon and I am having trouble settling on a brand or model except one that I cannot use. Apple's iBook laptop is beautiful, functional, lightweight, and made of high quality materials. I would buy one today except that I am a professional programmer and MUST use the same platform my compiler targets: Intel. So far each Intel-based laptop I have looked at is both grossly over-decorated (Compaq, Toshiba) and made of cheap flimsy materials (Dell), or has the combined problem of being overpriced and under-powered - with external bays for everything (Sony). IBM is expensive, but they are as close as I've found to "right" ... with Toshiba in second place. It seems like Intel-based laptops are either hot ugly tanks or oversized PDAs, there seems to be a scarcity of balanced well-thought-out and produced machines. Does the Slashdot have any suggestions?"

vaxzilla writes "At 3:31pm EST on Friday, January 31st, 2003, OpenVMS for the Intel IA64 architecture successfully booted and ran a DIR command. The Intel Itanium family of processors is the third architecture supported by OpenVMS in its 25 year history. Originally it ran on Digital Equipment Corporation VAX systems; in the early 1990s, support was added for the DEC Alpha processors. Following the acquisition of DEC by Compaq, and more recently Compaq by HP, the Itanium and Itanium2 port of OpenVMS is now being undertaken by HP. Congratulations on a job well done to the folks at ZK03 in Nashua, NH!"

vaxzilla writes "At 3:31pm EST on Friday, January 31st, 2003, OpenVMS for the Intel IA64 architecture successfully booted and ran a DIR command. The Intel Itanium family of processors is the third architecture supported by OpenVMS in its 25 year history. Originally it ran on Digital Equipment Corporation VAX systems; in the early 1990s, support was added for the DEC Alpha processors. Following the acquisition of DEC by Compaq, and more recently Compaq by HP, the Itanium and Itanium2 port of OpenVMS is now being undertaken by HP. Congratulations on a job well done to the folks at ZK03 in Nashua, NH!"

scaramush writes: "After initially pulling it from the market, Compaq has re-released the iPaq Music Center, complete with a $600 price drop (was $999, now $399). The size of a 17" standard component, the music center features a 20 gig HD, or as the copy breathlessly enthuses, "Enough capacity for nearly 400 audio CDs or 5,000 individual songs". Slashdot has covered similar devices like the Rio Central, which (at the moment) costs $1500. Will this price point be enough to lure users?" The site doesn't mention whether there will be any onerous playback-restriction technology included as a free bonus.

An anonymous reader writes "Extremetech has an article about how H P has decided to use the spraying tech developed for inkjet printers to cool chips -- and has made a robot that'll wander around data centers, detecting too-hot chips and hosing them down." The article notes that the robot needed about 1 hour of training on the room before it would go about the business of chip cooling. The real advance would be if it achieved sentience and went crazy and became a graffiti taggin' super robot, but I digress.

Several readers wrote to note the fact that HP has evidently threatened to use the DMCA and computer crime laws against SnoSoft who have found a security flaw in Tru64. The quote from the HP VP is that the accused "could be fined up to $500,000 and imprisoned for up to five years."

joel_archer writes "According to this Yahoo! article, Red Hat will begin selling an Itanium version of its Advanced Server Linux in partnership with HP. This is one of partnerships currently underway between these two companies. HP is a key partner for anything Itanium-related, the company invented the design underlying Itanium before handing it off to Intel to develop and manufacture. Bolstering that effort, Red Hat and HP have signed a deal under which Advanced Server will be certified on and available with all of HP's Intel-based ProLiant servers--not just Itanium systems, but also lower-end Xeon and Pentium versions and superthin 'blade' systems."

RoosterT writes: "QNX released its new IDE, called Momentics, for the QNX Neutrino RTOS today. Why is this significant? It is the first commercial product based on the Eclipse platform. The new version of the OS and a 'Standard' version of the IDE are both available here. There is also a nifty reference platform for hacking QNX onto an iPAQ."

ewhac writes "David W. Packard, son of HP's co-founder of the same name, obviously has some strong feelings on the merger between HP and Compaq. Today he shared those feelings on a poster put up in the lobby at the Stanford Theatre. The text of his message appears below. David W. Packard is president of The Stanford Theatre Foundation, a non-profit organization formed in the 1980's to save the classic Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA, from destruction. He is also the son of HP co-founder David Packard, and has been very close to the company and The HP Way."

ewhac continues: "Today, he shared his thoughts on the merger in the form of a poster placed in the Stanford Theatre lobby:

Hewlett Packard
1938 -- 2002
R.I.P.

The Stanford Theatre still exists today only because of the employees of the Hewlett Packard Company. Without their achievements over the years, there would have been no foundation to purchase and restore this theatre.

Palo Alto might have had one more book store, or perhaps another restaurant. Architects had plans ready for a new "Casablanca Cafe" at this location when the Packard Foundation rescued the theater in 1987.

The Hewlett Packard Company was founded in 1938 in a garage on Addison Street only a few blocks from where you are now standing. Back then, the Stanford Theatre was showing brand new movies. In 1938 you could have seen Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby and Holiday . You could have seen Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood . You could have seen Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and Tyrone Power in Alexander's Ragtime Band . You could have seen Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur in Frank Capra's You Can't Take It With You . You still can see these same movies at the Stanford Theatre. Our audiences know that they are truly timeless.

The HP Way also touched many people's lives. Most of us expected that it would last forever -- that it would prove as timeless as a Frank Capra movie. But those entrusted with the duty to safeguard it have exercised their legal right to make another choice. Dura lex, sed lex. The law is harsh, but it is the law.

HP employees are now on a new ship, being taken on a new voyage. The company has even changed its stock symbol to HPQ to stress that the "old" HP is gone. For the sake of the surviving employees, of course I hope for a good outcome. But it is hard to imagine that their leaders can invent something better than what they left behind.

David W. Packard
The Stanford Theatre Foundation.

"The San Jose Mercury News also has a short article about Packard's message.

"Editorial Content: HP's road to the merger has been the subject of much lunchtime controversy out here. As one of the "founders" of Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard has for decades been a highly respected institution who earned their reputation through solid engineering and research, and by creating a legendary workplace envied the world over.

"Especially in the Valley, people within and without HP came to feel as David Packard did; that The HP Way would survive management fads and fickle stockholders, and serve as a lasting example of How To Do It Right. But HP's current management has won the right to move onward; to where, no one is sure.

"Though the company is still there, the HP mythos and The HP Way seem to be gone. All anyone can do now is watch and see what happens next."

Mikelgan writes: "Interex (the global HP user's group) is reporting that HP CEO Carly Fiorina told USA Today that HP may get out of the PC business altogether if the merger with Compaq fails. Here's the story."

An Anonymous Coward asks: "I have been searching for a thin client that accesses both Linux and Microsoft systems and am dismayed to find that most thin clients only support MS RDP or Citrix ICA. Yes, I know that any old PC can be made into a 'thin client' and that X-stations have existed for many years for Unix based systems, but I will be buying new hardware for a new office that needs mainly MS connectivity. Since I am also including a Linux server or two on the network and think that Linux has a chance on the desktop, I would like to purchase thin-clients that can connect to both instead of being locked in by design from the start. This way, I can eventually move users onto Linux desktops in the future without replacing anything on the desktop." How hard would it really be to add on X11 functionality to an existing Windows thin client? While the realities of the current market makes finding such products unlikely, maybe if we can drum up the interest now there may be hope to see something like this in the future.

"I have a chance to buy top of the line hardware for this project and am looking for something that has a small footprint, no moving parts, ICA client or MS RDP, Linux connectivity (embedded X server?), a real manufacturer and a nice design that would not look out of place in a brand new, designer furnished office.

The Compaq Evo T20 serves my current needs perfectly, except that it forever locks me into Windows on the desktop, Does anybody have alternatives they can suggest?"

alen asks: "The recent IIS security incidents got me thinking. Code Red and Nimda hit servers that weren't patched by their sys admins. If you get infected, you patch your server and end of story. But what if you're running Windows 2000 Datacenter Server? It's a customized solution that you can't change. All your service packs are customized by your vendor. What happens if you have a web or database server that needs to be patched immediately? Are you left out in the cold running unsecure software that you can't patch while you wait in line for your vendor to issue you a service pack or hotfix?" In a situation like this, the whole ball-o-wax resides with the vendor. If you have a good vendor who actually cares about customer satisfaction, these hotfixes will be available quickly. Would anyone out there actually recommend Datacenter for corporate environments?

"My company is currently looking to cluster our SQL 7 servers. We're considering Win2000 advanced server or datacenter. Around a month ago I sat in a meeting with our VP of IT, and the rest of the network admins I work with. Compaq tried to pitch their Windows 2000 Datacenter or Advanced Server solution. Here is the way the compaq people explained it:

You get datacenter only from an OEM. They look at the apps you're running and customize a solution for you in their lab. Every datacenter implementation is different, and every datacenter CD is different. Since we would be using an EMC SAN as our clustered storage system they said our implementation would take special customization. They would have to contact EMC engineers and work together. Once you deploy it, the OEM monitors it. And you can't install any service packs or anything without getting an OK from your OEM. Any service packs are customized for your enviroment. The SLA guarantees a 99.999% uptime or your money back. Part of your money at least. Datacenter isn't an OS, but a program in their words.

Now here is the problem. With Code Red and Nimda, how do you patch IIS running on datacenter in a timely manner? The reason IIS servers became infected was because the admins didn't patch them in the first place. So say a new worm comes out in a few months and it takes a few days for MS to create a hotfix. Datacenter admins can't install it until they get their customized copy from their OEM. And almost every 2000 server runs IIS for terminal server. It can take a few days and in the meantime your servers could be down. And I don't see the SLA covering a situation like this. Meanwhile you're explaining to your CEO how this $500K supposedly guaranteed solution is sitting dead in the water and you can't do a thing about.

Is there something I'm missing, or did Microsoft look over something like this? Especially when they are trying to push Datacenter as 'Big Iron'."

rotifer writes: "Compaq is recalling 1.4 million power adapters as fire hazards. I have one of these sitting on my living room floor right now. Compaq says in their FAQ on the subject "Compaq urges customers to discontinue use of the recalled AC adapter and to order a replacement adapter immediately." and that "We expect customers to receive their adapters within 5-10 days". Which means, of course, 5-10 days of not being able to use the computer. Has anyone had one of these things blow up on them? How dangerous is it to keep using it while waiting for the replacement part?" Only you can prevent notebook fires.

Russ Nelson writes "If you weren't lucky enough to be at OSCon to see Jim Gettys' unobtainium, or my Linux iPAQ playing MP3's off Chris DiBona's gigabyte Microdrive (I downloaded madplay from the Familiar unstable feed with my 802.11 card, removed that, and inserted Chris's microdrive and it all Just Worked®), then at least you can test drive a Linux iPAQ via Compaq's Test Drive program. They have a webcam pointing at the screen." Having seen the device in real life - this thing rocks. Compaq: Please bring it into production, say, next week? *grin*

Russ Nelson writes "If you weren't lucky enough to be at OSCon to see Jim Gettys' unobtainium, or my Linux iPAQ playing MP3's off Chris DiBona's gigabyte Microdrive (I downloaded madplay from the Familiar unstable feed with my 802.11 card, removed that, and inserted Chris's microdrive and it all Just Worked®), then at least you can test drive a Linux iPAQ via Compaq's Test Drive program. They have a webcam pointing at the screen." Having seen the device in real life - this thing rocks. Compaq: Please bring it into production, say, next week? *grin*

A number of people have been writing about Compaq selling off the Alpha processor, with some coverage from different media sources. The Inquirer cites Intel as the likely buyer, which seems odd to me considering their aversion to antitrust lawsuits. Maybe AMD? Who knows - it's too bad that the Alpha technology has never realized the same commercial success as it has technologically.

stereoroid writes "LinuxGram is reporting that Compaq has nearly completed the Solaris Threading Library (STL), a set of tools that help Solaris developers port their applications to Linux (White Paper here). I suppose that when it's ready, it'll appear on opensource.compaq.com alongside the Linux PPTP drivers and the "Single System Image" Linux Clustering system they've been working on.

stereoroid writes "LinuxGram is reporting that Compaq has nearly completed the Solaris Threading Library (STL), a set of tools that help Solaris developers port their applications to Linux (White Paper here). I suppose that when it's ready, it'll appear on opensource.compaq.com alongside the Linux PPTP drivers and the "Single System Image" Linux Clustering system they've been working on.

stereoroid writes "LinuxGram is reporting that Compaq has nearly completed the Solaris Threading Library (STL), a set of tools that help Solaris developers port their applications to Linux (White Paper here). I suppose that when it's ready, it'll appear on opensource.compaq.com alongside the Linux PPTP drivers and the "Single System Image" Linux Clustering system they've been working on.

infodragon writes "Linux Power has a really good interview with Jim Gettys, one of the origional X developers and now actively involved with GNOME." He's also done much work with the handheld iPaq.

g8oz writes "Compaq is trying to 'visioneer' its way to the future. Cringe-worthy buzzword, yes, but check out how they've combined the notebook/desktop computer into one. Lick your lips here." Some of the ultra-thin laptop designs look interesting to me, but as to the others, there's no accounting for taste, I guess;)

Slashing back tonight are bits and pieces on optical transistors; a genuine linux toaster; words from Nintendo's president on the real status of the Gamecube; and another potentially nice push in the world of digital archives. Please enjoy.

Larry Ellison, watch your back. meforpc writes: "More on LTSP (Linux terminal server project): Riverdale (www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux) decided to make a 'poster child' to get the word out on their project; to do this Bryan Grimshaw made a Linux machine inside of a toaster oven. The idea behind the toaster is to show the ease of setting up a Linux terminal/server network. It's really cool and looks great. (I want one)."

"Oooh, that's one hot system! If you sell it, I hope the buyer doesn't get burned. Might this sort of thing have a Dark Side? Nice rack -- Smmmmmokin'!" Sigh. I've stopped now. The worst pun you can come up with will be rewarded with an official Slashdot groan of derision :)

Soon all will be optical. BdosError writes: "Scientists in Japan seem to have developed an optical transistor, as explained in this article, which I snipped from the Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter. This could go nicely with the optical switching technology mentioned earlier, as it would eliminate the need to convert the electrical signals to/from optical. Plus, it would be a huge benefit for building fast systems which generate less heat in general.

Let's have no comments about the possibilities for a Beowulf cluster."

Well ... no more comments. But actually, why not? This sounds like a good thing for clustered research computers, no?

Of course, we'll see what hits shelves ... TheZalm writes: "The article about Gamecube being in danger is a misrepresentation of the facts. Hiroshi Yamauchi said only that he would reconsider his launch plan, and possibly place a small delay on the launch. See this article at IGN."

Of course, that's what Sega repeatedly said about the Dreamcast, too. The gamecube sounds cool, so I hope it arrives, but it's obviously coming into a hotly contested market.

Commemorating the banal and the momentous. fizban writes: "According to this AP news story, CNN plans to spend the next few years digitizing its entire video archive and making it available to the public over the internet. Excellent! Just think of the multimedia reports the kids of tomorrow will be able to make for their class projects..."

The article skirts the issue of licensing and payment; hopefully CNN will see fit to make at least some of its content free, but I'd be surprised it that's more than a sampling.

The progress may be mind-numbingly slow, but thanks to things like Project Gutenberg, ibiblio and the Internet Moving Image Archive, more and more free content is arriving for us to read, watch and use. ("And, he groused, "it would be nice if all images made with our tax dollars would be available online as well.")

jaredcat writes: "The until-recently rumored new 64MB IPAQ handheld with improved expansion-card capabilities finally went on sale today at Compaq Direct for $649. Seeing as the lesser 3650 model can't currently be found on the street for love or money (I've seen it listed as high as $1000), I'm grabbing my 3670 while I still can." For some reason, I can't find the higher-end one on the site -- am I alone? With 64MB, this beats all but my most recent computer. Pop in my Merlin wireless card, and I can roam the city talking to myself all day? Excellent.

Updates and revisions for you on various and sundry stories you've seen here recently, from Parrot to Linux on handhelds to the recent judgement against MP3.com and more. Read on below to find them.

At least the jurors don't get to set the value of Pi. openbear writes: "According to a story at c|net the jurors meant for MP3.com to pay $3 million and not $300,000 in the court decision made last week. This may sound bad for MP3.com, but considering that TVT was originally going for $8.5 million I suppose that $3 million still looks like a good ruling. Espically since they have $42.9 million set aside for damage awards in pending suits."

(Here are some other articles about MP3.com as well.)

Parroting the (ORA, ActiveState, etc.) company line: rjoseph writes: "Perl.com's managing editor Simon Cozens has written a quick article on O'Reilly.com that explains the April Fools joke of the faked colaboration between Perl and Python to produce Parrot. He explains how the most interesting aspect about the whole affair is the fact that, to pull it off succesfully, the Perl and Python communities had to work together more than they had in a long time!"

Humor may suffer from analysis, but this is a cool explanation of what it took to pull off what turned out to be probably the most convincing Fool of the year, at least for those in the very small Venn diagram with the background and motivation to care about open-source programming languages and their creators;) Of course, now no one will believe it when the two do actually merge. (For a while I thought that the talk of "Python 3000" was a joke, too.)

Small steps on tiny machines n7lyg writes: "IEEE Computer has an article this month about a prototype PDA developed at Compaq's Western Research Labs: Itsy: Stretching the Bounds of Mobile Computing. Itsy has been through two implementations and has several unique features, including using MEMS accelerometers to implement a gesture interface (Rock'n'Scroll). This is all just research, but it does show promise for Linux-based PDA's. Itsy runs the X Window System and Qt Palmtop. The WRL website for Itsy is here."

This is really cool background material; now the earlier Itsy work has led to Linux on the iPAQ, I wish Compaq would actually sell a PDA with the size and shape of the Itsy itself. And tiny accelerometers for gesture-control would be welcome on my visor as well, and surely for small video game systems.

Big Blue, Big Blue, your transmission is fading, please say again, over. An Onymous Coward writes: "This sucks. At LWCE there was a big display at the KDE booth using ViaVoice to control KDE apps through Qt. Now it looks like the project is dead in the water, according to this article at Newsforge -- maybe lack of interest from IBM?"

What with the billion dollars that IBM has pledged to spend on Linux-related projects, and the fact that ViaVoice has shipped for a while with the high-end boxed version of Mandrake, hopefully this is just an oversight. ViaVoice is a cool technology -- but if things don't work out between Qt and IBM, perhaps KDE (and GNOME, and others, level playing field here!) can work on integration with Sphinx. An Apache-style license should be all-around friendly, right?

Updates and revisions for you on various and sundry stories you've seen here recently, from Parrot to Linux on handhelds to the recent judgement against MP3.com and more. Read on below to find them.

At least the jurors don't get to set the value of Pi. openbear writes: "According to a story at c|net the jurors meant for MP3.com to pay $3 million and not $300,000 in the court decision made last week. This may sound bad for MP3.com, but considering that TVT was originally going for $8.5 million I suppose that $3 million still looks like a good ruling. Espically since they have $42.9 million set aside for damage awards in pending suits."

(Here are some other articles about MP3.com as well.)

Parroting the (ORA, ActiveState, etc.) company line: rjoseph writes: "Perl.com's managing editor Simon Cozens has written a quick article on O'Reilly.com that explains the April Fools joke of the faked colaboration between Perl and Python to produce Parrot. He explains how the most interesting aspect about the whole affair is the fact that, to pull it off succesfully, the Perl and Python communities had to work together more than they had in a long time!"

Humor may suffer from analysis, but this is a cool explanation of what it took to pull off what turned out to be probably the most convincing Fool of the year, at least for those in the very small Venn diagram with the background and motivation to care about open-source programming languages and their creators;) Of course, now no one will believe it when the two do actually merge. (For a while I thought that the talk of "Python 3000" was a joke, too.)

Small steps on tiny machines n7lyg writes: "IEEE Computer has an article this month about a prototype PDA developed at Compaq's Western Research Labs: Itsy: Stretching the Bounds of Mobile Computing. Itsy has been through two implementations and has several unique features, including using MEMS accelerometers to implement a gesture interface (Rock'n'Scroll). This is all just research, but it does show promise for Linux-based PDA's. Itsy runs the X Window System and Qt Palmtop. The WRL website for Itsy is here."

This is really cool background material; now the earlier Itsy work has led to Linux on the iPAQ, I wish Compaq would actually sell a PDA with the size and shape of the Itsy itself. And tiny accelerometers for gesture-control would be welcome on my visor as well, and surely for small video game systems.

Big Blue, Big Blue, your transmission is fading, please say again, over. An Onymous Coward writes: "This sucks. At LWCE there was a big display at the KDE booth using ViaVoice to control KDE apps through Qt. Now it looks like the project is dead in the water, according to this article at Newsforge -- maybe lack of interest from IBM?"

What with the billion dollars that IBM has pledged to spend on Linux-related projects, and the fact that ViaVoice has shipped for a while with the high-end boxed version of Mandrake, hopefully this is just an oversight. ViaVoice is a cool technology -- but if things don't work out between Qt and IBM, perhaps KDE (and GNOME, and others, level playing field here!) can work on integration with Sphinx. An Apache-style license should be all-around friendly, right?

sparcv9 writes "The NetBSD Team announced today the offical start of the NetBSD/hpcarm port of their multi-platform OS. This port runs on StrongARM-based handheld PCs. So far, the HP Jornada 720 and the Compaq iPAQ H3600 are supported. With this port hot on the heels of the SH3/4-based hpcsh port and last year's MIPS-based hpcmips port, it looks like NetBSD could give Linux a run for its money in the handheld arena."

Veidit writes: "The Compaq Cambridge Research Laboratory seems to have a cool project named "Mercury". They are integrating an IPAQ running Linux with many diffrent types of wireless alternatives like 802.11b, Bluetooth, GSM, CDMA via PCMCIA. The linux version seems to be the one that Handhelds.org has. " We also had an e-mail from Dan Sparks who writes: " The free Compaq TestDrive Program has added two new features allowing iPAQ handheld development online. In the Test Drive Program, we have four DEC Sharks (DNARD) SA-110 based network computers running Linux allowing development on Linux based StrongArm systems. In addition, Alpha2Arm cross-compiler tool chain has been added to every single one of our Alpha Linux machines, including our Brickwall Beowulf cluster. This means that you can compile programs for your iPAQ handheld on our blazingly fast Alpha computers. The Toolchain includes support for C and C++, and is available on all the Alpha-based Linux distributions we have, including RedHat Linux, SuSE Linux, TurboLinux, Kondara Linux, and Debian GNU/Linux."

Veidit writes: "The Compaq Cambridge Research Laboratory seems to have a cool project named "Mercury". They are integrating an IPAQ running Linux with many diffrent types of wireless alternatives like 802.11b, Bluetooth, GSM, CDMA via PCMCIA. The linux version seems to be the one that Handhelds.org has. " We also had an e-mail from Dan Sparks who writes: " The free Compaq TestDrive Program has added two new features allowing iPAQ handheld development online. In the Test Drive Program, we have four DEC Sharks (DNARD) SA-110 based network computers running Linux allowing development on Linux based StrongArm systems. In addition, Alpha2Arm cross-compiler tool chain has been added to every single one of our Alpha Linux machines, including our Brickwall Beowulf cluster. This means that you can compile programs for your iPAQ handheld on our blazingly fast Alpha computers. The Toolchain includes support for C and C++, and is available on all the Alpha-based Linux distributions we have, including RedHat Linux, SuSE Linux, TurboLinux, Kondara Linux, and Debian GNU/Linux."

sumdumgai noted that Compaq is now selling preconfigured Linux Clusters if you happen to have any weather patterns sitting around needing to be analyzed or something. But this is a pretty substantial bit of heft behind Linux as a valid Clustering platform, as well as an easier way to get one.

Fact-o-matic writes: " Compaq, government weapons facility Sandia National Laboratories and genetics researcher Celera Genomics are teaming up to build a petaflop computer -- one that will process 1,000 trillion operations per second. To listen to an audio playback of today's press conference announcing the project, Celera has set up a phone-in recording: call (800) 642-1687, and enter the conference ID: 818790 You can read the joint press release or the Compaq press release"

Fact-o-matic writes: " Compaq, government weapons facility Sandia National Laboratories and genetics researcher Celera Genomics are teaming up to build a petaflop computer -- one that will process 1,000 trillion operations per second. To listen to an audio playback of today's press conference announcing the project, Celera has set up a phone-in recording: call (800) 642-1687, and enter the conference ID: 818790 You can read the joint press release or the Compaq press release"

If the iPAQ looks nice, the Yopy looks sexy, the Agenda intrigues you, and a V-Tech Helio running Pocket Linux looks interesting to you ... then you may enjoy this sweep of the available Palmtop GUIs with an emphasis on Free ones, written by reader 1010011010.

There are several Linux-based palmtop OSes emerging, and I would like to know what people are expecting from a non-WinCE, non-PalmOS handheld. I have put together minature reviews of three current offerings that I was able to test on my iPaq for comparison.

The TrollTech Qt Palmtop Environment

QPE was demoed recetly at Comdex, and in my opinion is the best-looking hand-held Open Source OS so far, even though it is merely a demo of Embedded QT and has not been released as a product. On the iPaq; instead, it installs a new /usr filesystem on top of handhelds.org linux distro.

I think there are a number of advantages to using Embedded QT rather than an X windows + toolkit solution. One, it does not use X, but writes directly to the frame buffer instead, which makes it lighter than X-based solutions, and provides the capability to do things X cannot -- like anti-aliasing and alpha compositing. [Ed. Note: See also recent Slashdot stories on just such developments.]Another nice (future) feature might be cleartype-rendering for the final output, to improve sharpness for all display elements (not just text). The X Window system's most useful feature is remote display. QPE also includes support for remote display -- it can draw to a VNC framebuffer as well as the Linux framebuffer.

Another advantage to QPE is that it uses the popular QT toolkit, making porting applications from KDE relatively easy, and easing cross-platform development (QT also runs on Windows and other non-unix OSes). Addtionally, QT and QPE are both very space-efficient, all handheld-type applications included. The libraries, framebuffer driver, etc. fit into a 3.7MB .tgz file for the iPaq (mirror). If anyone knows of an Embedded GTK project, please post a link below.

One of the most compelling features of QPE is the variety of input methods it allows. It includes five input methods: pickboard, handwriting, keyboard, opti (modified keyboard), and unicode (apparently understands Cherokee out of the box). Every method includes -- this is the really cool part -- dictionary look-ahead. If you type out part of a word, a ticker presents a list of likely candidates. You simply tap on one to erase the partial you already typed and insert the entire word in its place. This is, I think, its best feature, and one that other environments would do well to copy. it also includes support for "right-clicking" -- tap and hold -- to bring up context menus, set flags in minesweeper, etc.

And though perhaps unpolished, QPE is anything but incomplete: it includes 14 applications -- address book, games, etc. -- plus several applets (like a slider to set backlight brightness and a load monitor) and some silly stuff, like a Tux plush-doll simulator (a shaped window with Tux in it). It also includes an HTML-based help browser. And, of course, it's both Open Source and Free Software.

For all of its niceness, QPE does have some cons as well. A lot of them are related to the fact that QPE is a demo, not a released product. For instance, there's no way to suspend the iPaq. It must be shut off, which requires re-calibrating the display each time. There's a menu option for exiting QPE, but it does not also shut down Linux, so you have to power off the running OS, which can't be good. Crashing applications can bring down the whole GUI. For instance, playing a bad MPEG video in the MPEG player hangs the whole UI. I can restart it using the serial-port console, but that's not really a solution. It currently does not have working audio, which is a shame, because the MPEG player also plays MP3s.

Handhelds.org

Handhelds.org provides the father of all iPaq linux distros (which is also a required base install for QPE). It runs TinyX, written by Jim Gettys. It's really kind of minimalist and unintegrated. However, it's linux, it's free, and Compaq and the iPaq team should be congratulated for providing Linux support on the iPaq. Compaq also provides some other benefits, such as you ability to compile apps using their Skiff Cluster -- making development much easier, as there's no space for a compiler on 16MB of flash. The UI for the Handhelds distro is pretty ghastly -- X + TWM + xterm + TWM menus for few installed apps and administrative tasks, such as changing brightness of backlight.

TWM and xterm are quite tedious to use with a stylus. They're also pretty unattractive. It includes a lot of utilities and programs, but very few GUI apps, which is what you need on a handheld. The three major apps are "scribble" for handwriting recognition, a qwerty keyboard, and a statically-linked GTK mp3 player (note: menus don't work well with stylus). And Xterm makes four, if you want to bother counting it.

The two input methods are strange to use -- you have to get the input focus set just right, and be careful to not obscure the scribble or keyboard app with the target app. In contrast, WinCE and QPE both resize the display area available for apps when the input methods are invoked, and reserve space at the bottom of the screen for the input handler.

Again, the major thing about the handhelds.org Linux distro is that it exists; it's not really meant to be a useful PDA environment. However, it does illustrate the numerous reasons why an unmodified desktop GUI does not belong on a handheld.

PocketLinux

PocketLinux is an interesting beast. It is linux-based, but the GUI and all of its apps run in Kaffe and use XML for interface definition and other data storage. The GUI is themeable, and PocketLinux included several themes. I actually didn't care for any of them. Perhaps they should look at SkinLF, a skin engine for Java/Swing.

They have certainly achieved Buzzword compliance with the use of Java + XML. The downside is, it's slooooow. The UI is simply not very responsive, and the iPaq is the most muscular of the current handhelds. The upside is, it's portable. And since it's Java, I imagine it's theoretically possible to beam apps and data to other PocketLinux devices, even if they use a different processor. That's not an insignificant advantage. Plus, because all apps run in the Java VM, it's likely to be stable (assuming the VM is) thanks to the garbage collection, lack of pointers, etc. that Java provides. Plus, the PocketLinux environment can be used to develop (both compile and test) apps off-unit without having to resort to using a special cross-compiler setup and ftping or syncing builds of apps to just see if they run.

Like QPE, it uses the framebuffer; but it does not include any remote display functionality. I'm not certain that's really an issue with a handheld, anyway -- although it might be nice to open your handheld display on your desktop PC while it's in its cradle so that you can use a mouse and a keyboard to more quickly use the UI to manage the device.

The major downfalls of PocketLinux are its slowness and its clunky UI. It's better than xterm, but not as nice as either QPE or WinCE. Otherwise, it's in the same vein as QPE -- includes all the usual suspects as far as apps go, and an MPEG player to boot.

Thoughts -- I am interested in what you all are looking for in a handheld GUI. Please post! I'm looking for a number of things:

• Flexible, easy to use "sync" feature. This would preclude ActiveSync, as it does not work (at all, either USB or serial) on my iPAQ.
• Standard file formats. None of the Linux handhelds options I've discussed here provide a way to "sync" data to another computer, but when they do, a standard resource file format would be nice.
• Easy to use interface. This means, no need to type out words to start apps (or to use most apps). A "start menu" is the best thing going in the launcher department that I've seen, and the use of things like context menus and QPE's dictionary lookahead make using a stylus easier.
• Free Software.
• I actually spent a couple of months getting to know WinCE before I wiped it, and I never did really care for it. It does include Microsoft Reader, though. All handheld environments should include a good, standard document reader. I reccommend PDF rather than MS Reader or any other proprietary format, because it's an open spec and tools to create and view it are available as free software. It also supports sophisticated layout and compression and delivery of all document elements as one file -- something XML and HTML cannot do.
• Variety of working, non-intrusive input methods. QPE's dictionary is great. WinCE and QPE both resize apps to reserve an area for the input method at the bottom of the screen. This is much better than handhelds.org's TWM focus-game method.
• Standard app toolkit. There's not a lot of space on handhelds, but handhelds need a rich GUI toolkit to be useful and provide a way to write lightweight apps. Palm does this well, even though it is a very limited platform. I can't install GTK and QT and whatever, because there's not a lot of space. I use Gnome on my desktops and laptop, and program for GTK, but am very happy with the slim, trim QT/Embedded used in QPE. PocketLinux sort of half-wins. Demerits for slowness and ugly themes. Handhelds' X+TWM+Xterm wins in the oops-thought-this-was-a-desktop category. WinCE does a moderate job; It looks mostly like windows, but different enough to be mildly strange at the beginning. And, of course, Media Player is totally different. What is it with media players these days? Do they all have to be ugly and slow?
• Speed. Handhelds.org and QPE win here. PocketLinux, of course, does not.
• Support for common features: syncing, serial/ppp/ethernet/other connectivity setup, etc. No one does this yet.
• Apps. Including games. MPEG video player optional. Really. Mp3 player would be cool. Doc reader a requirement.
• Attractive interface. I don't mean gaudy. I mean, easy to look at. Microsoft's cleartype for text does make a difference. QPE's anti-aliasing and alpha-compositing both make a difference in this area. Handhelds.org gets no points here. QPE wins, and PocketLinux, while themeable, is somewhat cluttered and awkward to use.

What are your thoughts? Be liberal with those links!

Note: You may also be interested in reading this piece on PocketLinux and reading more about the iPAQ.

Once a year, would-be cyborgs and their creators congregate for a few days of catching up with each other and the state of the art at the International Symposium on Wearable Computers's conference, sponsored by the IEEE and corporate sponsors like Microsoft and Compaq. Ever-lighter and more colorful head-mounted displays, innovative input devices and boundary-stretching ideas on human/machine interaction conspire to attract strange looks from startled pedestrians or frank admiration from fellow participants. When ISWC2000 began Monday in Atlanta. it marked the fourth such gathering -- the event has been held in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Cambridge, Mass. ISWC is about equal parts trade show, academic conference, and family reunion for a visibly different kind of family. Since ALS had ended just one day before, I stayed in the Peachtree state an extra few days to check it out. Read on to see what I found.

Excuse me, is that a StrongArm? A survey of the show floor reveals that wearable computing in the year 2000 is still a small, specialized field. Despite cyberpunk literature, Max Headroom, AT&T "You Will" commercials and cell-phones equipped with earbud mics to get us used to the idea, the cost and discomfort of wearing one's own computer still makes it anything but mainstream. Input devices are awkward, displays are expensive and for the most part too obtrusive for casual use. The interface discomfort is more than just physical, too -- it's semantic. Many of the computers demonstrated at ISWC 2000 will run the same applications as your desktop PC (since they're based on shrunken X86 hardware), but simply aren't built for it when it comes to interface. Typing a letter is still easier at a standard keyboard and a conventional monitor than with a forearm keyboard and a monochrome eyepiece, in part because "typing a letter" is something we're much comfortable with in another setting. The niche that wearables will fill is still being hewn -- by the people at ISWC, in fact.

Unlike Comdex, CES, or even Linux World, there are no hordes rushing the door seeking T-shirts and yo-yos. The attendees mostly seem focused on the technology at hand, and catching up with what their academic colleages or business competition are doing. As you might expect, that means improving battery life, devising and improving useful applications, tweaking both input and output devices to be more intuitive, and making the actual hardware of wearable computing more comfortable.

Three basic groups come to strut their stuff at this kind of event: Systems vendors, component manufacturers, and academics. In a field as technical and experimental as wearable computing, rigidly separating the three is difficult sometimes. Besides which, some of the companies which could be selling wearables are at present still circling the outskirts before entering the field outright (like IBM, whose Linux-equipped wristwatches were demonstrated to oohs and aahs, and Compaq, whose iPaq is belt-mountable and capable, but not a "wearable computer"), and some former industry bigwigs have returned to academia, like Steven Schwartz, who headed research for Xybernaut before migrating to his current position at the MIT Media Lab.

The few true systems vendors tend to be focused on industrial and government applications, the kind of roles that can justify the latest, most capable hardware even if pricey: that means their market is focused on high-margin sales and hardware which doesn't much see the shy side of $3,000, but which is polished and presentable with ergonomics, true wearability and niceties like voice recognition and wireless communication present and accounted for.

The component vendors, on the other hand, span a huge range -- everything from budget displays (like the $500 M1 from Tek Gear) to materials which could serve as the infrastructure for future wearable systems, like the high-tech fabrics developed by Bekaert -- Bekaert's Douglas Watson showed me spool of thread I assumed was some sort of fortified cotton, or perhaps silk, but which turned out to be stainless steel. "It turns out that steel ends up having many of the same characteristics and flexibility as cotton or polyesther, when you get to the same filament diameter, he said. And at a company called Foster-Miller, Senior Engineer of Materials Technology Brian Farrel showed off the items on a table display which included military-stength cloth straps through which are woven nearly any kind of data cable, from USB to fiber-optics, or in some cases electical power connections. Foster-Miller also had vests stuffed full of haptic sensors, developed as part of a program to help fight spatial disorientation among pilots. (A gentle nudge from one of the sensors helps orient pilots who may have briefly lost their true orientation.)

Companies specializing in nothing but display systems, like MicroOptical and Liteye wowed visitors with their latest displays as well. The most-worn displays among the wearable-equipped, though, seems to be the lightweight Micro-Optical.

And probably most important in the long term, there are academic groups -- research groups from CMU, Columbia, MIT, and GA Tech are all represented. Xybernaut and VIA may sell complete systems to industrial users and the military, but universities are still the biggest source of design ideas and basic research in everything from software to analysing the potential of wearable hardware to cause musculoskeletal distress. (More about academic types on Friday.)

Established players If you're looking to buy a wearable system outright (or have a few pitched to you), ISWC is one of the few opportunities to try on a range of devices and actually play with wearable computing outside of the design studios and graduate labs of elite universities, and without forking over thousands of dollars.

There are relatively few companies who've been around long enough or sold enough computers to call major players in the wearables market, but two old names in the young field are VIA and Xybernaut, both of which had booths on hand to demonstrate their latest machines and give hints about future models.

Xybernaut, perhaps the best recognized name among wearable manufacturers, demonstrated several variations on their XXXX. While it's hard to not call many of the devices around the floor "futuristic," Xybernaut's sleek machines practically define the term.

VIA (from high-tech Minnesota) showed their devices, too: their current model, the VIA II, is about the size of two very fat wallets, and flexes to allows the sides to fit comfortably against the body. Plans are also in the works for a model integrating a low-power 600Mhz chip and 128MB of RAM. (Now from where does that sound familiar?) The folks at VIA promise an announcement about that new model at Comdex, but there aren't that many lines to read between here.

Not-so-established players Tiqit, a commerical offshoot of work at Stanford's Wearable Computing Laboratory, demonstrated their "matchbook sized" machine (I say more like a pack of cigarettes), which they claim is the world's smallest complete x86 PC, and that it is shipping now. Unusual in that it relies on a 486 chip rather than the ARM, StrongARM and low-power 586s which seem to dominate the show, the Tiqt instead favors sheer tininess over computing power. It still has enough muscle to serve web pages, edit text, and do most of the functions that wearables are called on to do at present, with the exception of processor-intensive chores like speech recognition.

Another academic offshoot, this one from Georgia Tech's famed wearables program with Thad Starner is called Charmed Technologies (about which more in the second installment) -- but check out their site for plans free for your use to build your own wearable computer case, fitting standard PC104 board, before it gets slashdotted.

... but then I'd have to kill you.

John Murray, Director of Software Engineering for Pacific Consultants LLC, was showing off something a bit more exotic than even the other complete wearable systems: field-computers that PCLLC is building in limited quantities for the U.S. Army, having beaten out giants like Raytheon to build for the Army the ruggedized wearable system known as Land Warrior.

The system is built for abuse -- connections are all military-grade and waterproofed. This all comes at a weight cost that probably puts military-spec wearables off most people's list: around 16 pounds worth of electronics, batteries and cabling is joined by an external antenna the diameter of a gun barrel, a shoulder-mounted GPS receiver, a small flat-panel display and a full-color 640x480 prism display manufactured by NAME. The processing unit (a 166MHz Pentium processor on a PC104 board, mated to 800MB of flash disk and 64MB of RAM) is carried separately from the radio-spectrum communications module, which contains a standard 802.11 card.

Ron Hill, a retired Army Sergeant (first class), and now with the Omega Training Group, was in full camo dress and wearing the system. Murray pointed out that the cable connecting the wireless module to the CPU (worn around Hill's back) is actually a USB connection, finegled into military-style cable and connectors. Other than such specialized connections, though, the componenents themselves are fairly standard, just ruggedized.

If the weight wasn't enough to dissuade you, though, this might be: all told, Murray says the system costs ten to twelve thousand dollars per person. "But we're still early on. Those costs should drop considerably as we increase the numbers. That cost is with each system being built one at a time, and we're a small shop."

Right now, the system is running windows 2000; part of that was expediency, because we only had 9 months to develop the thing, and part of that was because the military wanted it to run with certain pre-existing pieces of software." Murray admitted interest in switching to a real-time OS such as QNX, or perhaps a Linux-based real-time system.

Try this on for size Not everyone fits into one of the neat categories of vendor or academic, though, and not all of the wearables at the show look like bladerunner props, either. Jonny Farringdon, Senior Scientist in Wearable Technologies at Philips' UK Research Laboratories, held forth in a booth festooned with heat-sensing bras, gloves which measure sexual arousal (well, galvanic skin conduction), and other oddities which might not seem odd for long. Specifically, two of the jackets on display at the booth went on sale this month in Europe as part of Levi's Industrial Clothing Division line.

"4 of the jackets [in that line] contain fully-integrated electronics," he says, pointing to a khaki parka, as he begins unfolding and peeling the velcro around a multitude of pockets and flaps to reveal the inventory of a small electronics store scattered through its folds, and headphones which snake through the fabric. "Microphone in the collar, GSM mobile phone, MP3 player, remote control. All hidden and discrete -- it looks like you're wearing a jacket."

He demonstrates the system integration built into the jacket/system with a sample phone call. "Let's say some one rings you up It knows, it switches the music off, it patches the phone call through the same headphones, you talk -- not into the collar, you just talk -- and when you're done, it hangs up and switches the music back on." And it works the other way, too. "If I want to make a call, I dial by saying your name, it looks at your number, connects the call, switches the music off. If the call is taking a long time to connect -- as GSM calls tend to do -- it plays me music in the background, then when the call connects it switches the music off. I can play you my MP3s through my phone."

Check back Friday for more on the academic aspects of the ISWC2000 in Take 2: Vested Interests.

An anonymous reader wrote in to say "I was having a look at ThinkGeek's 6 Gb MP3 jukebox, and was interested to see that the software is Linux-based. There's a link at the bottom of the page: download Linux source. Interestingly, this link requires I 'sign' a license agreement with Compaq before downloading the source code. The license, amongst other (scary) things, says: CUSTOMER acknowledges and agrees that COMPAQ owns all rights, title and interests in and to the SOFTWARE and all Intellectual Property Rights therein." That can't be right, can it? What's going on here? Is it a simple case of Compaq needing reminding about the ground rules concerning Linux distribution? Perhaps they have not made any kernel modifications, and this license is for their application software? " Update: 09/13 05:16 PM by CT : we screwed this one up. The link is somewhat misleading since it says its a link to Linux Source, but its not actually the linux source, its just some code that runs on linux. Stop flaming please. Move along. Nothing to see here.

As this release announces, BSDi have just licensed the BSD/OS Parallel TCP/IP stack to Compaq for use in their Himalaya range of servers. Which is great, but I'm still trying to work out why they called them "Himalaya."

Thanks to deadbeef, who runs the greatest mailing list, for sending out the word from Compaq that the final order dates have been established for VAX systems. The final order date is Sept. 30, 2000 and final ship date Dec. 31, 2000. Limited supplies - first come, first serve!

wishus writes: "The Compaq iPAQ is Compaq's PocketPC offering, with a 206 MHz Intel StrongARM. Microsoft beware, though, because there are now 2 different ways to put Linux on it - Compaq's own is at handhelds.org and the second, announced yesterday, is from Century Software. They are actually two very different means to the same end - Linux and X running on the iPAQ, complete with handwriting recognition." If only it had 802.11 wireless support, I'd be there.

wruji writes: "Linux on Compaq's upcoming iPAQ PocketPC. handhelds.org has more info including install instructions" Cute little box.

orKiD asks: "Since PDAs are becoming very common in today's world, is there any possibility of a PDA clone? A lot of the computer buying boom was caused by the AT clones that came onto the market. They brought prices down, they let people customize and get exactly what they wanted. This didn't really happen with laptops, so can it, and will it happen with PDAs? If not, perhaps a PDA designed by the people, for the people? An OpenPDA? I am currently contemplating on buying a PDA, and even though many of the PalmOS PDAs are similar, each one has its advantages, and disadvantages. I want to be able to pick and choose exactly what I want in my PDA." Hmmm...interesting thought. Read on for more info...

This question sounds awfully similar to this one from iKev: "Remember the Itsy ? Well, I was browsing the Web page today, and noticed that several movies (.avi and quicktime) exist, that show off the power of this device. There's the infamous Doom in action, java apps, e-mail, and the rock'n'scroll input system. This is not vapourware, its the real deal, so why oh why doesn't Compaq go full scale with this one? Oh, I forgot, they don't cater to the geek crowd. Has anyone been able to build one of these BTW? I would fork out for it in a flash... "

Might this project be an answer to both? Gratis to Tim Lord for the info.

orKiD asks: "Since PDAs are becoming very common in today's world, is there any possibility of a PDA clone? A lot of the computer buying boom was caused by the AT clones that came onto the market. They brought prices down, they let people customize and get exactly what they wanted. This didn't really happen with laptops, so can it, and will it happen with PDAs? If not, perhaps a PDA designed by the people, for the people? An OpenPDA? I am currently contemplating on buying a PDA, and even though many of the PalmOS PDAs are similar, each one has its advantages, and disadvantages. I want to be able to pick and choose exactly what I want in my PDA." Hmmm...interesting thought. Read on for more info...

This question sounds awfully similar to this one from iKev: "Remember the Itsy ? Well, I was browsing the Web page today, and noticed that several movies (.avi and quicktime) exist, that show off the power of this device. There's the infamous Doom in action, java apps, e-mail, and the rock'n'scroll input system. This is not vapourware, its the real deal, so why oh why doesn't Compaq go full scale with this one? Oh, I forgot, they don't cater to the geek crowd. Has anyone been able to build one of these BTW? I would fork out for it in a flash... "

Might this project be an answer to both? Gratis to Tim Lord for the info.

orKiD asks: "Since PDAs are becoming very common in today's world, is there any possibility of a PDA clone? A lot of the computer buying boom was caused by the AT clones that came onto the market. They brought prices down, they let people customize and get exactly what they wanted. This didn't really happen with laptops, so can it, and will it happen with PDAs? If not, perhaps a PDA designed by the people, for the people? An OpenPDA? I am currently contemplating on buying a PDA, and even though many of the PalmOS PDAs are similar, each one has its advantages, and disadvantages. I want to be able to pick and choose exactly what I want in my PDA." Hmmm...interesting thought. Read on for more info...

This question sounds awfully similar to this one from iKev: "Remember the Itsy ? Well, I was browsing the Web page today, and noticed that several movies (.avi and quicktime) exist, that show off the power of this device. There's the infamous Doom in action, java apps, e-mail, and the rock'n'scroll input system. This is not vapourware, its the real deal, so why oh why doesn't Compaq go full scale with this one? Oh, I forgot, they don't cater to the geek crowd. Has anyone been able to build one of these BTW? I would fork out for it in a flash... "

Might this project be an answer to both? Gratis to Tim Lord for the info.

Deslock asks: "I drool over the Compaq IPAQ hardware, but don't want to deal with WinCE (ver3.0 is an improvement, but retains much bloat). According to this story, the IPAQ stores the OS in FlashRAM, so I'm wondering what other OSs I can run on this cool device (Both the next PalmOS and the Yopy will supposedly use the StrongARM)."

Jón Ragnarsson writes "Compaq Western Research Lab has put some movies of the Itsy running Doom, Java, X and other stuff... The ARM CPU still amazes me after all those years... " My love affair with the itsy goes way back to stories that we posted years ago. I even saw one at the 98 LinuxExpo. This is the box that we always wish would be mass produced, but just doesn't seem to ever get any closer. Its still cool tho.

Jón Ragnarsson writes "Compaq Western Research Lab has put some movies of the Itsy running Doom, Java, X and other stuff... The ARM CPU still amazes me after all those years... " My love affair with the itsy goes way back to stories that we posted years ago. I even saw one at the 98 LinuxExpo. This is the box that we always wish would be mass produced, but just doesn't seem to ever get any closer. Its still cool tho.

Jón Ragnarsson writes "Compaq Western Research Lab has put some movies of the Itsy running Doom, Java, X and other stuff... The ARM CPU still amazes me after all those years... " My love affair with the itsy goes way back to stories that we posted years ago. I even saw one at the 98 LinuxExpo. This is the box that we always wish would be mass produced, but just doesn't seem to ever get any closer. Its still cool tho.

Jón Ragnarsson writes "Compaq Western Research Lab has put some movies of the Itsy running Doom, Java, X and other stuff... The ARM CPU still amazes me after all those years... " My love affair with the itsy goes way back to stories that we posted years ago. I even saw one at the 98 LinuxExpo. This is the box that we always wish would be mass produced, but just doesn't seem to ever get any closer. Its still cool tho.

Cédric Adjih asks: "I wanted to build my own small-and-cool RISC box (such as an Itsy), or even much smaller, in order to control self-made robots, or other simple homebrew electronic circuits. But the retail-price for individual electronic components is often way too high ($1000 for a RISC evaluation board, $150 for a RISC processor, $1000 for PC/104 with 486 card, ...). Since there is a trend towards more and more powerful and cheap electronic devices (calculators, PDA, agendas, Inet boxes,...), the only rational way is to buy one, and to hack it. But this require internal hardware information, and also a way to interface with circuits (such as via I2C). Does anyone have information about WWW pages describing such hardware or such hacking? An example candidate for the low-end would be the TI-89 (68000 at 10Mhz, 188K ram, 384 K Flash, easy interface with PC, LCD display ; at $150+. Hard to beat that by buying the individual components...), but there might be better, or more powerful... "

GoNINzo writes: "Compaq has just announced the new Alpha servers. The have between 8 and 32 CPUs, run with a 64-bit 731 MHz Alpha chip, and current are distributed with Digital Unix or VMS. How soon before these machines are shipping with Linux preinstalled?"

GoNINzo writes: "Compaq has just announced the new Alpha servers. The have between 8 and 32 CPUs, run with a 64-bit 731 MHz Alpha chip, and current are distributed with Digital Unix or VMS. How soon before these machines are shipping with Linux preinstalled?"