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While the consumer Neo1973 phones aren't shipping, calling it vaporware is a bit of a stretch, there are a healthy number of developer units out there, including some that are near-identical to the pending commercial release hardware. Read carefully at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973 and you'll see that the phones are being produced by FIC , a fairly large Chinese electronics manufacturer who initiated the project. The software stack (a nice scalable gtk on linux environment), while missing some applications and features, is basically complete, and can be run in an emulator on the PC or on a few ARM platforms which are currently available. So. Its' not quite shipping yet, but a hefty Chinese corporation is vested in the project, and a truly impressive amount of work is already done and out there to look through. Weather either platform (iPhone/OpenMoko) takes off depends on the market, and its too early to say if either one has a chance of long term success. Who knows, one of these things might actually make me decide my featureless clamshell could be improved upon. (also remember, the US cellphone market is not in any way representative, and the phone market in Asia is far larger and more diverse than in the US or even Europe.)

Did anyone read that at the top right of http://www.fic.com.tw/ it reads "FIC RECOMMENDS WINDOWS XP". Open source friendly?

http://www.pcg.fic.com.tw/marketing/Products/main3 .asp

Size: Mac: 6.5x6.5x2 FIC: ~9x~7x~1.5

CPU: Mac: DuoCore 1.66 FIC: DuoCore 1.66-2.33

More information here: http://www.mobilewhack.com/computers/review/fic_ge 2_intel_core_duo_desktop.html

FIC claims giga-lan, bluetooth, wifi, digital audio out, seems pretty close to the mac as a comparison, price of $500 to $1000 according to Mobile Whack.

Assuming the $500 price is the 1.66GHz version, it doesn't look like PC versions are much if any cheaper.

-dave

I have one of these in my desk somewhere. Vendor claimed to have Linux support but I never got support flashing it or installing Midori Linux or whatever they wanted.

Rainy day project I guess. Maybe this will help.

http://transmeta.com/success/desktops/nec/nec_powe rmate_eco.html

http://www.fic.com.tw/product/server/janus.aspx

Check out http://www.fic.com.tw/product/sff/.

yea, zaino bros. is nice ... i've just always had good luck with meguiars out here in az. we had some application problems with zb during the summer. =(

i've got one of these in my car w/a hauppage wintv pro.

Perhaps still a little haughty over their win, Lindows decided to take on another of Microsoft's products. In late 2002, Microsoft put into market the Media Center Edition of its popular Windows XP operating system, complete with system requirements dictated to OEM system builders. On January 28, 2003, Lindows released its own Lindows Media Computer as a direct competitor.

After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast Instant on DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin.

This is it, right out of the box. One word came to my mind after seeing it next to my PogoLinux machine - tiny. I hoped there was some serious power packed in that little box or someone was going to be unhappy. With that in mind, on to the system specifications.

VIA C3 E-Series 933MHz Processor

VIA PLE133 + VT8235 Chipset Motherboard

128MB RAM PC133 and up to 1GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM capacity

20GB ATA 100 5400RPM hard drive attached to one of 2 Dual-channel enhanced IDE Ports supporting UDMA 66/100/133

16X DVD Drive in the single full height 5.25" drive bay

4 USB 1.1 Ports (two in front, two in back), 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port , and 1 PCI Slot

Integrated Trident 2X AGP with 2D/3D Graphics Acceleration

Integrated VIA AC97 Audio, 3 Audio Jacks: Line-in, Line-out, and Mic-in

Onboard VIA 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller

Mini-ITX Tower Case with 150W Power Supply

Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)

LindowsOS 3.0 MP3.com Edition with dedicated tech support

One Year Parts and Labor Warranty

FRONT

BACK

Some of you who are avid readers may recognize this box. It is none other than the FIC Falcon CR51 small form factor PC that was announced last October. However, it has been updated with the etDVD software from Elegent Technologies. The etDVD software is a boot time embedded software set that does all the magic of audio and video playback at boot time.

Brains! I need Brains!

Of course, I couldn't resist cracking the case. While there were some instructions included, I thought it would be more interesting to see how intuitive it would be to go without. Three thumb screws on the back side released the side panel which slid away. Inside, there isn't a whole lot to see. Yes. On the left you can just get a glimpse of the hard drive which is mounted to the floor of the chassis. Dead center is the DVD drive, and to the upper right is the teeny tiny power supply. Again, not too interesting. But, I discovered that one of the thumb screws actually held onto the DVD drive sled. After popping off the front face plate, I found the mate to the thumb screw. Removing this, I was able to get the DVD drive out of the way and have a better look at the rest of the insides.

As expected, I wasn't a good photographer. But let me assure you, everything was clean and small. You can make out the twin SDRAM sockets there at the top, the CPU and fan assembly just below that. Under the green heatsink resides the chipset, and over there on the right you can see the single PCI slot. Not a whole lot of room in there for anything else.

Fire It up!

Once I had it back together, I connected it to my spare monitor, keyboard,

Perhaps still a little haughty over their win, Lindows decided to take on another of Microsoft's products. In late 2002, Microsoft put into market the Media Center Edition of its popular Windows XP operating system, complete with system requirements dictated to OEM system builders. On January 28, 2003, Lindows released its own Lindows Media Computer as a direct competitor.

After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast Instant on DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin.

This is it, right out of the box. One word came to my mind after seeing it next to my PogoLinux machine - tiny. I hoped there was some serious power packed in that little box or someone was going to be unhappy. With that in mind, on to the system specifications.

VIA C3 E-Series 933MHz Processor

VIA PLE133 + VT8235 Chipset Motherboard

128MB RAM PC133 and up to 1GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM capacity

20GB ATA 100 5400RPM hard drive attached to one of 2 Dual-channel enhanced IDE Ports supporting UDMA 66/100/133

16X DVD Drive in the single full height 5.25" drive bay

4 USB 1.1 Ports (two in front, two in back), 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port , and 1 PCI Slot

Integrated Trident 2X AGP with 2D/3D Graphics Acceleration

Integrated VIA AC97 Audio, 3 Audio Jacks: Line-in, Line-out, and Mic-in

Onboard VIA 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller

Mini-ITX Tower Case with 150W Power Supply

Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)

LindowsOS 3.0 MP3.com Edition with dedicated tech support

One Year Parts and Labor Warranty

FRONT

BACK

Some of you who are avid readers may recognize this box. It is none other than the FIC Falcon CR51 small form factor PC that was announced last October. However, it has been updated with the etDVD software from Elegent Technologies. The etDVD software is a boot time embedded software set that does all the magic of audio and video playback at boot time.

Brains! I need Brains!

Of course, I couldn't resist cracking the case. While there were some instructions included, I thought it would be more interesting to see how intuitive it would be to go without. Three thumb screws on the back side released the side panel which slid away. Inside, there isn't a whole lot to see. Yes. On the left you can just get a glimpse of the hard drive which is mounted to the floor of the chassis. Dead center is the DVD drive, and to the upper right is the teeny tiny power supply. Again, not too interesting. But, I discovered that one of the thumb screws actually held onto the DVD drive sled. After popping off the front face plate, I found the mate to the thumb screw. Removing this, I was able to get the DVD drive out of the way and have a better look at the rest of the insides.

As expected, I wasn't a good photographer. But let me assure you, everythin

The Aquapad is ready to go today. It uses the Crusoe processor and runs Midori Linux or Windows CE. I don't know if the touch-screen code can be ported to your favorite distro.

As a portable PDA / computer, the AquaPAD doesn't seem like an ideal solution. It seems that for the $700+ that the AquaPad costs, plus the $250 for the wireless access point, you could get a laptop that does everything it does and more. It looks a little too bulky to use as a PDA, and doesn't have all the features I'd want in a PC. I'm sure the touchscreen is limiting, and when you add the keyboard and mouse seen here it looks a little clumsy and loses all the appeal of a portable device. However, I think it would be really cool to mount it in the car as an mp3 player, GPS, etc.

Here is a direct link to FIC's Aquapad page.

Gotta love its specifition!

image

Oh yeah, the direct link is here.

Don't rush out to buy your T-Birds just yet. To take advantage of the chip (or in many cases for it to work at all) you need to get a motherboard based on the KT133 chipset.

Where did you get this nugget? I hadn't seen anything (yet) that indicated that I wouldn't be able to slap a T-Bird onto my existing motherboard (a FIC SD-11). I wasn't planning on buying a new motherboard until the 2-way SMP socket-A boards hit the market.

From what I've seen so far, all the new KT133-based mobo's are socket-A and not slot-A. The T-bird is supposed to be available in either slotted and socketed form factors. I don't see any point in AMD selling slot-A t-birds if they won't work in existing first-generation Athalon motherboards. I could see where you might not get optimal performance out of a t-bird without the new chipset, but for it not to work at all with the older chipsets is really bad - it's not like they've added any new functionality that needs chipset support.

The only major differences, AFIK, between t-bird and first generation Athalon is on-die L2 cache, 0.18 micron process (vs 0.24 on 1st gen IIRC), and some tweaks in the core. I didn't notice anything in the literature that said t-bird is running at a different voltage or anything like that. If you have specific information on why T-birds won't work with the AMD-751 / VIA 686A chipsets, please let me know.

As to your dissapointment in Athalon's performance, I think most of it is due to the fact that most pre-compiled software is optimized for Intel chips. IIRC, the lastest version of GCC has a switch to optimize for Athalon. From what I've seen so far, this makes a noticable difference. (Obligitory karma whoring: Yet another reason to use open source software!)
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

First International Computer (FIC), who traditionally uses VIA chipsets has this Slot A motherboard available. At least the specs and a picture for it...
Looks like it beats a good deal of ass :)

According to FIC's press release, the VA-503+ and the PA-2013 will support the k6-III.

Cheers,

--Pete