Itsy Specs Updated

Jim Gettys (rock!) sent us some good news from the DEC/Compaq camp. Itsy, the ARM/Linux/PDA that has been under development for some time now, and is chock full of nifty little features, has had its schematics and software updated for you industrious do-it-your-selfers wanting to contribute to pocket computing.

Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 16:53:48 -0800
From: Deborah Wallach [kerr@pa.dec.com]
To: sa1100-linux@pa.dec.com, linux-arm-kernel@lists.arm.linux.org.uk
Subject: Itsy schematics and updated Linux software available

In order to promote collaboration and to advance the state of pocket computing research, Compaq Computer Corporation's Research Laboratories are making available the schematics and manufacturing information for the Itsy V1.5 Pocket Computer. The Itsy is a flexible research platform, based on the StrongARM 1100, intended to enable hardware and software research in pocket computing. It is a small, low-power handheld device with a highly flexible interface, designed to encourage the development of innovative research projects, such as novel user interfaces, new applications, power management techniques, hardware extensions, etc. The information we are making available includes the hardware specifications, a low level monitor, and the Linux source code for the Itsy.

Information about the project

More information on the distribution

Deborah Wallach
Western Research Laboratory
Compaq Computer Corporation

Comments

Good as far as it goes, but still useless

[killbill]

Kudos to them for opening up the hardware and software designs (open in the "now I know what they did" sense but not the GNU sense, although Stallman himself insists on creating an arbitrary (and in my mind artificial) distinction between hardware IP and software IP, but I digress)...

Anyway, good for them for sharing, but they are using an LCD and touch screen that is unavailable commercially. What good is that?

If they were serious, they should redesign it to use an available module, or offer modules for sale from their site for a reasonable charge.

Although realistically, given what I suspect is a lot of surface mount components and very small trace widths, and probably multi-layer PC boards, I doubt many people will be throwing together one of these in their basement...

It would be nice if they offered an "unsupported" Itsy kit with all necessary parts, but I guess I can't complain about people giving me information.

Bill

Limited run production.

[Fixer]

So, who would be willing to organize a limited run production of these devices for the community? I'd be willing to pay 700 or so for an Itsy.
They seem like near-perfect development platforms, great for working on new interfaces, or adapting them to wearable uses. I want one.. *whine*
-Fixer

Some things we've been needing

[Captn Pepe]

There was a discussion here a while back about options regarding embedded linux solutions. Several gripes came up, including the lack of a filesystem or drivers for flash memory, support for varying CPU clock speed, and a few other details. Look at this. From Itsy's page,

• Although there are much newer versions of ARM Linux available today, the Itsy port contains several pieces of software not yet available in the newer versions, including the FTL flash file system, power management support, support to dynamically change clock speeds, etc. We expect that these features will eventually be integrated into later versions of Linux, by the Linux community.

Looks like they've gone to the trouble to write a bunch of these for us. Yay! Now anybody want to look into turning these into a 2.3/2.4 kernel mod?