Slashdot Mirror
IBM InterJet II Uses Embedded FreeBSD
stephen.schaubach writes, "The new IBM InterJet II is a small net appliance that looks cool, is small and has some kick-ass features, including: e-mail server, Apache, Firewall, FTP, DNS and DHCP services. Admin it from a Web browser like the cobalt's. But, best of all it runs an embedded operating system based on FreeBSD UNIX. The down side is that it looks as though you kinda of ASP-lease the thing. Anyone told VA yet? heh " The InterJet is a neat piece of kit, and the developers at Whistle have contributed a lot of high-quality code back to the BSD project, both before and after their buyout by IBM.
...is that IBM won't sell you this neat little thing by itself!!!! You have to subscribe to their Small Business internet service (DSL, FTP, web hosting, etc.) This really sucks. It's a great device, and a lot of IS guys (like myself) would love to pop this on the network. But I can't. I called IBM last week about the InterJet and I couldn't get one w/o the services.
Guess what IBM? Most of us already HAVE high-speed internet service. Sell the damn thing as a stand-alone product and you'll sell a hell of a lot more. = /
Where's the big news in this? We've seen almost identical products before.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
What do Active Server Pages have to do with it? :)
This was (as the Linux/390 port) just for the media hype.
To get the stupid "Linux-rulz!"-guy buy their products, you know.
It's amazing how IBM are turning around their image. In the beginning they were the big monkey in the sky, until their products were seen as too expensive for what they were.
Since they've adopted Linux (and made other changes), it seems they've gone from Big White Box makers to trendy gear for the web-generation - the kind of transformation Microsoft would love to have made about three years ago.
IBM have definitely changed their targets - they started the desktop PC revolution but have turned their backs on that in favour of mid-range servers . Now they're capitalising on the popularity of Linux to sell their stuff - and as long as they bring to it their old reputation of good quality hardware, good luck to them... as long as they don't try to Monopolise!
insignificant sig
It calls itself a server. Is everything with an LCD screen and a 'net connection an "Internet Appliance"?
ASP also stands for Application Service Provider -- a popular buzz-phrase meaning remotely hosted, rentable applications.
These would seem to work for pushing ISDN/Dial up connections, but I don't really see a market niche for that any more. Small/Medium sized offices are moving to ADSL/Cable/T1 for the most part, and though this box says it can handle ADSL, I seriously doubt it has the IO or processor capabilities to both push a 1.5m connection and provide all of the services they are advertising. Smaller Bay/Cisco routers have problems running a serious routing protocol (BGP, OSPF, anything worth running on a big WAN link) as well as NAT on 1.5m circuits.. I doubt that this thing could push ADSL, run NAT, routing, FTP, Mail and a Firewall. Especially when the processor is an "x86 compatible 233MHz processor" which just reeks of K6 (no FPU anyone..).
Plus.. this machine represents a single point of failure for your whole network.. when you have seperate components and one of them goes down, it is relatively easy to isolate the problem and then fix or replace it, but with these all-in-one solutions, troubleshooting becomes a major pain and very time-consuming. Better to leave these services separate and buy products that are meant to handle them alone. It might be a little more expensive up front, but the down time you'll save in the future (not to mention the latency this box must incurr) will be more than worth it.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
It starts at $99 per month, requires 2 yr subscription. "Software and hardware remain the property of IBM. Activation fee, taxes, telephone line charges and surcharges not included. Prices subject to change (I thought this was a contract). Other terms apply (I bet).
It's pricey. Course, I would just get a 486 out of the closet and install Suse.
And on top of it, the web site http://ibm.com/smallbusiness/wc121 requires IE for viewing. Real swift.
I agree with the LCD comment - and what is with every fucking gadget needing internet access? Internet this and internet that - enough! Its so toaster companies can trade as Info Tech. P.S. Nice work Craig on that first post.
My girlfriend doesn't understand...
What does this story have to do with katzhead?
Hey, a good idea is a good idea :-)
This is the result of IBM's purchase of Whistle. It is a bundled device-connection-service level and is geared @ small businesses as evident the pricing. There are many netpliance devices out there like this one which you can purchase by themselves: Cobalt, Rebel, etc.
This thing looks nice and everything, has all the services I think I'd want (except print sharing). Love the ability to administer it from the web page.
But, one thing comes to mind. What happens when your web service goes wacko some day, and you can't access the web pages? What do you do, what DO you do? I didn't see any alternative way to get in (unless maybe it's got a serial port you can hook a terminal into and administer).
All in all, though, looks like a sweet looking machine (could beef up the hard drive to about 13-20 GB though, instead of 6). I think I'd like to get one for home sometime.
This is nothing new. Back before IBM bought Whistle, the Whistle Interjet ran FreeBSD and tried to convince you that it was an easy to set up server solution with turnkey operation.
;)
/. before, usually as a quickie or in threads. What short memories everyone has...
For the non-computer-user, that's about right. It's really easy to configure (I researched it once because a family member's business was considering marketing a Linux-based competitor), but if you have the slightest hint of what you are doing, buy your own box
Furthermore, I've seen it mentioned on
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
Or maybe they hope people will take it for the newest HP printer and buy it right away.
Yes, you are right there. -- Another glass of champagne?
Although it's really neat, it's nothing new. For what I know the InterJet I has always been running FreeBSD. I guess this is just a new version.
0x or or snor perron?!
Er, what does lack of FPU (by which I assume you mean "not as good an FPU as Intel ships) have to do with anything? Or is sendmail really doing millions of floating point calculations? It's not like you're going to play Quake on the thing....
Small offices are "moving to ADSL/Cable/T1"? Only in the same sense that glaciers "move".
What the hell is this.. the equivalent of
"before I came to school at MIT I could not spell Engineer, but now I are one?"
Yes I know you are a troll, enjoy your carrion.
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people."
--- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933,
Oh, no.
The "evil company X can take control" myth again...
> I have no fear that a company will take over
> Linux in the same way as IBM has done with FreeBSD
Fact 1: IBM has *LESS* control over FreeBSD than over Linux.
Fact 2: RedHat has more control over Linux than any companies in the world over FreeBSD
Hey ass, read the article again. The fine folks at Whistle have been contributing a great deal back to the FreeBSD project, both before and after their acquisition by IBM. Choke on a pokeball and die, you underage cockhole.
BSD == good
LINUX == crap
nuff said!
I just happened to click on that innocent looking link at the bottom of the page, and what I got was a porn link, and not just any porn link a hideously nasty one with all sorts of disgusting things!!! :-(
And it showed up on my screen just as my boss happened to walk by my cubicle, he saw it and since it grossly violated our company's anti-porn policy he had to fire me on the spot. Thank you Slashdot for all the good you have done to me, the time you've wasted and the jobs I've lost because of you
Does this mean that they'll have to repaint the garage blue?
threadeds blog
Whoever moderated this one was smoking cheap $3 crack.
The licensing issues referred to here affect us all, and if you are not careful, you could be the next one to be assimilated by IBM, which seems to be becoming the next Microsoft.
You won't hear a lot of complaints about violation of the freebsd license because this is not a violation of the license. This in no way keeps you from using Linux on your PC or me from using FreeBSD on my PC. FreeBSD development is dominated by - well the FreeBSD developers (big surprise). I'm holding my breath for that Athalon port. :) Actually a PowerPC port would be neat though. I think the point that you are confusing is that this project uses the FreeBSD code - it doesn't take it over. If IBM had used Linux for this project would your post read about how you're abandoning Linux kernel for the Hurd project?
jan 19 12:17 Critical: /kernel: Copyright (c) 1992-1998 FreeBSD Inc. /kernel: Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993 /kernel: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. /kernel: /kernel: FreeBSD 2.2.7-STABLE #0: Mon Jan 3 23:45:11 PST 2000 /kernel: dianeh@built1.whistle.com:/usr/prod/ia/freebsd/sys /src/compile/IA /kernel: CPU: Cyrix 486DX4 (486-class CPU) /kernel: Origin = "CyrixInstead" DIR=0x361f Stepping=3 Revision=6 /kernel: real memory = 16777216 (16384K bytes) /kernel: avail memory = 14962688 (14612K bytes) /kernel: Copyright (c) 1995-1998 Whistle Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. /kernel: Detected version 1 InterJet motherboard /kernel: Probing for devices on the ISA bus:
...
...
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
jan 19 12:17 Critical:
RFC1925
Once again, a Large Corporation takes control of what was previously a fre project, slaps a few worthless features on it, and sells it back to us, the Open Source community for big bucks.
First of all, I doubt anyone with enough of a clue to know the difference between OSS and regular software would even consider purchasing this particular piece of equipment. I mean realistically, a server that's adminstered via http, most likely without telnet/ssh? This is aimed squarely at people who need a workgroup server/firewall and don't have the time/ability to administer it themselves, nor the money to hire someone to administer it. A lot better than a Windows95 box with wingate, don't you think?
Do I hear cries of outrage over IBM's abuse of the BSD and apache licenses? No. Even the BSD users, notorious for their unfounded zealotry (such as implying that FreeBSD is somehow superior to Linux), are silent. Do you enjoy being ravaged by the forces of violent captialism?
Ok, this is the main thing I must disagree with. The ability for IBM to take the code and use is the whole purpose of this type of license. I develop software for a living. I don't have a boss, I get paid for what I can sell. Whether it's a software package, or an integrated system. I release code under the BSD license for the same reason I try to only use software under a BSD license. This is the spirit of OSS, whether some huge company comes along and decides to take and not give back is irrelevant. In every project I've implemented, I've always given full source, and I don't think theres been a single instance where my work would not have been 100% compliant with the GPL. But I still wouldn't use it. I see the GPL as a restriction, it restricts people from using my code in situations where they might really need it. And where they might not be in a position to use the GPL (it happens). It's simply the golden rule, I don't want to someday be involved in a commerical venture and have to worry about the GPL. Not every OSS developer develops as a hobby. This is why other licenses continue to exist. The GPL simply doesn't make sense sometimes.
This isn't to say your opinion doesn't matter. It does, follow your own principles, but understand that some of us do indeed make a living via software. And just because you pay for something doesn't always make it any less free (glances at stack of FreeBSD cds that have never been used).
Maybe you can get a used brain there.
You obiously need one.
Actually Red Hat is using its position in the market to become the MS of Linux. When they buy out IBM then you should fear them.
Ha ha! (in a 'Nelson', from the Simpsons, voice)
Scooby doo == awesome
BSD == good
LINUX == crap
What make you think it is being sold back to the open source community? Anyone with a clue would set up their own BSD box and control and admin it themselves. ;-)
IBM does not control BSD and is even less likely to control BSD than to control Linux.
IBM among others supports Apache. IBM does not control Apache.
As to BSD's technical superiority, the aproach and philosophy are different. Saying BSD is technically superior is not quite the same as saying Linux is technically inferior. Anything much better in one will soon show up in the other anyway. Open source is much stronger with BOTH!
Why do I get the impression that I am responding to a MS troll
interjet? i prefer a nice gritsjet, something that deleivers a nice high-powered spray of hot grits down my pants. thank you.
Hmm.. It looks like IBM bought Whistle, the original makers of the "Whistle InterJet."
The original InterJet ran FreeBSD, so I don't think it's a design decision on IBM's part, but an inheritance.
One of my favorite things that would happen to these every so often, is when they would crash. The power-off command on the InterJet was soft, so it would trigger a shutdown script to be run. Well if it crashed, that wouldn't work.
One cute thing about the InterJet is that it had a built in UPS. So when it would crash, you couldn't just unplug it. You'd have to (short of ripping the thing open and disconnecting the battery) wait for the battery to drain before you could restart after a crash.. No hard off switch anywhere on the box either.
Apart from that small problem though, it was a cute little box that did its job.
So what do these announcements entail?
BSD: Companies can use it, but you don't get any money or credit. Realistically, though, this isn't much of a loss -- if the BSDies I've run into are any indication, IBM would never consider hiring you anyway. End result: "Big corporations are taking over. They're doing exactly what the license intended them to do, but that still doesn't make me happy. Bitch bitch moan moan."
Linux: Companies that want to make extensive modifications don't want the GPL to show their secrets to the world. So they use the hated BSD or the even more irrationally hated closed source solution. End result: "Big corporations don't care about Linux. They don't understand how superior we are. Bitch bitch moan moan."
The point: The point of open source software is to improve the world, not to turn everyone into little soldiers for your personal OS/license jihad. You should be celebrating the fact that IBM, with its army of programmers and massive code base, has been impressed with open source software.
Hey, the stupids have a right for their own OS.
That's fine for me, keeps most of the idiots away from *BSD mailinglists, repeatedly asking questions out of the VFAQ in HTML-Email.
Let Linux handle them, if they grow up and learn reading manpages they'll switch to *BSD sooner or later.
One day I dream of having the bandwidth to administer and play with my own server, and I've done a lot of wishful price checking/planning. I don't know about InterJet, but Cobalt's similar box runs about $1500. Last I checked you can get an entry level Sun Solaris machine for that. I'd think the latter would be a little more robust and versatile. Maybe I'm missing the point of "turnkey" setup. I noticed that the IBM box does not allow "custom cgi's"...well IMHO that seriously limits what it can be used with. Anyone played with these? What happens if you want to say upgrade Perl or Python etc? Of course with minimal skills, even I can do it, someone can setup a simple pc with linux and apache to do more than these will, and with easier installers and tools like RH 6.1, Mandrake, etc I think that it would be a little better. If someone wanted to emulate these products it doesn't look to be that hard...most of the web interface is just some shell scripting in your choice of scripting languages. Just thought I'd add my 2 cents to the discussion. Live long and prosper....
good to go dude :)
"There is no spoon"-Neo, The Matrix
"SPOOOOOOOOON!"-The Tick, The Tick
I dunno. Walnut Creek CD-ROM seems to have quite a bit of control over FreeBSD....
"Once again, a Large Corporation takes control of what was previously a fre project, slaps a few worthless features on it, and sells it back to us, the Open Source community for big bucks. " Ummm, FreeBSD still isn't free. . .nice on your planet. Ummm, netgraph is a worthless feature. . .nice on your planet. Sells it back to us. . .nice on your planet.
But not as much as RedHat over Linux...
The best thing about them, from the ISP perspective, is that they can be configured through a dial-up; ie, a UUNet customer with an InterJet dials into a pop, puts a code in the box, and it downloads its new configuration. Pretty sweet.
From a consumer perspective, someone with a whistle is more likely to get help from isp tech support when they have a problem, than if they're running some homebrew.
I found that they are especially handy with reseller customers, who have a contractor come in to set them up and leave them running. A small office underbudgeting it's IT needs can get this product, complete with web hosting and mail, without hiring a fulltime guru (NT), or hunting down an intermittant Linux guy, for a comparable price to routers usually available from ISPs.
While running a porn site off one isn't a good bet, running internet/intranet and mail for a modest office (upto ~100 wkstns) and a modest connection (upto T1) is going to suit most business needs without a huge outlay of cash and time. (remember, these people are supposed to be working, which doesn't always include hours surfing the net)
--mandi
__________
my $.02 presents no capitol gains tax risk
What IBM does _best_, is kill a good idea :0).
Then buy a OneGate box from FreeGate (well, now Tut, but the web site still says FreeGate). It, too, uses FreeBSD, comes in a sleek black 1u package and plugs into the usual suspects of WAN connections. I've used them as corporate web boxes, firewalls, routers, sra & b2b vpn's, mail relays and DNS hosts. The 150 makes a great drop-in home office system. I describe them as putting average sys admins out of work (or at least on to more interesting projects). <disclaimer>I am a former employee and a current stockholder.</disclaimer>
Thanks! I am going to look into it today. This may be good for our first office.
What annoys the hell out of me is that Cobalt made a killing in the stock market selling blue colored Linux boxes with practically no value added (unless you really like blue). In comparison, Interjets and OneGates have a lot of extra features that you can't get anywhere eles. But who gets the ridiculous valuation?
whistle interjets have used freebsd for as long as i can remember. it just so happens that they have since been bought by IBM. then the question becomes: why mess with something that works?
Are you Serious or just on crack ? Perhaps large corporations are interested in FreeBSD because the code is more efficient ? Hell.. FreeBSD 's TCPIP has been multi-threaded for ages.. Linux just now finally got on the wagon. The fact is, FreeBSD code is more robust. Linux has more attention in the media since it's easier to use. Heh.. most of your 1337 skript kiddeezz are using Linux because that's all they can navigate. Don't get me wrong, I have boxes running each, but FreeBSD definately performs better in an enterprise environment. (Especially dealing with TCP) Ohh.. OS/2 wasn't a technology failure.. it was a marketing failure when M$ split off from IBM and came out with Windows NT. (Yes M$ and IBM were co-writing OS2) The majority of ATMS, banks and some airports run OS2.
Well, as an ex ISP Tech, the Whistle was a godsend. When we introduced the product to small clients, our online support time decreased by 60 percent. The little things from creating pop boxes, domain admin, you know, all those pain in the ass phone calls that disturb the real work. We ran them from dial-up to full T-1. When IBM bought them out our supplies dried up. We actually bought 100 of them to tide us over. Sure these can be created with off the shelf linux-bsd boxen, but it was a quick fix that did what it advertised. frizzo
IBM is filling a gap in the industry. Let's face it 99% of small businesses don't have tech savvy people working for them like the readership of /.
It does for $99 a month what it would cost a small business $5000 to hire one of us to set this up and manage the Linux install. Just think of it this way. More and more small companies that put one of these on their winblows network we get more %'s in the overall bucket of apache on the web on FreeBSD. So when allot of small business install these, big business will notice that apache and FreeBSD are gaining in the metrics, then FreeBSD MIGHT start to be looked at by these large companies as a relative option to other OS's based in Redmond.
An interesting not, Apple's AirPort base station is apparently running an embedded version of FreeBSD, which is how it can act as a DHCP server, firewall, and router.
The original Whistle devices had the major drawback that you could not add additional software to the system. Does anyone know if this changed?
I guess they're happy to make money off the opensource community's back, but not to support us. :-/ (And yes, I relize one can probably access this box using Samba/smbfs. It's just the principal of the thing.)
I was using an Interjet I for almost two years. It was nothing but headaches. /use/ these services, it's a peice of junk!
If you only use ISDN or periodic dialup, it's fine. If you need nothing but the most rudimentary web serving and mail hosting (I never tested it for relaying. If it is a relay, there's no way to fix it), it' great. If you actually
There is NO access to anything on the device besides it's web interface. If you're thinking "Well, LinuxConf makes it work..." just stop. This is nowhere near that nice. Instead, it's pretty, but gives you next to no functionality. We had issues about wanting to modify the firewall's activity (opening certain ports, special routing, etc). It was an absolute no-go. Only recently did they add the ability to modify the NAT (static translations and such).
And the it's so-called fast serial interface. God, don't remind me. We used an external CSU/DSU (of course, only a fast-serial port on this thing) hooked up to a full-burst T1. Once we hit about 1.2 mb/s, it would just turn off the serial port, and completly forget about it. We had to power-cycle the CSU/DSU atleast once a day to fix it. It had worse uptime than any of the NT (or 95...) boxes in the building. No, there was no problem with the line. We finally got a Cisco in December, and it hasn't had any trouble at all. We even had to show Whistle how we set up our network. They didn't even know that what we did was possible (nothing special. an NT acting as a bridge on the InterJet's "internal interface" routing all the office traffic to it, since our network was 100baseTX only, and the interjet is only 10baseT).
So, if you're just starting, and you just need something that works (sorta..), NOW, it's fine. So if you're a windows-minded shop (it works, mostly, and don't need to over-customize), it's just right. Once you try to use it to it's claims, it fails miserably.
Sorry about the high rant value, but this thing gave me nightmares for months. Honestly, if you plan on really using the features that this thing claims to have, save yourself alot of time and just get a linux box (mail/web) and a good router. Might cost you an extra 2k, maybe, but will save you hours and hours of maintenance time.
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." - Doug Linder
I have no experience with cobalt machines, so I don't know what all the features are that you need. But have you taken a look at LinuxConf? (Freshmeat it) I use it to maintain a mailserver (I'm not in the office, so I had to use a friendly interface for people to add new users/accounts and such), and it does the job quite nicely. It can administer an entire machine. So unless you're doing something very odd, it should work fine. My only problem is that I had to rehack their sendmail creation scripts, but it was a fairly odd network setup, anyway.
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." - Doug Linder
is a CHEAP routing box that will hook up to a DSL or cable and have work without me messing with it. I really don't enjoy treaking my Linux box by edinig ASCII conf files and then have to reboot all the Windows machines to change the network settings. Oh yeah, if I pay for something I intend to own it, not pay to borrow it from IBM.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Working that hard on a setup like that just isn't right.
/everywhere/ (including the non-electronic world here). In computers, atleast, a person can almost always do a better job than a utility (I'm talking about administration. I know a compiler can make better machine code than I can. =)
Trekking to it? I've administered a linux box and a router for 6 months without seeing them. That includes software updates, major configuration changes, and reboots. There's telnet, ya know. Sure, the stock windows client sucks, but there are hundreds of better ones availible for free out there.
Cheap? I could setup a linux router for $300 or so.
If editing a text file is painfull for you, then you shouldn't be using linux at all... If you really want things to run well, you have to do it yourself. It's that way everywhere. Atleast, it used to be that way
Reboot windows clients? Dude. DHCP. run dhcpd on the linux box. If you need to change settings (should never happen, really. set it up how it needs to be and leave it), SIGHUP the dhcpd process, open up "winipcfg" on all the clients, and click "release" then "renew". viola. Everything fixed.
I'm sorry, but you're not using your tools to their full capability.
"A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street." - Doug Linder
three dollars is kind of expensive for crack. I can usually get a rock or two from the neighborhood crack whores just by beating the shit out of them and taking it for free. And even then, it was only cheap blow-job crack.
The moral to this story is, drugs are bad, mmmkay, but if you need some crack and don't want to pay a couple of bucks for it, just go down to 24th and Van Buren and you can beat the living crap out of a crack whore for some.
thank you.
All day long I see post after post on Slashdot that has no useful information to offer, just the same tired old "me too", "you work for microsoft!" shinola. Well, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here because I've got a hungry mind and I want to learn something that I don't know already.
Now, this guy obviously has some real experience with something that virtually all Slashdotters should know about, and just once -- just once, okay? -- I'd like to see the damn moderation system work for a change. So come on, guys, throw this guy a couple of points. The positive meta-moderation you'll get will help your karma, but even that shouldn't matter: It's just the right thing to do, that's all.
Thanks for listening. I feel better now I've gotten that off my chest.
Since before IBM bought them. Why rip out FreeBSD and put in Linux when the thing works already?
Who cares if IBM uses supports both? This is a non issue.
The real issue is why can't I BUY one of these instead of leasing the damn thing and some ancilliary services from IBM?
You mean like embedded NT?
:P and better browser than Linux has.
Hell, even Windows CE (Based on NT) has a webserver
Whoops, that should have read:
You mean like embedded NT?
This is an SMP issue. Linux did SMP first, and
still does SMP best. Remember, the BSD license
means you don't get the SunOS 4 code to use.
FreeBSD isn't much better than a big lock around
the kernel. Linux 2.0 did that. Linux 2.2 lets
multiple processors into the kernel at once, but
only one into the kernel network code. Linux 2.3
now lets multiple processors into the code, so it
is the _only_ free OS with multi-threaded TCP/IP.
NetBSD and OpenBSD don't even do SMP.
The article seems to mention FreeBSD rather than Linux....
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." --Groucho Marx
My Newton have an httpd too... and a good browser.
But I never wait for 1999 (windows CE 2) to use it.
Hrm, just curios, I don't know much about the Newton (except that it was supposed to be really good "ahead of it's time" and that apple made it and then disolved it).
:)~~, if i wanted something to write notes on, i'd get a (paper) notebook.
Did newton have sound, ODBC (or any kind of advanced data access), infrared, 16bit sound, 16bit colour, 32MB memory, Macromedia Flash support, full Java 1.1 support (not that silly picoJava stuff)?
Windows CE has a heck of a lot stuff more than the newton - but then it depends on what you want out of a handheld i guess. I like toys