Make Your Own PDA?

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.

Comments

PDA Clones

[SlightlyMadman]

Well, the reason why there are fewer "clone" laptops, and PDA's (although, technically Compaq, Dell, and Gateway are all IBM "clones", they're more the mainstream nowadays) is the lack of availability of generic hardware. I can go to a computer show and buy a case, board, chip, hard drive, etc, and put together my own computer. These parts can be, individually, from just about any manufacturer.

I cant really do that with a laptop or a PDA, though. That makes it really hard to build a system if you cant manufacture all of the individual components yourself. Considering that making this stuff is pretty difficult to do on your own, and with a small budget, it's not likely that "homebrew" PDA's will be possible until the manufacturers take it upon themselves to put out the hardware.

Now, if this were to ever happen, the possibility for a dramatically changed (and no doubt improved) market would be there. Sun has made some remendous advances in the emedded systems market with their java KVM. Anyone can download this thing and write applications for it fairly easily. I even heard rumors a few months ago of a company (I want to say Motorolla, or a subsidiary, but I'm not sure) that was putting out chips for imbedded systems where you could send them code, and they'd burn it on there for you.

We're still a long way off, but it's nice to think of a future wherewe all have small portable/wearable systems of our own design, that can be customized to do whatever we want/need them to with just a few lines of code. Kind of makes the term "personal digital assistant" seem inappropriate in its current application.