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Casio's Lin-Win Hybrid Laptop To Ship Tomorrow
Xuff writes: "As reported by News.com, Casio is going to begin shipping a laptop with both Windows ME and a stripped down version of Linux. The 2.1 pound laptop has a 600mhz Crusoe and 20 gigs under the hood, along with an 8.4 inch screen. It will retail for $1,999." It's a nice to see the tiny laptops mentioned last year actually emerging.
The one I saw, the Japanese version, booted to a very minimal and locked down version of Linux. It ran X with two apps, an FTP client and a MP3 player. The default directory for both apps was 'My Music' on the FAT32 partition. That's all. Didn't seem like you could do anything else. Could n't kill X or get a command prompt. I'm sure that could be changed by booting off a linux boot floppy and poking around. There were 3 drive partitions, a 200 meg linux system part., a very large FAT32 part., and an 8 meg part. which I assume was a LILO partition. OS selection, however, is done via an A/B switch on the side of the machine. Oh... and the Linux install boots in about 5 seconds.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
> There gets to be a point where laptops become too small to be usable.
they're too *big* today. My first laptop had a 40x8 display (but you could use a shift key to see another 8 lines) and *no* popup lid; the display was above the keyboard. With slight reconfiguration, you could have fit a 512x392 display instead.
some days, I even filled the 24k memory . . .
hawk
And if they could code HTML they might even be able to sell something. No wonder dotcoms are falling like flies.
(try looking at the LX pages in Netscape if you don't understand what I'm talking about).
The prices aren't very cheap, either, compared to the Casio's $1.999.
--
Niklas Nordebo | niklas at nordebo.com
I run an Acer 312T which is about the same size from a couple of years back (800x600 8.4" screen , P233MMX, same size and weight as The Perl Cookbook, V90 modem, 2 PC slots, USB).
It runs SuSE 7.1 like a dream (I upped the disk to 6Gb and the memory to 80Mb) Small keyboards take a little getting used to, but it makes all those emacs compound keystrokes easier, and using a small laptop like this on a crowded tube train is much easier than one of those behemoths I see people with.
With APM enabled, and tweaking kflushd to let the disk spin down for long periods of time (once emacs has loaded all my files), I get much better battery life under Linux than I did under Windows (nearer to 2 hours than the less-than-one-hour under Win98).
This new machine is a bit better from the look of it (battery life, built in network card, and I guess the Cruesoe will make it a bit quicker), but not worth me upgrading yet. So if you can't justify the cost of these but you like the size, look around for a second hand 312T or 313T instead.
T
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
I get longer life out of Linux, because emacs, make, gcc and a couple xterms takes few cycles than VisualStudio.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
Why don't they put Win ME and XP on the same laptop too? Then it'd be win-win for everyone.
NEVER EVER buy any other laptop than an IBM Thinkpad. They're the best.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Unfortunately, this Casio (as well as many recent laptops) uses ACPI, for which the support is still a bit lacking.
I've seen the Fujitsu models (called LooX here in Japan), but the keyboard feels *really* cheap on both of them. In the end, I went with a Thinkpad (with a great keyboard).
From the Casio page:
"SOFTWARE SWITCH
A; Windows Millennium, B; Tool"
...which would seem to indicate that Linux is called "Tool" now.
Pity they don't actually acknowledge the people who developed it... and do they provide source code, I wonder?
Linux does have power management (I'm working on my Linux laptop right now) and my laptop runs 4 hours on Linux, less than 3 hours on Windows.
However, your mileage may vary.
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Yes. See RLX article from yesterday..
When reading the start of your sentince, I somehow thought you would end it in "Imagine a Beawulf cluster of these". Maybe I read slashdot too much?
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Although the Casio Crusoe laptop is new here, they have had it in Japan for a while. Hell - they even have a Hello Kitty version.
A friend of mine works at Nike on clothing product development, sort of the R&D end of Nike. Her current work is in wearables, and though their initial market is athletic performance monitoring we've had some fascinating conversations about what she has seen and her take on where it's headed.
All the components are in place for wearables to begin entering the consumer market EXCEPT for the market pull at the current price point. It's becoming common place for everyone to walk around with their ear-buds in place while talking on the cell phone. Not much of a leap there to putting on goggles.
The keyboard is a little trickier. What I'd love to see is a 'Johnny Pneumonic' style virtual keybord, but without gloves or anything in my hands. Perhaps a camera captures the reflection off my fingernails, or some sensor correlates which muscles are being activated in order to determine hand position and finger movement.
Perhaps the more interesting thing is if we allow traditionally 'hard' interfaces to become software, and therefor highly configurable, what will those interfaces morph to look like? The keyboard is a metaphor that we inhereted from the typewriter which is a mechanical efficiency built on top of printing technology. Keyboards are good UI's, but so is voice, or eye movement, or facial expressions. I know that's just dreaming at this point but those technologies do exist.
When an existing technology faces market pressure to change but is reaching its limitations it creates market conditions which are favorable to the creation of disruptive technology. And that's where we're at. It's already showing up in everywhere from shopfloor controls to Webvan deliveries, but it won't be long before these are consumer devices.
bnf
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
Man that's tiny.. I thought my 15" screen on my Dell was bad, but running resolutions greater than 800x600 on this thing will simply be a strain on the eyes.
On the plus side, it's nice to see companies shipping machines with dual-boot configurations rather than just Windows or just Linux. This is probably the way to get consumers to use try out Linux--rather than give them only one or the other, give them both.
I wonder how Microsoft feels about this, however. And I wonder if they will do anything to try to stop this.
This is not your laptop, ok. There are already TONS of laptops which have 10 inch screens, and are as big as the screen. To get any smaller you need a smaller screen. What's the matter with a 10 inch VAIO that you seem to need to slam this machine, as if it's trying to be a 10 inch VAIO. It's not a 10 inch VAIO. It wants to be smaller. I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself but I can't understand why someone finds offense with a laptop smaller than what they want when such laptops as they want already exist.
Maybe you want a laptop which use some sort of space warp of bag-of-holding effect. A roll-up screen might be the best way. But those aren't here yet, so we HAVE to give up mondo displays to get to near-libretto size.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
How about berlin, it scales up resolution without making everything small, granted its still very very much in development, but hey, its out there.
I am certain that's the first time this has happened.
Actually, we've had LAN parties there, brought in a TV/VCR combo and watched Anime (Patlabor and other family friendly stuff), played (pen and paper) RPGs and generally used it as we wished. I do *lots* of noctournal activities (Rocky Horror, Live Action Role Playing, etc), and I am a big fan of 24 hour Diners. If you're a regular, getting access to power outlets is easy (even if, like at Steak and Shake, you have to plug into the ceiling). I've even gotten the use of a phone line to dial in and irc. And this is all at many different locations - you'd be surprised how cool some of the night wait staff and management is.
24 hour diners are a haven for cops, hookers, goths, punks, gays and other freaks - hackers, otaku, role players and other fringers fit right in.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Recently, at a late night conversation at Dennys, I explained the difference between the various "DV" connectors (basically, they are all the exact same, just under different trademarks).
It wasn't until someone pointed it out that I realized how odd it is... Apple has a poetic word like "Firewire" that you might expect from a company like Sony (with its Playstation, Walkman, etc.), while Sony has "iLink" despite Apple's fascination with the i- prefix (iMac, iBook, etc).
I've noticed that most new IEEE 1394 ports are labeled "DV" or simply "Video" on the outside of the case. Sorta like the PC I saw in a hole-in-the-wall PC repair place... the USB ports were labeled "Mouse" and "Keyboard".
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
After you get off the flight from tokyo?
+++++
+++++
The harder you look the less you see. That's what we're up against.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
not a victory for consumers, however. this configuration lacks an important option - the freedom to decline windows and save $100.
You just haven't looked hard enough.... :-)
apt-get install picturebook longrun jogdiald
or download from
http://samba.org/picturebook/
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/cpu/crusoe/
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.brisset/vaio/
then you'll get, among other things,
setbrightness [0-254]
vaiobat (read battery status)
longrun -f [economy|performance] (set power saving mode; you can also change specific settings)
jogdiald (which I use to get page up/page down events from the jog dial in X)
(Hopefully bits of these will make it into the kernel before much longer.)
Are there other companies doing this this? I used to be a fan of Japan Palmtop Direct, but there site, www.jpd.com hasn't responded for a couple of months. I'm looking for a company which sells the latest in slim notebooks, not sub notebooks as Dynamism seems to specialize in.
Spencer Ogden
Did Casio build other computers before ? When you buy a Sony or Toshiba laptop, you can always call the vendor to ask him what extensions can be plugged, where to find BIOS updates, why their hardware doesn't work with some piece of software, etc. These vendors are selling laptops for years, and they have a solid technical and commercial support for their computers. But what about Casio ? They are experienced with watches and calculators, but I doubt they have a large technical support for their laptop. It also means that they can drop support for their laptop whenever they want. And you won't have BIOS and driver updates to install latest Windows releases. A laptop is quite expensive, and you can't just change internal hardware as easily as on a traditional box. It's why the vendor is an important factor in your decision of buying one.
{{.sig}}
- Toshiba Libretto L1/060TNMM, 600 MHz Crusoe, 2.4 lbs
- Fujitsu LX-S, 533 MHz Crusoe, 2.2 lbs
- Fujitsu LX-X, 533 MHz Crusoe, 3.3 lbs, DVD reader
Impressive stuff, and all models have been released for at least 4 months. Now, where can I trade some karma for a 50" plasma display?Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
I believe it's a 15mm pitch (Thinkpad, Stowaway size is 19mm). I've used the Japanese model and it feels OK although a bit slower than the full-size model (except of course all the punctuation is rearranged on the Japanese model).
I've always heard from people running Linux on notebooks that power management isn't there, with the result that Windows 2000 gives you much better battery life. Is Crusoe tuned for Linux? Does Linux now have Power Management features? How can they claim increased battery life when switching to Linux?
I couldn't find any mention of Linux on the page linked to in the posting. However, I did find this on that page, which initially amused and confused me: ;^) Then I understood that they were (probably) talking about different types of batteries. Oh, and that the large type actually gives you more battery time as well, that kind of screws my initial "theory"... Anyway, I think this is kind of expensive-looking, somehow. I'd rather go with a Sony Picturebook. I'd pick a Sony over a Casio every day, basically.
Battery Type: Lithium-ion
Operating Time: Standard Type about 4.5H Large Type about 9.0H
Operation hours depends on usage situation.
I first thought they said that you get twice the battery time by changing to a smaller font in the interface...
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
The parent of this post is a bit OT, but it is one of the most succinct explanations of why information economy is a farce. It is obvious that our growth-based economics system is an out-moded model. Sure, it kicked ass on the command economy state socialist machine, but is it tuned to the needs of a people who mainly produce intangibles? too bad we can't just sit down and draw up the plans for a new economy like racers would decide on a new car for the team.
That's what I was wondering, too, then I bought my kneetop Doesheepa MIB3000. First I inflated the keyboard (wondering: how many times am I going to waste my breath on this? then, I found a small compressor available for just this purpose on Adiposebrain!) and hooked up the tiny display, which is about the size and shape of a 12-sided die. Imagine my surprise when it projected my Bjornix Jobbit desktop on a light mist of water vapor and negative ions. Hopefully, there will be kernel support for the aromatherapy module soon.
I want the version with the Hello Kitty stickers.
A victory for Linus' troops! I presume they stripped the OS down so that booting Linux will only take a few seconds -- instead of the 2+ minutes for Windows. This way, when you are sitting on the train and only want to do "low productivity things" like listen to MP3s or read your email, you can save battery life and get into the applications faster.
It also means that consumers will be a little closer to Linux -- thereby helping to crack Linux into the general end user marketplace. I see this as a good thing, because it makes big scary Linux a little easier for consumers to swallow.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
It's nice to see them following Apple's lead and abandoning legacy ports... no standard serial port, no parallel port on this machine.
;-) . The iBook is a better deal for me, but this Casio laptop is pretty nice.
It compares nicely to the new iBook, however.
The iBook is larger @ 4.9 pounds, but has 2 USB ports, 12" display, and no PC Card slot and a 6-pin FireWire port, which means you can connect bus-powered FireWire devices. Plus it has a groovy case
Funnily enough, there's a story on The Register about just such a beast, with up to 336 Crusoes, which is `practically fanless' (i.e., it has fewer fans). It's designed as a web server, and as such is rackmounted (press release at RLX's site).
Shouldn't you carry it around on a cdrom, so no one can replace it with a trojan putty? :)
Notice under the Technical Specs: Serial port: IEEE1394: 4-pin Interesting they call it a serial port and not FireWire, wonder if it means something or was a simple mistake.
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
These things are great, I suppose, but people are forgetting the ultimate purpose of a lightweight portable computer: providing a secure terminal. Even if you carry around a floppy disk with PuTTY everywhere you go, you're still trusting the system you run it on; in contrast, if you carry around a laptop running OpenBSD, you can plug it in anywhere and have a reasonable expectation of security.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Why... seems to have enough power to run any OS out there... unless there is something they aren't telling us.
My only complaint... 8.4" screen. They should have made the push to the 10" screen. Oh well. Back to "studying" for finals.
Later.
I see no mention of Linux of the :-)
site. Perhaps they just took LILO
from it.
It also ignores the fact that 1024x768 on a 21" monitor is substantially different from the same resolution on a 15" monitor.
So as you say, it should be a user preference. There should be a global scale multiplier. This would be useful also to allow for squeezing things up really tight on the odd occasion you find yourself sitting in front of a 640x480 monitor.
Rich
To be fair, they should strip down the version of windows. Maybe they could remove some items like the GUI. That would make windows boot times MUCH faster. Oh wait.. we tried that once.. wasn't it called DOS. "Windows has detected movement from your mouse. Please shut down and restart your PC to save these changes"
Funny you should mention it, but there is a CNet story about IBM doing exactly that (RSX builds em, IBM sells em). It is supposed to find a niche in the California power consumption market.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
wow. fell a long way in a short time. Even the computers are making fun of linux, "tool" indeed.
$2600 is cheap?
You mean it won't have the full kernel and any of the software available in the distros?
It's not worth reading if that's how it's presented. Do you mean a stripped down distro using the Linux kernel?
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
I asked someone the same question once, and she just smiled. I guess the world will never know.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've said it here before and I'll say it again... FreeBSD wasn't bought by ANYONE. Walnut Creek funded and help distribute it... then BSDi took over. If all else fails they can resort to a different distrobution method... but the company that now owns BSDi has promised they will continue to freely support FreeBSD. And hey if being bought out means your dead /. died when Andover and then OSDN bought them out. Why can't we all just get along. Yes BSD is more stable and secure than linux their own (linux) gurus have prooved this time and again. However it lacks the newest features and fast development cycle linux (and most of it's distros) has. I've used both, I like both, and as long as one of them effectivly moves into the desktop environment (yes linux is far more suited for this) then I'll be happy that someone called Windows out and won... and as to the first question... if it can run linux the odds are high it can run BSD considering they both support fairly simaler hardware (In the actual article they said it would be possible to run the full version of linux... meaning they haven't included any special support or drivers)
yes this is a rant... feel free to mod away
#set prompt = $user.$group @ `hostname -s`#
root.wheel @ reality#
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
1) Text is part of the user interface. Maybe you were making the distinction between text and icons/widgets?
2) Check out OS X.
For at least the last six months that I have been here in Singapore these little subnotebooks have been available and all over the campus I'm at. I find they are just too small, the screen, although it has the resolution, is a strain on the eyes because the text is so small. I'd rather a PDA myself, I don't think there is a gap between PDA and desktop-replacement-laptop that needs to be filled. Of course, I want one just cos they're so cute!
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
Just think, you could carry TWO of these around at about the same weight of the average laptop. Who needs to dual boot? :)
With the Hello Kitty Fiva, this, and my upcoming Hello Kitty Teledildonics USB Interface Kit, my Doomsday device will soon be complete! Muhahahahahaha!
Palm Pilot + HotSync(TM) Cable + Cisco DB9 Adapter
Grab a little program called ptelnet and you're all set. It can be a bit painful but you should only need the serial cable for when something is totally hosed and you just need to get IP up and running again.
Damn it, why does previewing always forget my password and post anonymously!!!
There gets to be a point where laptops become too small to be usable. In the early days on laptops, when this issue came up because regardless of the physical dimentions of the laptop, the keyboards were shrinking, and the displays were routinely only 60% of the size of the laptop lid. At this point there was a lot of overhead for various system componants which have now been shrunk down to miniscule sizes.
Now, instead of getting small keyboards because of the mechanicas of keyboards, or small displays becauce of the technology of displays, the only barier is the overall physical dimensions of the devices. We're getting smaller and smaller user interface componants merely because of the overall physical dimentions of the box (I realize someone pointed out thet they could have gone with a 10" screen where they went with 8" here, but as a general rule, this is valid I think).
So, I ask, 'How Small is Too Small?"
There comes a point where the shrinking size of these devices will make them unusable. Alternative user interface technologies like Retinal Scanning Displays and Optical Response Pointing Devices will come of age not because the technology has matured, but because we simply can't efficiently use treditional laptops that are any smaller then they actually are.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
From the "previously reported" article:
...but also comes with version of Linux that lets consumers skirt the Windows boot-up when it comes to certain applications.
Sounds like a dual boot setup.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
First we have naked PCs, now laptops with stripping OS? Will someone think of the children!
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
No, you miserable failure, that was not FP. You lame loser that can't even carry out the pathetic life of a slashdot fp'er right. FP is lame enough... you are so worthless that you tried to be really lame and looked down upon, and failed? That is pretty pathetic. Since you tried to get FP and didn't, you should perhaps go kill yourself. That would save the rest of us from looking at your pathetic failure of a waste of time.
samrolken
smartass
samrolken
It's nice to see someone using Linux for this though; it's an ideal use for an OS that can get very compact indeed, and the quick boot multimedia player is a nice feature that I suspect some geek at Casio slipped through the PHB net (kudos!)... On the other hand, I've seen a laptop recently that can play CDs without actually booting any OS. It uses a dedicated control panel and just powers up the drive and sound system, which has to be better for battery life.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Maybe I'm the only one who's bothered by this but I'm starting to get a little anoyed by the implication that linux and transmeta are related. Ofcourse linux will run on a Crusoe chip but that is the extent of there real world relation. Sure it is possible that Casio decided to put linux on this machine independant of the fact that it has a chip that linus worked on. But it sounds more like casio is trying to market to those who think of themselves as elite. Is this laptop actually usable in their default linux setup or is this kind of like throwing in an authentic harley davidson jacket when someone buys a suzuki... sure they feel hard core but they still end up wearing the blue leather jump suit most of the time.
when's it gonna hit Australia?
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
I cannot see the point of anything that small. My boss bought tosh libretto on the basis of saving weight when travelling and got continually frustrated by the small keyboard and screen. So now he uses a Sony Vaio, which is heavier but at least is usable. This seems to fit in between a normal laptop (with a usable keyboard and screen) and a PDA (with its lightweight and battery life), but does neither function particularly well and at quite a cost. I like the extended battery life however...
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
And where's my hairstylist? I need a hair stylist!
And a dermatologist...You know these scales kinda get in the way!
The "higher resolution = smaller controls" setup is pretty silly, really. What we should have is a system where the text and the user interface are sized independently of the screen resolution, and merely get more detailed as resolution increases past the point where they would become too small to use. (I know you _can_ do this sort of thing for text and so on in most operating systems, but it doesn't work automatically, or at all for icons, pointers, scrollbars, and the like - and it should.)
The OS X dock, as previously mentioned, does this. It's rendered resolution-independent, so no matter what resolution you run at, it takes up exactly the same amount of space that you have specified for it. It just looks better at higher resolutions, and chunkier at lower resolutions.
I was kind of disappointed, however, that the whole OS doesn't work this way. Windows and widgets and text still scale to various sizes depending on the screen resolution. Ideally, I think you'd want this to be a user preference -- some people like lots of tiny windows, and some people would like all the UI elements to stay the same size and simply gain/lose resolution. Since OS X uses a vector based graphics layer for it's UI, it seems like this could be done.
~Jeff
"It will retail for $1,999" And the linux only version is $2500!
I wonder if using a pile of Crusoes, as opposed to x86's, in a parallel processing supercomputer would make a big difference in power consumption and heat? Something that runs that cool would also be nice to have as a dual-processor solution (so it has the punch of an Intel or AMD) in a desktop. Don't have to listen to all the damn fans.
...
string* plamenessFilter =
*plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
With a screen that size, and a keyboard that looks to be not much wider.. is it even POSSIBLE to type? It's hard enough on a regular sized laptop keyboard, I can't imagine shrinking it any more. (either that or the pic they have has a larger screen) 2000 is still too much for me to buy a laptop tho
Hmm.. Some details would be nice. From the article, it says users can switch to Linux for playing mp3's etc.. Does this mean a dual-boot setup or a linux VM inside ME? Either way, it's refreshing to see Linux gaining ground in the market, even if it is on the back of M$ apps.
"Perl 6 gives you the big knob" -- Larry Wall
It is nice to have a small, highly portable machine, but I think I tend to agree--keyboards that small are uncomfortable to type on. I got an MPC-102, an earlier Casio subnotebook (still available from Mobile Planet). I think I'm going to give it to my sister, as she's in college, and presumably has smaller fingers. I think a Toshiba Portege and other machines in the three-pound class are are better compromises between size, weight and keyboard size. The Sony subnotebook, with the Crusoe processor, might work, too.
One thing that really bothers me about the -102 is that it cannot boot off of any but the associated Casio CD-ROM drive, which are rather expensive and hard to come by. I'm experimenting with an Archos PCMCIA drive, but I'm not sure if it'll work.
is that Emperor Linux
http://www.emperorlinux.com/
has been offering Sony's 2 lb. Crusoe machine in a similar configuration for quite some time now...