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10GB In A Linux PDA
Deep Penguin writes: "Perhaps attempting to captitalize on the concept of data mining (mixed with turtles?), Serial Systems of Singapore has announced the
Terapin Mine,
a hand-held the size of a 35mm camera that looks to be a fusion of a double-fistful of geek toys: network storage (10-12Gb), audio record/playback, digital picture display (composite video out), PCMCIA reader and e-mail sender. It's attached to the world via 10BaseT, USB or whatever I/O card is in the PCMCIA socket (modem, LAN, wireless, etc.) Of course, all complex systems evolve until they can read Usenet news, leaving them an upgrade path to version 2.
Price? $599. Delivery? End of August, they say. And it runs Linux, so no Microsoft tax." An anonymous reader points to this CNET article on the device as well. I was afraid this would live as vaporware on the Terapin site forever.
I have an iPAQ with a PCMCIA card slot, sometimes hooked to a AirCard card (sweet wireless 128k download speeds in a taxi!), and sometimes to a Cisco Aironet wireless LAN card. We recently demoed this working through a Tachyon 1.5 meter dish satelite connection, routed to a wireless base station. I was streaming MP3s to a cow farm in Germany. Amazing applications, but one Achilies heel...
The problem: Power. My battery (even with the extra battery in the PCMCIA sleeve) runs out in less than 2 hours. As soon as I pop in an 1 Gig IBM Microdrive, it drops to about 1 hour, if lucky. To counter this, I've build a little laptop backpack that has 4 rechargable D-cells putting out the 5V DC that the iPAQ wants... backed up by a 12V DC-AC car converter and 3 solar cells mounted on the backside of the backpack (yes, I know it looks geeky, but stick on a couple Rage Against the Machine stickers and people think it's just a fashion statement, the latest in do-it-yourself geek-wear.)
So, the bottom line is now I carry a bag as big as a laptop whose sole purpose is to power my handheld laptop. Of course, I also charge my Digital Camera and Cell Phone off the same bundle, but I still feel like I'm missing something...
-Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned for
Looks like real good advice.
Be careful unpacking that mine Billy, It may be dangerous.. Looks like it's sustained some shipping damage and the detonater's a little loose..
air and light and time and space
Lemme just clean the drool from my keyboard...
;)
I am very concerned about the storage - 10-12GB HDD... what kind of HDD? I've heard bad things about the Creative Jukebox where the HDD can be sensetive to motion. While the prospect of storing this amount of data on a very portable PDA, I am worried that it is (1) easily lost, (2) easily stolen, (3) easily broken. 10GB is a lot of data...
I like my smartcards and compact flash media. You can store/organize information and worry less about total loss (if you loose or break one, you aren't completly lost).
Before I run out and buy one, I'd want to know:
- reliability
- HDD specs (can I replace it cheap or do I need an expensive part)
- warranty options
I was just looking at a picture of the device and I was thinking - cellphone. It looks like a cellphone but does everything except make phone calls and prepare dinner... now if it could only prepare dinner... mmmm... dinner...
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
"No, I'm just fingering my server." ;-)
[TMB]
Oh yeah! This gadget will really rock my world! Can't wait 'til next reboot! ;-)
.3) #1 Tue Mar 13 22
:37:59 EST 2001
.. 119.19 BogoMIPS M
Linux version 2.2.19
pre17 (herbert@arnor
) (gcc version 2.7.2
BIOS-provided physic
al RAM map: BIOS-88:
000a0000 @ 00000000
(usable) BIOS-88: 01
f00000 @ 00100000 (u
sable) Detected 6000
3 kHz processor. Cal
ibrating delay loop.
emory: 29788k/32768k
available (1744k ker
nel code, 408k reser
ved, 672k data, 156k
init) Dentry hash ta
ble entries: 4096 (o
rder 3, 32k)