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Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead?
An Anonymous Coward writes: "LinuxDevices.com has published a news item about the uncertain future of Agenda Computing and their VR3 linux PDA. According to the article, some members of the Agenda developer community are continuing work on current projects, but many have switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus. Apparently there is an Agenda Germany office which is still shipping the VR3s (including to the U.S.) and which has said that they are continuing VR3 development -- but's not clear whether that means software or device development. Looks like another cool linux device has bitten the dust. Sigh."
... there's already some interesting ideas coming out of the VR3 project ... offhand I can think of that Snow ABI which considers building apps in a different way to be more memory thrifty ... unlike a PC with virtual memory, a PDA is severely constrained with no guarantee that a wireless connection will be available. Some of the ideas could be extrapolated ... for example, if you have a transmeta chip, could the ABI refactor themselves in memory (ie reorder libraries to drop non-used portions?) What about mechanisms to detect dead code or where the memory/code hierarchy changes (think reconfigurable chips hibernating in spare memory slots as one HK uni research group published).
... perhaps we need to consider next generation hardware advances to .... ummm ... create the hobbit ABI. Think reconfigurable. think non-linear memory, think small embedded devices that can join together in a single complex task, think auto-optimisers/refactors a la JIT.
I mean, we evolved from the dwarf binary format to elf
LL
The community itself is currently debating the best way to move off of Agenda Computing's servers (which are likely going to disappear without notice in the next several months). Once the community switches over, all of the software can be maintained by the community.
Other people, such as myself, are working on Linux-based PDA software that is platform independent. PicoGUI, for example, runs on the VR3, the Helio, PC's, OS X (I think...), and several embedded systems. With this kind of development, the success of the software does not depend on the success of any particular piece of hardware.
The parent company of Agenda Computing, Kessel International Holdings, had severe financial problems. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong suspended trading in Kessel shares on 23rd May 2001.
Agenda US was said to be "temporarily closed" because Agenda Germany (Agenda Computing GmbH) as an independent company was planning to establish an office in US (which would have become the new Agenda US). Apparently they were never able to come up with sufficient funding for that (at least not yet).
This is what we have heard from an ex Agenda employee Shane on the Agenda mailing list (I hope I got it right).
The financial problems might have been one reason why they started selling Agenda VR3 when it was still way too unfinished as a product. But there were also some technical problems such as not having enough available RAM. It made it harder to quickly come up with usable set of PDA applications. I guess it was the result of trying to push for a too low price point.
Anyway, I continue using my VR3. It is a nice device and certainly has been one step forward for Linux PDA devices. I am just sad that the step didn't carry very far.
NOT TRUE.
I'm happily using an Agenda, and syncs with Linux (gnomecard and gnomecal) quite well.
Admittedly, earlier versions of the synchronization programs had problems, though.
However, their hardware spec was still hugely flawed. Some of the more obvious deficiencies:
/dev/dsp: They built in sound hardware (input and output!), with a port for a nokia-style earmike. But to this day no useful software has used it. An mp3 player isn't too much fun when you've got maybe 3 megabytes storage free.- too small: It's SMALLER than most Palms! That sounds like an advantage, but the fact is, the customers for a Linux device are going to be geeky hackers, and willing to look like a nerd for hauling around a huge brick of hardware. If the Agenda had been slightly bigger, not slightly smaller, then there may have been room for AA batteries (much longer life), more RAM, more flash, or who knows.
- not enough memory: Here's the memory on my unit:
\w\$ cat
/proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 7798784 7487488 311296 0 0 729088
Swap: 0 0 0
MemTotal: 7616 kB
MemFree: 304 kB ...
8 meg is adequate. I guess. Barely. If they could've bumped it up to 16, the device would've been much more useful. Today hardware hackers enjoy pulling apart SIMMs to solder in this upgrade themselves- if its that easy, the factory should've done it.
- not enough storage: Same deal as the RAM. Had 8, should've had 16. Most of the 8 was already exhausted by kernel,
/bin, /usr/bin/X11R6, /usr/bin/games, etc. With 16 flash, the out-of-box device would've come mostly empty, instead of mostly full, which is a world of difference. Many Palm users felt decieved when they found that the advertised "8 megs of storage" wasn't all usable for their contacts and appointments.
Here's the stats: /dev/mtdblock0 3.3M 212.0k 3.0M 6% /flash
- Replaceable batteries: You had to unscrew the case to change the AAA batteries, rather than being able to slap it in the dock every night and never think about losing power, like you can with many Palms and PocketPC units. That would've been an especially important advantage for a device whose usefulness come from software hacking. You want to plug it in, export DISPLAY=workstation:0, and beging to code, without worrying that operating the serial port drains batteries faster than normal unplugged operation. This problem reduced the convenience of developing new software for the Agenda, which thus reduced the benefit that a Free Software operating system should've given them.
- No USB: USB is cool, what can I say? A USB port could've not only handled the recharge problem from the same plug as the data, but it would've had better bandwidth too, and not require a nonstandard serial-port adapter. And imaging if the PDA could emulate a USB mass-storage device to export its filesystem to random PCs you meet throughout the day (kinda like the Terapin Mine, but that's a $700 system).
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If they'd done just 1 or 2 of those rather simple improvements, they could've justified the higher price to average users.\w\$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
Seriously, we have the source to every bit on the device. And I mean Open Source. It did take some effort to get the X11 sources, and source for the PMON boot loader, but we have them all. I know this because Brian Webb, who isn't an Agenda employee, rebuilt everything from source to support my snow ABI, which is not binary compatible---if it wasn't rebuilt, it wouldn't work!
We're still working on automating the rebuild. Right now, doing this rebuild is a manual process, but I think we're a few weeks away from having a big "make World" that will spit out a cross compiler and then a romdisk image.
Now, if you're fretting about PDAs with components that aren't Open Source, go check out the Zaurus. Its Java implementation is proprietary. (If you want to write apps for it, they have to be GPL'd unless you're a Troll licensee; I guess some people see that as a positive thing.)
$250 always seemed a touch high to me. I think there's a Linux PDA niche somewhere below the iPaqs, competing directly with low-end Palm devices. LinuxDA is a little too low end for my taste; I want virtual memory. I would think that had Agenda's parent company not stumbled, pricing on the VR3 would have come down.I don't remember an NDA on their developer pages.
(I wish people would stop moderating articles with "overrated/underrated" just to avoid metamod; the parent is at score 3 with no moderation reason. And the parent msg is substantially incorrect.)
But even though I had been willing to shell out $250 for it, I got one for less on ebay. I've had it for a week, and I love it! Consider:
- Easy to program. I can develop
for it an run code natively on my Linux box,
without emulators or other stuff.
- GPL, and documented file formats.
I can write my own code (and have done so)
to sync
data reliably, i.e., correct conflict
resolution when records are changed both
on the PDA and the desktop.
- No need for Wintendo. Although
there is Linux support for most PDAs,
if you have to upgrade the OS, it seems
like vendors only provide
.EXE
files. That doesn't help those of us
who do not use the garbage from Redmond.
- The Right Philosophy. Full CVS
access to the sources, Open mentality.
Come on! We all
bitch and moan about Sony, but how many
of you have gone out and bought their
PDAs "because they're nifty", despite
the evils commited by the company?
- Great price. Not everyone has
$500 to spend on an ipaq
or Zaurus or the latest nifty toy.
It has its flaws... lots of them. But for the price, it's easily the best thing out there.I work for the largest (paper) agenda company. We supply agendas for almost 50 % of North American schools. I called up Agenda VR3 and said, hey, let's talk. Maybe there's something that we can do here. Unfortunately, I never heard back from them. We then made arrangements to sell Palms, and VR3 was left out in the cold, where, apparently, they are freezing. We've had some corporate changes lately, and our relationship with Palm is in question, but there was an opportunity there that the VR3 people seemingly just ignored. Too bad!
I was very excited when I first heard about the VR3 and was going to buy one as soon as it was released ... untill I read more information about it. It lacks in storage space and RAM compared to other PDA's and has utilities that you can get from the net, like mp3 player, but no room to actually put them to use unless you map to the RAM which is always a bad idea.
Agenda's U.S. phone and fax numbers have been disconnected
:) somewhere in October or November, but the letter was returned. The USPS reason, if I remember well, was 'unclaimed'. I don't know what that mean, but my guess is that they were in a so bad shape financially that they could not afford the USPS fees to collect their prepaid mail...
Not only that: I sent my registration card by mail (yes, I did it on the internet too