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Tiqit Handheld PC
ParisTG sent us: "Tiqit Computers unveiled the eightythree, basically a handheld PC (as in IBM compatible). It will even boot Linux. Comes with 128-256MB RAM, 266-300MHz, 640x480 18bit screen, and a 10GB hard drive. The brochure with images (pdf) is online."
First Handheld Computer to Run Windows, Linux or Unix OS to Be Unveiled at CeBIT
March 8, 2002. eightythree, said to be the first computer that combines the portability of a handheld with the functionality and software compatibility of a Windows/Linux/UNIX PC, will be unveiled at the opening of CeBIT next week by Tiqit Computers.
According to Tiqit, although this feature was previously considered impossible to engineer, the eightythree is not a concept product. Instead, Tiqit says it has built - a mass produced -- a fully functioning x86 handheld device out of cutting-edge but available parts, designed specifically for enterprise use and immediate production. The computer will be introduced at CeBIT, the world's largest telecommunications and IT conference, scheduled for next week, March 13-20, in Hannover, Germany.
According to the company, eightythree offers clear benefits to the enterprise community. Workers reportedly gain increased mobility and function with a device that allows them to depend on a single operating system, and companies can reduce their total cost of ownership. Possessing the storage capacity and processing power to enable the extension of many software services to areas formerly unreachable, the eightythree also has the flexibility of using all of the software and hardware extensions currently available in the mainstream PC market, Tiqit maintains.
"This product will greatly accelerate adoption and use of handhelds in the enterprise," said Ian Blasch, CEO, Tiqit Computers. "It uses standard operating systems -- Windows XP, Linux or UNIX -- and is compatible with all associated applications, including legacy software. Almost anything you can do on a laptop or PC, you can do on eightythree -- only it is smaller and more mobile."
The eightythree form factor is 5.4-in long, 4-in wide, 1.1-in thin and weighs 20 oz. It is the size of a large PDA, has laptop-quality screen resolution, SMS keyboard, thumb-operated micro joystick with mouse buttons, touchscreen, a cardbus PC card slot to support all standard wireless modems, a USB port, a Secure Digital (SD) slot and internal speaker. Therefore, says Tiqit, it connects with other standard devices, from digital cameras to bar code scanners to docking stations. On the software end, it incorporates all the applications you would find on a laptop or PDA, including voice communication, e-mail, web access, PIM, enterprise applications and the ability to download attachments.
In terms of components, eightythree's CPU is the National Semiconductor Geode, 266-300 MHz, RAM is 128 MB or 256 MB, and there is a 10 GB hard drive. The screen is a 4-in 640X480 TFT (18-bit color) with touchscreen and backlight. The external monitor displays up to 1280 x 1024 at 75 Hz, 1024 x 768 at 85 Hz. eightythree is powered by an internal lithium ion rechargeable battery.
It reminded me of the Poqet PC, actually. Now that's old-school. A PC that run on AA batteries, it was an 8086 compatible with a CGA display. Not a real speed demon, but you could get Lotus going in the palm of your hand, an amazing feat for the day (late '80's or '90).
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Tiqit Computers unveiled the eightythree, basically a handheld PC
During high school, I used a device called a "TI-83" in math class. It was an 8-bit computer that came preloaded with graphing calculator software. Would selling this "eightythree" handheld PC with pre-loaded graphing calculator software constitute trademark infringement?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, you can still buy Librettos, now based on the Crusoe (and with expected long battery lives). Take a look at http://www.transmetazone.com for reviews or http://www.dynamism.com/libretto/index.shtml to buy one (for shipping to the states).
Looking through the specs, one sees that the unit only has a four-inch screen. That's just slightly larger than a Palm's display area, without the silkscreen.
As someone who owns (and uses) an old stylus-based x86 touchpad with an 8-inch screen, it's hard enough on that screen to accurately select things like forms or manipulate windows. Shrink the screen size to half of that, and certain Windows or X controls will be downright lilliputian. It looks like the Tiqit includes a joystick to supplement the touchscreen, but that'd be problematic as well at that kind of screen size. I'd also be very concerned about readability.
With a custom interface, would using the device be viable? Oh sure, probably -- but that's what the other handhelds do already. Using Explorer or E or most existing apps, I can't imagine it being particularly functional.
Eschatfische.
This thing must set a new low for battery lifetime. I'm wondering if Tiqit isn't actually a loss-leader for Energizer batteries!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
http://www.stormcloudtech.com/~gabe/TiqitBrochure. pdf
It's so small, no matter where you go, you can tiqit with you.
--
The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
Looking through the specs, one sees that the unit only has a four-inch screen
Displays are typically measured diagonally. By Pythagoras's right triangle theorem, the diagonal measure of the display is equivalent to 800 pixels, and on a four-inch display, that's 200 dpi.
certain Windows or X controls will be downright lilliputian
Typically, Windows and X controls are drawn to look good between 72 dpi and 96 dpi, but that's configurable in most theme engines. Set up large fonts (in Windows, do Control Panel > Display > Settings tab > Advanced... > General tab > 192 dpi), and you have a very readable display. Throw in ClearType, and you pretty much have print equivalent resolution.
Will I retire or break 10K?
yeah I know the cpu is a Geode Semiconductor or something
A quick Google search reveals some more information about this device's National Semiconductor Geode (an x86 clone):
Or just some type of CPU?
When MHz is used to describe an otherwise unnamed aspect of a computing device, it is generally assumed that the frequency values denote the frequency of either the CPU clock or the device's radio band.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Anyone know if I can get a 1280x1024 color (or even mono) HUD monitor yet? Haven't heard a lot out of the HUD market lately...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Mirror site up here.
That url is
http://www.netmar.com/~will/TiquitBrochure.pdf
Notes on mirror: ONE. Brochure is property of Tiquit designs, or whoever that company is. It's not mine.
TWO: If you're gonna hammer my server, sign up for webhosting with my company - www.netmar.com. Linux web hosting for $8/month, w/ 100 MB of space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email aliases, PHP, Perl, C Cgi's, MySQL, etc.
~z
sig?
Has anyone else noticed the similarity between the pictures of this thing and the Hitchikers' Huide to the Galaxy that was in the TV episodes?
Rich
Here is information on their earlier machine with some mention of pricing.
Applications
1. Factors and Considerations
The MPC is intended for situations calling for a small, light, low-powered, respectably
performing, silent commodity PC. The MPC meets these requirements as follows.
Size 5 cubic inches (84 cc)
Weight 3.3 oz (93 g)
Power 3 to 7.5 watts
Performance Positioned midway between a laptop and a PDA, the MPC is a 32-bit 66 MHz
computer, while its hard drive spins at 4500 RPM and transfers data at approximately 1
MB/s.
Noise The MPC has no fan, and the hard drive has in common with a Swiss watch not only its
precision but its near-silent operation.
Platform The MPC is based on the ubiquitous x86 architecture and can therefore run the
user's choice of Windows, DOS, Linux, OS/2, Solaris, QNX, and other x86 operating
systems.
This hard-to-meet combination is realized with the help of two key components.
The AMD Elan SC410, an x86-based microprocessor designed for low-power embedded applications.
The IBM Microdrive, a 1 gigabyte conventional rotating magnetic hard drive occupying less than half a cubic inch (7.8 cc) and weighing half an ounce (16 g). The Matchbox PC is also available with the smaller 340 MB Microdrive, or with no Microdrive in which case the operating system resides on the 16 MB flash.
No other system available today comes close to equalling the MPC's combination of features.
PDAs such as the Palm Pilot while small and light lack the computing power and storage capacity needed to run the full-scale operating systems used on desktops and laptops. So-called pocket-size Pentium-based platforms such as the Saintsong Espresso are more powerful, but their power is achieved with a much larger package (Espresso: 31 cu.in/508 cc
and 1 lb/460 g), drawing much more power (10-20 W), and making more noise with their fan
and physically larger hard drive.
2. Representative Applications
The following applications are a good match to the MPC's design parameters.
Wearable Computing The MPC was originally designed as a wearable computer. Suitable components complementing it in this application are a VGA headmounted display such as the TekGear M1 or M2 or the Virtual Research V6 or V8, the Handykey
Twiddler chording keyboard and mouse or the WristPC QWERTY keyboard, and a serial wireless modem such as a cellular phone with serial cable or the Novatel Sage CDPD modem.
Transportable Desktop The MPC together with its battery may be unplugged from one port expander and carried to another site where it is plugged into another port expander. The peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse, ethernet, printer, floppy) may be left connected at each end, greatly simplifying departure and arrival.
While in transit the MPC can continue to operate, solving preassigned computational problems or beingused as a wearable computer.
Mobile Datalogging Equipped with such mobile accessories as GPS and AD converters connected to its two serial ports, the MPC can log hundreds of megabytes of data unattended. It is ideal when weight is a major concern.
Space Missions Size, weight, and power dissipation are all of concern in the cramped quarters of a space vehicle. Every ounce of payload requires another pound of fuel to launch it. And the absence of gravity inhibits the usual upward flow of heat by convection, leaving Brownian motion of the air molecules as the primary mechanism for carrying heat away (a fan adds size and weight while consuming additional power).
At least as important in space is robustness of the software; an operating system such as Linux that has been closely scrutinized by literally thousands of programmers for eight years stands a much better chance of surviving the surprises of space than one written for a special-purpose platform by a small team of dedicated but fallible programmers.
3. Non-Applications
The MPC is not suited to all applications that one might at first think of.
MP3 Player Although the MPC is ideally sized for a personal MP3 player it lacks support both for audio output and for decoding MP3 without skipping.
Beowulf Node Although a cluster of MPCs would take up little space and draw little power, the performance available per cubic foot is less than that achievable using a smaller number of physically larger and more powerful nodes.
Desktop Replacement Although the MPC has all the functionality of a desktop, with all the capacity of a 1995 desktop, the intervening five years have witnessed dramatic growth in the size and quantity of both software and databases.
A modern desktop outperforms the MPC by easily an order of magnitude in both speed and storage capacity.
The march of progress notwithstanding, many users may be placing the same demands on their desktops today that they did five years ago. Those users at least should find the MPC meets their needs perfectly adequately. For such users the main drawback of the MPC will then be one of economics: the manufacturing costs of a tiny but powerful computer put it out of practical reach when one considers that a new desktop PC can be had for less than half the price of the MPC.
Please consider that this ``handheld'' has dimensions of 5.4" x 4" x 1.1" and a weight of 20oz (567g). This is neither something like a palmtop (except for very large palms) nor one of these slim notebooks. While it is without question quite some achievement to squeeze all this stuff into this format, you might still wonder if it is practical.
Realize that this thing is pretty far from fitting in your palm; it's four times as heavy as normal handhelds. You'll see why if you turn to the second page of the PDF; the picture on the first page makes it look nice and tiny, but the other pictures reveal its true thickness.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
I don't see where using an operating system designed for large screen use is going to be very efficient on that tiny thing. Neither do I see where you're going to get more than 4 seconds of battery life out of that thing just judging by the hardware components and the size/weight remaining for actual battery.
:P
I think it's neat, don't get me wrong. I just don't think it's practical. Not by a longshot.
I must also sieze this opportunity to point out something that nags me about slashdot. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this site and it's readers are looking through Linux-colored glasses at the world. This gets annoying to the readers who don't actually use it. Case in point - the submitter doesn't say what OS the device uses, but he does say that it can run Linux. Frankly I rather doubt we'd even be discussing it here if it didn't. "Slashdot: We like Linux. Not much else" would be a more accurate tag-line to appear at the top of each page.
And yet I love you guys anyhow.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
It's not a floppy, it's a pc-card slot.
:)
And I would hope to have one built in. Wireless baby!
Are you sure that being able to watch porn in anywhere is a good idea? The temptation to wank in public would be too great for most of us to stand.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
6 bits per color; I suspect you'd just truncate the two least significant bits from each color for 24-bit color. There'd be a little banding in your images.
It doesn't strike me as much smaller than the good old Libretto 110CT, and the specs are only slightly more impressive; the Libretto was something like 233 mhz (vs 266), 64M RAM (vs 128; this is probably the most significant item), 7G HD (vs 10), 800x480 display (vs 640x480), dual PCMCIA, serial, parallel, video out, and a more usable keyboard than the Tiqit.
(Oh yeah, and the Libretto suffers from being discontinued; very sad how this amazing machine was never marketed well in North America at all. Everyone who saw mine, immediately assumed it was a CE machine due to it's size, and was blown away to see it running Win98 and Linux; several people I showed ended up buying one right away. But Libretto only targeted the Japenese market that well. And their new Librettos are bigger and less appealing to me; they're kinda turning to Viao Picturebooks, rather than keeping their own charm.)
The big issue with the Tiqit will be price. The Libretto was something like $1K when I bought it. I'm guessing the Tiqit will be several times that, judging by their historical pricing on their Matchbox computer (which was cool, but *way* too pricey). Here's hoping they'll prove me wrong by pricing it $1K (and then I'll end up buying one, dammit!)
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The difference is that the color space is uniform, which means you can have true greys. 16 bits is done as 5 red 6 green 5 blue. That means you can't really have true greys because the color values are spread out differently among the color channels. There will always be a little more or less green. Having 18 bits makes that smooth and is a significant advantage.
Yes IBM made a machine about the same weight with a 5" or so 640x480 DSTN colour display, a 486 CPU and 8-20Mb of RAM. Oh and its also a phone handset, modem, fax and has 2 PCMCIA slots and a CF slot.
Its sad its taken from 1994-now for anyone to do anything with the concept mass market, even sadder that IBM killed the original rather than following the line further.
As regards image quality - the PC110 runs XFCE acceptably and X is quite usable.
Only on a Mac.
That extra bit for alpha can be useful for things like pixmaps and texture maps before they are put down on the framebuffer.
Not in any measurable way. You'd need 640x480/4=76kB more memory for graphics. The rest of the hardware doesn't change, you're just driving a DAC with an extra bit for red and blue.
No you can't. Think about it.
A color channel with 5 bits will split up the 256 color output values as:
0=0, 1=64, 2=128, 3=192, 4=255
A color channel with 6 bits will do something like
0=0, 1=51, 2=102, 3=153, 4=204, 5=255
So, even if you ignore the least significant bit, the color values are never going to match up. That's the difference between 16 bit and 15 bit. If you're hardware supports 15 bit (packed into 16 bits of storage) then you get the right behavior.