Terapin Mine Review

Ian Bell writes: "Designtechnica has just posted a review of the Terapin Mine. This handheld device has a 10gb hard drive, ethernet port, PCMCIA port, USB 2.0 and a front display. On top of all this it has a Linux OS installed complete with scandisk and defrag. You can hook this unit up to your television to view pictures as well. I know that the stats on this unit sound great, but you would be surprised by just how usable it is. Click Here for the full review." Whether it's 10 or 20 gigs (the review mentions both figures) doesn't really affect the reviewer's conclusion.

Comments

what?

[rootofevil]

scandisk and defrag on a Linux OS device? dont they mean fsck?

Re:what?

[scott1853]

Maybe they've added some incredibly new features in Wine ;)

Re:what?

[jukal]

> scandisk and defrag on a Linux OS device? dont they mean fsck?

...now I got it! This must be an evil Micro$oft plan: create non-working devices based on Linux, resulting in bad publicity for linux based embeddees and a steady peek in sales of Windows embedded.

Hey, it was supposed to be a joke - but don't ponder on the idea for too long, or you will start seeing green men and corporate conspiracy in here too.

Re:what?

[huyle]

It seems that they have one partition for sharing data in FAT 32 format, it is normal for data storage management device.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that the stats on this unit sound great, but you would be surprised by just how usable it is.

Uhm... huh?

"Wow... this thing has great features, and I'm suprised by its usuability."

This makes sense... how exactly?

Re:Huh?

[Jonny Ringo]

Well it makes a lot of sense to me, but you'd be suprised at how much sesce I make.

Re:Huh?

[joshsisk]

Read the review. It's barely usable at all.

Good platform for opensource project

[jukal]

As the review states:
"its inconsistent performance coupled with its hulkish dimensions make it seem quite undesirable to those of us who can only afford to invest in a technology once."

They have the things needed stuffed in there, but did not have the budget to get it work, maybe it could work as opensource?

Re:Good platform for opensource project

[huyle]

This product surely has nice features that can meet our needs. I have read some papers that stated something good about this product, so I am not sure how the reviewer conduct the review process here. Does she/he know how to use mine???

Ah, But...

[Mike Mentalist]

Does it play Quake?

Re:Ah, But...

[Anonymous Coward]

'Dont Be a Poof - Eat White Bread!'

Is that a Cheesy Poof, or just a Poofter?

Sweet! A linux handheld...

[dirvish]

What could be cooler than a linux handheld? With 20 gb, ethernet and usb no less. I really need one of these. It looks like it is already slash-dotted...does anyone know which Linux OS is comes installed with?

Poor Seller In Third World Countries

[Ozymandias_KoK]

After all, they already have so many mines that whole organizations dedicate themselves solely to their removal.

Re:Poor Seller In Third World Countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Mines have mutilated too many innocent children for you to post such a stupid comment and, by the way, not only in the so called 3rd world.

Fuck you.

scandisk & defrag

[pcardoso]

what the hell is scandisk and defrag in linux?

Looks like garbage

[MisterBlister]

Way too big, way too heavy, too much extra crap that's not needed for a portable storage device.

Would this thing have gotten a good review if it were running WinCE instead of Linux? And if so, would Slashdot have linked to the review? I'm guessing no.

Re:Looks like garbage

[2Bits]

Way too big, way too heavy, too much extra crap that's not needed for a portable storage device.

No, you should have seen it before you claim that it's too heavy and too big.

I just went to CompUSA during lunch break, and had it on my hand. It's very ligh, and fit into my hand very nicely. It's slick too.

Unfortunately, like all display model, it does not work. No battery, no shit. So I don't know about the sound quality.

An advice for retail store managers: Please have your floor models work properly (put in the god danm battery, if needed), and loaded up a couple of mp3 so people can test it. It would be a quick sale for gadget afficionado, like me, who tend to jump on this kind of things impulsively.

Re:Looks like garbage

[_fuzz_]

It's very light... No battery

How can you make an accurate assessment of its weight without the battery?

Re:Looks like garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

But with scandisk AND defrag I'm guessing it's right up your alley hotshot.

Re:Looks like garbage

[t]

Give me a break, like no one has ever seen a battery before. The real problem is that usually the display models are fake empty shells of the real deal.

Re:Looks like garbage

[_fuzz_]

The real problem is that usually the display models are fake empty shells of the real deal.

Exactly. How can someone tell how a device feels weight-wise if it's just the case? You can't. A lot of portable devices have half the weight in the battery.

Re:Looks like garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

An advice for retail store managers: Please have your floor models work properly

Also, how about not putting passwords on every PC in the store. I mean, what's the point of having the computer on display if it's passworded??

Re:Looks like garbage

[zzubzzub]

I doubt the model had the HD either which would also carry a significant portion of the weight.

--Buzz

Re:Looks like garbage

[cyclist1200]

Uhh, this device did not get a good review. MP3 playback was muddy, the TV-connected image slideshow kept crashing, it couldn't recognize the model of an Olympus digital camera attached via USB, and it was unreachable through its LAN connector. Final judgement? Not recommended to anyone except the gotta-have-it gadget crowd.

" Way too big, way too heavy, too much extra crap that's not needed for a portable storage device."

The reviewer agrees with you on every point there, and also adds that it lacked one thing it really should have had - a Firewire connection.

Only Windows Boxes should be called Mines ..

[SirSlud]

.. because the slightest level of interaction tends to cause them to blow up!

sorry, you have to admit, it was a pretty obligatory offtopic/troll/bait post. and its getting boring always having 50 karma. :(

Re:Only Windows Boxes should be called Mines ..

[SirSlud]

sounds like a good idea, but how would I remove it from your ass in the first place?

oh man, I'm turning into the /. luser I swore I never would be, the irony, the tragedy

Motherload of turtles?

[rufusdufus]

What a very strange name this thing has. A terapin is a turtle, and a mine is a place where you dig up riches.
So if you get one of these you will become rich with turtles?

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[Kphrak]

What a very strange name this thing has. A terapin is a turtle, and a mine is a place where you dig up riches.
So if you get one of these you will become rich with turtles?

That's the optimistic version. Now, here's my take:

A mine is something that blows up if you get near it. And a turtle is legendary for being slow.

What kind of PR department do these people have?! ;)

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[SanLouBlues]

I figured they made the connection between floating mines and snapping turtles as both hurting a lot (I hear). Not sure why they would want their device to cause pain though.

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a very strange name this thing has.

Terapin is the company name and Mine is the product they offer. From the Terapin website

Terapin draws its design inspiration from the terrapin, the aquatic turtle like creature found in the lakes and rivers of North America and Asia. Terapin is funky and compelling and in Chinese culture, the terrapin is considered a symbol of good luck.

They don't say how they named the product but I believe it is mine as in "That thing is mine".

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[Tackhead]

> > A terrapin is a turtle, and a mine is a place where you dig up riches. So if you get one of these you will become rich with turtles?
>
> That's the optimistic version. Now, here's my take:
>
> A mine is something that blows up if you get near it. And a turtle is legendary for being slow.
>
> What kind of PR department do these people have?! ;)

Hah! Your version is still too optimistic!

Airline Screener: "Sir, what's that thing in your carry-on luggage?"

Passenger: "Oh, just my terrapin mine..."

Screener: *presses Big Red Button, sirens go off, and auto-targeting lasers immediately render passenger into a smudge on the checkpoint floor*

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[EverDense]

I can almost hear the music for the adverts:
"Hard drive in a half-shell"

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[allism]

They probably have a PR department that speaks very good Engrish.

Re:Motherload of turtles?

[Mansing]

The turtles have two "r"s in the name, as in "terrapin".

No wonder they offered to buy my domain ... "terrapin.com"

more and more

[SonicTooth]

there have been more and more linux based handhelds is this a new hopefull trend finally coming to light... or just a breif blip on the linux radar

Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they just put a Linux Journaling filesystem on it instead of FAT32 ? Weird huh.

Re:Ummm

[ADRA]

Since it is probably a mass storage device in USB 2.0's eyes, so a windows user could plug in the device to windows and read the entire filesystem as-is.

With Journalling, you don't have that interoperability.

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

a windows user could plug in the device ... With Journalling, you don't have that interoperability.

NTFS anyone?

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive me, but isnt this were the Linux USB 2.0 drivers would kick in and masqurade whatever underlying FS as a USB readable FS to whatever OS that connects to the box? I thought Interpolation had come a long way since the days of computers that cant talk between themselves.

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Access to the FS goes through the Linux kernel, which can do whatever conversion that's requested. There is no direct access of the underlying FS using raw USB (What's an OS?). Therefore, regardless of the filesystem on the little thing, any USB storage client would see the filesystem as a usable filesystem (if it's being shared by the kernel).

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

That would require EXT3 support in the kernel (more space needed) then it will need some kind of shim to allow EXT3 to appear to be a Fat or Fat32 fs (samba, etc) all of this will require more memory, more cpu, and if this thing runs entirely out of flash or some other firmware, then storage is at a premium. By making it a Windows mass storage device, they can just use one USB > IDE chip on the system and share it between the onboard Linux and the external PC.

Re:Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, go away with your rational, non biased, open mind thinking! :)

Re:Ummm

[ahaning]

Linux cannot write NTFS partitions. You could run ths thing on XP Embedded, but I'm sure that would not be help the cost if it "cost" the same amount of work from the designers as did Linux. If the design time was less with XPE such that the money saved was more than the cost of XPE, then, it very well may have made the thing cheaper, with NTFS, to boot.

Then again, you could use EXT3 or XFS, which cost nothing.

USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[Toshito]

It seems to me that the author of this review is right about this, the lack of a FireWire port is quite lame.

Moving 10Gb thru USB at 12Mbit/s or LAN at 10Mbit/s takes a loooooong time indeed!

Re:USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[questionlp]

USB 1.1 transfers at a maximum rate of 12Mbit/sec whereas USB 2.0 (which the T/M uses, at least according to the story write-up) can transfer at a maximum rate of 480Mbit/sec (or 60MByte/sec).

Re:USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's USB 2.0 which means:

Talks to USB 1.0 devices at USB 1.0 speed.
Talks to USB 2.0 devices at >= Firewire speed.

Re:USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[ADRA]

USB2 is 480mbs, theoretically anyways.

Firewire would have been great for interoperability, but there is one option, anyway. They are probably MAC users who use built-in firewire.

Just my assumption since the slash effect is still running rampant.

Re:USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[kilgore_47]

USB 1.1 transfers at a maximum rate of 12Mbit/sec whereas USB 2.0 (which the T/M uses, at least according to the story write-up) can transfer at a maximum rate of 480Mbit/sec (or 60MByte/sec).

Thats nice and all, but my laptop has usb1 and firewire, and doesn't have usb2, so I'm still stuck at that 12MBit/sec (and even that is a theoretical max I'll likely never get close to).

Has usb2 really been adopted very widely yet?!

In any case, I'll take a firewired Apple iPod over one of these any day.

The big selling point for the slashdot crowd seems to be that it runs linux, but with a proprietary front end running on that 4-lines-of-text screen, and fat32 for the filesystem, I hardly think thats very cool. The instructions don't even mention how you'd connect it to anything besides windows; this isn't really a linux (or mac) user targeted product at all. Methinks they went with linux not for the "love of the game" but rather because it makes for a good cheap embedded OS.

btw, anyone know anything about hacking these things?
ie actually getting a shell on it?
(on your pc, of course, on it's own screen would be a joke)

Re:USB and 10 Mbit LAN only?

[conchoid]

Actually, didn't it say usb 2.0? that is just as fast as firewire.. read the specs before saying something unintelligent/uninformed.

It must inhale the battery

[peterdaly]

One +2 posting, and the site is already slashdotted...wow.

Needless to say, I have not read the review, but the battery life on this sucker must be horrible! Either that, or you wear around a battery on your belt.

The features mentioned in the slashdot summary sound great, but I don't believe current battery technology can power such a package for any reasonable amount of time. I may be wrong, as I said, I havn't read the review, but I bet battery is what will make this unit suck.

-Pete

Re:It must inhale the battery

[httpamphibio.us]

$355 is dirt cheap? methinks you're making money off this link...

Re:It must inhale the battery

[edrugtrader]

?!?! current battery technology can power my car to work everyday, i think it can handle a PDA.

Re:It must inhale the battery

[920]

Unless you're talking about an electric car with a massive amount of batteries, you're mistaken. The battery provided in most automobiles powers the car only when being started, after such time the alternator (SP!?!) kicks out the necessary power to run all the electronics. The only time you would be using your battery while driving would be if you're drawing more power than your alternator(sp? again) can crank out.. And that is a bad situation there.

Re:It must inhale the battery

[dirkdidit]

?!?! current battery technology can power my car to work everyday, i think it can handle a PDA.

Your car has an alternator. A PDA doesn't have one. The alternator keeps the car battery charged, while the PDA batteries just continue to drain with nothing to charge them.

Re:It must inhale the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then obviously, PDAs need to start coming with alternators. Duh!

Re:It must inhale the battery

[joshki]

Battery technology has almost nothing to do with getting your car to work every day -- the only thing it does is get it started so the alternator can run your car's electrical system. You won't get far without an alternator -- but you can actually run your car with no battery installed, or with a completely shorted battery that won't turn it over... Just push and go for those of us lucky enough to be driving stick-shifts...

Re:It must inhale the battery

[Ziviyr]

Your car has an alternator. A PDA doesn't have one. The alternator keeps the car battery charged, while the PDA batteries just continue to drain with nothing to charge them.

The whats the point of filling the PDA with gasoline?

Re:It must inhale the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

He is. As someone pointed out in another thread (one to which he posted this advertisement), the exact same card can be had for $255.00 from pricewatch. Since this is O.T. I'll be posting A.C.

Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

From article: Maybe students aren't out of the closet and don't want people to know they're going to the Gay & Lesbian Resource Center

Student 1: Why didn't you take a free PDA? Student 2: Ummm.... I.... I'M NOT GAY!!! Student 1: Sure thing.

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

gotta work on your aim buddy. Wrong article.

Re:Sweet! A linux handheld...

[mansemat]

Offtopic, yes I know. But, since the site is totally /.'ed...

I've been one of the people who complain about the slashdot effect, lack of cached content, etc. etc.

But in this case, the guy did it to himself. With a database backed site no less... oh well....

Here's the havok that has been thrust upon his server if anyone is interested...

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Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php on line 29

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Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php:29) in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/mainfile.php on line 39

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Windows XP corp. key

[Dessimat0r]

Windows XP
CWWQT-VQ3RH-TPWPQ-HRJRP-9P8FV

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow....considering M$ scans the Internet for things precisely like the one you just posted, that makes you quite an idiot.

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but they'll never find Slashdot.

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for that? This isn't the kind of "Free Software" that Slashdot is supposed to support ;)

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

1c7e59963c788e5328886709cb817f82 linux-2.4.17.tar.gz

LEECH AWAY!

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

wonder how long it took to get deactivated by the mothership.

Re:Windows XP corp. key

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote this to -1 quickly. This is the *other* pro corp cd key, other than FCKGW... this one still works on Windows Update. Now MS will find this one and deactivate it too.

Why so much hype about a portable hard drive?

[iamacat]

Basically, it doesn't do anything besides store data from different places. Whatever OS it's running, it sounds like you can only access it through menus on a tiny LCD which is unusable for real apps/games/etc. For just storage, people might as well get iPOD or Archos MP3 Jukebox. As for digital camera, how many 128M storage card does one really need for a trip? I really have no clue what's so exciting about these thing to be mentioned on Slashdot so many times

Re:TERPS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to stop myself from beating them senseless

Must be because you realize you are a pasty-skinned gnu hippy that the only thing you can beat is yourself when you look at goatse pr0n.

The hybrid device everyone needs...

[httpamphibio.us]

There seems to be scores of companies that are coming to the portable mp3 device way too late in the game. Is there enough market share to handle dozens and dozens of devices that do the exact same thing? Doesn't seem to be. My real question is, why hasn't anyone released a device similar to the ipod (in physical size, speed, and hard drive space) with a decent sized color screen that includes pda and cell phone capabilities? yeah, it would probably cost a pretty penny, but i think these things would sell like crazy and *nobody* has done it yet.

Re:The hybrid device everyone needs...

[aftk2]

SonyEricsson P800? The only hangup seems to be the relatively small hard drive. But it's got a digital camera, color screen, stylus, cell phone, xhtml-compatible web browser, PDA, etc... Check out the 3D animations, if you can get the plugin.

Interesting design, poor filesystem?

[DaPhoenix]

Okay, the link seems dotted so i can't quite access it right now, however based on the poster's comments, why in gods name would you need a defrag and scandisk program for this system. Particularly if it runs a derivative of GNU/Linux. Did they decide to run this system with a FAT partition and have linux run in a file? Or are they perhaps using standard EXT2 but referencing fsck? Reguardless, wouldnt a journaled filesystem (ala EXT3, ReiserFS, etc) been a more prudent choice? The nature of EXT2 makes a defrag/scandisk program useless. Obviously for a portable device they want the security of a journaled filesystem in case the battery dies, etc. Neet idea - needs better explination :P

(I muse at the difficulty of hacking this and converting this to ReiserFS or EXT3)...

Re:Interesting design, poor filesystem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can defrag an unmounted ext2 partition. But yeah, you get very little fragmentation until the disk is really full, so a defrag utility isn't very usefull.

Re:Interesting design, poor filesystem?

[RAMMS EIN]

Perhaps we need to rethink what ``running Linux'' means. This thing uses a filesystem intorduced by mess-DOS which even M$ realizes is obsolete and doesn't seem to give access to anything that makes Linux great...so what's the deal here? Now I do remember something about firmware updates so perhaps we could really load up Linux and have a console and a decent filesystem? But then, what use is a console if you can't type and a filesystem if your batteries are dead?

Re:Interesting design, poor filesystem?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only true as you are filling the disk up as in all file systems. ext2 fragments just as bad as anything else. The inode structure merely hides the fragmentation from you, that's all. This "Linux doesn't fragment" lie is one of the biggest and oldest Linux FUDs out there. Lay it to rest! Geez.

Re:Sweet! A linux handheld...

[wizzy403]

It's not a linux handheld... It's a file store that happens to run Linux on the backend... But you're completely isolated from any of the OS by their software... Thinkgeek has been carrying these for a while now, but they're expensive.

Here is the user's manual, which has some good screen shots...

wizzy

Review - since it's slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Terapin Mine Review

Terapin Mine Review
In the last year or so we have seen a practical onslaught of hand held storage devices. The Terapin Mine is one of many such devices currently on the market. Boasting the Linux operating system, a 20 gig hard drive, and an impressive array of connectivity options, the Mine appears to be a unique entry in this extremely competitive industry. Practically a Swiss Army Knife of file sharing options, this Linux based behemoth would appear to be the clear front-runner on anyone's hand held wish list. With all that being said let us get down to the nitty gritty. Does this bad boy deliver or not?

Looks and First Impressions
Upon first opening the box, I was surprised to see what appeared to be an oversized protective carrying case for the Mine. It wasn't til I removed the item that I realized that in fact it was the Mine itself. To put it frankly, the Mine is huge. Weighing in at an impressive 1 lb and measuring 7" x 3.5" x 1" it will undoubtedly give your notebook computer a run for its money. The actual ergonomics of the Mine seemed quite fine with its various controls and ports located in a logical and intuitive manner. The sheer amount of connectivity options is staggering. Located on top is a 16 bit Type II PCMCIA card slot. The bottom contains a LAN port, a USB master port, and a USB slave port. Rounding it off is a standard head phone jack and Video Out. The absence of Firewire is a legitimate complaint though.

Specifications and Features
Size (HDD) 10GB
Dimensions 180mm (Height) x 90mm (Width) x 27mm (Thickness)
Weight 375gms
480gms (with 4AA Alkaline batteries)

Operation System Linux
Video Composite video out for still images (JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, CRW, NEF)
Video Format PAL and NTSC
Audio Stereo Playback
Mono Recording (with external microphone, in WAV format only)
Audio Format MP3 and WAV
USB Master 1
USB Slave 1
10 Mbps Ethernet 1
16-Bit PCMCIA Type II Slot 1
Screen 16 Characters x 4 lines high contrast LCD
panel with back lighting
Power 4 x AA Alkaline batteries
Internal Rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery (Optional)
External Rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery (Optional)

Simple 3 front-panel buttons and 3 side buttons for all device controls
Upload and download from Digital Cameras (via USB or via PCMCIA Memory Card Adapter)
Display photographs and graphic files on a TV or projector
Rotate photographs
Upload and download MP3 Players (via USB or via PCMCIA Memory Card Adapter)
Removable HDD (Compatible with Windows 98, 2000 and ME)
Share via Local Area Network (LAN)
Receive attachments and send email
Auto online backup, download and upload
Online and FTP sharing
Online upgrading and diagnostic features

Setup and Use
Given the fact that the Mine is running the Linux OS, I was curious as to how fast the boot up sequence would be. The average boot up time was a mere 10 seconds....I wish my Windows box could do the same. The user interface for the Mine consisted of simple text options laid out in a no nonsense fashion. I suppose that the Mine's interface emphasizes readability and clarity but I found it to be rather plain and much of the precious LCD real estate was wasted. Navigating the menu's proved to be extremely easy. After a few minutes of playing around I felt confident that I had a complete run down of the Mine's basic features.

As far as configuration is concerned this is handled through your PC as opposed to through the Mine itself. Using the USB slave port, I proceeded to hook the Mine up to my PC, which at the time was running Windows 2000 Professional. As expected, Windows immediately detected the presence of the Mine and assigned it a drive letter. Located on the Mine was an executable that allowed me to configure its various and plentiful capabilities. The configuration process was relatively painless although I did resort to the manual.

Testing
So far my experience with the Mine had been all smooth sailing. Installation and configuration was a breeze and the impressive feature set was begging me to put it to the test. Unfortunately, this is where the Mine truly distinguished itself from the rest of the pack. Here's what I found.

With the Mine still hooked up to my PC, I copied onto it a collection of MP3's and some images I took with my digital camera. For comparison sake I burned onto CD the same MP3's that I had placed on the Mine. The MP3's on CD sounded fantastic when played on my dedicated stereo but upon connecting the Mine, I was simply shocked at how mush the sound quality had degraded. I can only assume that in the D/A conversion process the Mine simply cannot compete with my dedicated CD player. I'm not talking a difference that only an Audiophile would notice, I'm talking a substantial decrease in the overall clarity and imaging of the music. This seemed pretty unfortunate since one of the main selling points of hand held storage devices is their ability to transport large volumes of digital music.

A little disapointed, I proceeded to hook the Mine up to my TV via the provided RCA connector. Taking into consideration the resolution restrictions of a composite connection, I was very satisfied with the image quality. Without any configuration on the users behalf, the Mine will automatically display your stored images in a slideshow manner. Just as I had gotten comfortable watching the images, a blue screen of death appeared indicating that the image to be displayed was corrupt. After several minutes of troubleshooting and several attempts at downloading the images onto the Mine, I eventually gave up without resolving the situation. The images seemed fine on my PC but simply would not display correctly when viewed via the Mine.

At this point, I was feeling a bit let down so I decided to try out one of the Mine's features that would be of most use to me. Via the USB master port, the Mine should in theory be able to connect and control a USB compliant device. This would be a fantastic option for anyone who has a digital camera and has felt the wrath of storage limitations. For the sake of this I broke out my Olympus C-3020 Zoom camera. Like the old saying goes "3 strikes and your out". For the life of me, I could not get the Mine to connect to my camera. Although it detected the fact that my camera was an Olympus, it failed to properly recognize its model.

Up until this point, the Mine had behaved flawlessly via USB. Every time I connected it to my PC it was detected immediately and mapped as a local drive. The same was not true when I tried to access it via my LAN. I followed the directions to the letter but I was never able to access it. Its FTP capabilities seemed attractive but failed to materialize during my test. If this process proves difficult for me I can't imagine the frustration that would be experienced by a less technology savvy owner.

Conclusion and Final thoughts
At this point in time it's hard for me to recommend the Terapine Mine to anyone but those whom are willing to invest in bleeding edge technology. On paper it boasts an impressive feature set and seems to offer more than any of its competition. But its inconsistent performance coupled with its hulkish dimensions make it seem quite undesirable to those of us who can only afford to invest in a technology once.

Re:Review - since it's slashdotted

[edrugtrader]

"Olympus C-3020 Zoom camera"

well, the website says it supports the C-3040, not the C-3020... of course it isn't going to work.

network connectivity problems can almost conclusively be blamed on the network setup and not the device in general. probably duped IPs or a router issue.

blue screen of death on the images can probably be blamed to a .gif image or some other proprietary image format that of course would work on the PC and not on the mine. or maybe a .gif image with a .jpg extension. i have seen this all before.

i have never used the device, but i don't think the review is very fair, those were his 3 strikes why he wouldn't recommend it, and as far as i'm concerned they were right on the corner of the plate.

Re:Review - since it's slashdotted

[recursiv]

Hey Mr. EdrugTrader man. I was looking forward to June 8 as the start of a new edrug trading season. But now I haven't been able to trade edrugs for almost a week! I'm so sad...

Anyhoo, what seems to be the trouble? Is there any hope of the site coming back? Will slashdot ever get private messaging so I don't have to post this in a story?

Re:Review - since it's slashdotted

[forged]

Will slashdot ever get private messaging so I don't have to post this in a story?

You bet this is needed. Think of all these posts which could be slapped (-1, Offtopic)

Btw your fans list has grown quite a bit lately. Neat! Check mine out, too :)

Re:Review - since it's slashdotted

[recursiv]

Thank you.
Good work on your friends. Almost 800 already. Congrats on that.

In other news, you seem to follow my every move on slashdot. Thank you for your interest. My AIM name is recursiv.

That is all. Good day.

Re:Review - since it's slashdotted

[forged]

Following your every move sounds a bit dramatic and exagerated, but it is true that I like to check on to friends whom I consider to be dear to me in their own way :)

Gosh I hadn't realised that I'm already up to 800 friends. Am I really that far away ? I thought I might have 100 or 200 or something. I haven't been adding scores like you have ! How many do you have anyway ? Well over 1000 or 2000 I suppose. Perhaps more, I could be very wrong.

I don't use any IM system unfortunately; but my /. username is forged ;)

Regarding private messages: this would be beneficial, or we could just use each other's journal to allow fellow users to communicate in a semi-public way (like on BBS).

For the moment, my techique of writing was inspired by sllort's Modbombing Disable HOWTO. I like finding old and obscure comments to some story in which the /. mob has lost interest for, and using these to reply to and post "private" messages to friends. It's less risky to so so because
a) I choose to stay very close to the archival event horizon (under section 2.1), and,
b) it lessens the number of people who care to read old comments.

I consider other Slashdot users like heroes, such as sllort (activist) or Klerck (troll/crapflooder) but not for the same reasons :) In the latter case, for researching exploits and bugs in the system, which is a quest in itself, and too bad if some people abuse it. It'll make the system better eventually..

However I don't talk quite as much as with the other users as we do. I'm normally a quiet person. So, for the evening, goodbye and write to you some time.

Oh, btw: you're famous.

homepage of terapin-mine

[spotter]

http://www.terapin-mine.com/terapin/index.htm

Defrag

[dcstimm]

Linux Does have defrag but its very very buggy for the ext3/ext2 file system. fsck does not do a defrag.

Re:Defrag

[Anonymous Coward]

The linus opereting sistem is so cool it does't need to defragmenteting!

Re:Defrag

[shepd]

>The linus opereting sistem is so cool it does't need to defragmenteting!

Quite right, the majority of people using linux are using the ext2 or ext3 filesystems. Ext2 and ext3 are self-defragmenting filesystems.

This is unlike the majority of windows users. Their operating system uses a filesystem prone to self-fragmentation. This may change in the future should Microsoft drop support for the MSDOS filesystem (unfortunately, many windows XP machines are still installed with non-NTFS filesystems).

Here's a quote:

"Disk defragmenters are an endangered species on Linux. They exist because the MSDOS and HFS filesystems were badly designed -- relics of the floppy disk era, they weren't intended to support multi-user machines with millions of files and large hard disks. ext2, in contrast, is descended from a lineage of server filesystems. It is largely self- defragmenting; the ext2 drivers try to allocate sequential runs of blocks to each inode and spread use across the disk, avoiding the problem. If you really do need to defragment an ext2 filesystem, uhere's something's very weird about your setup! e2defrag is available, but you probably won't need it. "

Could I suggest you take a grade 3 english class, though? While your ideas appear cognizant, your spelling makes you appear uneducated and uninformed.

Re:Defrag

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for my bad English. I try learning from americian sites like Slashdots. I like linux! :):):) Thanks for replys! I read your message and links.

Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[Anonymous Coward]

Do the math. My 4M pixel camera puts out a 9 M TIFF file. Let's see, that's a grand total of 12 pictures on my 128M card. Even my 340M micro drive will fill up in just 37 picutres. 2 weeks on vacation will probably mean 200 - 300 picutres.

Also, not all cameras can take a micro drive.

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[stipe42]

Or if you have no intention of ever printing the photos out, you can just set the camera to save them as 1MB jpegs. They look exactly the same on the screen and are way way smaller.
stipe42

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[Wraithlyn]

Why do you need 4 megapixel, TIFF images for vacation shots? I mean, if you're doing pro work for magazines or something I understand... but I take 1600x1200 JPGs, which look great printed on 8.5 x 11, and I can store 150-250 on my 128MB card. (Depending on compression) Or, if I don't intend on printing them out, I take 1024x768, and can store about 600, or even slum down to 640x480, and store almost 2000! :)

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[t]

Good for you.

I personally like to zoom way the hell in. I like my uber zany levels of resolution, you apparently don't. Therefore, congratulations, technology has provided you with a product that you never have to replace.

And to continue your nonsensical logic, why don't you just decrease your rez to 32x32, you can store a crap load and you don't even need to waste cycles making thumbnails.

My question to you is, why do you care that other people want higher rez pictures?

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[tzanger]

I personally like to zoom way the hell in.

I suppose you have one of those $20k professional digital cameras where the optics don't limit your resolution no matter what kind of film you use. Yes sir, nothing like using the highest resolution film in a $75 fixed-focus camera.

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[Anonymous Cowarc]

As a professional photographer I feel like I am qualified to ask... What the hell does any of this mean? How can you have a "$20k professional digital cameras" that uses film? First of all, professional digital cameras now cost around $5K (while still expensive it is doable) and secondly, they DON"T USE FILM AS THEY ARE DIGITAL!!!!!! The second statement you make defies translation or explanation. Please start over in kindergarten as you apparently missed the point.

Re:Digital cameras do need a portable hard drive

[tzanger]

What's the difference between a $100 SLR and a $5000 SLR? Not a whole hell of a lot, all the cost is in the optics.

Which is why I'm wondering why the person I was replying to was storing 4.4 megapixel images when the optics in his digital camera likely couldn't resolve to that level.

I could be talking out of my ass, but it seems to me that a $300 digital camera won't have great optics on it since all that cost is in the CCD and hardware.

Re:It must inhale the battery (cf. iPod)

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The 10G disk and a display are compatible with an all-day battery life. iPod is rated for 10 hours.

So it depends on the current draw for the USB port, the Ethernet and so forth.

Some Links

[Nynaeve]

Since the site is gone for the moment, here are some quick links:
Web Site:
www.terapin-mine.com
Purchase:
http://www.thinkgeek.com
Reviews:
http://www.digitaljournalist.org
http://www.edgereview.com
http://computers.cnet.com

Some info

[sofist]

You can learn some about it (and buy it) here

Re:Some info

[jjsjeff]

Here?

At First I Thought This Was the Perfect PDA

[RAMMS EIN]

Recalling the recent Ask /. about the perfect PDA feature list, I thought these guys had make my wishes come true. I was slightly bothered by the suggestion that the device had a harddisk, though, because I feel that devices with disk drives (or any moving parts for that matter) eat batteries like there's no tomorrow.
Trying to follow the link in the article soon led me to conclude that the site had been slashdotted, but hey, there's always google! A couple of minutes later I still didn't have any further information on the battery life, nor about input methods. I did find out that the device seems to have a ridiculously small display that makes it mostly useless for me. Maybe adding a couple of bucks to the ~ $ 500 it's listed for at geek.com could give us a QVGA color display and boost battery life (I'd rather have 10 times the battery life with a CompactFlash card than 10 times the storage space with a harddisk). Maybe the day I'm going to buy a PDA isn't that far from now...

---
The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a
dialog box and lets you press [OK] first.

Re:At First I Thought This Was the Perfect PDA

[cduffy]

I don't know the battery life for this thing, but my Archos Jukebox 20 (20GB hard drive, as implied) lasts; I haven't run it all the way down, but folks have said 10 hours before, and that's not inconsistant with how the battery indicator looks after I've run it for about 4.

OTOH, the Jukebox's batteries take forever to charge... but being that they also take forever to drain, I don't find that to be a problem.

Re:It must inhale the battery (cf. iPod)

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Oops.

CNET ran a review. They got less than two hours on a set of AA batteries.

Other Terapin Mine reviews

[k8bit]

Here are a few other reviews of the Terapin Mine.

Terapin Technology - Mine Product Reviews.

Lithium Battery?

[jjsjeff]

Is it too much to ask for a goddamn lithium battery on this thing? I mean c'mon people there is no way that I could transfer 10GB over a 10Mb network and this thing have a long enough battery life to stay alive. I would gladly rather see firewire replace the ethernet as some have already suggested.

-Jeff

Trolling, trolling, keep those /.ers trolling! Rawhide!

Re:Lithium Battery?

[jjsjeff]

I forgot to add that if Lithium were used instead of Alkaline batts this system would be a little bit lighter as well.

-Jeff

Re:Lithium Battery?

[jjsjeff]

It appears that I was trolling... I didn't see that the lithium was optional.

My bad.

Re:Lithium Battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

And incredibly explosive.
Lithium is far too dangerous to be used outside of government laboratories. There is no way the FDA will approve the use of such a dangerous element in something as trivial as batteries for MP3 players.

hook it up to TV to view pictures...

[edrugtrader]

its great how pornography industry has finally gotten its hooks into linux portables.

Re:hook it up to TV to view pictures...

[jjsjeff]

There is nothing wrong w/ a little portable porn.

Slashdot really slashdotted the site this time!

[dcstimm]

Warning: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (111) in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php on line 29 Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (111) in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php on line 29 Warning: MySQL: A link to the server could not be established in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php on line 29 Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php:29) in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/mainfile.php on line 39 Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/designtechnica.com/h ttpdocs/includes/sql_layer.php on line 231

Old news and an old problem...

[jaaron]

This really isn't news. The product has been on the market for a really long time. I remember reading about it last year. ThinkGeek.com has had it for sale for months. Why do we always post such old news?

Well, enough trolling, I do have a legitimate question that perhaps a few here have resolved. I've looked into this and other devices as an easy way to carry around a lot of my work, since I tend to bounce from using a computer at home, at work, and on campus. I have control over the computers at work and home, but not on campus. From what I understand, you would need to load certain drivers or other software to get this device to work with Windows, which is what they have on campus (please correct me if I'm wrong). So, since I can't load the drivers, I wouldn't be able to access any of my stuff stored on the drive when I on campus, right? Is there a solution to this? How do some of you carry large amounts of data around (other than zip disks or burned CD-ROMS)?

Re:Old news and an old problem...

[RAMMS EIN]

``From what I understand, you would need to load certain drivers or other software to get this device to work with Windows''

From what _I_ understand, though, Windows automagically assigns a drive letter once the device is plugged in (into the USB-port, that is). No drivers, no nuthin', PnP how it was meant to be. Leaves the question of how the folks on your campus feel about you plugging devices in their boxen...some BOMFs are really clueless...

Re:Old news and an old problem...

[vsync64]

On Windows 2000, sure. Windows 98 doesn't support USB mass storage, though, and so requires that drivers be installed.

Imagine a beowulf....

[Anonymous Coward]

There, I said it now where is my +5 funny

Re:Imagine a beowulf....

[xamel]

Right next to your -1 Troll

Re:Sweet! A linux handheld...

[kilgore_47]

sweet, the display does four whole lines of text!!

Complete Linux ?

[Etyenne]

On top of all this it has a Linux OS installed complete with scandisk and defrag.

[root@cerberus root]# scandisk

bash: scandisk: command not found

[root@cerberus root]# defrag

bash: defrag: command not found

Sh*t, my Linux is not complete ...

Re:Interesting design, poor filesystem? QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Particularly if it runs a derivative of GNU/Linux.

Considering that this thing is primarily using Linux as a filesystem, there is probably very little GNU software. Therefore, this is Linux, not GNU/Linux.

Which underscore who ludicrously stupid it is to call Linux "GNU/Linux". It's an insult to everyone else that's not GNU.

USB master port

[tallpaul]

I *like* the USB master port. I think the terapin is ridiculously priced (particularly when compared to the Archos Recorder 20 - USB 2.0, smaller form factor, 20Gb,lighter and plays *and* records mp3s).
The USB master port is a killer feature though - if it works as expected. In principle that should allow it to be directly connected to any slave device (eg: a digital camera) and data transferred. Seems like it would be extremely handy for backing up PDAs, and digital cameras.

Re:USB master port

[reverius]

Backing up PDA's? I thought it was a PDA...

Re:USB master port

[Anonymous Coward]

PDAs generally have some sort of input, whether it's a keyboard or touchscreen.

Interesting how the same people that whine on and on about the Treo's tiny keyboard and slow CPU are quick to claim that a completely inputless device is one of the best, most useful PDAs on the market.

Personally, I don't see how this is much more useful than a USB/Firewire hard drive or even an Archos-type mp3 player. Music playback is poor quality, the screen is smaller and even lower resolution than a Palm m100, there's no real way to input data without connecting it to a PC...

But it runs linux!!!

USB2 = Marketing Ploy

[Anonymous Coward]

Be careful when assuming USB2 products can actually function at 480MBps (IIRC, "high-speed"). You can have a device that supports low speed (1MBps) and full-speed (10MBps) of the USB1.1 spec and still claim USB2 compatibility since USB2 includes those and the 480MBps feature is not mandatory.

Whoa...

[The_Rippa]

That has to be the most broken link I've ever seen.

Talk about being slashdotted HARD

crash

[praktike]

are they running their webserver off this thing? it's all f*cked up!

You don tknow a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at all the reviews on the net, this revie was right on with every other site. I think you have no evidence in your comments and they are based on YOUR assumptions without even using the unit....

Troll bait

Not to be confused with "Terrapin"

[Principal Skinner]

I'm sure I'm not the only University of Maryland student/alum to see this and think for a second that someone at UMCP has just produced a new handheld and named it after the school's mascot.

Go Terps!

Re:i am uncreative

[Anonymous Coward]

So I have to type it in by hand, not even enough gumption to type in the address so I can copy and paste it, you must be lazy. Bad form.

Re:Sweet! A linux handheld...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't have been using all that crap, no-scale O.S. server software. Tsk Tsk.

M$ makes it look like garbage.

[Erris]

If the above poster can be trusted to give an accurate picture of the review, the reviewer claimed problems with sound quality, image dislplay and USB control. All three of these are likely M$ land mines. As a portable storage device, this thing has an edge over things like USB disks and key fobs, but M$ makes it look bad for other things. Hopefully the lead post is a troll, and the reviewer's experience was better than this. Just as I had gotten comfort

able watching the images, a blue screen of death appeared indicating that the image to be displayed was corrupt. After several minutes of troubleshooting and several attempts at downloading the images onto the Mine, I eventually gave up without resolving the situation. The images seemed fine on my PC but simply would not display correctly when viewed via the Mine.

I've run into image problems from MicroShit lately. Specifically, their imaging softwar produces broken bit-map and tif format images. I would not have used said software had the TWAIN interface to my parallel scanner worked with any other software as it once did ... antother story. The images produced would not open in Paint Shop Pro under Doze, nor would their tif files. The GIMP was equally puzzled with the images under Debian, but Electric Eyes pulled through by ignoring the errors. From there the images could be ported over to reasonable formats like jpeg and portable net graphics. Needless to say, the format errors must be intentional as there has been NO IMPROVEMENT or real change in these ancient image formats.

Simarlly, I expect M$ to play Digital Rights Denial tricks on portable devices. Look forward to this happening to CD burners as the fools think they own the world.

As for the camera control problem, no new here. All those damn USB devices are different and painful to configure. How could it be any different with M$ threatening to silently retaliate against anyone friendly to Linux?

There you have it folks. It will be difficult indeed for any company to overcome these problems universally, even with 10 gigs of disk space for drivers. M$ will continue to change formats, and this will continue to make others, including themselves look bad.

Show me a WinCE device that does half of what this one can. Microsoft's backers will fight to the death to keep people from being able to create, move and share their movies and music. Microsoft will go along with it, as long as they keep getting to resell paintbrush on a yearly basis.

Re:M$ makes it look like garbage.

[smaug195]

I am sorry, but all I ever hear is how Microsoft is going to screw users over with their DRM technology. Yet what motivation do they have? Last time I checked they weren't an **AA member? I guess I am curious as to why MSFT would bother.

Re:Sweet! A linux handheld...

[Dare nMc]

>It's a file store that happens to run Linux on the backend...

That was my fealing when I got it almost a year ago. It is a really neat gadget, with good batery life, that technically does everything it says. You should look closely at the manual before purchase. With decent User Interface this would kick A**. However I haven't used it for anything but transfering files from work to home for the last 3 months.

The MP3 playing capabiltys appear as a after thought (does sound good, more later.) It runs like a single task OS. You can either use it as a ftp server, or as a MP3 player, or connect it wirelessly, or USB connect it to your PC, or copy from flash card... You must navigate through menus, to turn each on. Then you must quit that task, and navigate again through the menus to do something else. It doesn't rember where you were when you powered down, or powers it's self down (only after battery is dead, no other settings.) So if you plan to use this as a MP3 player in your car (as I did) You need to hold down power button for several seconds when you leave your car. Then when you return you must hit 5 different keys, no key buffer so don't go too fast, to get it to play a song again. And forget about the random play, it is not very random. If you put all your songs in this, and just start the random play each time, you'll never hear 50% of your collection, because it always selects a song near the beginning of your list, then jumps in a manner that you'll never hear the song at the end unless you listen to every other mp3 file first.

I do plan to connect it full time to the battery of my car. That way I can leave it on and just hit pause (my cigarete lighter turns off with the key.) Also mp3 is ver susceptable to power line noise. Make sure you don't connect this guy to the same power that gets any noise from your amp's...

cognitive dissonance: BSOD/Linux/scandisk

[js7a]

Okay, it obviously is running Win32 and Linux both, but which is under which?

Concerning the review, why was there no mention of CPU clock speed, memory wait states, cache size, RAM, or any of the other statistics that any self-respecting geek would require?

This looks like just another Win32 brick with either WINE or a dual config, and the reviewer told me nothing about what it is actually capable of.

Connectivity help.

[Erris]

The big selling point for the slashdot crowd seems to be that it runs linux, but with a proprietary front end running on that 4-lines-of-text screen, and fat32 for the filesystem, I hardly think thats very cool. The instructions don't even mention how you'd connect it to anything besides windows ... ie actually getting a shell on it?

Ummm, it's got an ftp server. Plug it into your local network and go to town. Does iPod do that for you? WinCE, ha ha ha! You might also try a shell escape on the ftp prompt like:
! ls -lh
to see what comes up. Sounds more portable than a key fob, and yeah hacking it would be cool.

Sadly, I'm not buying any $500 devices anytime soon. My poor man's answer to this has been to take plastic Quick (the drink) boxes and cram hard disks in them with some packing foam. Yeah, it's ugly and I have to open the target computer's case, but the hard disks are spare. It works great with older laptop hard disks which fit into the smaller boxes. My wife laughted at me for not knowing my quick drive was acutally in a Quick box. Eh, so what. Mounted media custom Debian installs, here I come. Perhaps I should call it the Quick Liberator?

You haven't seen my photos.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 13 in 19 in photos in my office that look, IMNSHO, great. Not every shot I take is a keeper, but I've taken a few great ones.

Why do you need more than 640k? :)

A Few Words...

[Anonymous Coward]

MPAA passes Microsoft a few bucks to extend its drm technology. Microsoft then kindly rapes its users for more money per copy of "Windows DRME" and passes a few bucks back to the MPAA... which remarkably resembles the original donation... no loss to either party... possibly profit on both sides.

Re:A Few Words...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all that easy to bribe Bill Gates, now, is it. Think about it.

some serious disconnect

[Anonymous Coward]

did no one else *read* the review? the guy totally panned it.

I have this piece of dog poop... runs linux and...

scandisk?

[Suppafly]

Linux OS installed complete with scandisk and defrag

Kinda like Windows?

Wireless nfs for ipaq?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time I saw this thing about a year ago, the first thing that popped into my head was "I wonder if it would work as a wireless networked drive (via nfs or as a network block device) so that someone with an iPaq (or now similar other handheld linux device) and two 802.11 cards could go to town with it."

If one wanted to go really nutty, get two 802.11a cards and have some decent performance. Just think, the drive stays in the briefcase or other bag (or maybe stays in the backpack or clipped to the belt), iPaq (etc) in the hand, and the iPaq batteries aren't powering the drive.

Just a thought.

Imagine a . . .

[Gameboy70]

/. article without the obligatory IABCWT post!

incompetent reviewer

[Anonymous Coward]

The quality of this review is categorically disgraceful. Don't bother publishing a review if it sounds like an idiot conducted it:

hey, it's supposed to be used for music.
but the quality sucks.
oh well. that's just the way it is.
(go ask the manufacturer what the hell is going on)

hey its supposed to display images on a TV.
but one image didn't work. I'm going to use the phrase "BSOD" completely inappropriately now.
oh well, I just could never figure it out.
(probably some format issue -- again, go ask the manufacturer what the hell is going on)

hey it is supposed to act as a USB master.
but it couldn't connect to my digital camera -- no matter what I tried.
oh well, it must be broken.
(what's next, ship dit? go ask the manufacturer what the hell is going on)

It is ugly

[helix_r]

Does anybody else think this thing looks ugly compared to other handheld devices?

Geez, at least they could have made it circular or maybe added some interchangable plastic skins.

The device looks like an oversize old cellphone with no keypad.

Mush, huskies, mush!

[Fear the Clam]

The MP3's on CD sounded fantastic when played on my dedicated stereo but upon connecting the Mine, I was simply shocked at how mush the sound quality had degraded.

So much for using oatmeal as a storage medium. Back to the drawing board.