New PPC/Linux PDA Reference Design From IBM

kinema writes "It looks like IBM has released a new Linux/PowerPC based PDA reference design called e-LAP ("embedded Linux application platform"). It features a PowerPC 405LP, 30MB SDRAM, 32MB NOR Flash, 64MB Disk-On-Chip Flash, 240 x 320 color LCD, Stereo speakers, Microphone, USB (both host and client ports), a 3000 gate Xilinx FPGA, SDIO slot and last but not least a TCPA security chip. I for one would love to see some good PowerPC based PDAs on the market."

Comments

Great! Where and one be bought

[Anonymous Coward]

So NetBSD can run on it?

PowerPC Advantages?

[SoCalChris]

I for one would love to see some good PowerPC based PDAs on the market.

Why? Aren't PowerPC chips more expensive? Is there a major benefit that I'm not seeing? Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[RupW]

Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?

You mean an x86? They eat too much power to use portably.

There are a couple of low-power x86 compatibles - the Transmeta Crusoe and VIA Epic - but don't know if they're low power enough. Plus they're someone else's technology whereas PowerPC is IBM's own.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue here is really power consumption.

The latest desktop x86 PC CPUs (all x86 CPUs ever made come to think of it) have been extremely inefficient in comparison to other types of processors. PowerPC chips, Alphas, SPARCs and ARMs all have a much higher MIPS/mW rating than any x86 processor. Also PowerPC assembly is nicer :)

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[kwoo]

Why? Aren't PowerPC chips more expensive? Is there a major benefit that I'm not seeing? Why wouldn't they run a Linux version on it with a regular PC chip and be able to sell the device cheaper?

For one, IBM has a large hand in the development of the PowerPC, and I can't say I blame them for wanting to use one of their own chips. In terms of real advantages, the PowerPC has a few in general, but I'm not sure about the embedded series of chips.

From a programming perspective PowerPC can be somewhat annoying (I believe you can only load 16 bits of a register at a time -- I read that in an IBM DeveloperWorks article, I believe) if you're writing assembly, but I find it a wonderful platform for my daily projects (Darwin/PPC and Linux/PPC mostly).

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[questionlp]

Considering that the 405LP that is being used in the reference design could be considered an embedded processor, it's also less complex than say the lowest power consumption x86 or x86-compatible processor. It's also hard to find a x86 processor that has a typical power consumption of under a watt and has all of the features of the 405LP, plus fit into the space requirements of handhelds and other small devices.

Price isn't as much of a concern since you would normally trade cost for portability, and vice versa.

The other benefit of the PPC architecture is the fact that you don't have the kludge of an ISA that is the x86 ISA... meaning that developing apps for a PPC (or an ARM) architecture may not be as bad... and I think code written for the PPC architecture can run on any other PPC processor, provided that you don't include processor specific extensions.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. Notice that it mentions that the PowerPC 405LP chip not only contains a PPC 405 core, but a substantial number of other devices. DDR Controller, DMA Controller, LCD Controller.. and a myriad of others important ones. This significantly reduces the number of chips a manufacturer needs to put in a device, with the result of dramatically reduced cost.

Also, anecdotal "PowerPC chips are more expensive" _may_ hold for the PC market, but remember that this is a radically different chip geared for a radically different market (the article mentions a top speed of ~380 MHz!). In reality, IBM has priced this particular chip very reasonably -- wholesale price $100. Those numbers ought to be available soon.

Development of this chip was on Linux right from the beginning, and people were using them around the lab as MP3 players throughout! A great platform for hacking around with.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue balls?! Who said anything about blue balls?!!!

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[mlyle]

This is a typical artifact of RISC chips. Instructions are fixed size, and usually the same size as the general purpose registers. When you load from an immediate value (a value contained in the instruction), the instruction has insufficient room for a value as wide as the instruction itself after specifying the instruction, the destination operand, etc.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[kwoo]

This is a typical artifact of RISC chips. Instructions are fixed size, and usually the same size as the general purpose registers. When you load from an immediate value (a value contained in the instruction), the instruction has insufficient room for a value as wide as the instruction itself after specifying the instruction, the destination operand, etc.

Thank you for clarifying that -- I seemed to remember it from doing some MIPS assembly years ago, but I wasn't sure.

On the whole, though, it's more of an oddidity than a real annoyance -- one just has to write a "load immediate" macro, and away you go.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[GlassUser]

It's VIA Epia and VIA Eden, but otherwise yes. I'm in love with my VIA Mini-ITX systems (and I can run them off 40 watts, IIRC.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[RevAaron]

I can't speak about the VIAs, but the Transmeta uses a lot more power than a StrongARM/XScale or one of these 450LPs.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[RevAaron]

Alphas with a high MIPS/Watt ratio? Nah- it might be lower than the ugliest of the x86 line, but Alphas suck energy and emit more heat than my gas water heater does... Got any numbers?

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most ppc chips are 64bit or 32bit for there internal registers. The data that you manipulate in the registers can be 8/16/32/64 so you are not limited to just 16 bits at a time. It depends on how you program. But as far as I know all ppc chips could work with 64bit at a time.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[msgmonkey]

However if you look at your typical C generated code asm code the load 32bit immediate requirement is statistically insignificant. And that is the purpose of RISC, keep the instruction decoder simple and optimize for the most common cases.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Drakonian]

PowerPCs are much more popular in embedded applications. Everyone else pointed out the power issue. Another thing I can think of is that PowerPC assembly (RISC) is much nicer than x86. (That is a personal opinion, but it's similar to the opinion that the Raiders are better than the Bengals.)

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Trolling4Dollars]

OK. I responded. Where's my karma? ;P

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[huie]

Intel itself also has a low power 386 that RIM uses in their Blackberry. Considering that this thing is a two-way pager and can still last a while (insert handwaving here), I don't think the 386 uses that much power- not compared to the radio at least.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[DGolden]

ISTR RIM Blackberries actually use a low-power x86-compatible chip.

I may be wrong though - it's a while since I looked at them.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[xeoron]

One of the advantages of PPC chips is that they run considerable cool when compared to Intel alternatives. If I remember correctly, a 500MHz PPC runs without the need for a heat-sink.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[luther]

I have a 600MHz 750Cxe wich runs without a heatsink. The 750Fx runs even cooler, the 750Cxe consums 6W @ 600MHz, while the 750Fx consums 3.6W @ 800MHz, so i guess it will still run without heatsink at 1GHz.

Also, for the price, the biggest part of the price is coming from the limited quantity production of motherboards and other such parts, at least if you are buying from someone else than apple.

Re:PowerPC Advantages?

[Hoser McMoose]

Two reasons. First, the "low powered" x86 chips are only low powered as compared to other x86 chips. Transmeta's Crusoe and VIA's C3/ESP chips both use somewhere on the order of 4-12W, depending on the speed grade. For comparison, AMD's Athlon's use anywhere from about 40-75W, while Intel's P4's can run even hotter at up to nearly 100W of power.

However, even 5W is quite high power consumption for this sort of chip. The IBM PowerPC 405LP in question uses a maximum of 500mW, so it's a whole order of magnitude less power than Transmeta and VIA. This is about the same power used by an Intel XScale or AMD Alchemy processor, two other competitors in the high-end embedded processor market.

The second reason for using this chip instead of an x86 chip, or even a regular PowerPC chip like the G4 is that the 405LP is a System-on-a-chip microcontroller rather than just a processor. In addition to the processor core, it also has a built-in SDRAM controller, video controller, I/O controller, etc.

This is actually the first time I've come across this particular chip, and I'm rather impressed. I've never really looked into IBM's embedded PowerPC chips, focusing more on ARM stuff as well as the low-end/el-cheapo embedded chips. I'm surprised we haven't seen more embedded Linux devices using these chips as opposed to ARM chips. It's only too bad that this chip doesn't seem to have an FPU. I'd really like to see a high-performance, low power embedded chip with an embedded floating point unit, but I guess that all that is a bit much to hope for at this moment in time.

Hopefully this will be as popular

[glrotate]

as their PowerPC reference designs ... or maybe not.

Re:Hopefully this will be as popular

[Gortbusters.org]

or as the Zaurus.

Or maybe the HP iPAQ which was the banner ad I first saw when reading this article - ironic, I know.

I got the urge...

[SpanishInquisition]

to get a MSDN subscription.
I don't know where I got that really...

Re:I got the urge...

[Anonymous Coward]

to get a MSDN subscription.

Glad to hear it. For professional windows dev, they r0x0r.

I've literally got to ask!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it play Ogg Vorbis files?

Re:I've literally got to ask!

[Phroggy]

Can it play Ogg Vorbis files?

Running Linux on PowerPC? Why not?

One of the issues with Ogg support, as I understand it, is that until recently there wasn't a good Ogg decoder that didn't require floating-point operations, and many embedded chips don't handle float. The PowerPC handles float just fine.

Re:I've literally got to ask!

[Hobbex]

Yes it can, but that lovely "lets show off about it" TCPA "feature" will make sure that if Hillary Rosen hasn't certified that you have paid $500 for them (regardless of where they came from) it will stick out it's tongue and remind who actually rules your life instead.

"Last but not least" - my ass. What is happening to this place...

Huh?!

[TheDarkener]

They have *all these features*, but no CD-ROM?? What are these guys THINKING?!

Isn't This...

[Aknaton]

the point where some asshole pipes in about how he could buy a 100Ghz P4 for the same about of money?

Re:Isn't This...

[Anonymous Coward]

the point where some asshole pipes in about how he could buy a 100Ghz P4 for the same about of money?

Point taken . . .

Why would I buy this when I can buy a 100Ghz P4 for the same money?

--some a**hole

Re:Isn't This...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Soviet Union...

Re:Isn't This...

[DoctorPepper]

Yeah, but let him try to stuff it in his back pocket!

Re:Isn't This...

[Drakonian]

Yes. At the time I read this, it's the only post modded higher than yours.

Re:Isn't This...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's that?

Price?

[hether]

It would be nice if they had a suggested price. I suppose it's still too early to tell, but I'm curious to know if it will be affordable.

Is anybody going to make one?

[Kludge]

Not to sound like a troll, but IBM seems good at producing reference designs, but not at actually moving out lower end commercial products like this.

Re:Is anybody going to make one?

[RupW]

IBM seems good at producing reference designs, but not at actually moving out lower end commercial products like this.

Maybe they've decided they can't compete against established PDA players. Instead, they're hoping one of those will adopt the technology which is still good money, promote PowerPC, etc.

Maybe they just don't have the manufacturing capacity to do this profitably and they don't want to take the risk.

Re:Is anybody going to make one?

[monkeyboy87]

I'm not sure that IBM is looking at these to be consumer mass market devices per se. IBM is mostly doing hardware these days to support service work/integration and have a reliable platform. I would envision these being used for data capture applications like meter reading, inventory, package tracking (like the entire fedex fleet), facilities management applications etc.

Re:Is anybody going to make one?

[talesout]

Offtopic? What the fuck?

Mods on crack?

Re:Is anybody going to make one?

[luther]

IT toke time, but today you can buy a motherboard based on the MAI logic chipset, which is in turn based on the IBM POP specifications. Sure they are more expensive than comparable i386 solution, but this is only the begining and they are not yet produced in big quantities.

Wishes and Dreams

[huckda]

I would like to see more mainstream products being used that incorporate Linux. the Sharp Zaurus is simply gorgeous. I'm glad to see IBM working out the details to develop another PDA utilizing Linux.

Re:Wishes and Dreams

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just tired of companies cynically assuming that there's an automatic market for their PDA just because it runs linux. It seems like a lot of companies make linux pda's in lieu of actually making software, or finding commercial developer support.

That being said, while I think the zaurus is cool, it would be hella cool to see PDA from a company who really knows how to use linux, and how to build a flexible and powerful interface.

scott

lower power consumption

[ChristTrekker]

That's the most obvious one that comes to mind. That translates to longer battery life. If I had to pay a bit more money (and I'm not sure that your "more expensive" claim is true) in order to have more "on the go" time, it might be worth it.

Re:lower power consumption

[dietlein]

IBM says that the 405LP has good power management features (see link). I tend to agree with them, but also with the parent who says that this won't be the cheap solution for everyone.

The 405LP PR

Re:lower power consumption

[Ctrl-Z]

Really? I would think that the most obvious answer is that PowerPC is an IBM product. If you're going to build a design spec, then you might as well make sure it lines your own pockets.

The fact that it has lower power consumption is a nice "public" explanation.

Re:lower power consumption

[Klaruz]

Intel: Reference design uses XScale
IBM: Reference design uses PPC

YOU: Pick one you like best. Weigh all factors, cost, features, speed, power consumption. There ARE differences.

More choice is always good.

Re:lower power consumption

[Phroggy]

A thought about lower power consumption as it relates to price:

Say an Intel Mobile P4 costs $X and runs at a certain speed (not MHz, but actual performance). However, when you unplug it to run on batteries, performance drops in half, to save battery usage.

Say a PowerPC chip costs $(1.5 * X) and runs at the same speed while running on AC power, but when you unplug it and run on batteries, it doesn't cut performance because power usage at full speed matches the P4 at half speed. So, you get the same battery life from both, but the PPC costs more. When both chips are running at full speed, they're the same speed, but when the P4 is at half speed to conserve batteries, the PPC is much faster.

Now, use a slower model of PPC that costs less to produce. Drop the price down to match, and (when the P4 runs at half speed to get decent battery life) the PPC is faster.

In a laptop, speed while running on AC power may be important, so yes, the PPC may be more expensive for the same speed. But in a PDA, that's not important at all, so the PPC has the advantage.

This is why Apple has started pushing laptops this year. There may be faster PC laptops while plugged in, but while unplugged, PowerBooks are either much faster or have much longer battery life.

Disclaimer: I don't actually know what I'm talking about and anything I said that looks like numbers was completely made up arbitrarily. ;-)

Re:lower power consumption

[kryptobiotic]

Apple notebooks (well at least my iBook) do reduce processor performance when using the battery. This is the "automatic" energy saver setting that is set by default.

Re:lower power consumption

[Sunda666]

Hell, my lame ARM-based ipaq seems already outdated (2 months)...

At least it can run linux (not that I had the guts to try it yet).

Does anyone know if there is a working distro (and GCC) for the XScale IPAQs (3900 and newer)? Never heard about this XScale thing before, so I assume it is a new architechture. PPC seems fair game, since there is already GCC for it.

cheers

Re:lower power consumption

[Kailden]

Really? I would think that the most obvious answer is that PowerPC is an IBM product. If you're going to build a design spec, then you might as well make sure it lines your own pockets.

The fact that it has lower power consumption is a nice "public" explanation.

I'm not sure where your tone lies, I agree that its human/corprate nature to try and make something work toward your own interests...But I think IBM has a pretty good reputation (ok, at least since 1993) for also seeking to further the industry as a whole, as you could probably see by cheking out some of the things thier R&D department has discovered/patented over the last decade. Certainly, any corporation comes down to profit/gain for the shareholders, but the size of IBM has made it able to do things just because its a better design as well.

Besides, I stil think IBM thinkpads rock compared to anything else...those things are top of the line. And the AIX RISC systems are pretty sweet too, I'm sure most people would jump at a chance to have a few old ones to take home...if that translates over any, that might lead me to pick the IBM PowerPC one over the intel one.

But, hey, that just *my* opinion.

Re:lower power consumption

[Hank the Lion]

XScale is just the ARM compatible processor of Intel. GCC supports it.

Re:lower power consumption

[Strog]

Check out handhelds.org for good info on Linux on many handheld platforms.

There is a working distro or two for the 3900 . The 1900 and 5400 use the same cpu but the onboard peripherals are different. No one has started the port for these 2 but it could potentially go quickly because a lot of the groundwork is done.

Re:lower power consumption

[Sunda666]

wow thanks for the link.

Altough it is a bit of a letdown because they say the SD cards don't work under linux (argh just bought a 128MB one for MP3s and maps). What a crap. MMC cards need a jacket on the IPAQ, expensive a/thing, and makes the damn thing fatter. Also, an SD card is cheaper than the jacket+MMC card, and it is pretty slick.

Think i'm gonna hold this linux-on-ipaq adventure until the SD memory cards get some kind of support. Also, the support for the XScale seems pretty crappy at the moment too. Think getting the ARM one was not that bad of a deal at all ;-)

cheers

Re:lower power consumption

[larkost]

Actually, in power saver mode the PowerPC family of processors varies its timing to try and save energy. If you do something demanding (say a lot of IO involved in DVD playback) the processor stays in its most 'awake' mode. If you start to use less processor power (have increasingly more no-op cycles) then it starts to slow down timings and turn off function units. Start to need more power and it starts to ramp back up. The biggest problem is that somtimes you need a lot of cycles in a sudden burst after doing nearly nothing for a while, and this takes a bit of time to wake up all the way.

All in all a much better solution than the 'if I am unpluged then drop to half performance' routine uses by the non-mobile version of the P4 that is used in high performance PC laptops.

Re:lower power consumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Say a PowerPC chip costs $(1.5 * X)

Let's not say that. PowerPC chip cost no more in quantity than Pentium4 class chips. In fact they are usually closer to the AMD price point than the Intel price point. The embedded PowerPC chips are even cheaper. The embedded market Intel x86 chips do not even have P4 class chips yet. You're talking 486 maybe PII.

The PPC 405 competes against Intel's Xscale (i.e., ARM), not the x86 architecture. How many Pocket PC PDAs use x86??? Isn't that number very close to zero?

[ Extrapolating the PowerPC chip price, from the price of Mac is folly. 1) the other system components are a more dominating factor of system cost. 2). Apple has 'fit and polish' overhead that they add to the system. That is immaterial to PowerPC costs. That fact that PowerPCs are cheaper has kept Apple in the game; not more expensive. ]

peace

Re:lower power consumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Think i'm gonna hold this linux-on-ipaq adventure until the SD memory cards get some kind of support.

I think the reason for that is not lack of support, check this (extracted from www.openzaurus.org):

Unfortunately, due to the wonderful DMCA, we have no way of providing support for SD cards in our new kernel. The code for the SD driver used with .6 is not available, and any attempts to reverse engineer the driver will land us in jail. As of now, our best option is to port the IPaq MMC driver to the Zaurus, which will support MMC, but not SD cards.

FPGA?

[rot26]

What's that for? Future DRM? Or is that just part of the "reference" design, something for OEM's to use as a scratchpad for later integration into the silicon?

I know these are stupid questions, I'm just curious.

Re:FPGA?

[llamafresh]

Field Programmable Gate Array

I learned a bit about these when I was in college...when set up right, they are much faster than microprocessors, and can be changed on-the-fly by writing new array logic to it.

Future DRM?

That would be the TCPA chip, my friend. Palladium anyone?

llamafresh

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Field Programmable Gate Array. Its a chip that allows you to 're-wire' its internals. If the original pentium with its F00F bug was an FPGA, they could have released a patch (the pentium would have also been a lot slower though)

Re:FPGA?

[Obsequious]

Could be "scratch space", or for future DRM as you point out. I like to think it'll be for more though.

Someday I'd like to see FPGAs in all sorts of things. The classic (albeit somewhat silly) example I like to use is you're driving down the road and you go through a puddle of water which disables your car's computer. So you download the controller core from GM's (or whoever's) site, load it into the FPGA on your PDA, and use it to drive to a service shop.

Kind of a contrived example, but my ultimate point is that with pervasive FPGAs, and perhaps some kind of pervasive "universal connector" wired to the FPGA, you can reconfigure a device to do things it wasn't specifically designed for.

Blue sky thinking aside, I can think of other uses for it, such as the "cell phone" model where you alternatively use it for digital and analog control stuff by reprogramming it. That way you only need one part in the device instead of two, and it makes interconnection circuitry simpler.

You might also program it to be a DSP-microprocessor today (for maybe the media player or something), and then reprogram it to be the cell chip for a Treo-like device tomorrow.

That kind of thing...

Re:FPGA?

[kwoo]

Can anyone in the know tell me why you would need a field-programmable gate array on a PDA?

I don't know why one would need one, but I know I would definitely want one, just for the hackability factor. :)

My guess is that the FPGA is replacing several ASICs, and that might lead to lower power consumption and/or smaller size. I haven't done any reading up on the power requirements of FPGAs vs. ASICs, so someone reply if I'm off in left field.

Re:FPGA?

[Wesley Felter]

I'm guessing the FPGA just implements some glue logic to connect the peripheral chips (USB, TCPA, etc.) to the EBC bus on the 405LP.

Re:FPGA?

[TeknoHog]

Perhaps because it's a reference design, like a prototype?

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

If for some reason cars in the future won't function in water, I think I'll go back to my trusty 10 speed.

Re:FPGA?

[PetiePooo]

I'm hoping the FPGA will be a resource that can be allocated just like memory. That would make it a great solution for implementing DSP-based . A media player could reserve the FPGA, load the MP3 codec into the FPGA and start feeding it the compressed bitstream. When a different bitstream comes along (let's say Ogg?), clear out the current codec and pop in the new one. Meanwhile, your processor load stays close to zero because all the number-crunching is going on in programmable hardware!

DRM software could use the FPGA in conjunction with the TCPA chip for access control. However, the TCPA chip has much less nefarious uses as well, such as hardware encryption/decryption and secure key storage to name a couple. If a newer, better encryption algorithm comes along, it could be implemented in the FPGA, making this platform extremely future-proof.

I wish IBM the best in this. It sounds like a truly marvelous platform.

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

i just had a strange vision of someone shouting "re-route the forward laser control through FPGA bank 42" a-la StarTrek.

Re:FPGA?

[crgrace]

when set up right, they are much faster than microprocessors

Not true. They are MUCH MUCH MUCH slower than microprocessors. They are semi-custom, so they can do one task well, but for anything else they are dogs. They are used because they are CHEAP (both in hardware cost and development cose, not because they are fast).

Re:FPGA?

[twalk]

FPGAs are typically bigger, slower, and use a lot more power. The only advantage they give is flexibility.

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

The XCR series by Xilinx [wander over to www.xilinx.com] is more of a PLD["programmable logic device"] than a FPGA. These are usually used for glue - buffering/address decoding/voltage translation/the oddball logic gate, and in general, replacing a handful of small commodity parts.

Re:FPGA?

[nelsonal]

They seem to be used in reference designs as a quick stand in for what would be an ASIC if you actually go to market. The FPGA saves a ton of design and fab time for all the little stuff that could be handled by chips if you decide to produce it.

Re:FPGA?

[Dr. Manhattan]

...with pervasive FPGAs, and perhaps some kind of pervasive "universal connector" wired to the FPGA, you can reconfigure a device to do things it wasn't specifically designed for.

Oooh, imagine what a virus could do with that kind of flexibility...

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

The FPGA "could" be used for ogg playback or anything else you can fit into it. Maybe the Linux should start working on a standard interface for FPGAs as a resource.

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

FPGAs enable video codecs. If you want to send/recieve JPEG or play MPEG images a FPGA will let you do this faster and with much lower power comsumption then a general purpose CPU.

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

FPGA's are often used to bridge in other periphreals that may not be able to connect directly the CPU bus. If you are building an Ipaq, this may not be so useful. If you are building something like an Ipaq for the medical market for calibrating equipment...

FPGA's are also often used like a DSP

Re:FPGA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, portable devices are generally used on the field, so being field-programmable would be a benefit, no?

Re:FPGA?

[apweiler]

So you download the controller core from GM's (or whoever's) site, load it into the FPGA on your PDA, and use it to drive to a service shop.

Yeah, but why would you need FPGA on this? I mean, I know next to nothing about the advantages/disadvantages of FPGA tech, but it strikes me that in this case, if it's just for an emergency, plain boring old *software* running on your PDA's generic CPU would do just fine (and make it Java for cross-platform support if it makes you happy...)

The digital/analogue stuff seems to make a lot more sense, but as I said I can't really judge.

The developer sled

[kwoo]

I am really looking forward to this unit, in part because of the developer sled. The ability to hack a handheld device is of utmost importance to me, as there are so many specialized uses for them. It is nice to see a unit with that sort of hacking convenience.

I also noticed that one of the host USB ports is disabled. Would that be for power saving, or is it a limitation of the chipset? If it's for power saving, would one be able to enable it when one has a use for it?

Re:The developer sled

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that it's going to be for OEMs who want to create their own PDAs, I would think the hacking 'convenience' is more of a necessity.

Re:The developer sled

[Klaruz]

My guess on the USB ports is the chipset supports all 3 turned on (1 client and 2 hosts) but they didn't have enough room on the case for 3 usb ports.

Apple PDA

[coolgeek]

Well, this should be enough to re-ignite the iWalk rumors again.

Re:Apple PDA

[figa]

If it ever comes out, someone will probably port Mac on Linux to it.

Re:Apple PDA

[Bones3D_mac]

Actually, I've been running the Mac OS on my Sharp Zaurus for a while now. ;-)

What will be real interesting is the potential for a port of Mac-On-Linux on such a device, since the hardware is already natively running on a PowerPC chip.

At any rate, I plan to watch the progress of this device very closely.

Re:Apple PDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Id prefer iRun, sounds much faster :)

PowerPC + PDA == ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This PowerPC-based PDA is as close as we're going to come to an Apple handheld for a long time!

Re:PowerPC + PDA == ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This PowerPC-based PDA is as close as we're going to come to an Apple handheld for a long time!

Why?

Has Apple announced it's not going to make a PDA? They've got laptop expertise from the ti-book, small portable commodity electronics expertise from the iPod, etc.

Re:PowerPC + PDA == ?

[Daniel_Staal]

Has Apple announced it's not going to make a PDA? They've got laptop expertise from the ti-book, small portable commodity electronics expertise from the iPod, etc.

Apple doesn't comment on unannounced products, real or imaginary. Lots of people seem to wish Apple would get back into the PDA market, but there are no indications that they are interested.

Re:PowerPC + PDA == ?

[Phroggy]

Has Apple announced it's not going to make a PDA? They've got laptop expertise from the ti-book, small portable commodity electronics expertise from the iPod, etc.

Not that it means much, but yes they did, two months ago. But don't forget Inkwell...

Re:PowerPC + PDA == ?

[Wesley Felter]

Has Apple announced it's not going to make a PDA?

Yes, Steve Jobs said smartphones like the P800 are the future of PDAs and that other companies are doing a great job on them, so Apple probably won't make their own.

crazy

[tps12]

Wow, great to see IBM getting into the PDA market. For those who don't remember, they pretty much set the gold standard in the laptop industry, and we still live with the benefits today. But while this sounds like a good toy for geeks, I have to wonder about some of the choices made in the design of this device.

PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments. They're built from the ground up for low power consumption in preference to blazing speed. The PowerPC is exactly the opposite, as anyone who has sat down at a recent G4 can tell you -- these things scream.

Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.

It's a good idea, but I'd like to see them take a more sensible approach.

Re:crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

The powerPC design already does have low power embedded designs..

Infact the raid card on my server uses a PPC chip.. Best tool for the job.. the G4 is powerPC, but it's the full scale version.. there are lots of other powerPC chips available that would be suitable for a handheld.

Re:crazy

[octover]

>For those who don't remember, they pretty much set the gold standard in the laptop industry, and we still live with the benefits today.

and now Apple is leading the pack with the Powerbooks. Now if only Steve Jobs would relent and give us an update to the Newton.

Re:crazy

[ksheff]

They aren't getting into the PDA market. This is a reference design that other OEMs will license so they can jump into the PDA market. I'm sure IBM will be happy to sell them parts too.

The more devices that run linux, the better the chances of linux continuing on in the future. I don't think the use of linux in small devices such as this or a Tivo hurt its chances of being used elsewhere, like, an IBM mainframe.

Re:crazy

[Raskolnk]

Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.

He, he... this is amusingly wrong in several ways.

Re:crazy

[michrech]

""Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.""

I take it you've never heard of the Sharp Zaurus?

Re:crazy

[questionlp]

I don't remember where I read this, but I don't think IBM wants to get back into the market of producing complete handhelds (say like they did when they sold a re-packaged OEM Palm). Rather, they would provide kits for other companies to build custom handhelds either for specific areas (kind of like Symbol) or for those who want to compete in the Linux PDA side of things.

Still, it's nice to see that there is another architecture entering into the world of handhelds and PDAs... even if it doesn't immediately result in additional retail Linux-based PDAs.

Re:crazy

[qwijibrumm]

I think you miss the whole point of the powerPC architecture. The fact of the matter is powerPCs were designed to be extremely scaleable. They are all over the place in systems you would never know. The best example I can think of is the electronic control unit in many cars. It just happens that the powerPCs you hear about the most are Motorola's G4s, IBM's Power970, etc. The whole concept of the powerPC is to have a powerful unified processor "backbone" for anything from a blender to a rackmount server.

Re:crazy

[Ami Ganguli]

The PowerPC is exactly the opposite, as anyone who has sat down at a recent G4 can tell you -- these things scream.

This is an embedded version. It shares design elements with your G4 processor, but it's not nearly the same thing.

Linux is specifically architectured for the server market

Nope, it was designed for Linus Torvald's desktop '386 - a machine that was considerably less powerful than this device. Since then a lot of work has gone into scaling it both up and down.

Re:crazy

[blindbat]

>Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA
>is an excercise in feudalism.

Maybe if you pay your dues to the king he will give you your freedom.

Re:crazy

[figa]

IBM was already in the PDA market. They had a rebranded Palm device.

Re:crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir,

You amaze me. At the time of writing this, moderation for your article was as follows:

Moderation Totals: Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=5.

That's 4+ to 1-. *And* you got 15 or so whiny replies. You and PhysicsGenius or whatever his name is should get together sometime and make little Slashdot Troll babies.

Wow.

-Andrew

Re:crazy

[Ugmo]

Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism.

I think you meant "futilism".

I dub ye sir Personal Information Manager. Arise Sir PIM.

I thank thee M'Lord

Re:crazy

[Raptor CK]

I wouldn't say it's the exact opposite.

My Tivo has a PowerPC CPU, and it hardly screams. Then again, it's only running at 50 MHz or so.

Most G4's these days are running at 800+ MHz, and the slowest ones to my recollection are maybe 400 MHz. This chip tops out around 380 MHz, and slows down to 152 MHz when necessary. That's far from "screaming." I don't even know if this 405LP has an FPU, though, since it's not a low-power G4 chip. It's probably closer to the early PowerMacs than the G3, and more crippled from there to save power.

Most CPU cores have low-power variants. Ask anyone with an HP 200LX, for example. As it stands, the PowerPC architecture can be very fast, but it can also be tuned down and still provide acceptable processing power in a handheld. You just have to determine what you need. It's not like people will be carrying around G4 handhelds too soon, although it's certainly possible in the future.

Re:crazy

[Drakonian]

Oh man, I thought you were gonna get torched for this post WAY more than you have been. It is wrong in several ways and really quite amusing.

Re:crazy

[yog]

There are several PDAs today running Linux very well; the Sharp Zaurus is the best known, but a bunch of Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers are about to come out with a flood of Linux-based PDAs as well (see this article in the same mag as the feature). I suspect in about a year we'll see a lot of commodity PDAs based on Linux and featuring the usual color 320x240, MP3, SD slot, etc.

Linux is not specifically "architectured" for desktops or servers. If you strip away a lot of the modules, utilities and GUI fluff, it's a pretty small OS actually. Someone has a single floppy firewall distribution based on Linux. I mean, try getting Windows on a single floppy, not to mention Solaris, MacOS, etc.

Regarding why IBM would do this, I believe they're just poking Microsoft in the eye. IBM's always been the premier marketing organization despite their prodigious technical resources. So they spent a couple of million designing a "reference PDA"; that's a tiny drop in the bucket for them and it encourages lots of hungry manufacturers in Asia (and, one would like to hope, in the West as well) to jump on the Linux bandwagon and, hence, weaken PocketPC. Seems like a pretty smart and sane move to me. ;-)

Re:crazy

[silas_moeckel]

Here Here lets second that the Newton was the first inovating PDA. The orgigional newton read my HORID hardwritting better than more modern designs in other PDA's or relearing how to write with grafiti. The line drawing abilites were great as well it was easy to draw up a quick deisgn note.

Now thing of what that could do in an age with 512 Meg flash cards running pretty cheap and the general avalibility of wireless (Nextels flat rate service for 60 a month with good coverage per bit is a horid idea for a consumer great for providers though) Roll that up into something that dosent need to fit in my shirt pocket but pretty much needs a screen, a way to get a lot of memory into it, good rechargable battery life and a good OS (maybe Palm emulation if the hardware can deal and old school newton emu as well) I would pay 500 or so for this without the big memory card etc. If they can get it to sub 300 it makes mass market.

Think about it the ability to use Palm and Newton Apps + new apps for the platform. I dont realy need an orginizer I need a portable web browser / pdf reader / email / Terminal emu (OK I'm a network Engineer the serial port on my Newton keeps it in my tool box to this day along with an ugly 8pin to rj45 adapter dongel I made)

Re:crazy

[TheRaven64]

PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments. They're built from the ground up for low power consumption in preference to blazing speed. The PowerPC is exactly the opposite.

Really? That must be why most of Motorola's PowerPC chips find their way into mobile phones. Mobile phones obviously have completely different requirements to PDAs...

Re:crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

You bastard. You fucking bastard.

It used to irk me when PhysicsGenious got modded up, but you are even worse. The last time I modded, I decided to blow off using my points constructively, and just marked down some of your posts, but it didn't do a bit of good. It seems to have just encouraged you.

Anyway, I wanted wanted to feed the troll and let you know: you really piss me off. I loathe you. I hate you, tps12. You annoy. Congratulations.

Re:crazy

[Stanley Feinbaum]

IBM basically created the entire desktop PC market even... if it weren't for them there would be NO affordable computer available for the public...

As for the devices, I have found that the portable windows based run very well as the OS is designed for the device, unlike linux. Even palm is moving to windows based portables, and they invented the entire market with the palm pilot.

Re:crazy

[Anonymous Coward]

"The orgigional newton read my HORID hardwritting better than more modern designs in other PDA's or relearing how to write with grafiti"

Did the original Newton correct your horrid spelling, or did it only learn to recognize your handwriting?

Re:crazy

[psamuels]

Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism.

I think you meant "futilism".

What's that? Is it anything like futility?

Here's the IBM press release

[dietlein]

Here is the official IBM press release.

Re:Here's the IBM press release

[Anonymous Coward]

falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus...(misspelled Linus Torvalds' name as Linux Torvalds...)

Intriguing...

[snStarter]

Good to see more options out there in general. But I wonder if this means we might see an OS X version from Apple.

Re:Intriguing...

[TheRaven64]

Assuming that this was intended to be taken seriously:

Apple have said they aren't going to re-enter the PDA market, and Steve Jobs believes there is no future in PDAs, except those evolved from mobile phones. I personally agree and have no intention of buying a PDA that doesn't let me make voice calls, connect to the Internet via GPRS or equivilent, connect to my campus 802.11 network and play my Ogg Vorbis files.

OS X is based on BSD, and the kernel is (or should be, I haven't actually tried) very scalable. The kernel, however, is not the whole OS, and the most important thing about OS X, from a user's perspective is Quartz, the display front end. This is stunning, but not very nippy on a 12 month old G4, and really requires help from a 3d accelerator. Fortunately nVidia and ATi are on their way to producing such a thing for PDAs. Unfortunately, using an external LCD controller would rather defeat the point of using a CPU with one built in...

It seems unlikely that we will see this kind of device from apple (although a 3rd party may persuade them to license the OS for embedded appliances that don't compete with apple's product lines). What is, perhaps, more likely is a larger, thinner form factor device, much like the Microsoft TabletPC, supporting remote display from a Mac, being far more cool than anything running Wince, or whatever it's called now.

I would love to see OS X running on platforms other than the desktop and laptop Macs. While releasing an x86 version would be commercial suicide and largely pointless (what's the point of putting a great OS on such hideous hardware), it would be nice to see 'the world's largest UNIX vendor' supporting Sun and Alpha hardware...

Power/Battery Life

[1010011010]

How does the power consumption of this type of ARM chip compare to the Arm, StrongArm, XScale and Dragonball CPUs?

Re:Power/Battery Life

[phil-trick]

It is not an ARM based chip. It is a PowerPC based chip. We will have to wait and see on the power issue....

Re:Power/Battery Life

[colinleroy]

powerpc, not ARM :)
According to this ,500mW @ 380 MHz, 1.8V.

Re:Power/Battery Life

[Jason0x21]

PowerPC != ARM

Re:Power/Battery Life

[1010011010]

s/ARM/PPC

Re:Power/Battery Life

[Anonymous Coward]

As stated, it is not an ARM. The 405LP and 405EP series, run on less power than the Intel StrongARM or Xscale, this is good. The PPC is slower MHz wise than Xscale, this is bad. The PPC is spec'd to get 1.5 Mips/Mhz compared to Xscales 1.2, this is good. The Intel chips support CF for expansion, where PPC does not, this is bad. The PPC chips support PCI (MiniPCI) for expansion, where Intels above chips do not, this is good. The PPC is also expected to be cheaper or about the same price as the Xscale chip, this is good. Having PCI allows for cheaper products to be designed (in the embedded world PCI bus chips tend to be cheaper), this is very good.

Questions?

I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Just another product to boycot.
TCPA + DRM = crippleware

I prefer my Zaurus anyway. I can surf the net via
802.11, I've got a big ass 256MB MMC card.
And some some apps I serve off my LinuxPPC (Apple 9600) Server. I built my own amplified stereo speakers. No TCPA or DRM technology embedded in it.
And it's plenty fast enough to stream mpeg2 and mpeg4 video off my server!

If IBM removes the DRM technology maybe they'll
get some market share. But anything with TCPA and DRM technology is just crippleware in my eyes. This would probably start a home brew revolution.

We should stick together any never but any hardware that supports DRM.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

All TCPA does is hash your bootloader and provide a means for the host operating system to access that hash. This is done so that servers will be able to request said hash from said client, and decide if the OS the client is running is DRM-safe and then sending content on. As such, they can prevent you from recieving content if they know you will capture it for storage.

It does not restrict what you can and can't run on the CPU.

You are an ignorant troll and I would suggest you go home and do some reading.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Dan Ost]

Is this accurate?

If so, then why do people care about buying
machines with TCPA?

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[BFaucet]

Why would one need TCPA on a PDA?

I mean this as an honest question.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this accurate?

No.

It does a lot more than just 'hash your bootloader'. One big thing is that it provides for "memory curtains", which is a space of memory that a properly signed program can run it that is completely tamper-proof by any other software on the computer (even the operating system). It is enforced by the digital restrictions management hardware.

A possible use scenario for DRM would be this:

1. You want to gain access to some digitally-restricted content, which is encrypted.
2. You download a viewer program for said content, which is able to decrypt the content. This program is encrypted and signed by some authority whose public key is in your hardware.
3. You download the program, your DRM hardware creates a restricted memory space for it, decrypts and runs the program in that memory space.
4. viewer program now fetches the restricted content and decrypts it. The viewer program will obey instructions given to it by the content producer like "self-destruct in 10 days" or "do not allow copies to be made".

Since the viewer program is running in a hardware-enforced curtained memory space, the content producer has some guarantee that the viewer program will honor the restrictions they place on it.

The big scare with Palladium and TCPA is that perhaps someday computers will be sold such that they will ONLY run programs that are signed and restricted in this manner, or at least operating systems which are published this way. In that scenario, you really would have no control over your own private property. Everything your computer does would have to be authorized by some central authority.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Wesley Felter]

One big thing is that it provides for "memory curtains", which is a space of memory that a properly signed program can run it that is completely tamper-proof by any other software on the computer (even the operating system). It is enforced by the digital restrictions management hardware.

IIRC, Palladium has this feature but TCPA does not.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Wesley Felter]

Yes, it is accurate, but it's still bad. TCPA can be used by content providers to discriminate against users who run unapproved software (and you can imagine that in the future all approved software will be full of DRM). If 99% of computers are running Windows+TCPA or Windows+Pd and they refuse to communicate with anything else, it could make life very hard for the minority.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[spitzak]

A "trusted" OS would not run unless that hash is correct. This prevents you from modifying how that "trusted" OS is loaded so that you could, for instance, debug it or reverse-engineer it.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[vurtigo]

There are several reasons. TCPA is a general purpose security mechanism; it could be used for DRM but it could also be used to secure applications on the device that are in the users best interest (e.g. digital signatures, privacy enforcement, e-checks and e-cash). Without a mechanism similar to TCPA, the secrets used by these applications can be stolen by other applications on the device.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Your the coward postang anonymously!
I say boycott any TCPA or DRM product!
We don't need TCPA or DRM. And in a market driven economy if we don't buy it they won't make it!
enought said TROLL!

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not call you a coward. I started posting anoymously not long after every account I started reached the karma cap. Posting as an AC makes my point all the more relevant; it means that someone following the moderation guidelines (browse at -1 to watch for abuse) acknowleges that an AC, a lowly coward, has a good point.

You're going to be boycotting every motherboard made within a year. TCPA is not the problem. TCPA enables DRM operating systems. Boycott them. TCPA is not half as bad as even CPUID. Did you ever purchase a PIII or later chip? Oh wait, the geeks stopped caring about that because both the BIOS and the OS can disable CPUID.

There is little difference with TCPA. You will still be able to load your OS of choice. Be mad a the media companies who will begin practicing exclusionary tactics with their media. But they have already been doing this with their new streaming-audio ventures. So, honestly, why is your beef with the hardware when it is the content providers that are doing all this evil ?

Also, we will buy it. The OEM's will buy it so that they can provide machines capable of playing the New Media. The users will buy it so that they can play the New Media. Again, this is all in the hands of the media companies.

TCPA is NOTHING. TCPA is a hash of a stream of bytes. TCPA does not take your rights away. The DRM-enabled OS'es that require a specific TCPA hash take your rights away. The media companies, through the courts and through Congress, take away your rights (see the recent Verizon-RIAA dealings, see the DMCA, etc).

Anyway, this is all just my way of beating back the stupid knee-jerk reaction i always see on /. Nothing quite like a good, healthy dose of information instead of trivial emotional bullshit.

Re:I wouldn't buy anything with a TCPA chip or DRM

[TheRaven64]

I, for one, would like to see a TCPA chip in a PDA, especially one running Linux. A lot of what I would use a PDA for involves ssh, and that takes a lot of CPU power on a general purpose chip. Our gateway machine is a 486DX2, running linux, ipchains sshd and very little else. SSHing to that is so slow that it is almost impossible to edit text in a line. PDAs, in general, have little more CPU power than this machine, and what they have can be better employed than in encryption.
TCPA != DRM. Sure you can use TCPA for DRM, but you can also use it to turn your 802.11 enabled PDA into a secure, portable terminal.

TCPA security chip?

[anarkhos]

Whaaaa?

Eh, regardless somebody port Darwin to this |-)

Governments!!

[NDPTAL85]

Feudalism is a form of government. I believe the word you were looking for is Futility.

Preference could also be replaced with reference.

developer sled

[SonOfSengaya]

From http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9222005703.html

-----
Additionally, a plug-in "developer sled" adds the following options, for development and debug purposes . . .

USB 1.1 host

10/100 Ethernet

Serial port

8- or 16-bit PCMCIA slot

JTAG debug port

Flash programming port -----

Wireless connections

[ColonelPanic]

Where's the IrDA and/or Bluetooth?

Re:Wireless connections

[madsenj37]

From the posted link ...

" The e-LAP reference design PDA includes . . .
Bluetooth 1.1 (via Toshiba SDIO card)"

Re:Wireless connections

[questionlp]

Bluetooth could be added into the device via a second chip and IrDA connection could be handled by one of the two serial ports that the 405LP can drive.

DOA

[bstadil]

IBM Semiconductor has no concept of supporting smaller volume makers, and the Bill of Material for this reference design will be more than $300.

Just look at the POP reference design they made a few years back. Nobody I mean Nobody ever produced a single board. The fact that they used a virtual non existant Northbridge didn't help.

Nothing to see here Move On, or call IBM and try and get a quote for 500 pcs PowerPC if you doubt me.

Re:DOA

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there are at least two. Both are in the $400-500 price range for motherboard and cpu.

http://www.pegasos-usa.com

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/boxer /t eron_cx.shtml

Re:DOA

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to call Motorola or Intel and get a quote for 500 processors.

It's called a channel. Look into it.

Re:DOA

[Anonymous Coward]

Support Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Red Lobster

what the fuck is your .sig supposed to mean?

Re:DOA

[Chazman]

or call IBM and try and get a quote for 500 pcs PowerPC if you doubt me. That's what distribution companies are for. We're using a PPC in a low-volume embedded design (500 pcs/year is a good guess), so we buy like 200 at a time. Just call up Arrow, or Jericho, or any of their competitors. If you're a real outfit, and you've got some kind of relationship buying parts from them (even in low quantities), they'll get you PPCs in hundreds at a time. That's what they're there for.

Re:DOA

[bstadil]

they'll get you PPCs in hundreds at a time

Thanks for your reply, I know however as I have worked in the semiconductor industry for 15 years.

The point I am making is that the price is way too high in small quantities. We are getting a bit off topic, but how much do you pay per processor? The embeddded parts should cost around $4+- based on performance / complexity / die size using Texas Instruments DSP as a yard stick. What do you pay?

Re:DOA

[luther]

Just look at the POP reference design [openppc.org] they made a few years back. Nobody I mean Nobody ever produced a single board. The fact that they used a virtual non existant Northbridge didn't help.

Well, i know of at least 4 motherboard you can buy today based on that design, the Mai Logic Theron boards, the AmigaOne, the Terrasoft boards and the Pegasos.

Actually, the first 3 are the same design, while the pegasos is a microATX board. It is real tiny, and runs without a fan, which is rather nice (and yes, i have one just beside me, need still to find a nice microATX case for it though).

The link is :
http://thendipo.alias.domicile.fr/fr/pegasos.ht m

And for the Mai logic boards :
http://www.mai.com/products/teron%20cx.htm

Don't bother the price on this site, these were prototype reference designs, i think.

Terrasoft is here :
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2280

AmigaOne :
http://www.eyetech.co.uk/amigaone/information.p hp

Re:Bombastulo the Oggfish

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. I bet you enjoy raping dolphins and small boys!

No, just the dolphins. Girl dolphins.

FPGA?

[relay_mod]

Can anyone in the know tell me why you would need a field-programmable gate array on a PDA?

Re:PowerPC Advantages? Power Consumption...

[dietlein]

From http://www.ibm.com/ibm/environment/annual2002/prod uct.shtml:

The first product to emerge from the Low-Power Computing Research Center is the low-power 405LP chip, which enables system software to control and reduce active power by dynamically scaling processor performance to the level required to support the application. Wherever possible, the 405LP offloads processor demands by use of hardware accelerators and aggressively shuts off portions of the device when not in use. Standby power is also reduced. The 405LP includes a mode in which power is reduced virtually to zero while still providing "instant-on" response to an external stimulus, such as a pen stylus on a touch screen.

FPGA!!

[phil-trick]

Well, have a look at http://opencores.org/ Iamgine the possibilities!

Re:FPGA!!

[stratjakt]

It's only a 3000 gate FPGA. I doubt you could even dump an 8-bit 6502 onto it.

TCPA + Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

First my thoughts were like, 'hooray another one of the huge hardware manufacturers is approaching Linux, plus bringing us a new maybe cool PDA with Linux' - but after taking a look at tha eLAPs features who state it's equipped with a TCPA security chip... d'oh! What is the sense of bringing TCPA to Linux? Do they really think OpenSource-developers will utilize any DRM features? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Re:TCPA + Linux?

[Carrot007]

TCPA is not just about drm you know.

Try getting a clue before posting, wait no, then no-one would post ;-) (smiley added to indicate the obvious to the stupid people & americans ( ;-) ditto))

Re:TCPA + Linux?

[stratjakt]

TCPA has nothing to do with DRM, outside of /. conspiracy theories.

You can implement DRM with or without a 'trustworthy' OS, and you can run non-DRM enabled media software under a TCPA compliant OS.

Re:TCPA + Linux?

[geekoid]

but it is pivital for DRM to be effective.

Yes there are a great many things that can be done with it, however, business will use what ever means they can get away with to control consumers.

Carrot007, Licensed to ?

Newton

[axxackall]

Is it the same CPU as was used in Apple's Newton PDAs?

I remember playing with Newton 5 years ago - it recognized my handwriting much better than any modern PDAs and you could teach it to recognize better.

Re:Newton

[Phroggy]

Is it the same CPU as was used in Apple's Newton PDAs?

No. Nor is it the same CPU used in the iPod.

Re:Newton

[axxackall]

At last I found it by myself: Newton used ARM back in 1996

Re:Newton

[adzoox]

Actually the StrongArm (used in most modern PocketPCs and similar now used in Palms) is a derivitive of the Newton processor. It wasn't the processor that enabled the handwriting it was the InkWell technology that now exists in Mac OS X.2. It's close to perfect. Try writing "eenie meenie decimeenie" on any PDA other than a Newton/OSX.2 in less than 20 seconds!!

. . . and another one (today) from Motorola

[Anonymous Coward]

from the "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" department . . .

Here's another interesting announcement from LinuxWorld today: "Motorola's Metrowerks software tools subsidiary demonstrated a pre-release version of its Linux-based OpenPDA mobile device software platform at LinuxWorld in New York today. The software was shown running on AMD's Alchemy Au1100 system-on-chip based Mobile Client Reference Design Kit (RDK)."

Newton used a StrongARM

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a PowerPC.

If I'd have known ...

[Anonymous Coward]

that this would be modded up to 2/Interesting, I wouldn't have AC'd it.

Not bad -- but give me my Zaurus!

[rjamestaylor]

I like the reference spec but still prefer my Zaurus 5500 and really prefer the (Intel-delayed) 5600. The case ergonomics are one reason (the built-in thumbboard is awesome on the Zaurus).

Don't think, though, these are PDAs. These are not really Palm competitors. These are true development platforms for handheld computing solutions. Also, the killer app on these is the web browser. Opera 5 (and I'm playing with a beta of 6) is incredibly fast and feature rich, especially compared to PokeyIE on PokeyPC or anything on the Palm (though I haven't seen OS 5.0 to be honest).

I love taking my Zaurus to a HotSpot (like T-Mobile's at the ubiquitous Starbucks) surfing, SSH'ing, web serving (from the unit), and...well...playing Scrabble ("Word Game").

Maybe Scrabble is the killer app...Anyway...

FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[wowbagger]

Xilinx and IBM are teaming up to make an 10 million gate FPGA with multiple PowerPC cores on it (see this story) in ADDITION to the 10 million gates.

So, 1 chip and you could have an SMP PDA - do all the interfacing logic as part of the FPGA core. I suspect that is what this device is.

(Granted, the cores aren't floating point cores, more like what the Series 1 TiVO has, but still....)

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[jumpingfred]

The trouble is those high end xilinx chips are about $3,000 a peaice to good xilinx customers.

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[mlyle]

Good luck doing -anything- like SMP interfacing logic / interrupt mapping / cache invalidation on 3kgates (read: 800-900 real world logic gates) of FPGA.

I suspect the FPGA will be used more just for I/O routing to slower parts of the device; this is a typical use for low gate count FPGAs and allows easier patching of problems late in the hardware development cycle, and easier addition of features down the road without having to find a way to multiplex a few more signals off the CPU.

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[BeeShoo]

They could always sell them to Mac users.
(Only joking. I am a Mac user.)

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[Obsequious]

Hmm. I'd heard about $8,000 for the Virtex 2 Pro 8MM gate part; you must be a better customer than us. :)

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[Obsequious]

Yeah I was wondering about that myself. A pretty basic design I synthesized sucked up a good 3700+ gates, and that was one that didn't really do anything except a little (IEEE754) math. It was only a few multipliers and adders -- and on the part I targeted, it was using built-in multipliers so it didn't have to use LUTs for it.

I suspect you're right about it being used as an I/O router.

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[wowbagger]

I was talking about parts with over ten million gates.

Granted, the high-end Xilinx parts are expensive - but my point was that the core of this device is probably derived from the same technology.

And while the Virtex II parts may be US$3K today, they will fall, and they have plenty of oomph to do SMP designs.

Re:FPGAs with PPC cores built in

[Anonymous Coward]

From your original post: So, 1 chip and you could have an SMP PDA - do all the interfacing logic as part of the FPGA core. I suspect that is what this device is.

Given as they're putting in a 3kgate CPLD, I don't think that's what this device is.

Photos!

[IceFox]

A few photos taken this morning. Stop by the Intel both and say hello and see the C700 and 5600 Sharp Zaurus.

Photos here!

Sharp Zaurus

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism"

Tell that to Sharp.

Maybe this time IBM will make money......

[watzinaneihm]

IBM has a long history of releasing open standards and not making money of it starting from "IBM-compatible PCs ". Then laptop standards and now this ....
Now by specifying PowerPC as the chip , which they own, maybe they will make actual money out of it...
Now HPQ, and last quarter Dell, sold the maximum number of "IBM comaptible PCs" in US. Even if this goes similarly IBM still can profit...Dell's current PDA uses Intel chips and Microsoft and HP uses Intel in iPAQ and Strongarm in Jornada. Dell being such a follower of "Industry Standards" ,might switch but lets see about HP

Versatility

[ZX3 Junglist]

Now, I've yet to find a PDA that I would actually take the initiative to use on a normal basis. I like the idea of the "developer sled" but I think this is aimed to capture a certain market segment. I would be more apt to buy a PDA if it was quite small with limited funtion alone, but had more of a docking station that allowed me to use my PDA like a computer. Monitor output would also be a large help, even if it were a relatively low-res display. Anyone have thoughts on this/info if it's already been done?

Re:Versatility

[Dstrct0]

Try hitting these guys. (Softfield Technologies is the company, in case I got the link wrong)

The Agenda VR3 (or just VR3... not sure what they're calling it now) is pretty much what you were asking for.

It's kinda light on features, especially compared to this new spec IBM is talking about, but uses a full Linux operating system (I think the distro is based on RT Linux), and you can telnet into it, export your X session on the VR3 to your monitor, etc, etc, etc. Fun little gadget.

I've had to replace the screen on mine, but that's because I accidentally left it on the floor one night and stepped on it first thing in the morning the next day.

Hope that helps.

forget it

[Anonymous Coward]

vote with your wallet book. or at least tell IBM you would but it, if it did not have a TCPA chip in it. We have to show a strong opposition to these TCPA devices...

Linux handhelds

[kwoo]

Not only the Sharp Zaurus, but the Agenda VR3, the iPAQ running any of two or three different distros, and there are most likely more that I'm not aware of.

The point is that Linux isn't only good for larger devices, but can be made small enough for PDA use. uCLinux is a good example of an attempt to make it even smaller and use microcontrollers (which have no MMU), making it possible (but absurd overkill) to use Linux in a home digital thermostat or camera, for example.

Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD

[brandido]

The reference in the post and in the article to a Xilinx XCR3128XL FPGA is incorrect - the XCR3128XL is actually a Xilinx CPLD. While both are reconfigurable, the primary difference between an FPGA and a CPLD is that an FPGA is SRAM based, and must be programmed each time it is turned on, while a CPLD is Flash based, and can keeps its configuration between power cycles. Additionally, FPGAs tend to have more logic and more features.

Re:Not an FPGA - it is a CPLD

[twalk]

CPLDs can use SRAM, and FPGAs can use flash. The difference is in how routing is done.

CPLDs have a pretty firm definition of having several large blocks, holding many macrocells, with feedback to a global (and often also local) switch matrix.

FPGAs don't have a firm definition, but Xilinx ones use SRAM based LUTs connected in a grid pattern with manhatten routing. Most of Altera's FPGAs have a more CPLD bent, while Actel uses antifuse and flash technology with more of a "sea of gates" look to the developer.

NetBSD can run on anything

[Anonymous Coward]

and he wants to know where to buy one. What's redundant about that?

Of course it can

[Anonymous Coward]

ogg123 can be run on it, even if it doesn't come with that ability built in.

TCPA?

[dextr0us]

i read that interview about tcpa, and i see TCPA is being included on this..... so TCPA isn't usually DRM related? is a 'trusted' app just an app that can do whatever it wants because its certified? (which is probably fine with me, but yeah)

(-1, fucktard question) I know its a dumb question, but if someone can answer it, thanks.

Re:TCPA?

[Hobbex]

TCPA is always DRM related. A "trusted" app means one that other people can "trust" not to let you do anything they didn't intend you to do with it (like a media player that lets you watch, but can be "trusted" not to let you record.)

See here.

tablet/oqo

[simpl3x]

not only is the powerpc an embedded system, but the fact that one could be running essentially a full system in a palm-like profile is very much more interesting than a limited pda. this i why i do not have one, but instead opted for a tablet. sure it costs more, but i can do more! limited is dull! me wants more!

if ibm and apple can come up with some jointly utilized platforms, costs could be substantially reduced. as for linux and servers, doesn't everything become essentially a "server" when the network is the computer?

Re:tablet/oqo

[Simon Brooke]

fact that one could be running essentially a full system in a palm-like profile is very much more interesting than a limited pda. this i why i do not have one, but instead opted for a tablet. sure it costs more, but i can do more!

My Sharp Zaurus can run any Java application, and any Linux application that does not use Xwindows. Furthermore, some Linux applications which do use windowing (kde apps, particularly) are trivial to port. It measures less than 150x75x15mm and fits snuggly in my pocket. Web-server in your pocket? Why not?

And, more to the point, what can your table run that I can't run?

How quick will it chew up the batteries?

[Lawrence_Bird]

With all the stuff they've put on this I will be really interested to see if the charge can last more than a few hours. Even with a low power CPU. Insmell and IBM should put some coin into battery development instead of billions into more cpu cycles that only a very small fraction of people could ever hope to use.

FIRST POST!�

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST POST, motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!

U= teh sux!

Similar announcement on the same site

[cmeans]

Seems to be the day to do these sort of things:

Motorola/Metrowerks unveils Linux-based PDA reference design.

PowerPC's major market is embedded devices

[MyNameIsFred]

Don't forget that the major market for PowerPCs is embedded devices. One of the reasons Apple has lagged in the MegaHertz war is that Motorolla sells many more embedded CPUs then desktop CPUs. Since users of embedded CPUs generally are more interested in power consumption then speed, you can guess where Motorolla has focused.

PowerPC 405LP has no FPU

[Wesley Felter]

But I'm sure you can run Tremor.

Great... they're supporting Linux for the end user

[Anonymous Coward]

now, where do I order a Thinkpad with it preinstalled?

Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Hanno]

I own a Zaurus and I am not really that thrilled with it.

The Sharp Zaurus has several disadvantages that the IBM reference design appears to avoid.

First and foremost, the Zaurus uses a non-standard connector. I wasn't looking hard, but I doubt that I can buy the connector in a shop for electronics parts, and I consider that a major problem. It already was a problem for the Palm.

A simple serial or USB cable costs a whopping 40 Dollars in the US and 50 Euros in Europe.

Then, the Zaurus features USB, but only as a device, not as a host. Oh, the thousands of possibilities that the Zaurus designers gave away with this design decision! If, oh, if only they had incluced full host support for USB! I for one would love to simply plug in a USB keyboard in my Zaurus and start typing. (I'm aware of the power consumption issues with USB host support. But that's a question of adding a battery, that's it.)

So, to use an external keyboard, I'd have to buy a 50 Euro serial cable and an expensive keyboard that uses RS232, which is also hard to find and hard to get from Europe.

Or, I can get an IRDA keyboard. Which practically doesn't exist. Well, there are two companies offering an IRDA keyboard, but one of them appears to be vaporware and the other one does not work well with the Zaurus.

Then, the Zaurus' use of an obscure ethernet-over-USB protocol gave me quite a headache. Both the Windows 98SE and the Linux desktop drivers used to crash frequently, with the Linux driver being close to unusable, at least on my machine. It seems to be working perfectly now with 2.4.20, but it was a royal pain with previous kernels. So to use my Zaurus, I had to install XP. Yay. Which still crashes now and then as a result of using the Zaurus cradle and sometimes hard-resets the desktop the moment I put the Zaurus in there.

Finally, the Zaurus' handwriting recognition stinks. I learned Graffiti in 15 minutes, I still haven't mastered the Zaurus input method for handwritten letters. In fact, I still keep my Palm for the "actual" calendar and address management and use the Zaurus mostly for games: The SCUMM virtual machine is my personal killer app. Right now, I'm playing Monkey Island 1 during the bus rides to my office and back.

The Zaurus was the first useful Linux PDA, but it has some serious design mistakes. The missing USB host is the main mistake in my opinion. Can't wait to see the IBM reference design catching market share.

Best part appears to be: Zaurus applications' source should be easily ported to the IBM platform. And the Zaurus collection of ported software is already impressive.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[aonaran]

I admit, having the ability to plug in a keyboard would be nice, but for the few occasions when it would be useful, I think the built in one would be enough (especially the one on the c700.)

For most data-entry the PC is what I'd use. (either syncing, or VNC)

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Arthur Dent]

Finally, the Zaurus' handwriting recognition stinks. I learned Graffiti in 15 minutes, I still haven't mastered the Zaurus input method for handwritten letters.

I own a Zaurus, and it does real handwriting recognition - not the pseudo one that is graffiti.

Why don't you take the time to teach it your writing style? If you love graffiti all that much, teaching the Zaurus to do graffiti is not at all difficult.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[rjamestaylor]

I use a Socket 802.11b CF card and don't care about USB or other connectivity.

I also don't care about the handwriting recognition -- and too bad you learned Graffitti, 'cause it's gone from Palm as of a week or so ago.

I have never used a PIM, and don't use the Zaurus for that. Yesterday a relative of one of my employees asked if he should buy a Zaurus. Considering what he wanted it for (PIM stuff) I told him to get a PocketPC. He loves it.

But nothing competes with it as a WiFi-enabled vertical application unit. Nothing I've seen.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Bodhammer]

USB cables are only $5.99 w/ free shiiping in the US (see buy.com and search on 'usb cable' and sort by price), I'm not sure why they are so expensive in your neck of the woods.

In general, I think this is an interesting announcement given the announcement they made in November with Sharp about the Zaurus. I hope one or the other gets the support needed to overcome the problems you mention. It is really dissapointing when a company like IBM has competing projects in the exact same marketspace.

I am very interested in the Zaurus SL-C700 but I won't pay the markup that Dynamism wants on the unit. I also would like 128meg RAM, 802.11b, USB, and voice recorder built into the C700 form factor.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Hanno]

USB cables are only $5.99 w/ free shiiping in the US (see buy.com and search on 'usb cable' and sort by price)

You're talking about normal USB cables. The Zaurus doesn't use a normal USB connector, see the link in my post. That was one of the points I made in my original post.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Hanno]

I own a Zaurus

But did you ever own a Palmpilot so that you know the difference?

and it does real handwriting recognition - not the pseudo one that is graffiti.

Nope.

The Zaurus uses a pop-up input field that is divided in three fields for upper case letters, lower case letters and for numbers. Very much like Graffiti.

"Real handwriting recognition" is what the Newton did and the new Windows XP pen computers do.

Why don't you take the time to teach it your writing style? If you love graffiti all that much, teaching the Zaurus to do graffiti is not at all difficult.

Why do I have to bother to take the time? Graffiti was easy to learn, as is Jots (I tried it), the upcoming replacement of Graffiti.

The pre-installed handwriting patterns of the Zaurus are tough to learn, Graffiti and Jots were not. At least not for me.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[theLOUDroom]

I have a Zaurus too.

First and foremost, the Zaurus uses a non-standard connector.
As opposed to your palm which had a standard DB9 and USB connector taking up a huge amount of space at the bottom? I'd much rather have the zaurus be the size it is and pay for a cable then make it huge by adding standard sized connectors. I do wish the connector on the bottom wasn't as super-rare and it is, but is necessary to use small connectors if you want a small device. I wouldn't mind a USB host controller, but I don't think I would have wanted to pay more for it. I bet it would have cost significantly more too. Adding a USB host isn't simply a matter of adding a bigger battery. They also would have had to beef up the step-up circuitry the brings the battery voltage up a a higher voltage. To be a standard USB host the device must be able to source 5V 500mA (minimum). That's 2.5 watts. Flip over your Zaurus and read the wattage: 2.5W (Battery). They would have needed to double the power supply!


Or, I can get an IRDA keyboard. Which practically doesn't exist.
Read here for info about getting a folding IRDA keyboard for a good price. (It's not quite ready yet, but it should be within a couple weeks.)

Finally, the Zaurus' handwriting recognition stinks.

It's handwriting recognition is just not that great until either:
(a) You learn the default way to make all the characters.
or
(b) You teach it your handwriting.

You took the time to learn graffiti, so it's not fair to make a comparison if you're not willing to learn the Zaurus' input method. I personally almost always use the keyboard. I find single character handwriting recognition very inefficient becuase you always have to move backwards after each chacter entered.

Then, the Zaurus' use of an obscure ethernet-over-USB protocol gave me quite a headache.
This is a legitimite gripe, but it has supposedly been fixed on the sl-5600 model.

You did leave out one other problem though: the battery size. It's just too small. They gave the sl-5600 a much bigger battery but I don't think it will work with my 5500 :(

TCPA/DRM makes all this irrelevant though. Given the choice between the possibility of undefeatable (basically) DRM and none, the choice seems pretty simple to me. Too bad they shot themselves in the foot like that, since having an FPGA to play with sounds cool.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Hanno]

Read here [zaurus.com] for info about getting a folding IRDA keyboard for a good price. (It's not quite ready yet, but it should be within a couple weeks.)

Great! This is good news! I contacted that company a few months ago, but they were undecided back then. So maybe mails like mine helped them to make up their mind. Wonderful, I'll be sure to buy one of those keyboards - once it hits below 50$, that is...

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize of course that the above mentioned IBM product is not a commercially available PDA. It is a reference platform to be used to design a commerically available PDA.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Turbyne]

Get an HP Jornada 820
USB Host, PC Card, Compact Flash, VGA out, onboard modem, etc.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Simon Brooke]

OK, I too have a Zaurus, and I don't agree with either of you.

• Item, the keyboard. When you're on the move, you don't want to carry anything bulky. So the built in thumb-board is fine. In any case I almost never use it, because I can handwrite on the Zaurus as quickly as I can on paper. When you're not on the move, use VNC and your desktop's keyboard. No problem.
• Item, the battery The point about the Zaurus is that it's very small and light. Provided you don't plug anything else into it, the Zaurus battery lasts a long time - mine usually lasts a week of normal use. If you plug your 802.11b card in, it lasts about 45 minutes, in my experience. Which is fine for web browding in the bath, but not much use for browsing on the move. But if you IRDA it to your mobile phone, you can web browse on the move without having to search for hot spots and without draining your battery - so what's the problem?
• Item, ethernet-over-USB Granted, this doesn't really work (at least not for me). But if you can plug into USB, you've presumably got power, so shove your 802.11b card in and use wireless ethernet instead. The QTopia Desktop software is perfectly happy with this and will sync with no difficulty.

No, my gripe with the Zaurus is the poor security, - ports opern by default, desktop running as root - but that's mostly fixable. It isn't at all bad for a first cut.

Re:Actually, probably better, I'd trade my Zaurus

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had a Palm you can teach the Zaurus grafitti. It only takes about 5 minutes and you have to remember to change the upper and lower case letters. Some of the graffitti characters were more comfortable such as F, T, K so I put them onto the Zautus.

The only drawback with the input once that is done is that you lose shortcuts and such things as cut, paste etc.

but can it run BSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most important thing is whether we can run BSD, probably NetBSD, on it. linux is the worst OS I have ever read. It looks like a real car from the outside, but when you open up the hood and look at the engine, you see squirrels running around on a wheel!

WebSphere = .NET

[dalrympm]

Can somebody please explain why IBM is making everything a WebSphere something or other? WebSphere Micro Environment? What does this have to do with the Web? I'm guessing just about zip. Ugh

big corporation loses plot again

[ralphclark]

Yawn. Yet another "me too" PDA. Unfortunately it's behind even the *previous* generation of iPaqs, having no built-in Bluetooth and no CompactFlash slot either. Yes that's right folks, according to the specs it doesn't even support IBM's own microdrives.

IMO these two features are indispensable for the serious PDA user. Bluetooth so I can access the internet one-handed with my cellphone sitting inconspicuously on my hip, CompactFlash slot which holds a 1GB Microdrive with my entire CD collection ripped to MP3.

The new IBM design supports "SD", i.e. "Secure Digital". What fricking use is a big storage device if you can't store your MP3's on it?

Bluetooth needs to be built in rather than provided by a card because then you get in situations like wanting to download this large file straight onto the drive but you can't have both the Bluetooth device and the storage card fitted at the same time.

The Sharp Zaurus C700 would be interesting, if only it had built-in Bluetooth. But IBM's new design is underspecified and just too dull for words.

Re:big corporation loses plot again

[geekoid]

"...just too dull for words"
yet, somehow, you managed to spew some.
Yes, If it is not exactly what YOU want, nobody else could possible use it.

Re:big corporation loses plot again

[Gogo Dodo]

The new IBM design supports "SD", i.e. "Secure Digital". What fricking use is a big storage device if you can't store your MP3's on it?

You need to look up what Secure Digital cards really are before assuming that they're automatically a DRM thing. Secure Digital is a card format that has the ability of doing DRM, but not required. It's a follow on to the MMC cards. Happens to be the same card as the Palm units. See SanDisk for more info.

I have Bonzai USB Mini-Drive that uses SD cards and I am not restricted in what I can cart on it. Works great as a bit-bucket to carry stuff around and I'm not stuck at a fixed capacity like the more popular Disk-On-Key Flash memory USB things.

Also, don't forget that this is a reference design. If an OEM wants to built in CF or Bluetooth, there is nothing stopping them except for some engineering.

Re:big corporation loses plot again

[ralphclark]

Hmm. Maybe you're right as things stand but it sure looks like a trojan horse to me.

Re:big corporation loses plot again

[beboploco]

The article mentions a PCMCIA slot on the ref design development sled; support for CompactFlash, microdrives, etc. is certainly an option for PDA products based on e-LAP platforms.

Bluetooth

[bstadil]

Bluetooth needs to be built in rather than provided by a card

It's is too expensive to do this now. At $5-$6 for the chip currently plus the space taken up makes this prohibitive. Second the Bluetooth penetration is very small currently. The solution will be the Multifunction cards like the ones announced by Sandisk. They combine I/O like Wi-Fi or later BT on the CF card with Flash memory. That way you get the machine out now at a reasonable price point and secure later connectivity at much better price later.

Re:Bluetooth

[ralphclark]

It's is too expensive to do this now.

I almost agree, except...although the iPaq H5450 is still very expensive, the H3970 (which has only been out for about a year, if that long) has now dropped to a price point not dissimilar from competitors' top-of-the-range colour models.

The H3970 has a small flaw in that its bluetooth driver doesn't support a headset profile so you can't get it to talk to a bluetooth headset like Jabra's. I believe this has been rectified in the H5450 though.

My point rests upon the expectation that as successive iPaq models appear over the coming year the prices of these models will continue to drop and features like bluetooth will inevitably appear in competitors' mid-range models.

If the IBM reference design doesn't make it easy for manufacturers to incorporate bluetooth functionality in its earliest descendants then by the time they appear on the market (late this year I'd guess) they won't be able to compete very well against more mature designs like these iPaqs.

It's not the first time that a company has gotten a prototype to market only find that others have got there first with a better design. It's unusual for IBM though, I'll grant.

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

...AmigaOS 4.x running on this!

no, seriously...this will make the ideal PDA
platform for it.

As for another post which mentioned about IBM
and their reference designs...yes, I agree..they released their POP specs a long time ago...and
only now are companies following such things up.
eg MAIs Articia-S chipset allows a cheap PowerPC
motherboard (cheap meaning not ultra-expensive..but still more than x86 boards) such
as the Teron (also being used by Amiga as 'AmigaONE') and Pegasos. G3 and G4 based boards.

stereo? gimme a break!

[cygnus]

for stereo to work, it would either have to be wider than the space between your ears, or it would have to rely on the sound reflecting off of the surrounding environment and back to your ears for you to distinguish stereo seperation. both are sort of unrealistic for a PDA.

No product?

[Anonymous Coward]

Swell that you released a design, IBM, but how about a product? I remember the last time I read about one of your free reference designs. I wanted one, but I'm not a chip-soldering kid of guy, and no one ever really tried to sell me a OpenPPC computer until several years after it was obsolete. This looks like it might make a decent highly-portable computer, but if it won't be available until 2008, then forget it.

too many shortcomings

[u19925]

there are too many shortcomings for a PDA of the future. Among them are

320x240 screen: Sony clie has 320x320 screen for a long time and new ones have 320x480 screen.

slow processor: current generation of PocketPC processors run upto 400 MHz, which is faster than proposed IBM processor.

power supply: no word on power supply

Bluetooth: why not 802.11b?

no hard drive: Shouldn't the futuristic PDA have a hard drive? I know HDs are not as reliable, but they can be used for less essential stuff like photos, videos, songs etc

USB 1.1: Shouldn't we have USB 2.0 or Firewire?

AC Power in: do you really want to input 110/220 V to this device?

No keyboard, No camera: Sony Clie users would surely miss them.

MS Office docs support: Not really relevent to slashdotters, but many would need them. Even Palm OS based devices have support for them

nothing new: there is nothing new compare to Zaurus, PocketPC, Sony Clie etc.

I've personally got to reply!

[Anonymous Coward]

The PowerPC can play all that and your sister while you're not looking...ermm I shouldn't have confessed!

Almost right

[Anonymous Coward]

More power, bigger, slower yes but faster because you can use them for other purposes programmed on the fly, why you would need this in a pda baffles me. This allows for designs that are not multipurpose with software but instead are built for one specific task. Most people will not built general purpose processing parts using FPGA but rather specific tasks that would run faster as their own chip but are not needed enough to warrant the production of said chip.

What?

[SKicker]

This sounds pants.

Theres nothing there which isnt present in PDAs in the shops today. ARM is a much more sensible platform for battery life etc. Only Sharp have seriously tried to use Linux as a PDA platform, no one else is going to pick this up cos Wince doesnt run on it and theres no apps.

Sound like a dubious research project they've thrown a bit of money at in the hope of making some extra out of powerpc. (Shrug)

That is unless Apple picks it up and makes a PDA (cough)

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a reference platform for designing a PDA, not a PDA for commercial consumption. It highlights the features of the chips so that someone like HP or Sharp or Sony can build a PDA with the features a user would need.

The _chip_ is new and runs at a higher MIPS rate on less power than the _chip_ in the Zaurus

This is a REFERENCE platform

[drw]

And because of that is a basic hardware platform which has the purpose of allowing developers to write software for it and other hardware developers to have a starting point for their own designs.

IBM is hoping that other companies will pick up on this design and actually make units for public consumption.

So things like keyboards, cameras, larger screens, wireless, etc. are possibilities for consumer versions, but aren't really needed to get developers started.

Why are you hating on the PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the arm chip has a higher megahertz rating does not mean it is faster than the ibm chip and it also probably draws more because this chip is a platform on a chip not just a chip.

Mandatory Joke...

[Kutsal]

Imaging a beowulf cluster of those ;)

(sorry I just /had/ to...)

Host USB would kill any PDA

[leeet]

Like you said, power consumption would kill the PDA right away. If you are interested in a USB host solution, there is a CF USB host card already available in Japan (http://www.pocketpcjapan.com/main.html). The only problem is it only supports basic things like keyboard, mouse, etc. but I believe the driver is ready. It's a start...

..site where you can get the USB host card

[leeet]

Click here for japanese version.

Opera 6?

[leeet]

I'm just curious how you got it as I'm not a fan of opera 5 on the Z. Konqueror is much better so far. I'd like to see if they improved Opera 6?

Re:Opera 6?

[rjamestaylor]

Oh yes. Opera 6 is much better: preferences, multiple windows, ability to use SSL on site with expired certs (you must know what I mean), a real zoom tool, real bookmarks. . .flash works (maybe not a feature). Compared to Konq (the version I used in November, anyway) on the Z I like Opera 6 better. But, you can't get it yet. Only developer previews available. (Maybe this has changed, I don't know).

Re:Great! Where and one be bought

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Slashdot logic, first visible post above +0 gets marked, 'redundant'....

This is exciting technology...

[blaqsun]

It wouldn't take much effort to run Linux or an embdedded OS, such as QNX, on this new platform. What would be really exciting would be to beef the RAM up a bit and get a version of Darwin working on it. That in itself wouldn't be the most useful or practical application, but it would lead to Mac OS X on a handheld.

Apple, are you listening?

iWalk

[iamacat]

Must... port... Cocoa. Or, in the worst case, GNUStep.

QTopia/Zaurus compatibility?

[Simon Brooke]

It looks to me from the pictures as it the machines is running Trolltech's QTopia palmtop environment, just like the Sharp Zaurus. This is good from at least two points of view. Firstly it means it's easy to port the existing software for the Zaurus, and relatively easy to port KDE and other Qt based apps; and secondly because it means that people producing software for Linux palmtop devices get a wider market with a consistent UI look-and-feel.

pasto

[Hobbex]

I meant here.

Just glue logic

[m8pple]

It's a CPLD rather than an FPGA (bit of a vague distinction, CPLDs are generally much smaller and have fewer pins). It's probably not even big enough to do a single DES round. Most likely to be routing clocks and data buses around internally.

The 3000 gate figure is just the nand gate equivalent count, in reality it only has 128 moderately configurable cells. By comparison the FPGAs that people use for anything slightly serious start at about 600 cells (~40k gates, the cells in FPGAs are more complex). In the stuff I do (image processing mostly) the smallest FPGA I use is a xcv1000e with 27,648 cells (~1.5M gates), and this is fairly out of date.

OTOH you really don't want an FPGA in a handheld, as they are very inefficient in terms of power/heat. They get way too hot to touch running in my computer (admittedly without active cooling, but that would be difficult to achieve in a handheld anyway), and suck a huge amount of power (some of our machines with weaker 300W PSUs can't provide enough current to boot with an FPGA card in). Admittedly the parts I use are more heavyweight than you'd think of putting in a mobile device, but even the smaller ones need alot of power.

Annapolis (a slightly odd FPGA platform vendor) do a PCMCIA card called the Wildcard which apparently works in an iPaq (plus adaptor), for example used in this project for wireless encryption project. But they cost $999 :)

Toshiba e series

[Zendar]

With the exception of the (rather large) speakers on top, this looks like the same design is the Toshiba e series.

Net Stumbling

[Anonymous Coward]

Can this be used with net stumbler?

Re:Great! Where and one be bought

[Anonymous Hack]

Erm, dude, the redundant moderation is called IRONY. "Of course it runs NetBSD". Think about it...

Let him!

[Chazman]

I want to watch him burn his hand on the heat sink and get his fingers caught up in the fan while trying to use his slick new P4-based PDA....

Gee

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didnt IBM put 802.11b unit in that palmtop??

You didn't mention any polarity of the karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd mod you "-1, Funny" if I could.

Re:You didn't mention any polarity of the karma...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... so kind. :P I said that a while back too. Who's to say that karma is positive?

Re:Great! Where and one be bought

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I thought Slashdot's moderation function sucked all humor out of you then gave it back to you when you used all of your points up?

TCPA != DRM

[MrResistor]

There are a lot of uses for the TCPA chip, and DRM is just one of them. That doesn't make the TCPA chip a DRM device any more than the fact that you can use the internet to pirate music makes the internet a music piracy device.

Also, what part of "it runs Linux" did you not understand? DRM won't work unless it is enabled in the OS, and since Linux is Open Source you can remove or modify the DRM parts to your hearts conent (if anyone were dumb enough to include them in the first place). Alternatively, you could simply download one of the anti-DRM patches that would be available about a month before you could actually buy the thing.

And hey, that's great that you can stream music to your Zaurus, but what's stopping me from sniffing your passwords and 0wning your server? Wouldn't it be nice if you could encrypt those streams and still have enough CPU left over to play your mpegs?

TCPA is not DRM

[Steve Hamlin]

Read this interview for a summary of TCPA, what is is, and more importantly to you, what it is NOT.

• "TCPA is an industry specification that defines mechanisms for "trusted" client/server...[Trust is the] ability to feel confident that the software environment in a platform is operating as expected."

• "While somebody could write a DRM application using the TPM, they could also write one without it. Non-DRM applications can be developed under TCPA. The example I thought of is an improved VPN for companies that are super-paranoid about their data (think about it ... 2048 bit keys, no hash load on the system CPU, ability to tie accessibility to a unique platform)."

  "Adding TCPA & TPM to a system doesn't automatically add DRM to a platform. Some application has to tie the TPM to the "media" being "protected". Merely adding TCPA to [hardware] doesn't constitute DRM."

Price (was it a faq?)

[Anonymous Coward]

how much is this toy?

Last Post!

[alpg]

BOFH excuse #207:

We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortuantely, one has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...