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Fully-functional Miniature Notebook Planned
florin writes "Check out this upcoming extremely cool micro-sized notebook from Microsoft-cofounder Paul Allen's company Vulcan (who were previously mentioned on Slashdot some time ago). Despite being small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, this is a fully blown x86-compatible computer capable of running Windows XP - or, presumably, a Unix of one's choice. Featuring an 800x480 pixel display, 256 MB of memory, sound, USB2, WLAN and optional Bluetooth, GPRS/CDMA or Firewire, this is far more than just another PDA, yet still small enough to carry with you at all times." Looks really cool, but I wouldn't plan on using full typing speed on it's tiny keys.
This think looks cool, but it doesn't hold a candle to the palm pilot built by jesus.
tcd004
To type fast, use hall-effect touchpads on either side of the computer, and simply redesign the keyboard for one of three modes: one-pad (left-or-right), stylus, or two-pad.
People who want to learn to type on it quickly will find it takes less than a month to be proficient. And if the human-factors engineering is good, then they may find that they can type faster on it than with a normal keyboard.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
If it can do graphics halfway descent it might make a cool gameboy.
The thing just looks like a real waste of time.
Key too small to type
Screen looks like crap
I'm a gadget geek but this aint something I'd rush out to buy
Just think of how much faster you would type if you didn't insert unnecessary apostrophes into words!
The tiny keys issue really gets at the problem I have with PDAs in general. Interfaces at that size are a real bother. My handwriting is far too bad to use the handwriting recognition, and any other input method is just painful. I can get a fold-out keyboard attachment, but at that point the device becomes sufficiently big that I can't carry it around in the pocket of anything short of my trenchcoat.
PDAs are a wonderful idea, and once someone solves the interfacing problem I'm sure they'll be as common as full-size or notebook computers. But in their current form, I just can't use them, and I doubt that I'm the only one with this problem.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Is it forced to have WinXP on it by default, issuing out the legendary Micro$oft Tax?
Will it come with finger extensions a la Freddie Krueger? That would be neat and would keep away those annoying WiFi cops. Well at least until the SWAT team shows up.
The small keyboard shouldn't be a problem:
Just stick on a USB twiddler. Chording keyboards can be much faster than full keyboards. And perhaps someday you'll never need to use a normal keyboard again - just use your personally-customized portable keyboard and point at the computer you want to type to.
Snowspinner Horsey!
And I thought the keyboards on a standard laptop were hard enough to use. That is just PDA sized, and as such, means thumb usage for the keyboard.
No, as far as I'm concerned laptops can't get much/any smaller now as it is, otherwise they stop being feasable for actual usage other than as a PDA.
-- Never monkey with another Monkey's monkey
A fully-functional miniature notebook has been around since 2001.
It's called an "iBook"-- and now there's an even smaller one called a "PowerBook".
Did the Slashgeeks not get those memos???
The Lifebook series by Fujitsu, and much better specs. http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildse riesbean.do?series=P1
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
My hands are too big to operate one of those.
The perfect size for laptops is something like the Dell x200. Very lightweight, but with a keyboard where you actually can hit individual keys.
I think the smaller is better craze is only good to a certain point, this is in my opinion, beyond.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
oops... typo.. it was sapposed to say "way to much emphasis", but I guess that would be wrong also.
Change it to "way too much emphasis"
Looks good... which distro installs on it? I mean with something that cool you wouldn't want to run "your Mother's OS" (tm) on it would you? It's too bad they aren't selling these *WITHOUT* a display, You could actually bring your own personal BEOWOLF cluster of these on trips etc.
Just a thought...
Cheers,
_GP_
With the screen having such an odd resolution, will Quake III still work?
This unbiased story was sponsored by...
One of my CS instructers came back from Japan last semester with something similar to this, (scroll down to the bottom, yes it's an old picture, only thing I could find that looked similar), but smaller and faster and without the camera. (It was a Sony though.) It also had a keyboard that you could actually type on, at least a little better than the Vulcan one. Of course, the battery was the same size and weighed more than the rest of the computer.
"I think that when you become a Republican, you don't get to score any more." -- Butt-head
This isn't really that special. Take a look at the new PocketPCs - they have taken a PDA and aimed to be a PC (really a PocketPC device is much closer to a PC than a Palm Pilot), whereas Vulcan are taking a PC and aiming to be a PDA. Sure there are still some differences (the ability to run the OS of your choice, and a useless keyboard to use with it) but ultimately in a generation or two they will be at the same point.
Actually MS already have their Tablet PCs that seem to have filled this role. Neat idea, but nothing new.
This is the kind of product that comes from shortsighted product research - I'm sure test users love it for the three hours they use it. After that, the novelty wears off quickly on these damn tiny things. They're just too small to do any useful work with (well, anything that involves typing).
Wishing 'em good luck anyway...
By that logic, "poverty" is the first Political affliction.
I mean, if it's a complete pain in the ass to type on the teeny tiny keyboard on either model, what's the point of a 20 gig HD?
Plus, the Vulcan is fugly.
hang brain.
Okay, who here is going to be the first to get Linux running on this thing?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Too small to be used on a regular basis and a bit too large to be treated as a PDA. I'm sure after the initial cool factor wears off, and eye strain sets in, you are going to have a user wondering what to do with that thing.
but what is the battery life on this thing? I mean, with a processor able to handle windows XP, and an actual HDD, this thing must take a lot of energy.
It should be turned into something like this hello kitty laptop.
-nate
"I mean Jesus is alright but his disciples are rather thick and ordinary" - JL
My eyes already get sore with straining to read 9pt fonts on my 15" laptop display after a few hours. I think my eyeballs will explode from the pressure on trying to read the same 9pt font scaled down to 15cm!
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
From the page: "The Mini-PC is a concept from MicroSoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan, Inc...."
No, it isn't. IBM and other manufacturers have had palmtop computers for a long time.
Looks like an iPod++ in a way. Of course it would have no shock protection or other hardware features for portable music, but if you are just letting the thing sit on your desk, you could run a fully functional music jukebox program and use it as a slightly more featureful iPod.
First of all you admitted that you've reported on this before. Second of all this isnt revolutionary.
I currently have a Sony PCG-U3 which is the current titlle holder for smallest laptop. It runs a 900mhz crusoe CPU, got 256mb ram a 20GB hd and 800x600 display. This tiny laptop is only sold in Japan. The keyboard makes it really difficult to touch type, because you have to watch out to make sure your fat fingers dont touch other keys by mistake.
I don't see any mention of price.
One would expect that the cost would be more than a normal laptop of comparable specs. While its got some compelling features this thing in the end looks like it can't decide if it wants to be a PDA or a laptop. At 800x480 resolution its probably not going to cut it as a replacement for a proper laptop, but at the same time, I wonder how usable an XP system would be as a PDA.
Its neat as a "gee whiz" thing, but what sort of people need a PDA with more power than the present ones enough to shell out laptop prices and likewise what sort of people need a laptop that small but are willing to give up screen resolution?
Could it be any lighter on details?
Great job with the photos. Dide we really need FIVE photos showing the size comparison to a mobile phone? Or THREE showing how a ThinkPad dwarfs it? Would it have killled them to show the back of this thing, so I could see the ports and answer this question: Are the actual ports built into the device, or does it have some stupid, proprietary mega-port and a funky, easily-losable-and-expensive-to-replace port replicator cable that breaks the mega-port out into FireWire, USB, etc?
Or does connecting anything to it in the field require lugging around some docking station that negates the whole point of having a dinky computer in the first place?
~Philly
That, plus a decent-sized HDD would make this a compelling little linux box & mplayer...
I have used PC laptops, Powerbooks, Newtons, and Palms over the years. I have switched from Newton to Palm and back to Newton again. Yeah, it's big, but it does lots more for me from a practical end. Easy email, notes, books, scheduling, and MP3's on my Newt! Also easy connectivity via an older 3Com Ethernet PCMCIA card. Sure, it weighs a pound and is not pocketable...That's the sucky side. I use an older Toshiba laptop for SuSE, and Win98 to keep up with the "rest of the world" and my iBook for everyday work. I have to agree with the above posters. A keyboard, whether chorded or not, has to have something that approaches full sized keys. I have an external KB for my Newton and it is as small as it can be and still be comfortable. Before getting my iBook I regularly used a 2400c and that was a small KB as well. Heck, lots of times when I see a 2400c on the swap lists, or auction block or whatever, one of the chief complaints for selling is that the KB is too little for folks with big mitts. Its all about size versus useability versus the right tool for the right job. My Newt is all big and clunky, but for me it blows a Palm away. Others might be different. Just my $.02 Scott
The whole point is that you can stick it in your pocket. Laptops are too big and heavy, even the subnotebooks. For the kind of thing you want a laptop for, there is a certain size below which it becomes counterproductive. Likewise, for the kind of thing you use a PDA for, there is a certain size above which it becomes impractical. The catch is, though, that PDAs lack the power, storage space or expandability for many tasks which they would otherwise be ideal. This is the niche which this device is meant to fill.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Not only is the keyboard small, but it's made of those rubber buttons that are on cell phones. Can you imagine typing for any period of time on those? Plus it has a trackball in the upper right?! How about a pointer stick in the middle?
Give me a traditional PDA with a full-sized collapsable keyboard any day. With the screen doubling as the mouse input device, it's still very compact. If you need to do serious work, a 2.7 pound ultralight laptop shouldn't be too much to carry around.
As an Operations guy, man, I have wanted something like this for years. Full featured enough to handle remotely connecting in for sudden downtime events, yet not nearly as large as a laptop. With 1xRTT, it means you can take it into a restaurant and, if you pager goes off, be able to check system status without having to clear off the entire top of the table.
:)
Not to mention that it makes checking Moviefone.com a lot slicker than the current PDA browsers are.
It's not going to be for everyone, but for those who need it, doggone, it's the cat's meow!
And it'll impress the babes
Stev
I don't believe this. No Vulcan would build such an illogical keyboard. ... I'm so sorry.
[insert witty quote here]
f1r5t
Or not.. dumbass.
> I wouldn't plan on using full typing speed on it's tiny keys
yeah, especially if you're going to waste your time typing useless apostrophes.
Just to balance out the mostly negative posts so far... I think that there is real value in having a full desktop OS in my pocket (WinXP or Linux) for 1) maximizing downtime and 2) permitting me to leave my apartment when I'm on call.
I tried Palm OS - great PIM, great battery life, small form factor, large software library... But extremely limited in processing power and networking options.
Pocket PC - Poor battery life, poor software library, but excellent wifi and cellular data connectivity options.
Linux on iPaq (Familiar, Opie, GPE) - Cool to have a shell prompt, but EXTREMELY limited in storage space. Otherwise, Opie and GPE are maturing nicely, and I can get a good deal of work done when I have the right programs installed
Unfortunately, the best solution I've found so far is an iPaq running Pocket PC with wifi connectivity, running JSLandscape at 640 x 480, running terminal services to my WinXP desktop. Yeah it's slow and sucks battery life like a pig, but at least I can run real applications...
This Vulcan Handheld PC would let me run my VPN and full mail program (Lotus Notes - sux but that's what my company uses) along with the entire library of X86 windows/linux software.
If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
I gotta get me one of these!
Beowulf cluster of these? Anyone? Anyone?
But seriously, linux or bsd on one of these babies would make walking around your co-lo room doing trivial maintenence on boxes would be awesome..
Harddrive big enough to do network installs off on client sites etc..
Rock on!!
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
How fast an x86 processor will this take? There seemed to be no mention of processor beyond soimply "x86 compatible".
My subtext is just a figment of your imagination.
What about the OQO?
What happened to this? It was supposed to be out by now but they haven't updated the website in eternity. It would have had laptop and desktop enclosures to solve the actual typing problem when you needed to use it as a full-on PC, and was just generally loaded with good features. But since I don't seem to be able to buy one, what's the point
Oh yeah...*cough* keys on this Vulcan thing to small!
I think somewhere a line has to be drawn. That line is crossed when you have to use a magnifying glass to read your laptop's screen and a microscope to find your cell phone when you misplace it.
Genesis? Is planet forbidden!
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
all it is is a miniature laptop. there's really nothing special about it. personally, i like the design of this thing. now, if something like that ever became available, i'd be all over it.
the price! Its listed as P.A. 'concept'---this must be his concept of users as fools...
I just love the coding, I don't do it for anything else, except pure love. If someone else wants to make money from what i write, let them. I just want to code. If someone else wants to modify my writings, let them. As long as I'm able to code, no-one can take away the fun from me. If someone wants to write closed source software, let them. It's just fun to write, if I can in any way help some-one else, while I'm having fun, why not. It's just plain and simple fun, let's keep it that way
A beowulf cluster of these beasties, kitted out with 802.11g wireless networking and mounted on RC model vehicles, roaming around autonimously, trying to find unsecured wifi hotspots so you can use their bandwidth for p2p!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Bow down to your one and true Master, fellow nerds :/
The PC110 was, and until this M$ thingee comes out, is the smallest laptop ever made.
Now, they go for insane amounts of money on ebay. As a 486, she goes for more cash than the pentium Librettos do
I'm a huge palmtop fan (HPLX/Amity/Libretto/etc), and if this new thing is priced right, I'd be interested... but it'll probably suck
Yet more proof that anything anyone has ever done, IBM did first
--- Do you believe in the day?
The name... is Dumass.
I see a way to massively increase the density of servers in my server cabinet.
If it can run directly off a wall wort and accept a CAT5 cable instead of wireless, it's perfect as a (very) small office file server.
*How* *much*?
I can state for a fact it is possible to learn to touch-type on these little keyboards, but this is greatly affected by keyboard travel and the keyshapes giving good positioning feedback.
On a regular keyboard I can break 80 words per minute pretty easily (up until about 2 a.m.), and on the Psion I was able to average about 25 w.p.m. with some considerable practice. The Psion however was designed with good keytravel, and the chopped pyramid keystyle gave comfortable tactile feedback as to how my hands were positioned.
The essential ingredient to getting the speed up was increase one's (right to left) hand tilt to about 45 degrees and learn to stike the keys a little more with the outside edges of your fingers. The extra tilt works like the arms of an old manual typwriter letting typing elements that are normally to fat for the space they have to share swing into each other's flight paths to share (in the typewriter case a single spot) a smaller space.
I would strongly caution anyone who needs typing speed against purchasing this online. Go to whatever computer store might stock such a thing and make sure that the tactile and positioning feedbacks are going to be sufficient for your needs. This will probably be at least a $1000 toy, so no-one is going to begrudge you a few 30 minute sessions standing in their store playing with it.
OQO Press release
But as you will read that hasn't been updated in over a year.
I'd agree with the posts about the Newton (excluding fanatics) that the Newton still holds it's own, even now because it can use 802.11 PC cards and play MP3's plus control iTunes
To all that want a Pocket Computer - I would strongly suggest a top of the line Clie or The Sharp Zaurus
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
the ibm pc110 started it all back in the mid-90's. i have one actually. it's tiny, a pain in the ass to type on until you're used to it and terribly underpowered. i can imagine one of these things being more powerful, but even smaller? speaking from esperience, it'd make it useless to most every user (though i do admit, the server room maintenance idea was good). that's why i've been keeping my eye on similarly powerful machines of a usable size.
the sony vaio u-101 is the brand new update to the vaio u series. most notably to the speed and memory enhancements it adds a lay-flat design and a display that rotated to landscape with the push of a button which is nice for reading e-books or any long document.
and my favorite the jvc interlink mp-xp7230. also the latest in it's series. it's much larger than the vulcan and u-101 placing it at the smallest end of the sub-notebook category rather than a real mini-pc. i've used one of these and typing isn't even an issue. the pointing decive is a tried and true, blue, rubber nipple in the center of the keyboard with laptop-style mouse buttons along with a touch pad below the keyboard. no proprietary mega ports here. everything is seperate so there's no need for an expensive port replicator or converter dongle which we will all eventually loose.
both of these devices have been mentioned before and linux runs perfectly on both aside from some yet to be reproduced proprietary features you'll never miss anyway. and for those of you worried about jvc's first forray into this area, i can tell you it ran rock solid both on and off ac power for three months wile the friend i borrowed it from was away at basic training.
if the ink weren't still wet on my mortgage papers, i'd sure as hell have a jvc interlink mp-xp7230, fully expanded with an external cd-rw/dvd-rom.
Sorry, but its justa glorified tablet pc to me why? moving parts i dont care if its small if I cant throw it in my coat and go biking down the street.
3 961.
Id rather go with zaurus and 512-1gig of flash.
Heres a post of mine detailing prices for some real Solid state storage: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61888&cid=580
-- -- --
Help my mini cause: My journal
My Zaurus 5500 does all these things, with the exeption of WinXP, although it DOES run bochs.. For $178 + $16 for screen protectors + $51 for a 10/100 card, and flashing with OpenZaurus 3.2, I get:
206 MHz CPU, 64MB of RAM, 16 MB flash
(you can even create swap to increase RAM)
Linux
320x240 full color GUI
SSH client and server
VNC client and server
SMB client and server
Apache
MySQL
Perl
serial terminal
Word/Excel compatibility
Full functionality web browser
IMAP/SSL email
wireless, bluetooth or ethernet
up to 1+ GB of directly accessible storage
keyboard
handwriting recognition
Oggs/MP3s/_MPEGS_
and it's about 1.5x the size (mostly increased length) of a Palm.
Why do I need WinXP, or x86 compatibility? Am I going to develop for Win32 on this thing?
It's all about what you need, and what tool will get you there.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Economic freedom equals more prosperity
I managed to get my hands on an older Libretto ff 1100. Absolutely awesome. It's a little old, so it runs a P266 w/ 128 ram, and boots win98 by default. The thing also has a USB port, SmartCard slot, and PCMCIA slot. It has a decent usable keyboard. Screen res is 800x480, which is, for me, fine to read on. I actually had to decrease the font size though to fit configuration windows on the screen (sometimes its just too short, and nobody designs programs for 640x480 screens anymore). Unfortunately, it was never sold in the US (except by Dynamism.com). Bablefished page is here (original). Scroll down for pics. The little orange thing on the right side of the screen is the mouse. The two buttons are on the back of the screen. Very usable, and original. Too bad you can't get these anywhere anymore. I run Linux on mine, with no problems.
- Decent price. It's not a full laptop, it's basically a mobility tool. Don't expect consumers to pay laptop prices.
- Battery Life. Many similar devices are handicapped by their short power duration. Especially for a mobile/wireless device, the ability to run for a reasonable amount of time is key.
- Broad WiFi access. This is outside of their control, but from the design, it appears they are counting on it. If WiFi rolls out as broadly as many think it will, this type of device will do a lot of business.
Bullshit. Post a link to a FULLY functional unit (PARTICULARLY with a screen with a usable horizontal resolution), or shut up.
Doesn't it seem there's another handheld, x86 compatible bit of vapor about every year or so?
I am speechless. Wow. A smallish PC with a smallish screen, hard to type keyboard and a bunch of gewgaws.
Reminds me of the old HP200LX 80186 MS-DOS 5.0 based palmtop with PCMCIA. People were dying to get those back in the day. (I have 2 of them off ebay for about $50 each). You can run most of your favorite CGA-based apps on it's 640x200 16 shade grayscale LCD. A favorite is to run Police Quest and Space Quest. :)
the $2000 price tag on this mini-pc is a bit steep. You could theoretically make one cheaper using one of the DIMM PC or simular products, and honestly the LCD isn't expensive, smaller LCDs are cheaper. getting a good battery and power friendly components are the only thing I see that could beef up this cost.
We should just start a project to build our own out of dimmPC or MediaGX or VIA C3 processor and show those guys that it's not that hard to do at all!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Whats the price of it ?
So who thinks this thing will use the CPU from that other Vulcan Venture, Transmeta?
Ah a fellow Psion owner. Psion's are great. I own a Revo myself. They keyboard on the 5mx is pretty nice even though it's tiny. I usually touch type with my first two fingers on each hand and do pretty well. (about 20wpm).
It wouldn't be worth dropping $2k on this miniPC until you can get your hands on one and try it out. It looks significantly bigger than a Psion so this miniPC looks like it might not be as convient for portability.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I don't mind that the screen will be so small, it's just that with a resolution of 800 by 480, the text and icons may be too small to even read. With my glasses, I have pretty good vision and like 1024x768 on my 17" monitor. The 1280x1024 resolution has text and icons a little small for me but this thing will probably need a magnifying glass to do anything on.
Next thing you know people will only assume Genesis refers to the band...
That's funny; I thought it was a 16-bit video game console.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I usually use 12pt fonts on a 12.1" display (my ibook). I sit infront of that thing for hours (actually i lay on the couch and use it). 15" laptops are GROSS, i don't know why anyone would want such a beast.
I suspect your eyestrain would be more from a crappy display on your 15" than the physical size of your text. Also it helps if you turn anti-aliasing OFF on any font smaller than 14pt. anti-aliasing tends to make LCDs more difficult to read than better. (because they have poorer constrast than a CRT).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
isn't that an oxy-moron?
I've never actually seen a standard emerge other than being generally QWERTY
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
(What else would you expect from an ex-Microsoftie?)
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
You never add an apostrophe AFTER the s, as you just suggested.
Let's go over the rules for commas.
1) Contractions: When two words are run together with letters ommitted -
This question's difficult = This question is difficult.
I can't understand = I can not understand.
- In formal writing, contractions should be avoided.
2) To indicate posession:
John's book. The teacher's pen.
- If the noun is plural AND ends in an S already, we put an apostrophe AFTER the final S
"The students' books"
"The teachers' lounge"
- If the noun is plural and does NOT end in an S, we add an S after the apostrophe:
The women's washroom
- Indicating posession with names: (some variation in some schools on this)
For an english name that ends in an S, you add 'S
James's book.
- For an english name ending in S but pronounced "iz", you just add an apostrophe after the final S
Bridges' play. (because we don't prounce it "Bridgeses play, it sounds wrong.. but Jameses sounds okay)
The killer: ITS and IT'S (there is no its')
ITS (no apostrophe) indicates posession. Always. There is never an apostrophe when we want to talk about something belonging to IT. Yes, this is totally backwards.
IT'S means IT IS or IT HAS (basically a regular contraction)
ALSO: NEVER add an apostrophe when changing something to the plural, ie:
1990s, not "1990's",
My celeron 500s temperature, not "My celeron 500's temperature", and so on.
Sony has a line of tiny laptops that are so small, you can hold them in one hand. Check it out.
...in comparison to a cell phone...?
;)
for the humor impaired:
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
It's almost as small as the transmeta sonys! That's INCREDIBLE! AWE STRIKING!
I have to pee!
sharp actius mm10. My friend just bought one. 2.1lbs, 0.5" thick... cfm?artic leID=1348
http://www.transmetazone.com/articleview
The article about running linux on a N64 is an april's fool joke.
The word on the streets of Seattle is that Vulcan is a joke and has never made dime.
More funny, Allen's girlfriend runs the company at her whim (again, with profits being a non-issue).
The environment has been described as a high school popularity contest.
They are oh-so-appropriately located right next to Amazon.com.
The issue of size seems to be a difficult one, especially with any device requiring visual I/O. How about voice? A cell-phone size would do. Speech recognition and synthesis are coming along and there's a lot you can do with your voice. Dictate something, have it read back, edit it, send it. Look for info using standardized commands. Play audio games... ;-)
Alexandre http://enkerli.wordpress.com/
I, my wife and my dog can use Graffitti proficiently.
Perhaps not good enough to write a novel, but good enough to jolt a note or write a phone number (which is what a PDA is suppossed to help you with in the first place).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I just hope they gave it an alternative keyboard layout, eg. Dvorak!! Oh, and a choice video card would be OK too.. I don't like my media playback jerky-style.
Its called a Zaurus.
Thanks for sorting that out... Now nobody will be confused by my typo and think I was talking about commas. Your post was so.. meaningful.
And as for how many times I proofread: none
Feel better now?
I used to have Toshiba Libretto with 800x400 screen. 400 pixel isn't enough to dispaly some Windows XP dialog boxes. "Autohide" for taskbar helps in some situations. I upgraded to Fujitsu P1110, and I am mostly happy with it. Touchscreen really helps.
I would have loved something like this when I was traveling frequently on business. It's not great for regular use, but it sure beats lugging around a laptop. As for the tiny keys, it has USB so you should be able to just pop in a USB keyboard.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
It's all a trade-off between power, size, and cost. And it doesn't look like Vulcan has any better technology than anybody else.
Sure it looks neat -- like a mini laptop with teeny tiny keys. It's so cute! But even ignoring the tiny keys for a moment, just how do you use this thing? Do you balance it in one hand while typing with the other? I don't think so! That's about as awkward an arrangement as I can imagine. But what's the point of having one if you have to set it on a desk to use it? And when you're typing, your hands will be right it front of the screen, blocking it from view. This isn't radical, it isn't innovative, and I submit that it's not even useful.
You *can* touch-type on a keyboard this small. Up until just recently, I was using a Jornada 720 for a lot of things, and it is about the size of this MiniPC. I could touch-type quite easily- and after a couple hours of getting used to it, was typing about as fast as I do on my iBook or on a desktop. I could type fast enough to use it as a definate iBook replacement- I used it for writing papers in LaTeX, coded, web browsing, SSH/telnet, email, even running apps remotely with XFree86. (And yes, all under WinCE)
However, I do notice one huge difference between this miniPC and the Jornada720 (or a Psion)- the keyboard of the latter was meant for touch typing, while the miniPC's keyboard doesn't look like it was. Look at a photo of it, and it looks to have little rubber chicklet keys rather than a regular low-travel spring keyboard mechanism. A keyboard built like a real one, just 25% smaller than full size, is why people can type so fast on a Psion or a Jornada 720.
The only reason I don't use it still is the screen isn't reflective like you find on most color PDAs now, making it useless during the summer, when I do these computing tasks outside on the porch or in the woods up against a tree.
Why can't one company make a device that does what so many of these different new small computers are aiming for? All of them seem to have some imperfection-
1. The Sharp Zaurus C700: The keyboard mechanism and size is way too small for doing any real typing on. It is a thumboard, although one slightly bigger than on the SL-5500. I guess a PXA255 XScale CPU instead of the PXA250 would be nice too.
2. The OQO may never come out, but would be damn close to the perfect thing if a good, yet small (75% of 'full size', size of most Psion and Jornada 720 keyboard) attachable keyboard is available.
3. This miniPC has the bad kind of keyboard and cannot be configured into a tablet mode like the C700. There doesn't appear to be a touch screen, so it does seem that the Vulcan folks really weren't thinking, and didn't consider a tablet mode. Any computer aiming to take the place of both a notebook and a PDA really should accomodate the wide variety of situations that are hindered by a keyboard that isn't needed hanging around by allowing the user to hide it and operate the computer with a touchscreen.
4. Almost all TabletPCs are too damn big.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Today, go to dynamism.com for under 2 pound computers.
Beyond that, stop bullshitting yourself--you are clearly completely out of touch.
...a non-functional one?
Oh, well... troll, again... maybe humour was a passing fad, who knows?
:-)
Maybe I change to sadder figure, too... but not now!
Humour is fun, humour is life!
You pathetic moderators, don't stay sad, get a life!
The C700 is available form Dynamism (otherwise still only in Japan). Runs Linux 2.4.18 with some embedded patches, and uses an ARM XScale processor, but comes with Hancom office clone apps. Just slightly larger than the 5500.
The screen is tremendous. Touch sensitive, VGA (640x480, 16 bit depth) and brighter than most laptops. And it pivots 180 degrees from landscape/laptop to portrait/PDA mode.
And it has a qwerty touch keyboard that seems to be like the vulcan - I can touch type with two or three fingers per hand, but there are external keyboards.
Battery life and compatibility with hardware are very good.
The Vulcan may run the XP Bloatware, but I probably have more things on my Zaurus than would fit on the V. And Bloatware eats batteries unless it runs glacially instead of merely slow and there isn't that much room for a batteries. The Vulcan is 800x480, but that is still not that much bigger and an unusual aspect ratio.
[Bloatware Battery Bludgeoning is a matter of physics and why WinCE devices will never beat Palm, with the Zaurus in the middle - CE executes far more instructions, so does more cycles and the rest is physics - to the point that the power consumption goes up with the square of the clock speed]
It may be interesting to see though. Especially if they can get Linux running. But they don't mention any CF or PCMCIA for hardware.
...make up for SOME things with big computers...oh wait
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
So Canada [democratic], Hong Kong [democratic weighted towards capitalism, no communism in sight], and Singapore [democratic capitalism] are socialist?
That about Cuba [communist socialist] the UK [a socialist party in government, you know socialist isn't equal to communist huh???!!!] France [socialist] Germany [socialist] Finland [socialist] Sweden [socialist]....... all don't have SARS
And Hong Kong, Singapore are far more capitalist than most western european countires.
I guess they all have yellow skin so must be socialist, huh?
Once you get a -1, nobody will see your post and you're doomed to stay -1 for good.
Check everything2 to see what a troll really is.
If it's a small, minimally functional personal computer you want, but you can't deal with typing on a keyboard that small, the AlphaSmart Dana might be a workable alternative. I'm thinking about getting one instead of a conventional laptop.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
What can I say. I've got a Zaurus, I also have a Psion S5 and the Psion software is at least 3 years ahead of the Zaurus. Unfortunately, the screen died on the Psion after 5 years of constant use, prompting a replacement.
That's OK though, cos the main competition (Palm and WinCE) are just as shit as well.
It's really difficult to go from a high quality palmtop like the Psion to something that's been cobbled together like the Zaurus. I mean, for christ's sake, the spreadsheet can't even draw charts or graphs. The word processor can barely be called a word processor, it doesn't support styles, never mind embedding charts or tables. It doesn't even spellcheck. The agenda and addressbook are similarly basic compared to the Psion equivalents.
The keyboard on the Zaurus sucks, but is better than not having a keyboard at all. The Zaurus UI requires constant switching between keys and pen taps, there's no quick way to switch between applications. In short, it's a shite system for day to day use as a PDA, a real step backwards.
And you know what? The Psion does it better in 8Mb of RAM (with plenty spare) and an 18MHz CPU.
The one benefit the Zaurus has over the 6 year old Psion S5 is connectivity.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I just left an email on their site, asking if it would be able to run Linux. I'll bet that if enough of us (politely!) asked this question, they might consider it.
No matter where you go... there you are.
IBM Research's Metapad is similar in form factor. I really like this size for the power and the screen resolution (800x480) is just right to be useful and scalable.
If you want some kind of fancy chordboard or touchpad thing, fine; one that I like is the Half Keyboard which uses the QWERT half of a keyboard and a shift key, and has one model with USB for Macs and also a wrist-mount version, but it's not usually necessary to do silly things.
What I didn't see mentioned was an Ethernet interface (though USB frobs can work) or any discussion of power (batteries? 3-pound AC power bricks? battery lifetime?) or price, but I assume that everything except price will be reasonable.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sorry....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Um, both those units are MUCH larger than what we're talking about.
In other words, bullshit.
At least this one's less vaporous than the Oqo, which, whenever it may be released, will be no more powerful than any of the remote controls on my coffee table.
If it weren't for that crappy space bar, and the fact that it won't charge the batteries even though the powersupply was obviously specd. for the job I'd still have mine. Gave it the good college try, got Linux to boot, got X up, picked up a 256Meg flash card when they were the second largest size, but in the end it was just a hair too annoying.
A real dissappointment considering my investment in time and energy. I can however recommend them as the ultimate portable terminal. There was nothing quite like walking up to a box (router, firewall, prinserver, faxserver what-have-you) with a serial port, pulling it out of my pocket to have it instantly wake up, setting the baud rate, and configuring the device. No unpacking the laptop, fiddling with cables, finding a decent place to sit (so that one might have a lap). Too easy. I miss that.
What I didn't see mentioned was an Ethernet interface The specs say 802.11b wireless for network access.
battery lifetime? just says: Optimized battery-life allows full day use
Yes, it did say 802.11. There are times that's what you want, but since this seems to be a relatively expensive small machine rather than a cheap small machine, some of the market for it will be specialized applications like system administrators who need to be able to plug it in to various networks to measure things. You can do USB internet if you want, and USB2.0 is even fast enough to support a fast ethernet (as opposed to 12 Mbps max), but it's somewhat annoying.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks