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AMD Moves Closer To Linux PDA
Ryan writes "Mobilemag is reporting that AMD has advanced the prototype design of their current Linux-based PDA handheld, adding full-screen video capabilities, and completing work on the device's battery charger. The device is based on AMD's 400MHz Alchemy 1100 processor." However, "AMD has yet to find a hardware maker that has committed to bringing the Alchemy-based reference design to market as a commercial product."
Acronym Overload:
AMD to announce ETA for OEMs on GNU/Linux 400 MHz PDA RSN.
AMD Inc. has begun showing an updated reference design for a PDA running the Linux operating system to hardware makers, according to a company executive.
The announcement brings the reference design one step closer to availability as a commercial product.
Based on AMD's 400MHz Alchemy 1100 processor, an early prototype of the PDA reference design was demonstrated in August by the company at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.
Since then, AMD has advanced the prototype's design with the addition of full-screen video capabilities and has completed work on the device's battery charger, said Phil Pompa, vice president of marketing for AMD's Personal Connectivity Solutions group, in an interview on the sidelines of the Computex exhibition here last week.
"It's certainly at the point where we can go hand to this to an OEM," Pompa said, adding that AMD is currently working on improvements to the design's power management capabilities
The Au1100-based PDA runs Metrowerks Corp.'s Linux-based OpenPDA software suite, which includes an embedded Linux kernel and a range of software, such as applications for playing music and video files. OpenPDA also includes Trolltech AS's Qtopia multilingual user interface, Opera Software ASA's Opera Web browser, and support for both Personal Java and J2ME (Java 2 Platform Micro Edition).
AMD sees the ability to play full-screen video as a key feature of the PDA reference design, Pompa said, demonstrating the design's ability to play full-screen video on a 320-pixel by 240-pixel screen with no screen artifacts and without the assistance of a graphics processor.
"If you're really going to use this as a multimedia device, you have got to have good-quality video," Pompa said.
Video capabilities aside, AMD has yet to find a hardware maker that has committed to bringing the Alchemy-based reference design to market as a commercial product. But Pompa said hardware makers have already shown interest in the reference design.
"We're showing it to our customer base," Pompa said, adding that one hardware maker had been given a prototype to show to a customer at Computex last week.
as long as I can use a command line instead of that pen thing.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Portable Handwarmers, yay! Now I don't need to buy any more mittens.
By the time anything like them hit the market, they were nearly obsolete.
Have they fixed the file dialog yet?
Remember to bridge the L1 and L2 gaps. Then you'll need to slap on a Zalman copper heatsink or a Vantec aeroflow on the back of the PDA. How's that for overclocking? Now you can put in your contacts and record voice memos even faster!
And it's Linux...so why not run a server?
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
If you have to ask then I doubt your overt Mensa pretensions..
Careful, son, that PDA's overclocked to 900MHz. You wouldn't wanna burn your Johnson now, would ya?
Well, that's great and all, but can it run ...
... it can.
Oh
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
I, for one, welcome our new portable penguin overlords.
Are they also working on Palm/Windows prototypes?
I would love more Linux based palm-type devices, but what is so special about OpenPDA? Why is AMD only messing with Linux? If they are really looking for customers for their new palm-proc, shouldnt they be shopping it as OS independant?
Am I reading this properly? Can this thing play highly compressed AVI files or is this some sort of video compression specifically for a PDA?
What about XviD?
Participate in a meeting while crunching Folding@Home data on your beowulf cluster why don't ya!
I'll take "PDAs You'll Never See Again" for $500, Alex...
oh wait, that was last article
Sure, YALPDA, but it looks as though it's as capable as any of the others out there. I see it runs Qtopia too... sensible choice considering the large number of people developing for it (and its various forks, in case Trolltech ever trys to call in fees on the technology, but I doubt they'd be stupid enough to do this!).
This appears to be becoming almost a "de facto" standard for PDA development. The useful thing though, when compared to PPC or POS is that it doesn't really matter what hardware it's running on, so unlike Microsoft or PalmSource, companies won't have their exact hardware specifications dictated in advance.
Hopefully this should lead to some real innovation (and looks like it already is) rather than heaps and heaps of PDAs that look and work exactly the same just because they run the same operating system, even right down to the number of hardware buttons they happen to have. I've always considered this a little silly.
OT, re sig: I just can't bring myself to click on a link that ends in .cx (anymore)
does anyone not see the irony in this?
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
I think its great that someone out there is taking another look at the PDA world... If we start thinking that Windows for PDAs is the only thing out there, then we are only exploring a small portion of this universe.
Also, there are literally millions of programs I would want to put on my linux based PDA... just think... a mobile version of the GNU C Compilier. That would make my lifetime.
I'm just waiting for the day my friend's windows based PDA gets a blue screen of death. "Where's the CTRL + ALT + DEL!!?!??!"
while(1) { fork(); };
Seriosly folks, how many Linux PDA's do we need. I mean we hear stories about them ALL the time and then they vanish. The problem is that they go away and the people who got them are now stuck with a PDA with no future upgrades. Maybe AMD can support such a device but I doubt it will be profitable. How many people here actually would buy this thing when it came out? I would not because I dont need one and the last PDA I bought I never used because it was bulky and hated carrying it around, I dont carry anything that doesnt fit in my pocket. I Linux PDA/Cellphone that is the size of a cell phone is what I need, I would buy that one.
Arathres.
stainless steel
When using your AMD based PDA at the campgrounds, always practice safety. Surround your PDA with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when you're done with your PDA to put it out with a bucket of water and make sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your AMD based PDA from starting a forest fire.
"I, for one, welcome our new %INSERT ARTICLE SUBJECT HERE% overlords."
It has handwriting recognition, and although the processor probably isn't fast enough, it'll run almost any Linux application (so speech recognition and speech synthesis should work fine, thanks very much) on the command line. And as Linux developers have always leaned towards a separation between function and GUI, it should be relatively easy to port graphical applications, too (QT in particular, but more generally, any well-written app should make it easy to change the GUI without looking at the entire code base. Look at Xine, XMMS, Lyx). I'd also like to see a PPC or POS machine act as a handheld web server. IBM's new form factor sounds great, but it's already here, considering what can be done with these Linux PDAs.
It's running the same Qtopia, the same Java, and the same Opera, it looks like a Zaurus, but with full screen video capabilities, and AMD inside. Is there something I'm missing? Oh, other than the Zaurus having the built in keyboard?
This space for rent, inquire within.
What's wrong with a little pussy?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Alchemy-based? Does that mean some medieval folk at AMD put some copper and lead powder together in a conical flask and boil it in an attempt to make Gold and they ended up with a reference design? On a seperate note; the AMD device reminds me of Dell's recent Digital Music Jukebox. The oblong buttons along the bottom and the white rounded rim certainly have a similar appeal, although both lacking the style of their rivals (the iPaq and iPod respectively).
Mattb90
Editor, allaboutgames.co.uk
than previously thought.
/.?pr? ?firm? stock markup execrable hypenosys.
that's right. pay attention (if not to us, then to yOUR heart, environment, etc...) as a means to avoid being taken further into hostagedumb buy phonIE
Umm... folks, I may be wrong, but this comment doesn't look like flamebait to me. I don't think that he's saying that it isn't ready for the desktop... I think he's offering the handwriting and speech recognition as proof that it is... But I could be wrong.
This space for rent, inquire within.
and complete EVERYTHING to make it work and find a Taiwanese manufacturer to make it, then sell it on its own website. They'll called it the AMD Store, start the AlchemyTunes online music store (MP3 downloads WITHOUT DRM), and make it a competitor to the iPod. Also, it could come with AlchemyMovie, a built-in camera for making and storing videos, like amature rockets (http://www.gbrocketry.com/). It should come with a wireless internet connection, for hosting a wireless website (damn near impossible to take down if given a cease and desist order). Where are they going to find you? Also, it should come with those little eyeglass montiors and a small Palm-like keyboard, so I can do all my geeking around in the command line on the bus, train, airport shuttle service in the comfort of my own little visual world. Hell, throw in a microphone for speech recognition. Gosh, brain storming about this is fun, man, I could be a gadget-makers "idea" guy.
Seriously though, I think they should market it themselves and get feedback from the Slashdot community. I liked the portable handwarmer post - NO MORE MITTENS!
... Let's see, it's handheld, has an AMD processor, and will probably fly of shelves. What should they call it? Hmm.. how about... FIREBIRD!
"Derp de derp."
Easy, because you limit the UI to something like Qtopia. Desktop linux is so unlimited that to most people if you change the Window Manager, they'll think it is a new OS.
Most of the time, the Intel chips actually ran hotter. I had an AMD 486 running at 160MHz that didn't even need a fan, just a heatsink.
Even as late as the Pentium III, Intel chips ran very hot.
You also have to consider the typical "My chip is way too hot" source. My stock Athlon is running at 44C under load. However, my overclocked running at 2.2v Athlon rarely dips below 62C. People overclocking (and AMD is more overclocking friendly) are going to have more "I'm overheating" stories.
They will probably list this right under, "It makes perfect Julian fries!"Include a sensor for detecting pda movement in 3 dimensions. It would make a simple and yet very innovative input device.
They sell sensors:
http://www.ballsemi.com
Well, then you haven't looked at the temp differences between AMD/Intel cpus in a LONG time. Have you seen how hot the Pentium 4 gets and how much heat it dissepates?? The fact of the matter is, Via and Transmeta both make x86 cpus that put off low amounts of heat. AMD and Intel don't have anything that compares - unless you're going to tell me that the Pentium M or Centrino offerings are low power... I guess that dependson what your definition of low power is.
And why do you think that Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet?
If you think that stuff like handwriting and speech recognition is too sophisticated for Linux, then how the hell are Beowulf clusters possible?
I say that Linux is ready for the desktop and for the PDA but not all the users are ready for Linux.
I'm not trying to insult someone but it is what I think.
I've taken the liberty of performing a little editing (i.e. replacing "AMD" with a fictional dot-com "Handtasia"...how much does this sound like something we've heard oh so many times before...
.Net, P2P, B2B, P2B, B2P, SOAP, DDC, Java, J2ME, plus many other buzzwords.
Handtasia has begun showing an updated reference design for a PDA running the Linux operating system to hardware makers, according to a company executive.
The announcement brings the reference design one step closer to availability as a commercial product.
Based on Handtasia's 400GHz FoolsGold 11000 processor, an early prototype of the PDA reference design was demonstrated in August by the company at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, alongside offerings from 1,376 other Linux handheld vendors.
Since then, Handtasia has advanced the prototype's design with the addition of full-screen video capabilities and has completed work on the device's battery charger, said Phil Poma, vice president of marketing for Handtasia's Personal Connectivity Solutions Magic Integration Synergetic group, in an interview on the floor of the local CompUSA here last week.
"Sears really helped us out on the battery charger issue. Looks like Diehard doesn't just know batteries - they make a quality 12 volt charging product. We're also pleased at a recent discovery that removing the back cover and laying the LCD on an overhead projector gave a nice full-screen picture. My son Billy thought he would be fired for dropping the prototype and breaking that cover off but we just approved a nice stock-option package for his brilliant idea. Between Sears and Billy, it's certainly at the point where we can go hand to this to an OEM," Poma said, adding that Handtasia is currently working on improvements to the design's power management capabilities such as a bundled 2 KW Honda gasoline generator that will allow you to use the product virtually anywhere.
The FG11000-based PDA runs Vaporwerks Corp.'s Linux-based OpenPEEDA software suite, which includes an embedded Linux kernel and a range of software, such as applications for playing music and video files. OpenPEEDA also includes Trollbridge AS's UtopiaMUD multilingual user dungeon, Diva Software ASA's Diva Web browser, and full support for XML, Enterprise Resource Management, Wi-FI,
Handtasia sees the ability to play full-screen video as a key feature of the PDA reference design, Poma said, demonstrating the design's ability to play Jenna Jameson's latest DVD, converted to MPEG1 on a 320-pixel by 240-pixel screen with no screen artifacts and without the assistance of a graphics processor.
"If you're really going to use this as a multimedia device, you have got to have the ability to play porn and still be able to see the pink parts. We're talking major hard...ware," Poma said.
Video capabilities aside, Handtasia has yet to find a hardware maker that has committed to bringing the FoolsGold-based reference design to market as a commercial product. But Poma said hardware makers have already shown interest in the reference design.
"We're showing it to our customer base, and have gotten good responses from Joe that works down the street at Frank's Liquor. We're a little worried about his production capacity, but I think that's something that can be worked out with a little more venture capital," Poma said, adding that one "hardware maker" had been given a prototype to show to a customer at the gas station next to CompUSA last week.
Handwriting recognition and speech recognition are not usually used on ordinary linux desktops. Besides gnome 2.4 supports it if you need it.
I'm not going to go through the flamewars again (theres OS-fud for that). But remember that youre compairing apples to oranges here. It is possible to squeeze kde or gnome onto a pda, but it wouldn't work well. Thats why we have Qtopia, Opie and other specialised subsets of those desktops.
Linux is ready, as its always been. If your problem is with configuation then you are probably using a crappy distro, as I don't recall having to edit any text files or compile kernels recently on my distro. as It all "just works", contrary to what Eugina and her fellow trolls claims on OSfud.
Seriously, I have Linux, Java, and full screen Divx video (tkcVideo is the software, not great in terms of features but plays video fine) on my 200MHz Zaurus. The new Zaurus is 400MHz . I can stream movies over 802.11 via an NFS-mounted partition (barely.. you have to really lower the bitrate.. otherwise playing them from a CF card is fine on the road).
Consider me completely unimpressed by this platform. Maybe if it was 1GHz, had a beautiful OLED display, built-in 802.11g and Bluetooth, and a 2Mp camera, and cost < $1000, maybe then I would look twice.
By the time they find an interested buyer, this product will be obsolete.
The real problem, in my opinion, is SOFTWARE on Linux handhelds, not hardware. The Zaurus hardware is nearly perfect for me, but the software is crap. Unfortunately only Apple could probably pull off a good Unix handheld but they said they aren't going to make one. Oh well!
400 Mhz processor, 320x240 screen... I wonder how long this thing will run without a recharge.
i personally love the palm os, and pocket pc isn't terrible, but after selling pdas at omax, i kinda felt like the market was stale. sharp wasn't really able to get the zarus outthere widespread, mainly because of cost maybe amds stuff can fix this problem, and a unit with a free os will actually be cheaper than one with a closed os
It's all custom software, Mensa fucknut. You know, the kind PDA manufacturers make themselves...
If they could show the same usefulness as the graphing calculators then i would consider buying one. The price would need to be less than $150 .
or are you happy to see me? Pocket video porn-the ultimate application.
You're A Lawyer Pig-Doinking Asshole?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Begs the question, "Is PalmOS ready for the Desktop?"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Personally, I see nothing I like on this reference PDA from AMD. The case is so ugly you'd think someone at Dell *designed* it. It runs Linux. Great. How much money did AMD waste on this when Intel and TI have a lock on this market? IBM has already shown a reference PDA for Linux based upon PPC architecture and we still haven't seen one PDA from an actual manufacturer come across the assembly line based upon it. Granted, the PPC chipset is probably the best idea for a PDA and its too bad the genuises at Motorola didn't think about it ages ago instead of trying to sell a modified version of the 20+ year old Motorola 68000 forever to companies like Palm; had that happened, PocketPC would not be strong at all in the PDA market. If they wanted credibility, they should've sought funding from Palm and Microsoft (if not IBM since they will be the actual producer of the chips under contract) to demonstrate that Palm OS and PocketPC OS could run viably on this platform alternative. As it stands now, it appears AMD wasted money they should've spent toward closing the physical megahertz deficiency they have with Intel on x86.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
My Li+ cell phone battery, of which I think you could easily put a couple of in a PDA, says it supplies 720 mAh at 3.6 V. Which works out to about 10 hours for 250 mW.
So you argue that this is dot-com vaporware, because by replacing key terms with a fictional and cheap-sounding words, it looks like dot-com vaporware? ;-) You realize this is like the textbook definition of a Straw Man argument right?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
It dissipates less power than a comparable X-Scale does, so I'd think it'd be in the same ballpark or better. And, an X-Scale doesn't do full motion, full screen video QUITE as well at the 400MHz range.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A "Keyboard" of some sort. None of that graffiti crap for me.
EMACS.
No, this isn't a troll. Emacs does everything I need it to do. Seriously. It's got all the PIM functionality in a well-integrated set of programs and it's easily extensible. And the MIT remembrance agent is way cool. Nothing else I've run across comes remotely close to its functionality.
The Sharp Zaurus was pretty close to my needs except that the battery life really sucked.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's not an AMD design, it's an Alchemy MIPS32 chip.
RTFA
The damage Palm did to the general publics' perception of the usefulness of the pen interface is truly sad.
I know the Apple Message Pad (A.K.A Newton) was overpriced and that Apple was not responsive to user demands. However, they clearly showed that the pen interface could be more than just effective. The Newton OS showed that the pen interface could be clearly superior in many cases. Now, nobody in their right mind would even consider taking notes to a lecture on a pen based device or mini keyboard device, but the Newton showed that it was actually easier to take plain text notes on a PDA with a pen than with a laptop. Even some simple diagrams embedded in the notes on the fly were possible, though equations and formulas for a physics lecture were not really an option. I used to regularly compose emails or get started on longer documents on the train between work and home. Most modern PDA's and other mobile devices are effectively useless for anything beyond the shortest data entry task such as setting an appointment or adding an address book entry.
Instead of improving the performance and making these things the ultimate data input platforms, the introduction of the Palm devices doomed us to inferior technologies. Palm sacraficed good handwriting recognition, to reduce the computing burden and make it possible to reduce the cost of the devices by using less capable hardware. Although this was a brilliant marketing choice that killed the Newton, it also swept the PDA market at the time and overwhelmed any chance that the public would associate pen devices as the fantastic data input devices that they could easily have been.
The almost universal dislike of the pen interface held by the public, in my opinion, can be squarely put on the shoulders of Palm. Now, virtually every PDA out there is designed to be a read-mostly device that people on the go can use to access their data when they can't get to their PC. Although that is a compelling use for such devices to a small market segment, it amounts to a complete abandonment of the market for devices that could have become the prefered data input method for many people.
Going back to the note taking example, pen devices are quieter and less disruptive than using a laptop. Lots of people take pen and paper notes at business meetings, but feel that using a laptop to take notes is too disruptive. A good PDA like the Newton can work better than both. A laptop is hard to setup and has serious start up time, battery life / power supply issues and reliability issues. A good PDA kicks butt in these situtaions. Had the technology been developed much at all, I'm sure that the diagram and formula issues could have been handled. Now, we'll never know.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
- X-Windows (for local and remote $DISPLAY)
- CPU with floating point (maybe a Transmeta?)
- 802.11b
Basically what I want is a miniature desktop that fits in my pocket. Heck, if I could run X11 just fine on a 25 MHz 68030 Sun 3/80 then it should scream on a 400 MHz RISC chip!At the last Linux World Expo in SF I asked an AMD rep about the Alchemy chip, unfortunately it is integer only and has no floating point. Come on, it is the year 2003 we have 0.13u technology, how much die space would a floating point engine take? I don't understand why embedded chip makers don't include it by default and I yes used to work at a fabless chip company so I know the issues. It is just ridiculous. Technology advances are supposed to make things easier. Floating point would be real nice because it would allow a whole range of scientific applications that are a pain to do with fixed point.
Also with an X-Server, porting any UNIX app would now be a breeze, no futzing with Trolltech's proprietary Qt (yes I know Qt is GPL and if you don't understand why this is an issue then you are clueless about the embedded business world).
I am really sad about the sorry Linux PDA state of affairs. All the PDA vendors are too busy making clones of each others design (the Zazarus), a design I might add that the public has voted it doesn't want (buy not buying it), that they have stopped asking the customer what they truely want.
A beowulf cluster of those ;)
toynbee idea
in movie 2001
resurrect dead
on planet jupiter