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HagakiPC - "Postcard" PC
captainJam writes "The HagakiPC, Hagaki meaning postcard in Japanese, is a tiny PC with dimensions of 135 x 109 x 18mm and weighing in at 340g making it by far the lightest and 2nd slimmest handtop. Only 128MB RAM and a 640x480 VGA screen, plus there's no hard drive -- it's meant to run OS's from CF cards (great for D.S.L. and the like). Still only a prototype, so not much info is available, but what we do know (and a few photos) are here." Update: 09/01 12:14 GMT by T : Link to D.S.L. upgraded to a form that doesn't make some browsers choke.
HagakiPC
.71") body, weighing in at a skimpy 340g (0.74lb) and giving it a total volume of 264,870mm, making it just a touch bigger than the OQO but considerably smaller than the FlipStart. Without battery, the unit weighs 220g.
Similar to the old proof-of-concepts and prototypes from years ago for the OQO, Tiqit and FlipStart, a new entrant, the HagakiPC (H-PC) has reared it's head. Hagaki means postcard in Japanese. It's a considerably less powerful device and won't interest those on the prowl for full functionality. However, it could have some interesting uses in non-consumer applications.
Specs
Utilizing a AMD Geode SC1200 CPU running at 266MHz. This CPU is capable of TV out, video in and has Macrovision copy protection built in. There is 128MB of built in RAM and 128MB of flash memory, 1 x USB 1.1, 1 x CF Type I / Type II slot.
Hagaki PC in red
The battery life should last for nearly 3 and a half hours, running on a 2500mAh with 3.6W of power consumption. There also appears to be an optional model HPC-BA-64MB with only 64MB of RAM as opposed to the HPC-BA-128MB model's 128MB. The 64MB model has no flash mem.
The LCD screen is a simple 640x480 VGA resolution with 16bit color with touch screen capabilities. Unfortunately no information can be found on the LCD brand/model.
All of this in a 135 x 109 x 18mm (5.31 x 4.x29 x
Who's it for?
You'll notice we didn't include a hard drive spec, because it doesn't have one. The H-PC is built to run any x86 OS from a CF card. Thus you could install and run WinCE, Linux, DOS, XP and any other OS that can run from a CF card. The interesting implication is that the OS will be instantly on since you can simply swap out cards to switch OS's. The obvious downside is the large cost you'll have to pay for Microdrives and their possibly shorter life span when compared to a regular HD.
Linux users of Embedix or Emdebian may be interested in this device. There is also Damn Small Linux which is a distro that can run on a CF card. With an OS such as these that are designed for much smaller footprints, the price of use would be considerably smaller than those wanting to run XP, which requires a considerably bigger CF card or Microdrive.
Thoughts
We've seen prototypes before and then been made to bear years and years of waiting. The lack of a keyboard is passable -- neither the Antelope or Sony U50 have one but they seem to be fairly popular. However, the lack of a HD clearly puts it into an even smaller niche of potential handtop users. CPU power and RAM do not necessarily spell the H-PC's death, there are plenty of people making do with old PDA CPU's. While this may not be a device for the casual consumer, it could possibly make it's way into industrial or even commercial (advertising? kiosk?) situations. It's great to see companies already developing niche products. This investment of time and money into the handtop market is an encouraging sign. Overall, the HagakiPC is interesting, but time will tell what market will make use of the device.
How much is the shipping? :)
"http://www.damnsmalllinux/" Greatly written link.
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
This CPU is capable of TV out, video in and has Macrovision copy protection built in.
Built-in Macrovision? Sign me up!
One of the greatest hurdles in getting these very small and very powerful computers to be very useful is how to handle input - its hard to build in a fully-sized or totally usable keyboard into something like this. I'm not finding any straightforward explanation of how you get input into this computer on the website at first glance; I also don't see a stylus in any of the pictures, which makes me think touch screen (which can be implemented well... just not ideal).
Yet slashdot will continue to up the stock prices. It may be have already been said here but this is becoming an advertising showcase site instead of a news site.
Stay tuned for new sig...
I know some people are going to claim I'm wrong, but I think a 266MHz processor and 128MB of RAM are pushing it a bit to run modern applications (and more likely, operating systems!), especially compared to the competition (such as the OQO at 1GHz)
I mean, where is this product's niche? It's not really powerful enough to run XP (or KDE), but then again the battery life isn't good enough to compare it to something like a Toshiba E800 PDA, which can be excused for not running XP or Linux because it's not designed for that kind of use.
Will people end up running something like Qtopia on it instead? How does the 266MHz compare in terms of raw power with the new XScales, which run at up to 624MHz?
specifications (in japanese):
http://www.hagakipc.jp/ba_spec.htm
http://www.hagakipc.jp/ front page.
Notice the hit counter, this was probably "news" long before slashdot "found" the link.
It also supports CF microdrives, which should give you up to 4gb of storage.
From a corporate standpoint, the development costs of making this sort of product are very high. The sales from these are fairly low as the only people who buy them tend to be impulse buyers, most of whom are scared away by the high price needed to make a profit.
Between CF cards and actual pen-and-paper notebooks, this type of machine is entirely unneeded.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
_____
Thank you.
That's interesting that DSL has its own TLD now: http://www.damnsmalllinux/
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Damn small linux (D.S.L) points to http://www.damnsmalllinux/ which makes some browsers, think it should slap a .com (or whatever) onto that and end up on a advertisement page. Now http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ is the correct link. Just FYI.
I guess this is another wannabe portable device to find market niche, the only advantage it has over a PDA is its 640x480 screen, otherwise all specs are actually worse than a PDA. PDAs are cheap now, and will this "new" gadget be cheaper?
I still strong suggest the use of Virtual Keyboard, as input method seems to be a hurdle for small/light portable devices at the moment.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
This seems to be just another blurring of the lines between PDAs and tablets and PCs and MP3 players and cell phones and...
I mean, yeah. It's gee-whiz nifty technology and gadget lovers (self included!) will go for it. But does it do something a PDA won't? Or one of these new "Portable Media Centers?" Or is it just supposed to be a really tiny laptop, sans hard drive? The whole tech industry seems to be blindly cranking out portable technology with various levels of integration and capacity in hopes of hitting on the right combination of size, power, and capability.
Which is cool for gadget-lovers, but seems like a real poor (and real expensive) substitute for market research.
No hoax. Free computers.
Last year, someone brought a prototype into the office where I work. It was postcard sized, but the screen covered the entire face. The screen also hinged out to reveal a keyboard.
It had a hard disk and a Transmeta processor (about 1GHz, I think). It was fast enough to run WinXP.
The whole device was a prototype, but it seems to me that it blew away the PC described in the article. They were taking it to a show (Comdex?).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...wondering at what point you start to hit diminishing returns for miniaturization? C'mon, how small do we need? Anything smaller than a laptop gets you into major trouble with input devices (as another poster already mentioned). I have enough trouble with existing Palmtops. There's gotta be a point at which modern technology can be miniaturized further, but benefits no one in doing so.
Call me a luddite, but this level of shrinkage strikes me as being more of an PITA than lugging around a larger unit. What someone needs to develop is a method of interfacing with a device this tiny that doesn't require tiny keys or voice input. I have absolutly no idea what kind of interface could fill that role, even theoretically (never mind realistically).
Anyone have any ideas?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
It's got Macrovision built in! I told myself long ago I would not buy another computer until I could finally get one with video copy protection on board. That RULES.
I'll give you that it can run damn small linux, but damn small windows? Most people are not going to want to run a win-ce system on something that claims to be a pc... in this case it's just an oddly shaped, poorly designed, less powerful Pocket PC with a lot of RAM.
Hey look no pointless curley braces or semicolons... just like Python
...when the damnsmalllinux TLD was approved, and which registrar I could buy domain names from...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Laptop, palmtop, handtop... bah! Wake me up when the fingertops start coming out.
...will it boot and run from a pen drive? i'd love to have my own linux on a pen drive and take it with me wherever I go...like kansas for example.
Did anyone else notice that they recommend small footprint versions of Linux but show XP in the screenshots? HA! Good luck fitting Windows on a CF card and keeping the total cost down. Sure if the thing is $500, you still have to buy a microdrive of some sort then to have a normal-footprint OS.
The selling point seems to be the x86 compatability, but linux already works on many embedded processors, and the thing is to slow to run windows.
...but can it run Doom 3 (or the first doom for that matter lol)
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Its previous hardware product from Jan 2003 was a fan.
The TV in/out is certainly unique to that HagakiPC, but I'm not sure what they have in mind for that.
Can't they take the display technology from the Palm's (even Palm V), add just enough CPU and memory to make a decent performing Xterm, add Wifi and that's it. Backlight optional as long as the reflectivity is very high (like Palm V).
Perhaps pouring methanol into it would help it last 10 hours or more (but the Palm V already lasts 30 hours).
Then you could just connect up to the near compute server, with specs of your choice and just surf, read, hack, whatever, from the comfort of your sofa, your lounge chair outside, etc. Most current laptops are just too unwieldy to replace a magazine.
We're goring to rask rour rusers! No way folks, rusers don't rie and we can quote Riebold to root! Our porll proves it!
(From the article, a poll)
$1000-$1299 22 / 26%
$1300-$1599 22 / 26%
$1600-$1999 29 / 34%
$2000+ 10 / 12%
$200 1 / 99%
But wait! The HagickPC engineers didn't rist the one offer of their competitor, the GeicoPC: where only $200.00 can bring yours to bor^H^H^Hown!
Yea, our engrish-mathematics ron't rie...in Rapan!
Re row ris; 'rause rour roviet roverords ray ro!
Right now, I use a 22 year old Tandy M100 laptop for taking all manner of notes in school, as well as for programmable math. I haven't really considered a modern laptop because they're too large (M100 is same size as a sheet of paper) if you don't pay an indecent sum for a mini-mini, and because it's not ridiculously expensive to get batteries for (4 X AA == 20 hours operation).
Now, I would like to take the low power consumption of the M100 (1 watt in it's case) and it's full-size, GOOD keyboard and combine it with a more modern but still reflective LCD display. Rather than have a keyboard with 3-5 inches of space on top and bottom of it, build the laptop into the area covered by the KBD (12 by 5 inches or so). Now use a pair or 4- or 5- inch LCDs side-by-side as a display. Install a CF drive for mass storage and BAM, you got a winner.
On the software side, do something new with an operating system. Create a multi-tasking Kernel like that found in Contiki (GUI os for Commodore 64), along with a very basic windowing system. Keep 1) A word processor, 2) A simple spreadsheet, 3) A calendar, 4) A high-precision calculator, and 5) basic web browser/e-mail client in ROM on the system. Also, something that's good for "quick'n'dirty" programming, like the BASIC of the M100, and also similarly user-friendly.
Yes, quite a wishlist... probably never gonna happen. But I can dream, right?
Because my kids have Gameboys and carts all around the house. I would like to see some engineers create a Gameboy Advance add-on that connects to the Gameboy and a CF card either for video or animation viewing; or PDF viewing for adults. Acrobat Reader could be ported over to this device for map reading or text reading, and use the keys for scrolling. Sounds kewl??? Huh. Try it.
The OS/control should reside in the adaptor.
Thanks
I don't want the Macrovision, is it possible to trade it for a bong or something?
^^
I can see how this would be perfect in industry. First off, if you need a keyboard, it does have USB. This would be perfect to drive ad displaying computers since it does have video out. It could be used at museums and librarys when connected to a larger screen that has its own touch screen capabilites and where the tech folks dont want to have to bother with full pcs. The cf makes it absolutly perfect for these applications because at the end of the day, the cf could be reimaged and put back in to get off the garbage people put on it (no need to freeze it). This would make smaller restaraunt order screens and so on, I think you all know what I mean...
"Only 128MB RAM and a 640x480 VGA screen, plus there's no hard drive"
What the hell do you think I am surfing on, you insensitive clod!
It should be able to run Doom 1 at more than proper framerates. BTW: How old are you?
send + more == money?
...the dog ate my computer.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
That is a cool one indeed
Chris ,
Php Programmers.
I don't understand -- what does Scooby Doo have to do with it?
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
im 15, not old enough for a car yet, but old enough to remeber Doom 1 and my mom yelling at me for palying it cuz it scared the crap out of her
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
"Macrovision copy protection built in"
EWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!
There's an awful lot of wasted space on the front. I mean, it really looks like an industrial appliance or something. Guess that's why it's a prototype. Of course, the shipping version will be priced out of the market and only sold east of India so should we even be concerned?
Will this be widely available to deplay AOL 10? 11?
It's an x86 CPU.
To the person who has moderated the parent post as -1, Troll: I strongly object. It should be moderated as -1, Redundant and even that only because there is no -1, Has Already Fulfilled Its Important Purpose. The original Slashdot story contained a critical yet subtle error, namely a link to http://www.damnsmalllinux/ which was subsequently corrected to http://www.damnsmalllinux.com/ thanks to my humorous remark. The parent post was not Troll and I find moderating it as such at least offending, if not outright outrageous.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Link to D.S.L. upgraded to a form that doesn't make some browsers choke.
Am I the only one asking: WTF? http://www.damnsmalllinux/ makes "some browsers choke"? It's missing the TLD. It's invalid. Plain and simple. Are Slashdot editors so brainwashed by browsers that magically slap various TLDs onto some gibberish that they refer to correct behaviour as "choking"? The implication seems to be, that it was no error in the first place but the correction was merely to satisfy those picky choking browers.
Get a clue FFS.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6