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How Small a PC Is Too Small?
Banner~! recommends an article in IBTimes on the search for the ideal size for an ultraportable computer. One device mentioned is Paul Allen's FlipStart, discussed here recently. After watching early users fumble and nearly drop an early version of the FlipStart while trying to perform a three-finger salute, designers ended up including a single key labeled "CtrlAltDel" in the version that will be shipping soon. From the article: "Each device maker... has a different sense of how small an ultra-mobile can get before it becomes impossible to use. For instance, Microsoft thinks the tiniest screen possible measures 7 inches diagonally, but FlipStart Labs settled on 5.6 inches."
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Anyone know if the FLipstart can/will be able to run linux?
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Here's a better idea: design an interface that doesn't crash.
* You need a million-dollar electron microscope to see the screen
* Sneezing anywhere near it wipes out the RAID array
* You confuse it with a prophylactic
* Ants use it to jumpstart their own nuclear weapon program for their holy war against the termites
designers ended up including a single key labeled "CtrlAltDel" in the version that will be shipping soon.
;-)
I bet that key will get worn out first
I've found a similar shortcut; just click the Internet Explorer 7 icon, and the resulting crash reboots for me.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't know about you, but I use Ctrl-Alt-Del to access the Task Manager and (on a locked machine) access the login panel...
The Fly Pentop Computer! http://www.flypentop.com/
At my age I find coming up with a witty signature too exhausting.
Since they reduced the 3 finger salute (ctrl-alt-delete) to a 1 finger salute, they should rename it "FlipOff".
For me, the smallest computer is only limited by the size of the keyboard. At a minimum, I need a notebook-sized keyboard, at least until the point computers can take dictation. I even thought notebook keyboards were too small in the past but I was able to adjust, but any smaller and I won't be able to. I've tried to use those thumb-type keyboards and I just can't communicate comfortably with them.
Argh! Even the OQO 01 got that one.. The qualifier keys are all sticky.
Press once, the LED next to the key starts blinking. Now the key is sticky for one keypress..
If you press the qualifier twice before pressing something else, the LED lights continuously, and the key is now stuck down until you press it a third time.
Thus ctrl-alt-del means pressing ctrl alt and fn one at a time and then pressing backspace/del at your leisure. No need for acrobatics or super speed on the user's behalf.
I don't believe that the flipstart guys managed to design a keyboard without sticky qualifiers.. Unless they did and made it so unintuitive that no-one understood that the keys are indeed sticky?
-Jope
The zaurus is now discontinued. I own a C-3200 which uses various rom images such as cacko rom, pdaxrom. It emulates all kinds of environments and runs under linux. You can run aplications or X environments and even run debian on it. Open office is available too! It all fits in my pocket and has a touch screen for easy note taking. Anyway, I been doing this for the past 4-5 years. and these new ultra small pc's can't touch the heal of this small discontinued device.
A PC is too small when it can't run Windows Vista OR Linux. BTW, DOS doesn't count.
The designer who decided to make a single 'Control, Alternate, Delete' key, should have selected the 'Retry' option - instead, he ended up with a 'Fail' action. Stupid idiot.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I guess having a single button is more appropriate after all.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
That's too big an OS. Or at least too big an interface.
This should be obvious. Does it really make sense to load a huge OS like Windows, with all its carryover behaviors for backwards compatibility, for something that really should have its own methodology?
this is something i would consider buying, except that unless someone else is picking up the tab its somewhat overpriced. nevertheless, if what you want is extreme portablity with all the functionality of a 'real' computer, this is the ticket
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
I do imagine that before too long we will have these types of ultra portable computers, but I don't think the time has come yet. I have (and am writing this on) a 3 pound computer with a 12 inch screen (1280x800). If the screen were any smaller, I'd start to have a lot of problems seeing things. The resolution could be reduced to adjust for this, but 1280x800 already seems like the minimum resolution that I can stand. I think a lot of other people are in the same boat in feeling that the screens and resolutions should not be reduced beyond this, and judging by the smallest models of laptops that most companies sell (and presumably have found a market for), the market seems to agree. This means that these companies are persuing the wrong problem in trying to find the smallest screen, since most people will only accept a 10-12 inch screen at minimum. The right question is how to fit a 10-12 inch screen into a smaller space for transportation. I imagine that before too long we will have monitors that are able to fold (or perhaps bend) that will solve this problem. The problem with this is that when folded up, you will have several layers of the screen on top of each other, and I think that at present, the current thickness of screens are still too thick to make this practical. Similarly, we will have to use folding keyboards, but I've already seem some, so that element is already in place. So that leaves us with having to develop thin, folding screens.
Tech: "What seems to be the problem?"
User: "Every time I hit the Ctrl button, my computer restarts!"
Tech: "*sigh* Is there anything else on the button?"
User: "Yeah, it says CtrlAl-"
Tech: "Look... just... just don't hit that button. There should be another button that says Ctr- hold on I'm getting another call. *switch* This is tech support, what seems to be the problem?"
User2: "Every time I hit the Ctrl button, my computer restarts!"
Tech: *click* *BANG* *dialtone*
User2: "Hello? Hello?"
Hey, on the plus side, maybe we can remap the key to open up the browser and display the comic. One way to make mornings 4 days a week easier.
Is this talking about the size of the keyboard (which it sounds like), the size of the screen, or the size of the whole device?
It is obvious that keyboards/pads have a minimum size. Fingers limit that. Also, if the keys are too close together, typing is slowed because more than one key is frequently depressed.
The screen is also limited in its smallness by what is comfortable. I use my phone to read books, but I have heard many people claim (who havent tried it, of course) that the screens on phones are too small to read on. In my experience, screen size is not important as the size of the individual letters (or characters) in the text is what is important. Since my current phone allows me to blow the text up to a size that is larger than the typeface on most children's books, I cannot see the problem.
The limitations on the device size probably depend on what it is used for. If it is a phone, it needs to be large enough to be comfortably held for a long phone conversation. Phones that are too small are irritating and easily misplaced. If the device is a PDA, the screen is probably the limiting factor. It should be about the size of a screen and not much thicker. Ideally, this screen should be a size that would fit in your pocket, something that "Pocket"PC's generally do wrong.
If the device were something like a portable computer, with perhaps a bluetooth or WiFi keyboard and screen, there is probably no limit on its smallness. Why not make a USBkey style computer and keep it on your keyring? At 4+GB, such devices can already contain a decent suite of software. Removing hardware links to the device itself would free it from size restrictions. Theoretically, such a device could also be booted from any computer as its hard drive (Knoppix style), so you could take your computer anywhere.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
If a PC is gonna run a normal OS, there's a serious size limitation. But with custom OSes, possibly even ones that abandon the windows/menus/etc model of UI, you can get pretty small. I mean, if you look at the iPhone, or a Front Row style interface, you can accomplish a lot of the normal PC functions with minimal screen real estate. You could probably do a 4-5 inch screen with near full functionality if you design the OS specifically to handle it. You can keep most of the functionality if you're willing to sacrifice a few minor points and the ability to easily multitask.
Small enough to fit into my urethra, large enough for me to feel it.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Before we gear up all the jokes, the C-A-D key combo is known as the Secure Attention Sequence. By pressing this key combination you can guarantee that the logon box that pops up is from the OS and not from some random crapware.
All the UMPC (UltraMobile PCs) - the MS Origami formfactor provide a button like this for logon. Similarily devices by OQO include on.
Pretty much anyone experienced with making these ultraportables includes this button, because doing it manually on a small keyboard is a pain. Lesson learned.
BTW the 5" OQO Model 02 is now my sex object... powerful enough to run a full OS in the palm of your hand. Noice.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
The size of the actual computer is of absolutely no importance whatsoever. What matters is the size of the input and output components. These are the interfaces to humans and must exist on a human size scale, i.e. large enough to handle.
So as long as you need a keyboard, the keys must be large enough to press, and the entire keyboard must be large enough to comfortably hold. But if you think virtual keyboards, i.e. one projected into the air, on a HUD, or on a table (the later exists as a Palm Pilot accessory), then the size of the actual hardware again is irrelevant, the size of the virtual "keys" is what matters.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
...but I think this is related: http://imdb.com/title/tt0374020/
Let's do the math. A pixel count of 1024 across and 600 down is about the minimum you need for there to be any point in the computer running a full version of Windows. Above 100dpi and you're going to need to increase the default font sizes (which means its fairly pointless to go any higher). End result: 11.87 inches on the diagonal is about the minimum for anything serious. Below that you're going to need better than average eyesight or you're going to be scrolling sideways all the time.
Why not just provide standard keyboard and screen interfaces for the thing. Then, the PC can be very small, and users can purchase a case that meets their needs. OK, I guess you do have to answer the question in some sense: The PC is too small when it doesn't have room for the following standard connectors: Video, Network, USB some kind of power.
OK, we might be missing a standard for the laptop-style LCD screens. I know there's LVDS, but AFAIK all the manufactureres have proprietary connectors (but correct me if I'm wrong).
The other day, as I was fiddling with my MP3 player, I realized that many such specialized devices could easily fit in a laptop case. If everything inside there ran over 10gigE, would it perform OK? Do we really need DMA and all that just to push pixels to the screen? If we don't, then the display server can just service clients. The clients can be on this little private network inside the box. All the interconects would just be client-server interactions. Moore's law will make this practical at some point... Imagine a Beowulf cluster--inside your laptop or PDA case.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The small size is so problematic that they actually fit another key on the keyboard; therefore we can determine the more problems they encounter due to the small form factor, the larger the small keyboard will grow. Isn't there something wrong with this logic? Ah there we go.
There is no realistic way that a PC can be too small. As long as it so small it is easily lost it is just fine - I would *love* one that could hang on my key chain.
What *can* be too small is the interface. I do not like a tiny screen nor do I like a tiny keyboard (or other input device). I have quite large hands, even the smaller "full size" keyboards are uncomfortable and only useful as a portable device, not my main one.
I have seen keyboard solutions that are OK - some project a keyboard on a flat surface and optically(? I do not think the descriptions said and I have never used one and that seems about the only feasible way) sense where you fingers hit. Other than some RSI problems with my finger hitting a hard surface (and that is fixable for a permanent station) that can be made to be any size or layout.
I also prefer small text, but I prefer that on a larger screen. I am currently using a 15" LCD and that is about as small as I comfortably go. I do not like writing much code in it either, my 21" monitor went kaput and this is all I could currently get. A 17" screen is the smallest "normal" lcd I like and I prefer a 19". I know of no current technology to fix this one, but there is no reason it can not be fixed.
Of course, that is for what I would call everyday use. If your computing power is in a small package there is no reason you can not have a docking station for full size stuff and quite small for carry around. I *can* hit some very small keys with a stylus and use a very small screen (lets face it, many of us currently do - or did - with the palm tops). That is nice for something I pull out of my pocket and use for a few minutes. Add in a few larger keys to mash and I can even game, navigate for MP3's, use a cell phone, add something to a calendar, or other typical small device things with large easy to use buttons. At that point I would consider the size my finger can reliably hit and the number of buttons to be the limit (small could use a stylus, but I do not like that idea for simple frequently used functions).
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm going to push it with my weewee.
I bought one of these second hand recently. Comes with all kinds of nice things and goes around 6 hours on a standard battery. It is about as small as you want to go- I'm thinking about getting a roll-up key board. Very nice. Much sexier and still much cheaper than a new D*ll or something similar. Kind of like a second hand late model Mercedes...way overpriced when new, but still fun when slightly tarnished.
first the size:
... :D
height: 20 cm
width:13 cm
"fat": 4cm
weight: ~700 grams.
now the novelty: mostly the keyboard is below the screen
and needs to be a useable size.
the problem is that the backside of the device is never used.
okay, imagine picking up a book with approx. size above.
now hold it so as you would give it to somebody with both hands,
like giving a japanese perosn a business card. your finger touch
the backside, while your thumbs are in the front.
now the keyboard is in the back of the "book". this is where
the keybaord is. of course it wouldNT be a 08/15 "ASDF" keyboard,
because the "book" is higher then wide
you might ask, but this way you need to flip the "book"
over to see which key u want to press.
here's the clue: once you touch the screen (which is the complete
front side of the "book"), e.g. to enter data. the window become semi
transparent, and you can like "see thru" the "book" to see the
keyboard on the back. of course this is just "simulation", you can't
really make the "book" transparent.
the desktop wallpaper becomes a "keybaord" correspoding to the
real keyboard on the back
catch my drift?
by the way my guess is with those size specs, you can fit
and nice harddisk, a flashy CPU -AND- a gamers GPU into it.
scrap the harddisk and you can make it even lighter -or- you can then add
a bigger battery. there should be tons of space for
connectors too (ether,USB,mic,head,fire,etc.)
=)
This thing (N800) is an update to the older Nokia 770. It's a wonderful little gizmo - it runs an ARM port of a Debian variant, so lots of SW is getting ported. It's powerful enough to feel like a "real" computer, although it still has the standard PDA input limitations unless you spring for a bluetooth keyboard.
It has included opera (800 px wide screen so you can actually view most web pages without horizontal scrolling, unlike all the 320x200 PDAs). You can ssh into it and use VNC and run opera and gnumeric and lots of Linux software.
The included mp3 player software sucks, but there are already better alternatives provided by the community. Battery life is quite good compared to my old Ipaq - 8+ hrs of active web browsing on low backlight (maybe 2-3 on high), and ~8 days of standby time without turning it off.
Disclaimer: I have no association with Nokia. I just like the device.
The first thing I thought of when I read this article is the famous 'ctrl-alt-del' keyboard. Originally a dig at MS and their OS and needing to restart it etc I guess.
I.O.U One Sig.
> "Each device maker... has a different sense of how small an ultra-mobile
> can get before it becomes impossible to use. For instance, Microsoft
> thinks the tiniest screen possible measures 7 inches diagonally, but
> FlipStart Labs settled on 5.6 inches."
Wouldn't that be because Micro$oft's software takes up so much screen real estate that below 7 inches there really isn't much space left for users to work with?
How about a PC in a wristwatch.
This is from 2001 so it's a little dated.
http://www.freeos.com/articles/3800/
Yes it runs Linux.
The truth shall set you free!
Neither Linux nor OSX needed to implement the ctrl-alt-del scheme.
Linux gets orphaned processes all the time, and you'd be blind without a method to view what's running on your machine. Thus ps , or the more useful top .
...you have to include an extra key labeled "CtrlAltDel" with your product.
Wasn't there a famous column in the MAD magazine?
Seriously, this is so incredibly, incredibly bad, it is beyond words.
...not with Windows but the fact that these people are trying to run a full-blown version of Windows on a device it was not designed to be run on. OSX and Linux would be just as awkward. Windows Mobile was made for a reason.
Yes that is going to work great on a bus, train, or airplane.
Flying is bad enough already, imagine a trans-atlantic flight with 10 people talking to their devices non-stop.
Give me the fat guy in the next seat and the kid behind kicking my seat over this any day...
On a more constructive note, how about something like one of these?
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The form factor of the Psion 7 is great (including instant on etc), but a rejig with new hardware would make a really snappy device that would be great to use.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I have a Sony UX180 and I must say the thing is absolutely awesome - stupidly feature-packed for a tiny device.
However, it has a flaw that really irks me: it doesn't have a right shift key. This wouldn't be so much a problem on many devices, but for something so small that you're supposed to use with both hands, Shift + 2 for a '@' symbol when using just your thumbs is a total sod. I thought this might be a teething thing and be fixed in future versions, but it hasn't been.
Apart from that, they've done a good job - dedicated nipple and buttons for mouse movement, dedicated zoom buttons (the 1024x600 screen can be a little small at times, so this helps), and an included dock and dongle make for a really professional package.
For a 1.2GHz Core Solo, the thing isn't too slow either. I wish it had a gig of memory, but this has been corrected in the newer versions.
For mobile computing though, it's great - I just wish they'd fix that damn shift key problem.
Stick with the original UX50. :)
1 62
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6
For me the biggest issue is the price, not the size. A Flipstart costs $2000, a UMPC would cost me around $1000 and a Sony VAIO is in the $1000-$2000 range, tablet PCs are also around $2000, while a normal full size PC is just something around $500. Those prices are just plain wrong. A handheld should cost less then a full size PC not two or four times as much.
OLPC seems to get it right, the small laptop costs $150, make that $250 if it ever hits retail and its still a good price, I can also get PSP for $200, not exactly a full featured PC, not at all in fact, but a powerfull handheld at a good price, an for some uses like eBook reading actually quite good.
I don't need a handheld that can outperform my desktop computer, I don't even need one that gets close, just make it fast enough so that it can run ssh, VNC and friends. If I ever need a full PC, I just log into it remotely, no need to carry all that useless power around with me.
Handhelds need to be affordable, everything else is really secondary in the end, since at $2000 those things will never sell to the masses, no matter how pretty and small you make them, get them under $500 or under $300 if you really care and you might have something worth to buy.
It's purely a personal thing, but I like my computer BIG. I have an extended ATX tower, so many monitors I cook a chicken if I place it correctly amongst them, and peripheral devices stretching beyond the horizon in every direction. Every time I try to operate a notebook's mouse replacement pad thing I very quickly feel like a 'tard.
I recall an SF short story - I think it may have been by Asimov - recounting how the miniaturization of electronics leads to the Library of the Universe being progressively shrunk until it is about the size of a sugar cube. And then someone mislays it...
Pretty farsighted for the 1960s, when even Heinlein was writing stories about the distant future in which computers were still mainframe-sized.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Sorry, what are you sources ?
First, or course, if you go for the memory hogs like OOo or FireFox (whose caching function is both a blessing for quick history rewind and a curse in terms of ressource), the whole stack GNOME + FireFox + ThunderBird + OOo. Can eat some memory.
Incidently that's what I'm running (minus GNOME. I prefere KDE). Also with additionnal software like Gaim and several daemons, including BOINC. Without troubles. On a 8 years old 440BX-based machine (which only beefed up memory and processor since then).
To be fair, if you go for that route, then your XP system should also have included an Anti-Virus (with on access scanning, not ClamWin), an Anti-Spyware, a decent FireWall (zonealarm or such) some popup/ads filtering tool (Or should use FireFox+Adblock too). These are required for any typical Windows installation and are memory hogs too. (I could be cynical and add that the typical Windows installation also has at least a couple of trojans pumping spam).
And in my personnal experience, the Windows setup tends to be less responsive.
Studies done by others show that a machine with 128MB would be happy with most Linux situations, and with a swap and some sensible choice (I'm not speaking about using WMaker and browsing with lynx. I'm saying using KDE and K-applications for the rest to re-use dynamique libraries) even less memory could still be usable.
Actually this situation I use under Linux is one of the worst possible permutation (Simultaneously run KDE, GTK, XUL, and OOo's stacks) and somehow it mnage to do well enough.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You can run Linux with a lightweight software combo too (eg. http://www.puppylinux.org/).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Will they also be including an 'any' key to stop clueless users wondering where the any key is when asked to press any key to continue?
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
No what you are asking for is a PDA.
A good Palm paired with one of the good foldable keyboards (to bad that they did'nt produce non-wireless keyboard for newer Athena Connector) - the good ones (Stowaway keyboard for older Palm Universal Connector) have the same area as a regular desktop keyboard.
has flash / bluetooth / optionnal WiFi.
some software are sold together with (Browser, Mail client, Documents-to-Go, etc), other can be installed for free (beer/speech) like SSH clients, VNC clients, tons of ebook readers.
instant on/off (no suspend to disk) with either battery ram (older models) or flash (newer).
uses database paradigm instead of file load/save (the Palm ones). When it seldom crashes, you just reset and return to the app with the document in the state with which you left it (WinCE crashes more often).
you just instantly jump around from app to app (Palm tend to be more snappy than WinCE)
no mouse. use stylus or fingers.
lower power consumption : battery last enough for the day and can easily be charged from USB (either in craddle or using 220v-to-5vUSB wall socket plugs or 12vCar-to-5vUSB cigarette lighter plugs)
has many other useful functionnality (GPS hardware and software can be installed. Great console emulators.)
Have no personnal experience with Linux based PDA, but I except them to be good too.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
is a handheld PDA considered a PC? Sorry I consider a PC to be that thing at your home/work/etc .. typically without a built-in display, and a separate keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers
This isn't a new idea; tablet PCs have had a dedicated Ctrl-Alt-Del button since the beginning, because you can't assume the user actually has a physical keyboard and you need some way to enter the login screen.
this is my small pc.
Many years ago, I used a HP Jornada 690
It was possible to touch type if you were very careful, and the touch screen with stylus worked as a mouse.
The drawbacks - Windows CE and too short battery life. You had to save your data and programs on a CF card, because when the battery went, your computer went back to ROM defaults. It had a mic and sound recording, a built-in modem, and a slot for CF card and PCMCIA. ActiveSync sucked, you had to use Outlook for mail to synch, and the mini-Office-apps saved to a non-standard format. The modem, mini-IE and POP3 mail client worked pretty well.
The keyboard and screen can't get much smaller than this and still be useable.
This is an old approach. We merely have to look back nearly 10 years to see the Toshiba Libretto, for instance, the same size as a VCR cartridge. None of the miniatures of this generalized line (full desktop with Windows) have done well. There are a number of reasons besides the Microsoft keystroke issues. People want something larger to read, better keyboards, etc..
IMO, the two things that differentiate this from product offerings in the past are:
- communications changes. This includes wireless networking and USB connections.
- the generation of users who are now comfortable "thumbing" smart phones.
I have a normal size keyboard, but I want a CtrlAltDel key too!
Of course a wristPC is what everyone's been waiting for since Dick Tracy. I even got one towards the end of the last millennium, but no one ever made it run Linux.
Making the WristPC dream come true will require 3 things: it should do nothing but wirelessly deliver a multimedia terminal to networked computation. Its videophone should enable voice recognition. And its screen should fold out, preferably automatically, to larger screens, at least 4x5" and 8.5x11".
Something like VNC+shoutcast makes the "2-way radio" part a reality today. Cameraphones are small and almost smart enough. The real trick is opening the screen on demand from 2x4". That's probably going to require nanotech materials a few years down the road.
--
make install -not war
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Only that the keyboard on the UX is crazy unusable. I went to a store determinded to by one - until I tried typing a a bit on it. I hope the Oqo v.2 is better, I think I am going to test that one instead.
:0
But my favourite is still the old Sony Picturebook, which unfortunately is not available with modern stuff inside. I still have my Picturebook with transmeta 667MHz cpu working
Ta det kuli, det ordner seg i marsjen
...ate my pc!
Get back to me when you combine ALT-F4 into a single key.
Also, as a general point, having soft buttons that remap to specific key combinations is not a bad idea on an ultraportable - a single COPY button or PASTE key might be handy.
Friggin' Linux zealots.
Fujitsu has had a CTRL-ALT-DEL button for years on their life book tablets. I bought 150 of them for company where I work.
Do you want to list ALL domain users on a pretty logon screen so you can click on your ID? I think it'd take a larger screen than you'll find on a handheld...
The day thought-control computing becomes a reality, slashdot will *instantly* become unreadable
As someone with less than 20/20 vision, my problem with these devices is always the small screen size. Even some of the 10 inch notebooks running at 1280x1024 are too small to read comfortably. On the other hand, you really need at least 1024x768 to display a useful amount of info or web pages.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
skeleton key iconography.
Maybe someone could come up with a version of HTML and a suitable browser spec that allowed the browser to organise how text and other content is laid out on the screen?
Of course, you would first need to take all the people who care more about the 'look' of the page than the information it conveys out back and shoot them before they screw the whole thing up.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
...a single, recessed RESET button--like Palm and most of the civilized world? That three-finger thing is a relic from an archaic OS and has no place on a modern machine!
y first computer was an Osbourne 1. It had a 5 inch screen. 57 columns that would scroll to 80 columns. Kind of a pain. My next computer was an IBM Transportable. It had a 9 inch screen. It was very usable. That's as small as I would want to use.
I did.
Still looking for the "zoom" button when your PC has "maximize" instead? If you can't deal with windows that fill the whole screen, go back to your Mac. PC's weren't designed for stupid fucks.
can start
to see the
problem
with having
a screen
that is too
small for
the font
size you
need to be
comfortable
if I
demonstrate
the
usability
of how my
phone looks
when I use a
reasonably
sized font.
Legible,
perhaps, but
certainly
not a very
productive
interface
for some of
us.
The real question is can I play World Of Warcraft on it?
I'm annoyed they aren't still making it as im in the market for an easily portable machine to run word/watch vids
:)
i think i had the original machine back in 2000-2001, it had a wide screen (before that was generally an option) but the ratio was like 2:1, it was *very* wide compared to height. the keyboard was about 80-90% of normal laptop size - and that was completely the body size. imagine a smaller laptop whter the top of the keyboard almost touches the pivot of the screen, and the bottom of the keyboard is the end of the unit, it was about half as deep as a small laptop. screen was probably 10", had a pentium pro in i think. very light, small, but i could run IBM VisualAge for Java on it and develop on the train.
currently i use a 17" desktop replacement laptop but that hardly moves. as im thinking of going back to university, i want a small, light machine that i can use word with and perhaps play some videos if the lecture is boring
Synthesis: the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one act of knowledge. http://www.bright.net/~jclarke/kant/concept1.html
- projector-for-cellphones/
why do they have to have screens or physical input devices..
little projector
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/07/toshiba-pocket
little keyboard
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5731.html
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Not as "hardwired", I imagine, but after the keyboard is activated, and until you actually boot an OS that knows what to do with a keyboard, CTRL+ALT+DEL will soft-reboot. Simple test: Open your BIOS setup screen (no clue how to do this on your machine; I pres DEL at a certain point during boot, but YMMV a fucking lot). With the BIOS setup screen open, give it the three-fingered salute, and it should soft-reboot IMMEDIATELY.
Of course, these days, it's reduced to mean whatever you want it to mean, if you have an OS flexible enough -- for instance, on Linux, you can set CTRL+ALT+DEL to fire a shell script of your choice. By default it does a graceful soft reboot (as you'd get with shutdown -r), but it can be configured to do whatever you want -- I've configured CTRL+ALT+DEL and other things like pressing the power button to take over the screen and display the message "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!"
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It makes a lot of sense, because it gives you a familiar environment, with familiar apps and compatibility.
Which is, incidentally, yet another reason to love Linux. Linux doesn't require x86-compatible hardware or anything remotely resembling it; I can run a full Linux system on an ARM processor. (Or, of course, I can trim the fat and only run what I need.) It's also perfectly possible to remap just about anything, including ctrl+alt+del-style functionality -- my Jornada has the fn key mapped to backtick/tilde (` or ~). So, Linux gets ported to the device, usually by one or two guys in their spare time.
But you don't get source code for Windows, and Microsoft would kind of like to sell Windows Mobile. So in order to run XP/Vista apps on a mobile device, you have to port the device to Windows, not the other way around.
So yes, there's a very good reason for doing it, and yes, it's a hell of a lot more painful than it should be.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You make a good point about remote access. However, there are a few issues with that:
The machine has to be on. This is a waste of power if you simply leave it on 24/7, and a significant amount of lag if you have a way to boot it remotely. (I can SSH in to a server and have it etherboot my desktop, but I still need the server on, and I need to wait while my desktop boots.)
You need a network connection. It's nice to be able to do something useful without one, and your network is always going to be slow-ish, particularly if you're using VNC. Even RDP is sluggish compared to, say, ssh, and while ssh is lightning over any working connection, as soon as the connection starts to lag, it's almost not worth using.
You still need your local terminal to be "good enough." This depends on what you want it to do -- I like to watch anime on long trips, for instance, so I like to have a bit of hard drive space and a decent-sized screen -- oh, and a CPU and video card fast enough to actually play the videos at their intended framerate.
I guess the rest depends on what you need all that desktop speed for. I need speed so I can play games. There's really no other reason -- sure, I like my web browsing to be snappy, but if my box was slower, I'd switch away from Firefox. Sure, a compile will take less time, but on a slower box, I wouldn't use Gentoo, and really, with a decent makefile, you're talking about maybe one gcc command that might take a second or two longer for most changes. Boot time matters to me, but only because I dual-boot, and I only keep Windows for games.
But, these are still reasons a fast handheld would be nice -- eventually, stuff gets to the local machine. Even things like web browsing are places where you could get slowed down.
Anyway... I actually agree with you, to a point. But, I do want a laptop with a decent-sized screen and keyboard, which is capable of playing movies, which takes quite a bit more than ssh and VNC. And you know, I didn't need my Powerbook to be 1.67 ghz, but it didn't hurt, either.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This small?
nano
my fingers are way too big
Small enough is when it's about the size of an iPod shuffle, projects the display on a heads-up display on my glasses, uses some kind of eye tracking / hand tracking interface, so I can use focus and eye position for "mouse" control and type in my pockets.
-- QED
Your main problem comes from the fact that Ubuntu is running GNOME (high memory requirement) and then over that you rune FireFox Thunderbird (not only do they run using another set of libraries, XUL, but they don't share it between them, as of 2.x series), and OOo (His own huge bloc of code).
I was advocating KDE because, not only does it have slightly lower memory requirement, but also once KDE is loaded all the necessary dynamic libraries are already loaded and minimise the memory impact of Konqueror, KOffice, Kopete, KMail, and such... using a reasonable skin and visual effects settings (comparable to running WinXP in classic mode) it should be perfect with your memory settings, without having to resort to things as XFce (especially when, XFce is small, but doesn't provide any facility and people then to run XUL and OOo over it which nullifies the benefits of XFce)
But the main advantage of Linux isn't only it's lower requirement. It's the good task switching scheme, that help several intensive background application running (like BOINC, or some make) without much impact on the snappiness of the response. (Also it seems to me that the swap managing code seems to be slighlty better too).
In fact this problem was acknowledged by Microsoft, and
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Most PDA have foldable keyboard, that stay in your pocket and unfold to laptop or desktop sized keyboards.
The screen is still a problem though : my Tungsten T3 has only 4" (9.5cm) diagonal screen estate when in expanded mode.
I some what miss the Psion series 5.
Though maybe research will bring something more interesting. Maybe the rollable eInk screen featured recently on
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I second this opinion.
:-)
Almost 3 years ago I opted for a "converged" phone, a Samsung SCH-i700 PDA phone from Verizon. It was pretty nice, but DAILY use exposed the shortcomings of using a handheld as a phone. Yet there were times that the device was pretty damn convenient, when I needed to Remote Desktop, VNC, or get a "more featured" browser.
Nokia realized that putting a phone in a PDA is dumb, and they have avoided this mistake in their N series tablets. Until wireless data is universal and cheap, there's no point building the expense of a PHONE into your PDA. There's even less point in using a PDA as a phone.
Things are better today -- you can get a "normal" phone with data, and bluetooth modem support. Your PDA becomes "agnostic" about who provides the data layer - 802.11, bluetooth, or the US cell phone cartels. It doesn't matter anymore. Now you have real choices.
The Nokia N800 is the closest thing now to a perfect portable Internet tablet. You don't need to know Linux. It just "works". Developers are finding the device is a DREAM to develop on, combining Linux + GTK to make an open platform for anyone to use and develop on. Desktop Linux apps are being polished and ported over. And applications like 'Maemo Mapper (GPS)' are awesomely free.
You don't get a lot of free apps with Windows CE platforms... and many of the free apps there suffer from developer disinterest. WinCE software dies when the author becomes too busy with life/etc, while Linux and GPL software has a life all its own.
Some will complain about the N800's lack of CDMA/G3 data support, but this is GOOD -- really that is what your phone is for. Same thing with the keyboard... buy your OWN bluetooth keyboard if you want one. This was these 2 features do not bulk up the dimensions of the device.
If you want a "bigger" tablet, the Pepper Pad 3 seems interesting. If you want something that is truly portable, the Nokia N800 is the platform to beat now.
PS - the media player isn't horrible, but it suffers from limitations like any closed source media player. The media player has GOOD format support... many formats except no OGG support. The free 'Canola' media player offers a MythTV-like interface, touchscreen, and it plays just about anything you throw at it. Video performance on this is VERY good for a handheld.
Oh yeah, there's a webcamera built in and meeting software. Now we have to wait for Skype and GnomeMeeting so we can ditch the Nokia meeting app...
Has anyone tried http://www.linutop.com/
Slashdot = Sarcasm
. <======= see that? That.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
... the idea is that you swollow it and you become smarter for 24 hr. You can calculate as fact as a com,puter, see mental pictures very clearly and navigate any network by pluging any cable into any of your orfices.
It also improived yur spellin...
Hmmm, time for another one....
A rejected entry for their poetry page fad loving tween, no mental overhead please, die in a fire.
Big is the new small.http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01bjeffreys. phtml/
Or they could just do what "Windows Experts" do: hit the Start menu, and select either "Log Off" or "Shut Down".
No wonder Lunix and Apple consistantly lose in the marketplace of ideas: their users are f'ing idiots who can't even figure out how to use Windows (unlike your average 5-year-old).
I suspect FlipStart will go the same way as Lindows: millions in squandered VC funding going toward making no money every year.
I used to use handhelds a lot, often with the folding external keyboards, but I stopped when I couldn't read PDFs easily.
Specifically, the smallest I could go is a (screen) size where I can read a PDF in portrait orientation with decent enough resolution to read the text, big enough font size to not strain my eyes, and big enough screen size that I don't have to scroll back and forth to read each line.
Also important is that I don't want to spend a dozen clicks to get it into a readable format either. That's a software issue, but still important.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
The iPhone user interface employs lots of guesture control compared most previous commercial computer systems. Though like the MacIntosh, little of user interface is original, shipping it in a low-cost, pleasing package "the communications PDA for the masses" could be revolutionary. 13 weeks, 12 weeks .... and counting.
As they make the chips and motherboards smaller the human interface will the limit the minimum sized of the computing device.
The screen is the real issue here. You can design a computing device to no bigger than the current iPod which are about 8mm high X 30mm wide X 50mm tall but you can't really do anything useful, except view videos and photos with limited resolution, on that screen. I had both 15-inch and 12-inch laptops and noticed that you are limited amount of work on 12-inch laptop due to needing minimizing and enlarge the windows in the screen to get the amount of data you need and this slowing the amount work that can be done. I wish they can develop a screen that can folded from a smaller sized to a large visible screen. Or virtual screen that can be put on eye ware that can virtually show a large screen from your perspective without the large screen.
The keyboard is the other issue. The current keyboard size is fairly large now and will be next largest thing except for the display. If someone can develop an keyboard or input device that is easier for the user and smaller then you make the laptop smaller. The current QWERTY keyboard is too slow and was developed late 1800's to slow down typist to prevent jamming of the mechanical mechanism. This is keyboard is now been in use over 100 years so we are in serious need of the replacement now for the 21st century. Some bright and enterprising person will develop an input device small and fast.
I've got one of these, and it is great for specific people (like me).
It is very usable on trains, ferries, anywhere that you might sit or stand and have people milling around. I just carry the mini dock with me, so I can hook it up to any spare monitor wherever I go, and I carry a folding bluetooth keyboard for when I'm working in a stationary place.
At home, I can just slip it into the dock and it is immediately connected with my 19" LCD and full size keyboard and mouse.
When needed, I've got a very slim USB powered DVD/CD writer that I can take with me, and a similar backup HD that I can also store all music a video on, separate to the internal drive where I keep work files.
The screen is small, but very usable. The main difference is that you do hold it closer to your face to use it, but with the design, it is made to hold in two hands, not to be used in a lap or similar type of situation. I do have the fonts at 120dpi, so they are readable.
At 500g and with a very small (1/4 the size and weight of normal) power brick, I can carry this thing around with me anywhere and not be grumbling at the end of a long day about how it is weighing my bag down.