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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.
* 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're not having a problem with resolution. It has nothing to do with 1200x800 or any other screen resolution. Instead, you're having trouble reading the text because the font size is too small.
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/
No, that's not the problem. My point is that the amount of data on the screen with a 10-12 point font at 1200x800 resolution is just about right. Any larger font (or reduced resolution) would result in too little data on the screen (as in lines of text viewable at a single time). The issue then is the smallest screen that this amount of data is still reasonably viewable at.
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"?
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
Perhaps they had forgotten that the original purpose of Ctrl-Alt-Del was to trigger soft reboots on the IBM PCs and that the combination was selected precisely because it was IMPOSSIBLE to press all three keys with one hand and thereby trigger the reboot accidentally.
"This keyboard combination was designed by David Bradley, a designer of the original IBM PC. Bradley originally designed Control-Alt-Escape to trigger a soft reboot, but he found it was too easy to bump the left side of the keyboard and reboot the computer accidentally. He switched the key combination to Control-Alt-Delete, a combination impossible to press with just one hand (this is not true of later keyboards, such as the 102-key PC/AT keyboard or the Maltron keyboard)."
Isn't it ironic that the designers are celebrating the fact that they have reintroduced the possibility of an error that the designers of old foresaw and attempted to avoid by a three button combination that could not accidentally be triggered with the slip of one hand? Or perhaps it is the fact that Windows these days has more than one function linked to that key combination, forcing the dialog anyway...after which you are forced to "cancel or allow" the action that you selected from the dialog box that was triggered by the keyboard combination. That must be what they mean when they say "Intuitive Interface" or "Easy to use".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ]
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.
It's irrelevant, because the use of Ctrl-Alt-Del is no longer to reboot the machine, it's merely to send the Secure Attention Sequence to Windows. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if you hit it accidentally, because you just use Escape to go back. I doubt these devices will be sold with DOS, where it would matter.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Just wait till you get married. Having a dedicated place for entertainment just means your wife knows where to go to bug you. At least with my laptop I get 15 extra minutes of solitude while she looks around the house for me.
Not to mention the corner pub has free wifi.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
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...
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.