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Netwinder now by Rebel.com
victim writes "HCC which aquired the Netwinder is now
Rebel.com - technology
with an attitude. They offer everything from preloaded
Netwinder web servers to custom hardware design and build
with a heavy commitment to Linux in the enterprise.
press release.
" SGI, HCC, Cygnus. This is getting annoying.
I'm an EE who used to work in Canada. Compared to USA, Canada engineering companies seem less competitve, almost like an extension of University. I worked on some great projects but I've never heard what became of them after I left. Canadians need to learn to market their products more agressively. Great technology is useless if it doesn't leave the lab.
In the early 1980's there was a Canadian company called, I think, Bytec, then Bytec-Comterm, then eventually Comterm. They had a totally cool portable computer called the Hyperion which never quite took off. It had an integral screen, dual floppies and a place to store the (full size) keyboard. It was a quarter the weight of a Compaq sewing machine (Compaq was just starting out at the time.)
.htm (ptui!) pages for competing products.
It seemed to me that it was another example of a good product which went down the tubes due to loss of corporate identity and the consequential poor marketing. It looks like the same fate is destined for the Netwinder. Is there something about hardware designed in Canada which is related to this phenomenon? Corel -> HCC -> rebel.com, good lord how the hell are you supposed to find information on the damn thing?
And now the Netwinder name is being given to machines which have nothing to do with the original Netwinder - they're Intel-based boxes! The "real" Netwinder is buried in a sea of
Pity.
Where is the Netwinder LC (Linux Computer) that was promised for January '99?
Life is like an egg better scrambled than fried. -- Ken Sawatari
That's what the logo in the webpage claims. However, www.netcraft.com says:
rebel.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on Solaris
linux.rebel.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on Solaris
First, realize that the NetWinder is still in beta form. Although the hardware is fairly mature at this time, the software is still in quite rough shape. Although there has been a flurry of activity on the developer's site since the beginning of the year, the last official release was before the beginning of the year. I'd like to see that change soon. What happened to release early and often?
The software on my DM is a crazy quilt of different releases. egcs and glib2, but there's no Netscape. It's got some of Red Hat 5.x, but all RPM's have to installed with the --nodeps flag because the software is a crazy quilt. There is no userful configuration tool that I've seen and the documentation is next to non-existent, printed or otherwise. Many things work well, but many other things don't work at all. All this has to be straightened out before the NetWinder is ready to sell to the general public, especially as an everyday workstation.
Okay, so what's so good about the NetWinder? Fortunately there is a lot of good. It's got to be one of the coolest computers I've ever seen. But, nobody would buy a computer that looked cool if it didn't act the part as well. I'm happy to say that the NetWinder fits the role.
The hardware is mature even if the software isn't. Built-in features are plentiful. Sound, IrDA, video capture and output (both NTSC and PAL), two NICs (one a DEC Tulip 10/100base), microphone and speaker, parallel (EPP/ECP) and serial ports. Parallel port IDE devices are supported. The originally specified built-in modem and telephony capability is gone (although the connectors still live on my machine). That is too bad, but even without telephony there are sufficient features to make most anybody happy. And the components with which I've had experience all seem to be of very high quality. Hardware wise this is a very nice machine. I feel that alone could assure its success in the market (if the software gets done).
One feature with which I have quite a bit of experience is the Dec Tulip 10/100base network interface. The Corel developers did their homework on this interface. It flies. My entire network uses DEC Tulip chip cloan NICs. All the machines are quick, but the NetWinder really pumps it out. There is a noticable difference here. The NetWinder can effortlessly saturate my little hub while my PII-300 has to really work to do it.
The Winder is also speedy in loading large chunks from hard drive. I don't think that this is because of the hard drive, which is a 2.5 inch, 4 GB Toshiba. I believe that the credit goes to intelligent coding, the StrongARM CPU and its support chips. For instance, emacs and X windows load much quicker on the Winder than on my PII-300. This would support HCC's claim that the NetWinder is ideal as a server. After using the machine for a few months in that mode, it still seems fast. I'm still very impressed.
The NetWinder uses less than 15 watts of power. One of the Corel engineers told me that he got a NetWinder to bootstrap using only one regular nine volt battery for power. I guess it didn't run too long, but it got to the login prompt with no problems. I haven't tried this, nor do I intend to. But, this will give you an idea of how little power it uses. I can see a lot of special applications being made that take advantage of this feature. Solar power anybody?
Am I glad that I bought a NetWinder? On the whole, yes. I am very pleased with it. This little guy figures prominently in my future plans. I hope that HCC soon will get through the transition and release the desperately needed major software upgrade. In the meantime, I'll let my NetWinder serve up Web pages for my network and do some other miscellaneous things. But, what I'd really like is to use it as an easily packable computer. Soon, I hope.
Regards,
Arne Flones
Long Ship Software
It is cheaper than it looks. You save several hundred/year on electricity, a similar amount on air-conditioning, your UPS is a bunch of batteries, and it has a great form factor.
But it isn't a slam-dunk.
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
D
PS conformist.com is an incomprehensible site that fills your screen with its windows. Annoying. There's so little actual content on the site that I'd bet they'd be open to a reasonable offer. Call them, Rebels!
----
I wonder who owns the rights to Jimmy's visage? Does he have some sort of estate left?
Unrelated, that was one of the worst press releases I've read in recent memory. If I hear someone mention "branding" without reference to livestock, I'm going to quit my job and move to Arizona and live in the friggin desert. Fsck these boomers.
The logo is completely forgettable and conjures up images of either a men's version of Victoria's Secret (Victor's Secret?) or the online outlet for Beverly Hills 90210. The entire image is too slick and perky for a company calling itself a rebel, innovative or otherwise. If they are trying to rebrand themselves, they are doing a piss-poor job of it.
The worst part of it is that this inept excuse for a technology company is going to take a pretty piece of hardware down with it.
- Jeff Dutky
The press release is tie-speak if ever I saw it.
A true, modern rebel would live with "HCC".
What does James Dean have to do with being a rebel is todays society?
Fluff.
Dilbert Rule! http://www.dilbert.com/
Who?
I thought Corel was betting the farm on Linux this year, having lost the back forty when they bet that on Java a couple of years ago. So why did they sell the Netwinder business?
Rebel.com runs on a NetWinder 1000i.
This is an x86 box running Linux. The firewall is running Solaris. Hopefully this clears up any confusion.