Slashdot Mirror
Overclock Your Palm
curveclimber writes " Taking memos a little too slow on your Palm? Overclock that puppy with Afterburner, a HackMaster hack. It can push that DragonBall EZ MC68EZ328 up to 29MHz (YMMV). Read a review, or the Afterburner FAQ. Remember overclocking's fun, until you smell smoke. For the the foolhardy, download away.
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Hey, I'm all for overclocking, but what's next?
I'm gonna overclock my remote control so I can channel surf faster. Maybe I'll overclock my...clock! Yeah, time is just moving too damn slow for me...
The Palm Platform does have a keyboard available for it (http://www.landware.com), and before you say "yeah but does it have...", yes, it does have a linux port. Why, oh why, do we want linux on a Palmtop organizer? This I do not know.
Errr processors and silicon will not last forever.
There is migration of the dopants, etc la so the lifetime is 50 years.
Kinda like a 'classic' car I guess. Old cars, you can get parts for, and even retro-fit. New cars...Bah! ain't gonna happen.
My Apple ][+, all discreets. I can replace it all. My Pent II, I'm lucky to see ANY discretes..all VLSI/ASICS. So no 'retrofits' here.
Are the Pilot schematics unofficially posted somewhere? The power supply seems extremely well-designed... should be instructive...
Write one for the palm V
It charges in it's base unit, (and can stay on whiule in the base unit.)
I use mine as a desk clock most of the time.
It can underclock down to 8Mhz. Damn, 8Mhz is slow.
Eco Hack is a util that underclocks your Pilot to save batteries. However, it's shareware and I'd rather not pay for more software (just my opinion).
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
That was actually considered ;). However, the Pilot has such intense power conservation (as one person put it "Even when it's on, it's off") that the client would kill your battery life :-/.
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
6) Gives you an excuse to drown the beeping bastard in mineral oil!
No way are those chicklet packets real keyboards. A real keyboard is something that my hands can fully position and type at. My brain/hands automatically switch into hunt-n-peck mode when the keyboard is too small, which is just as slow, if not slower than graffiti.
I do NOT recommend overclocking the pilots.. I tried EcoHack at 23Mhz on my PalmV, and I noticed that the graphics in Lemons and Dragonbane was fsck'd up! I went down to 16mhz and after maybe 5-10 minutes, it became normal again.
Don't!
But more importantly, clocking up isn't necessarily the way you want to go. Reducing the speed is more useful -- saves battery life.
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If taking memos is too slow, perhaps you need to overclock your hand, or perhaps get something with a real keyboard.
For others it could be uEmacs. Combined with mutt, lynx and a miniature SMTP server that can talk over infrared or mobile phone it would be an ideal mobile communication centre for a geek.
Some crazy guys are porting vi to EPOC actually, so perhaps Linux isn't necessary.
Is the speed presented here really needed? I mean, yah, it will make your palm more speedy, and able to do tasks a bit quicker, but your not compiling movies or anything. :) If someone out there who has a palm who has overclocked it, tell me if they can tell and if it's needed. :)
From the screenshot in the review it looks like it can go down to 13MHz (or slower?).
Regards, Ralph.
Woah, do my eyes deceive me? Did I just see a blatant reference to the Knights of the Dinner Table on Slashdot? For all those not in the know, or those non-roleplaying geeks, Knights of the Dinner Table is a great comic in Dragon magazine.
Speaking of, how many Slashdotters out there RPG? Maybe an idea for a new poll?
Grue
I think the original clock rate (16 MHz?) was set more to extend battery life then to protect silicone. Even the early units can be overclocked up to about 130% (I believe).
:).
Unlike PC overclocking, I think battery life is the main constraint here, not heat dissipation. Your cpu will last forever, but you will be replacing batteries so often you will think you have a wince device
The new flavor of dragonball cpu used in the IIIx, V, and VII models is actually designed for much higher rates, they just clocked it lower to stay compatible with existing software, extend battery life, and because the existing speed is plenty fast as it is. It's not like you are going to run quake on the thing (although there are a couple of first person games out there for it).
I know that the batteries on my new IIIx last MUCH longer (over a month) then they did on my palm professional with the 2MB IR upgrade. The darn thing just keeps on running...
These pilots are the single best computer design I have ever used, the thing just dissapears into your life as an indespensible tool.
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
Now all we need is a distributed.net port to this thing that transfers blocks when you sync....
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Was I the only person to double-take at the title?
*innocent whistle*
Anyone would think you guys had never done anything just because you could. I've been playing with this all morning, and although admittedly it's sucked my batteries dry (they were already low) the search speed on "Find" is way impressive.
The FAQ says that the next version will be able to set the clock rate individually by application. That would be really useful - a nice comporomise between speed and battery life. Too bad "Find" isn't an app.
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E_NOSIG
What a great idea (at least to a guy who stands in front of the microwave shouting, "Hurry up, dammit!").
"I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time." -- Steven Wright
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Sorry for being ingnorant, but what is the normal clock for one of em?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Some you guys have way, way too much time on your hands (sic).
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
1) You'll be put on the promotion fast track once your employers realize that you're taking memos 10% faster than everyone else.
2) You'll have an extra 2 seconds a day to pursue leisure activities, such as overclocking your coffeemaker.
3) Since your PalmPilot will be overheated, you can stick it down your pants to prevent shrinkage before dates.
4) Or, you can put a cooling fan on it and impress your friends by making your Palm Pilot more bulky then your desktop computer.
5) It's a sure babe magnet.
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