The POOREST in a capitalist state like ours are still much better off than the middle class in china.
Methinks you've no concept of who really are the POOREST in the US.
Certainly, even though I'm a poor college kid (no help from rents, mind you) by most USian standards- making around $10k/year, quite below the poverty line- I am better off than a lot of the other folks world.
That said, the poorest people anywhere are very likely to be below the middle-class in most any coutry. Middle-class Chinese folks have a place to live, where the poorest in the US does not. Seems like a substantial difference to me.
Furthermore, we don't live in a capitalist state, rather something else for which I've not the word. We surely don't have much a free market economy, regardless of the propaganda.
Actually, there is that fellow who has been legally selling real estate on the moon since the 70s. I remember seeing a newer article (perhaps via slashdot?) but see this older article for some info. He's made a good $6 million doing it, too. see google news.
What is video like on RDC? From some posts here, it sounds like RDC is very nice and fast- except for with video and perhaps flash animation.
I've never used RDC for any real work. Although a co-worker at one of my jobs uses it often. When he is working, he is just using his desktop via RDC. He'll listen to MP3s, web browse and do work in dreamweaver with no problems- I thought it looked pretty damn fast. IIRC it's only a 10 Mbps network too, going from where we work on campus (the helpdesk, woot) to his dorm room. A lot faster than TightVNC or X11 is at home for me, even on a 100 Mbps network.
What do I know about speed- I use a 400 MHz XScale machine as my primary box. I have a linux/win2k file server (can't fit all the MP3s on memory cards!) and occasionally use VNC or X11 to admin/get to some app I can't run on WinCE.
Can I do RDC/terminal services on Win2k without having to find some copy of Win2k terminal server? I know on XP you cna just turn it on, no? What about on 2k?
I have a small handheld PC-like device which runs Windows CE.NET 4.1 on a 400 MHz XScale PXA255. It is real WinCE, *not* PocketPC and as a result, sucks a lot less... It has a 800x480 screen and these days is my primary computer. It has a little built-in keyboard on which I can easily touch-type; after an hour of owning it, I am able to type just about as fast as I could on a full-blown keyboard, although symbols are a bit funky. (they are in the Japanese locations, shift-2 = " etc) It cost $480. Until Tablet PCs and things like this airpanel come down in cost, I will stick to my real computer.
Yes, I can connect via X11 (XFreeCE), VNC, or Terminal Services if I want to file server tower, but almost never do. I got it all on this Sigmarion III. I do use VNC for Matlab, though.
Yes, I agree- AOL does suck royally. I used to use it quite a bit when I was a kid (under GEOS!) when fake generated CC#s worked for a month of free access and there weren't many other consumer-level options.
I hadn't used it for the longest time after that until a couple of years ago, when I was interning out of town. I figured I'd just use 3 free months-o-AOL CD/codes rather than buying net access for the summer. I couldn't even get through the first month of free access- it sucked that bad. I called to cancel and they offered me 3 more months which I turned down flatly. I honestly can't believe people pay $25/mo for that shit when they could get access through some local company for $10/mo.
Constant issues with flakiness, the app would tell me that my phone jack was disconnected. Having a lot of experience with dialup, I knew it wasn't that- and since there was only one phone (and no call waiting), I knew it wasn't someone else picking up the phone in the flat. Even worse, at least on Mac OS 9.x and under, AOL installs some proxing app that is always running in the background, presumably to catch TCP/IP requests and tunnel them through its service, as it's not just vanilla PPP. Buuut, this app stayed loaded and running at all times, even if I wasn't signed on, which really killed the machine's stability. No OS 9 is no champ in that regard, but when you have it set up and have a feel for what might fuck up your machine, it's as solid as NT (whatever that means!). This lil app managed to fuck everything up, especially if I was doing network stuff when not on-line; I was developing some networking code and webapp-ish stuff at the time but just making requests to localhost... It would hard freeze randomly when prior to installing AOL I hadn't experienced these issues.
After cancelling, I downloaded Altavista Free access, which was surprisingly nice. Yes, it put a little adbar on my screen, but nothing I couldn't deal with a virtual desktop app, though I usually left it in view- it was paying for my access, after all. The connection was faster, cleaner, and a lot more robust. A shame most/all of those free ad-based PPP things are gone, although I wouldn't have a need for them.:P
Of course, that doesn't meantion all of the other AOL annoyances- ads every time I signed on that I had to click through/close before the rest of the system could make TCP/IP requests (iCab, IRC, etc). And even though I thought I was careful about saying no about making informatioin public, I still got at least one request from from kid or kid pretending to be a 14-year old girl for cyber sex... I mean, "RevAaron01" doesn't sound all that female to me, but who knows.
Yeah, there one was a day when going to some AOL keyword got you content you couldn't get on the general web/net- but every keyword I tried out during the time I had AOL back then just opened up a regular AOL browser to a regular website, which looked and worked the same if I loaded it in any other web browser...
I wonder if this offer is valid with AOL Broadband, that way you could be on Broadband, and still have a cheap PC.
Yes and no. I imagine you're welcome to sign-on to AOL Broadband through another broadband service, just like any other AOL Member can. However, I doubt you can get this deal if you want to stick to one of those cheaper ($9/mo?) broadband accounts that don't allow you to use the dial-up service.
Does AOL provide broadband itself in some areas? Cable or DSL?
Umm, then you wouldn't buy this dealie. I'm not sure what the big deal is- if you're the type that enjoys AOL, then this isn't a bad deal. Sure, you could get a similar machine for $300, but without a printer or monitor. Printers you can get cheap, but a 17" monitor still isn't some $50 retail thing thrown in, like a really crappy scanner or printer.
If you want to use Linux without AOL, why would not get another machine? Why is this even being discussed? Just something to whine about?
Opiates are definately an odd case- they won't kill you if you don't overdose (Or have some ultra-rare allergic condition). Unlike amphetamines, cocaine and crack, and alcohol, the drug over time doesn't seem to have any lasting negative side effects. Your metabolism is changed while under the influence, which can lead to the stereotypical skinny junkie, But unlike many drugs, your brain, your heart, and other organs don't come out damaged.
My post certainly didn't meant to say "la,la,la, drugs are safe and tasty too!" but one must know a lot about any drug they are considering taking, have a respect for its power...
Have you ever known a person who used drugs, but because of various sociological, financial and personal reasons, didn't fuck up? It may sound amazing, but our coutnry is filled with fairly well-adjusted drug addicts, people who don't have to beg, borrow and steal to support their habits. Normal people with family and friends who also happen to use some drug(s). They may have a physical or psychological addiction to it, or they may not. Relatively intelligent people with a good family have polled off the healthy drug addict routines for thousands of years; drugs destroying neighborhoods is a relatively new phenomenon, bought about more by poverty and a piss-poor existance than the drugs.
That said, those people shouldn't have access to drugs if they can't handle them. Their lives need to be rehabilitiateed before there is any drug problem. As if that will ever happen though. Not when we treat them like criminals before they've even taken a drug or committed a crime...
Although WHY on earth they're doing it is beyond me - it's not like they need to squeeze even MORE money out of the computer industry.
That's capitalism for you- unless your business is always growing it is failing. MS has to find some way to continue to grow, and perhaps submarine patent licensing is simply a new "market."
I think Miguel just has the sense to know when to copy a good idea of Microsoft's (whether or not they actually thought of it first) and to be at peace with that. It's certainly better than the alternative, what some of the other guys do- copying Microsoft's ideas on one hand, but on the other trash talking MS to not end. In the end, they're both still trying to make a windows clone.
AHOY THIS SHIT is getting annoying. heh. so much pirate talk, jeeze. I about had an brain tumor grow out of nowhere to put me out my my misery. I don't think I could play this game, tumor and all.
Now, is this a good reason to move to Linux? I mean, if this is the reason for small manufacturers to move, had DoCoMo chosen Windows, they would probably have moved to that instead. Oh well.
They didn't choose Linux, at least, no more than they did Symbian or Microsoft's SmartPhone. They simple choose to provide specs for manufactuers of iMode compliant phones who wish to make Linux phones. They aren't making the phones themselves, and certainly are not switching to Linux.
Yeah, it's too bad you can't buy PDAs that run EPOC32/Symbian anymore. Some of those phones are almost as good- the P800 for instance- but it'd be nice if there were a few Symbian devices that were simply dedicated PDAs.
Just as long as they don't use Qtopia, but I rather doubt it. There is no way that a 18 MB memory footprint at boot with no apps started for a Linux + Qtopia setup is good.
And does it really matter that this phone will run Linux? That alone is not a reason to buy it, at least not for me.
That is not a reason to buy it for almost anyone- except a lot of the Linux cheerleading slashdot crowd. NTT DoCoMo certainly won't be marketing this as a special Linux phone, in a lame attempt to cash in on interest in Linux without having to produce a decent system; at least, they won't if they want this phone to be a decent seller to general consumers, which is their style.
OK, this post may be long. I've had a number of iterations of hardware, OS and apps over the years, but I'll give a couple of them to you with some comments.
1st Gen: The first iteration of my paper-less setup was a Newton MP2100, keyboard, 8 MB flash card, and 3com ethernet card. I owned 3 other PDAs before this (Newton OMP, MP120/OS 1.3, and a VTech Helio running Linux), though none of them were this good. In most ways, this Newton was still the best PDA I've ever had. It was by far the best PDA I had for taking notes. Any PDA has notetaking software that let allow you to sketch the notes rather than only enter text. A decent PDA will have software that allows you to mix text and sketches in the same note. But only the Newton allowed you to write your notes in text or sketches in the same note, and allow some of those sketches to be searchable, just like the text stuff. Naturally, some sketched things aren't recognizable, but there were times where I wanted to enter something in text mode for one reason or another, but still be represented as text if need be.
There is also the convenience of being able to manipulate your text and drawings; the Newton takes input as Text (typed, recognized, Graffiti, etc), Ink Text (treated like text, but your handwriting is retained), Sketches (just drawings), and Shapes (vector graphics). It was normal to enter a graph in Shapes mode, and if I needed to make one axis longer or something, I could easily just pull it out, without warping the rest of the drawing. It's great not to have to use an eraser, but just to select and move, delete, modify your drawings and writings.
Built-in Newton OS Notes all > Built-in PocketPC Notes app > IQNotes for the Zaurus (Unfortunately the best notes app for the Zaurus)
And that's a logarithmic scale. No joke.
I did a little experiment when I first started taking my notes on the Newton- I made my class notes from General Biology I available online. All taken on my Newton.
The Newton was also the most powerful PDA in other ways unrelated to notes. It was a hackers dream- it was a fully object oriented system, and with a debugging/inspecting tool like ViewFrame, you could explore the entire system by taking a trip through Object Wonderland.:) For instance, I used a spreadsheet app called QuickFigure Works. Like any spreadsheet, it has functions; and like any spreadsheet, invarably there are functions I wished I had but didn't. On most platforms, you'd be stuck with defining it in the terms of existing spreadsheet functions, on a desktop system you would have a BASIC scripting language, though. On the Newton you had access to NewtonScript, something far more powerful and elegant. The original authors didn't intend me to do this, but with the power of NewtonScript at my disposal, I simply opened up a view on the QuickFigure Works app, had a look around and found the array of available spreadsheet functions. I then just added a new one, writing the body in NewtonScript. I could make a proper package out of it later if I wanted to, to make the addition permanent, or to share with others.
The beauty of that is that I could do that without having explicit support from the author of the app itself- it was just a feature of an extensively dynamic, consistent, introspective, reflective and just plain cool OO system.
2nd Gen: Then I went to Windows CE. My girlfriend told me it wouldn't work, but I was determined- while the Newton was powerful (162 MHz StrongARM CPU in the days when the fastest PocketPC was still 206 MHz- and I could upgrade the Newton to 220 if I wanted) and very capable, I wanted to run Squeak Smalltalk, my programming weapon of choice. A port to the NewtonOS would be very hard for a number of reasons. It was tried, but never made it to fruition. So I wanted a WinCE machine, which could run Squeak.
When you say that it is a bit like Mathematica, what exactly do you mean? When you say it is a bit like Mathematica, do you just mean that it's a math app, and Mathematica is your only frame of reference? Or do they have similar strengths or syntax?
From my understanding, Pari/GP's concentration is number theory where Mathematica's is symbolic computation.
I have used Matlab/Octave, Mathematica, and Maxima but never Pari/GP and I'm curious what Pari/GP can do. I've the most experience with Matlab/Octave, and at least right now, there isn't a good Octave environment for either Linux or WinCE PDAs, so I am thinking of learning Maxima, as there is a good environment for it on WinCE at least (but not Linux PDAs... yet!). But if Pari/GP would be able to do the stuff I need- matrices, eigens, some symbolic manipulation, etc- and be better than Maxmia in other ways I may consider using it instead.
Just because you can recompile some math app for the Z doesn't mean it's the best option. You can target Octave for the Zaurus, but it's a pain in the ass to use without any sort of interface created specifically for a handheld.
No wonder... it's this kind of attitude that seems to convince people that recompiling is taking a port far enough- no wonder there are more good Unix adaptations for WinCE than there are for the Zaurus.:P
I've completely replaced paper notebooks in my life with a PDA and have been doing so for the last 3 years. I take all of my notes on my PDA, do my math on it, etc. Even if I'm just doing the calculations myself, writing them out, I do it in a notes app on the PDA- I can edit my writings in a far cleaner way.
To each his own though- I know a ton of people who love the way paper feels above all else. And that's fine, but not for me. You can't grep a dead tree.
Slashdot Mirror
The POOREST in a capitalist state like ours are still much better off than the middle class in china.
/year, quite below the poverty line- I am better off than a lot of the other folks world.
Methinks you've no concept of who really are the POOREST in the US.
Certainly, even though I'm a poor college kid (no help from rents, mind you) by most USian standards- making around $10k
That said, the poorest people anywhere are very likely to be below the middle-class in most any coutry. Middle-class Chinese folks have a place to live, where the poorest in the US does not. Seems like a substantial difference to me.
Furthermore, we don't live in a capitalist state, rather something else for which I've not the word. We surely don't have much a free market economy, regardless of the propaganda.
Actually, there is that fellow who has been legally selling real estate on the moon since the 70s. I remember seeing a newer article (perhaps via slashdot?) but see this older article for some info. He's made a good $6 million doing it, too. see google news.
What is video like on RDC? From some posts here, it sounds like RDC is very nice and fast- except for with video and perhaps flash animation.
I've never used RDC for any real work. Although a co-worker at one of my jobs uses it often. When he is working, he is just using his desktop via RDC. He'll listen to MP3s, web browse and do work in dreamweaver with no problems- I thought it looked pretty damn fast. IIRC it's only a 10 Mbps network too, going from where we work on campus (the helpdesk, woot) to his dorm room. A lot faster than TightVNC or X11 is at home for me, even on a 100 Mbps network.
What do I know about speed- I use a 400 MHz XScale machine as my primary box. I have a linux/win2k file server (can't fit all the MP3s on memory cards!) and occasionally use VNC or X11 to admin/get to some app I can't run on WinCE.
Can I do RDC/terminal services on Win2k without having to find some copy of Win2k terminal server? I know on XP you cna just turn it on, no? What about on 2k?
How much does that go for?
I have a small handheld PC-like device which runs Windows CE.NET 4.1 on a 400 MHz XScale PXA255. It is real WinCE, *not* PocketPC and as a result, sucks a lot less... It has a 800x480 screen and these days is my primary computer. It has a little built-in keyboard on which I can easily touch-type; after an hour of owning it, I am able to type just about as fast as I could on a full-blown keyboard, although symbols are a bit funky. (they are in the Japanese locations, shift-2 = " etc) It cost $480. Until Tablet PCs and things like this airpanel come down in cost, I will stick to my real computer.
Yes, I can connect via X11 (XFreeCE), VNC, or Terminal Services if I want to file server tower, but almost never do. I got it all on this Sigmarion III. I do use VNC for Matlab, though.
Yes, I agree- AOL does suck royally. I used to use it quite a bit when I was a kid (under GEOS!) when fake generated CC#s worked for a month of free access and there weren't many other consumer-level options.
:P
I hadn't used it for the longest time after that until a couple of years ago, when I was interning out of town. I figured I'd just use 3 free months-o-AOL CD/codes rather than buying net access for the summer. I couldn't even get through the first month of free access- it sucked that bad. I called to cancel and they offered me 3 more months which I turned down flatly. I honestly can't believe people pay $25/mo for that shit when they could get access through some local company for $10/mo.
Constant issues with flakiness, the app would tell me that my phone jack was disconnected. Having a lot of experience with dialup, I knew it wasn't that- and since there was only one phone (and no call waiting), I knew it wasn't someone else picking up the phone in the flat. Even worse, at least on Mac OS 9.x and under, AOL installs some proxing app that is always running in the background, presumably to catch TCP/IP requests and tunnel them through its service, as it's not just vanilla PPP. Buuut, this app stayed loaded and running at all times, even if I wasn't signed on, which really killed the machine's stability. No OS 9 is no champ in that regard, but when you have it set up and have a feel for what might fuck up your machine, it's as solid as NT (whatever that means!). This lil app managed to fuck everything up, especially if I was doing network stuff when not on-line; I was developing some networking code and webapp-ish stuff at the time but just making requests to localhost... It would hard freeze randomly when prior to installing AOL I hadn't experienced these issues.
After cancelling, I downloaded Altavista Free access, which was surprisingly nice. Yes, it put a little adbar on my screen, but nothing I couldn't deal with a virtual desktop app, though I usually left it in view- it was paying for my access, after all. The connection was faster, cleaner, and a lot more robust. A shame most/all of those free ad-based PPP things are gone, although I wouldn't have a need for them.
Of course, that doesn't meantion all of the other AOL annoyances- ads every time I signed on that I had to click through/close before the rest of the system could make TCP/IP requests (iCab, IRC, etc). And even though I thought I was careful about saying no about making informatioin public, I still got at least one request from from kid or kid pretending to be a 14-year old girl for cyber sex... I mean, "RevAaron01" doesn't sound all that female to me, but who knows.
Yeah, there one was a day when going to some AOL keyword got you content you couldn't get on the general web/net- but every keyword I tried out during the time I had AOL back then just opened up a regular AOL browser to a regular website, which looked and worked the same if I loaded it in any other web browser...
I wonder if this offer is valid with AOL Broadband, that way you could be on Broadband, and still have a cheap PC.
Yes and no. I imagine you're welcome to sign-on to AOL Broadband through another broadband service, just like any other AOL Member can. However, I doubt you can get this deal if you want to stick to one of those cheaper ($9/mo?) broadband accounts that don't allow you to use the dial-up service.
Does AOL provide broadband itself in some areas? Cable or DSL?
Umm, then you wouldn't buy this dealie. I'm not sure what the big deal is- if you're the type that enjoys AOL, then this isn't a bad deal. Sure, you could get a similar machine for $300, but without a printer or monitor. Printers you can get cheap, but a 17" monitor still isn't some $50 retail thing thrown in, like a really crappy scanner or printer.
If you want to use Linux without AOL, why would not get another machine? Why is this even being discussed? Just something to whine about?
Opiates are definately an odd case- they won't kill you if you don't overdose (Or have some ultra-rare allergic condition). Unlike amphetamines, cocaine and crack, and alcohol, the drug over time doesn't seem to have any lasting negative side effects. Your metabolism is changed while under the influence, which can lead to the stereotypical skinny junkie, But unlike many drugs, your brain, your heart, and other organs don't come out damaged.
My post certainly didn't meant to say "la,la,la, drugs are safe and tasty too!" but one must know a lot about any drug they are considering taking, have a respect for its power...
Have you ever known a person who used drugs, but because of various sociological, financial and personal reasons, didn't fuck up? It may sound amazing, but our coutnry is filled with fairly well-adjusted drug addicts, people who don't have to beg, borrow and steal to support their habits. Normal people with family and friends who also happen to use some drug(s). They may have a physical or psychological addiction to it, or they may not. Relatively intelligent people with a good family have polled off the healthy drug addict routines for thousands of years; drugs destroying neighborhoods is a relatively new phenomenon, bought about more by poverty and a piss-poor existance than the drugs.
That said, those people shouldn't have access to drugs if they can't handle them. Their lives need to be rehabilitiateed before there is any drug problem. As if that will ever happen though. Not when we treat them like criminals before they've even taken a drug or committed a crime...
Although WHY on earth they're doing it is beyond me - it's not like they need to squeeze even MORE money out of the computer industry.
That's capitalism for you- unless your business is always growing it is failing. MS has to find some way to continue to grow, and perhaps submarine patent licensing is simply a new "market."
Heh, VMS Mobile. Where do I get one of those? I could go for a PDA running VMS Mobile and DECwindows... badass.
I think Miguel just has the sense to know when to copy a good idea of Microsoft's (whether or not they actually thought of it first) and to be at peace with that. It's certainly better than the alternative, what some of the other guys do- copying Microsoft's ideas on one hand, but on the other trash talking MS to not end. In the end, they're both still trying to make a windows clone.
Heh. Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to. :)
fyi- GIFs are bad for screenshots. Use PNG or JPG. Your images look utterly horrendous. :P
I third this. Best window manager ever, for me at least, on big screens and small.
AHOY THIS SHIT is
getting annoying. heh. so much pirate talk, jeeze. I about had an brain tumor grow out of nowhere to put me out my my misery. I don't think I could play this game, tumor and all.
Nitpick:
Now, is this a good reason to move to Linux? I mean, if this is the reason for small manufacturers to move, had DoCoMo chosen Windows, they would probably have moved to that instead. Oh well.
They didn't choose Linux, at least, no more than they did Symbian or Microsoft's SmartPhone. They simple choose to provide specs for manufactuers of iMode compliant phones who wish to make Linux phones. They aren't making the phones themselves, and certainly are not switching to Linux.
Yeah, it's too bad you can't buy PDAs that run EPOC32/Symbian anymore. Some of those phones are almost as good- the P800 for instance- but it'd be nice if there were a few Symbian devices that were simply dedicated PDAs.
Just as long as they don't use Qtopia, but I rather doubt it. There is no way that a 18 MB memory footprint at boot with no apps started for a Linux + Qtopia setup is good.
And does it really matter that this phone will run Linux? That alone is not a reason to buy it, at least not for me.
That is not a reason to buy it for almost anyone- except a lot of the Linux cheerleading slashdot crowd. NTT DoCoMo certainly won't be marketing this as a special Linux phone, in a lame attempt to cash in on interest in Linux without having to produce a decent system; at least, they won't if they want this phone to be a decent seller to general consumers, which is their style.
OK, this post may be long. I've had a number of iterations of hardware, OS and apps over the years, but I'll give a couple of them to you with some comments.
:) For instance, I used a spreadsheet app called QuickFigure Works. Like any spreadsheet, it has functions; and like any spreadsheet, invarably there are functions I wished I had but didn't. On most platforms, you'd be stuck with defining it in the terms of existing spreadsheet functions, on a desktop system you would have a BASIC scripting language, though. On the Newton you had access to NewtonScript, something far more powerful and elegant. The original authors didn't intend me to do this, but with the power of NewtonScript at my disposal, I simply opened up a view on the QuickFigure Works app, had a look around and found the array of available spreadsheet functions. I then just added a new one, writing the body in NewtonScript. I could make a proper package out of it later if I wanted to, to make the addition permanent, or to share with others.
1st Gen:
The first iteration of my paper-less setup was a Newton MP2100, keyboard, 8 MB flash card, and 3com ethernet card. I owned 3 other PDAs before this (Newton OMP, MP120/OS 1.3, and a VTech Helio running Linux), though none of them were this good. In most ways, this Newton was still the best PDA I've ever had. It was by far the best PDA I had for taking notes. Any PDA has notetaking software that let allow you to sketch the notes rather than only enter text. A decent PDA will have software that allows you to mix text and sketches in the same note. But only the Newton allowed you to write your notes in text or sketches in the same note, and allow some of those sketches to be searchable, just like the text stuff. Naturally, some sketched things aren't recognizable, but there were times where I wanted to enter something in text mode for one reason or another, but still be represented as text if need be.
There is also the convenience of being able to manipulate your text and drawings; the Newton takes input as Text (typed, recognized, Graffiti, etc), Ink Text (treated like text, but your handwriting is retained), Sketches (just drawings), and Shapes (vector graphics). It was normal to enter a graph in Shapes mode, and if I needed to make one axis longer or something, I could easily just pull it out, without warping the rest of the drawing. It's great not to have to use an eraser, but just to select and move, delete, modify your drawings and writings.
Built-in Newton OS Notes all > Built-in PocketPC Notes app > IQNotes for the Zaurus (Unfortunately the best notes app for the Zaurus)
And that's a logarithmic scale. No joke.
I did a little experiment when I first started taking my notes on the Newton- I made my class notes from General Biology I available online. All taken on my Newton.
The Newton was also the most powerful PDA in other ways unrelated to notes. It was a hackers dream- it was a fully object oriented system, and with a debugging/inspecting tool like ViewFrame, you could explore the entire system by taking a trip through Object Wonderland.
The beauty of that is that I could do that without having explicit support from the author of the app itself- it was just a feature of an extensively dynamic, consistent, introspective, reflective and just plain cool OO system.
2nd Gen:
Then I went to Windows CE. My girlfriend told me it wouldn't work, but I was determined- while the Newton was powerful (162 MHz StrongARM CPU in the days when the fastest PocketPC was still 206 MHz- and I could upgrade the Newton to 220 if I wanted) and very capable, I wanted to run Squeak Smalltalk, my programming weapon of choice. A port to the NewtonOS would be very hard for a number of reasons. It was tried, but never made it to fruition. So I wanted a WinCE machine, which could run Squeak.
I first bought an iPA
When you say that it is a bit like Mathematica, what exactly do you mean? When you say it is a bit like Mathematica, do you just mean that it's a math app, and Mathematica is your only frame of reference? Or do they have similar strengths or syntax?
... yet!). But if Pari/GP would be able to do the stuff I need- matrices, eigens, some symbolic manipulation, etc- and be better than Maxmia in other ways I may consider using it instead.
From my understanding, Pari/GP's concentration is number theory where Mathematica's is symbolic computation.
I have used Matlab/Octave, Mathematica, and Maxima but never Pari/GP and I'm curious what Pari/GP can do. I've the most experience with Matlab/Octave, and at least right now, there isn't a good Octave environment for either Linux or WinCE PDAs, so I am thinking of learning Maxima, as there is a good environment for it on WinCE at least (but not Linux PDAs
Just because you can recompile some math app for the Z doesn't mean it's the best option. You can target Octave for the Zaurus, but it's a pain in the ass to use without any sort of interface created specifically for a handheld.
:P
No wonder... it's this kind of attitude that seems to convince people that recompiling is taking a port far enough- no wonder there are more good Unix adaptations for WinCE than there are for the Zaurus.
Runs on WinCE/PocketPC PDAs as well as the Zaurus (and other Linux PDAs).
I've completely replaced paper notebooks in my life with a PDA and have been doing so for the last 3 years. I take all of my notes on my PDA, do my math on it, etc. Even if I'm just doing the calculations myself, writing them out, I do it in a notes app on the PDA- I can edit my writings in a far cleaner way.
To each his own though- I know a ton of people who love the way paper feels above all else. And that's fine, but not for me. You can't grep a dead tree.