Long have C people rallied behing it for all uses simply because it can (and usually should) be used for writing drivers or kernels, even when the application in question is a desktop GUI app.
No longer does that argument apply- Schemix could be a great tool for those without a prejudice against Lispish languages who want to develop drivers or learn about the kernel. The value of an interactive environment cannot be understaed in the realm of learning, debugging, and development. I imagine this could be especially useful with kernel development, where debugging can be a bit harder than the usual user-space app.
Naturally, for most drivers, you'll end up converting or compiling the code to C from Scheme, but I imagine there are some situations where straight-up Scheme would perform fine. From what I can tell, Schemix itself doesn't include an implementation of a Scheme->C compiler, but I bet some wrappers for one of the many Scheme compilers could be written to allow folks to write, develop and debug drivers/kmods in in Scheme, and when you're all ready to deploy, compile to C.
Let's hope this sort of thing is the future of development- the lucky of us out there have been doing this for desktop development with Smalltalk and Lisp systems for quite a while.
You *can* touch-type on a keyboard this small. Up until just recently, I was using a Jornada 720 for a lot of things, and it is about the size of this MiniPC. I could touch-type quite easily- and after a couple hours of getting used to it, was typing about as fast as I do on my iBook or on a desktop. I could type fast enough to use it as a definate iBook replacement- I used it for writing papers in LaTeX, coded, web browsing, SSH/telnet, email, even running apps remotely with XFree86. (And yes, all under WinCE)
However, I do notice one huge difference between this miniPC and the Jornada720 (or a Psion)- the keyboard of the latter was meant for touch typing, while the miniPC's keyboard doesn't look like it was. Look at a photo of it, and it looks to have little rubber chicklet keys rather than a regular low-travel spring keyboard mechanism. A keyboard built like a real one, just 25% smaller than full size, is why people can type so fast on a Psion or a Jornada 720.
The only reason I don't use it still is the screen isn't reflective like you find on most color PDAs now, making it useless during the summer, when I do these computing tasks outside on the porch or in the woods up against a tree.
Why can't one company make a device that does what so many of these different new small computers are aiming for? All of them seem to have some imperfection-
1. The Sharp Zaurus C700: The keyboard mechanism and size is way too small for doing any real typing on. It is a thumboard, although one slightly bigger than on the SL-5500. I guess a PXA255 XScale CPU instead of the PXA250 would be nice too.
2. The OQO may never come out, but would be damn close to the perfect thing if a good, yet small (75% of 'full size', size of most Psion and Jornada 720 keyboard) attachable keyboard is available.
3. This miniPC has the bad kind of keyboard and cannot be configured into a tablet mode like the C700. There doesn't appear to be a touch screen, so it does seem that the Vulcan folks really weren't thinking, and didn't consider a tablet mode. Any computer aiming to take the place of both a notebook and a PDA really should accomodate the wide variety of situations that are hindered by a keyboard that isn't needed hanging around by allowing the user to hide it and operate the computer with a touchscreen.
I doubt you are the only one. I can't say I liked Jar-Jar all around, but I'm not ashamed to laugh when something he did was funny. I mean, christ, it sure if fun to jump on the "Jar-Jar suxxxxx" bandwagon, but that is a helluva lot more lame than Jar-Jar himself.
You can get some Palm OS models pretty cheap, like the Zire at $99, but PocketPCs aren't as expensive as you may think. Rather, they're not all that expensive and haven't been for a couple years. Yes, there are $700 PocketPCs, but there is also an $800 Sony PalmOS device.
You can buy a 300 MHz Dell Axim for $200. Before that, you could buy a iPAQ 3100 series for $150-200. A Palm OS device that does everything that these do can't be found, but something mostly similar in functionality as well as hardware capability easily costs $300 with the Zire 71, and $400 before that. How much did that m515 cost when you got it? I imagine quite a bit more than $200, when for that money you could've had a much more functional device. Don't take that the wrong way, I am not saying people should just buy PocketPCs instead of POS devices, but don't pretend that PocketPCs are all $500+ (as you say) while POS devices are all cheaper.
A giant case? Heh. You're grasping at straws my man. Yes, pretty much any PocketPC is thicker than a Palm m515 for sure. But look at the newer Palms, just as big as an iPAQ. I guess a 206 MHz processor rather than a funny little 20 MHz Dragonball, a relatively big screen compared to a silly 160x160 as well more RAM may have something to do with that.
Again, I don't think that PocketPCs are better for everyone, but you've got your reality distortion glasses glued on if you think that Palms are half the price of most PocketPCs, or that PocketPCs don't fit in a pocket. Maybe you should employ google or a local retailer and have a look at PocketPCs, new and old...
Umm, I don't think I missed your point considering I said "I guess they could have flash built-in, such that you'd have 16 MB of regular RAM and then the 256 MB Flash, which would basically just be an internal SD card."
But yeah, it would be nice if they did do something like that. I mean, 256 MB of RAM is like $20- battery back it (skip the flash), and bam, there you go, a cheap place for a lot of data.
Yes, I've tried IQNotes. See my post about notetaking on the Zaurus in this same story... IQNotes falls woefully short. For now though, that is what I am using on the Z- at least I can get some organization to the notes.
You probably don't have to complie anything, just grab the right packages from debian-arm.
Again, what good would that do me? The LaTeX package for debian-arm would be good to have, but I am still stuck without anything useful, as there is no practical front-end for LaTeX on the Z. Furthermore, it was simply an example out of many similar- a cohesive LaTeX package for the Z may show up, and I hope it does... but that won't fix all the other problems with the Zaurus.
I don't think that's a fair statement. There are 807 applications currently listed in the Zaurus Software Index. Seems like someone's doing software development.
Perhaps my statement was a bit confusing. Naturally, I do not think that there is really no one doing any development for the Z, and that isn't what I meant to say. However, anyone who has used a Zaurus for more than a few minutes and has previous experience using almost any other PDA (Newton, PocketPC, WinCE, PalmOS, Psion) knows that the Z is sorely lacking good apps. Look through the ZSI, try out as many of those apps as I have- a lot of them simply duplicate the functionality of another Zaurus app with a few changes, but not really improving toward an actually good or great app. And there are some great apps for the Z, don't get me wrong. I am still using mine.
However, what the tax payers want isn't so much of a concern. If you think it is, you are dreaming. Most big research Universities want some of their projects to be profitable, and run the place accordingly. Yup, it sucks and leaves what the tax payer wants completely out of the equation.
Indeed, the Zaurus sucks at a number of things. The disapointment and shock I experienced moving from an Apple Newton MP2100 to the Zaurus was quite gigantic.
Some of those things you mention may not seem like actions most people would perform very often... But one thing I've not been able to do worth a damn on my Z is take notes. The built-in software is worthless, and I have yet to find a third-party app which can do the job. It's kind of funny, but mostly sad- what the Newton did so perfectly, and Pocket PC does good enough, the Zaurus fails entirely.
I am not talking about little memos, but real notes. I am a college student, and have been using a MP2100 for taking all of my notes in lecture for 4 years now. Since the Zaurus has no real handwriting recognition, and not even decent character recognition (the built-in CR is way too slow when writing letters), a notes app that takes notes in drawn form is a must. If anyone knows of an app, or future app for the Zaurus that has the following features, I'd be willing to pay $50-
1. Be able to organize notes. A monolithic list of all the damned notes on the PDA, without any sort of sorting or organization is worthless.
2. Have a continuous scrolling canvas for writing notes, not something fixed at either the size of the Zaurus screen (as with IQNotes) or fixed at some pixel value (as in DrawPad).
3. Have the notes stored in some sort of vector format, not straight bitmaps. A 5 page note, approx 220x1500 in pixel size should not be 60+ KB.
4. The app should be able to keep up with the drawing. That is, in DrawPad, you cannot even draw a circle without it being recognized as a 12-sided polygon. I don't know, maybe the Qtopia events system sucks or is very slow.
Optional feature, but it would be very nice: 5. Be able to take both text and drawn notes in the same note. See the built-in PocketPC notes or Newton notes for an example.
Overall, my Zaurus experience has taught me that Qt/Embedded is really poor for writing pen-based applications. It works wonderfully if you're just wanting to write an app that works about the same as it would on the desktop, but with a design better fitting the small screen, but as soon as you want to write something that really fits the way one interacts with a PDA, it seems to really lack.
Dynapad, my own OS/OE for PDAs already has a Notes app that is light-years ahead of anything on the Zaurus. Luckily, Dynapad runs on the Zaurus (and faster than on a similarily CPU'd iPAQ!), but until other apps in Dynapad are more functional than on the Zaurus (which they are fast approaching- not to brag, it's just the built-in Z apps are not hard to beat), I'd really like a Qtopia solution.
(Anyone want to buy me Z for $200, incl shipping? Only two weeks old... rev aaron {at} hotmail {dot} com )
256 MB on board wouldn't be possible as far as regular RAM is concerned. I guess they could have flash built-in, such that you'd have 16 MB of regular RAM and then the 256 MB Flash, which would basically just be an internal SD card.
Why do we see POS devices top out at 16 MB? That is, until Palm OS 5.2.1 and the Tungstep C... That is because, until a few days ago, POS devices couldn't have more than 16 MB of internal RAM! You see, Palm did us all a favor and had a major breakthrough in technology, allowing the PalmOS to finally utlitize more than 16 MB of RAM.
That sounds great and all, but guess what? You still couldn't have your 256 MB of on-board RAM, because-- even with this super-advanced technological breakthrough -- the POS can still only have 128 MB of RAM. How splendidly limiting!
Yup. It's funny, and we've all seen it. Yet, there is nothing that can challenge the Newton in a lot of respects, with POS and Linux (Qtopia or X11) devices not offering any sort of real HWR. You can get Newton-like real HWR on PocketPC, Windows CE, desktop Win32 and OS X, but there is scarecely a device worth using it on, between something too big (a laptop or big tabletPC) and too small (a PocketPC).
I just watched that again and was surprised to see that they made no cracks about the HWR not working right- I thought that the guy would write "Your girlfriend called" and the Newton would recognize "Your girlfriend dumped you." I think that "WARMING UP" part actually was longer than it takes for a Newton to boot after a reset, and it certainly has instant-on regularily.:P
If by proper keyboard you mean a slightly bigger thumboard, then you'd be right. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but the C700's keyboard is far from proper. I was hoping it was something touch-typable- a small keyboard on the order of that of the Jornada 720 or a Psion. Not so. Stop by in #zaurus on ircfreenode.net sometime, there are a couple folks there who are C700 users. The keyboard can only be used practically for thumboarding, it isn't a regular keyboard at all. It looks like one in the photos, though. I wanted one pretty darn bad, and almost considered trading in my iBook for one, but I am very glad I sought one out before making any rash decisions about spending US$700 on something with a bigger screen, but otherwise no better than a SL-5600.
Why can't someone make me the perfect (for me) PDA? The C700 would be if it had a bigger keyboard. The concept is great, but what use is such a tiny keyboard- it's too small to type anywhere near fast, yet it takes up so much space. Oi.
Why could Palm make something like the o-Zire, but not so shitty? I mean, yes, not everyone needs a super-fancy PDA- but I've met plenty of non-nerd folks who would like a simple PDA with a backlight and maybe 4 MB of RAM.
Sure, it sucks, but what do you expect? Research universities are all about the money- why do you think they're so well funded? Why do you think they do that research? Because they do research that in some percentage of the time produces something they can make a return on. Universities don't get rich off that 48.5% they get in overhead off an NSF grant... Yes, that pays the bills, but project commercialization and subsequent profit is what pays for expansion of programs and physical conquest as well as for all the non-profitable research going on.
It seems like shitty thing, especially when you're youngue and impressionable- an undergrad or master's student with her head full of ideas about Freedom and Information Equality. I wish it was that way, but most people aren't willing to fund science for its own sake- they want a return on that investment.
While POS devices have typically had very tiny screens, with these models they're the same as what you can get in the PocketPC world. The Sony models at 480x320 have the same res of a Newton screen, but are physically smaller and Palm OS still lacks the advanced features of the Newton OS. Some non-PocketPC WinCE PDAs have a screen about the size of Newton 2100, but they're overpriced and hard to find. It is a damn shame- it is a huge pain in the ass to take notes on a tiny 320x240 screen, especially when you've been spoiled by a Newton 2100...
Believe it or not, different people have different needs/wants.
For me, a Palm m100 is mostly worthless. For that matter, any current Palm OS model is. I use my PDAs like a 'real computer,' it is just as useful (or perhaps even more so) than a cheap laptop.
But then again, as you say, until Palm makes a PDA that replaces a cheap laptop, you'd have no reason to upgrade. And I would have no reason to buy a Palm OS device. Perhaps by Palm OS 6, the POS will both be good enough for me and compelling enough for you. For someone who uses a PDA as an overpriced organizer and gimpy gamestation, darn near any model of POS device works great. My girlfriend has a very old Palm Pro, and besides the hardware sucking, I does pretty much everything the vast majority of what POS users do with their Palms. No wifi, no color, but eh. POS is POS, how useful is that stuff without a real OS backing it?
The main PDAs I've used were a Newton MP2100, a Jornada 720, and a Zaurus. The first two managed to be great for both using as a computer as well as a PDA- the Newton was 100% perfect for notetaking. The Jornada wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. (No reflective screen, so I had to say bye-bye)
The Zaurus is another story alltogether- it kind of sucks as both a small 'real' computer as well as a PDA. No decent notetaking app exists for it and the software can often be slow, memory-hoggish, and flakey. Oddly enough, I honestly think that there has been more Unix software ported and adapted to WinCE (which I used on my Jornada 720) than for the Zaurus. Take for instance LaTeX- I could certainly cross-compile the full distro. I could even show that I'm super l33t and run LyX under X11... But why the hell would I want to waste my time doing that? With WinCE and PocketPC, there were a couple nice packages that gave you an integrated LaTeX front-end. Tap on a button and it would compile the TeX and display it in a port of WinDVI. Not so for the Zaurus... it seems people are too busy cheerleading that no one has time for any software development.
And yes, I'm taking matters into my own hands and working on Dynapad, a PDA OE/OS which manages to already pack more functionality is a number of ways than the Zaurus does- 1 developer (me) vs all of them. Heh.
Hrmm, definately an interesting way of doing it- with arbitrary keywords. Huh, whodathunk.:) But yes, it helps quite a bit, just what I was wondering. Thanks again!
Naturally #Smalltalk is a wrapper around the.NET object system- and I didn't say to imply that SmallScript or other languages on.NET merely compile/convert to C#. However, I meant that some.NET implementations merely take the syntax of the language in question and one-to-one it with the regular.NET API. In Smalltalk, with a library many of us are quite used to that would suck. For something like a C.NET, that'd be fine. However, I've seen lisp implementations where you have a very-very barebones regular lisp library, and then have to use.NET like so:
without even wrapping it all around a Scheme or CL library. Poor example perhaps, but I am just singing praise all the same.:)
How does #Smalltalk deal with method names? That is, let's say you have a method called addTwoThenRaise(int x, int y) that would do, in Smalltalk [:x:y | (x + 2) raisedTo: y ]. In Smalltalk, we'd name that method like MyClass>>#addTwo:thenRaise:. In #Smalltalk would one call a method defined in C# as addTwoThenRaise(int x, int y) like obj addTwoThenRaise: #(10 22) ?
1. What about the.NET mobile runtime for WinCE 3 and 4? I suppose it is up to how much is or isn't supported/provided in the WinCE.NET runtime, but it'd be great to have that combo!
2/3. that is really good to hear! It sounds like SmallScript diverges quite a bit from regular Smalltalk in that it adds a bunch of new syntax and looses some other Smalltalk features to work better with the.NET runtime.
Your last paragraph is exactly why I'm interested in real Smalltalk running on.NET- I'd love to have access to pretty much every library for Windows, but do it all using Smalltalk, to never have to soil myself with an inferior language.:P Some.NET implementations just seem to be a syntax wrapper around C#, but #Smalltalk sounds more like my thing.:)
Whoops- at first I thought this was for the #Smalltalk channel over at irc2.parcplace.net.:)
Since it looks like Don is reading this thread, I'll go ahead and ask here-
1. What are the chances we'll see this running on Mono or dotGNU? Or on WinCE using the WinCE.NET runtime?
I'm running OS X myself, with a Dell Axim and a Sharp Zaurus for the development and testing of Dynapad (a PDA OE in Squeak Smalltalk), and I'd love to be able to develop in Smalltalk using.NET for the Axim and using Mono for both my iBook and Zaurus!
2. How much different is this from the regular Smalltalk we all know and love? Does it come with a Smalltalk IDE like we see in Squeak, St-80 or VW, or do you develop #Smalltalk code in VisualStudio? Even though it is compiled to a DLL, can you do all the great runtime tricks Smalltalk is known for?
Can I still develop using the traditional image method and then compile when I want to deploy?
3. How does this differ from #S or SmallScript?
I will be trying this as soon as I can tommorow at work, where my only Windows machine is. I have a lot of hope for.NET, and think that version of Smalltalk for.NET could be a very wonderful thing, as long as it doesn't sacrifice some of Smalltalk's better features to run on the.NET runtime.
Thanks to the #Smalltalk team for an awesome contribution!
(rev in #squeak on irc.freenode.net and irc2.parcplace.net)
It was a joke, but incidentally also somewhat true. It certainly isn't a 'law,' but an alarmingly large amount of open source projects just attempt to emulate some MS app.
There are definately a lot of open source projects which aren't like MS stuff, but it isn't what is getting used with the majority of users. No, xedit is little like notepad.exe, but very few people use it. GNOME and KDE and a lot of associated projects do little to 'innovate' outside what MS has already done, to use MS's catchphrase.
Not that I personally think this is too bloated, but in my own PDA operating environment/OS, I manage to fit in about 8 MB a PIM as well as a web browser; IRC client; email client; full development environment including a robust, mature IDE; graph plotter; a cross-platform windowing toolkit and window manager; an object database (used for data storage) and a bunch of useful libraries.
If they are working with Python, I guess that is the what happens- you get stuck with a big runtime. My only point is that these things can be included in a dynamic language runtime without making it quite so huge... Python could do better, but I don't see any push to do so in the Python community. (and no, I'm not ripping on Python!)
explain to me the difference between something like this and VNC, X11, ssh and the nature of OSS software.
Again, I urge you to read the article. If it still is unclear, have a look at the flash demo. This isn't a VNC clone or anything like it. What does "the nature of OSS software" have to do with it? I mean, how does it factor in to the difference between VNC or X11+ssh and this Sproqit app?
Repeat after me: "This application does not do remote display of desktop apps." This app does not duplicate the functionality of VNC or X11. This app allows you to get to the data on your desktop, with a UI tailored for the PDA. I use Konq on my Z as well, and I think that is swell.
However, that doesn't change anything as far as easily getting at the information on my desktop without having to deal with potentially poor syncing solutions or going through the trouble of doing a port to a new device. This Sproqit thing would make getting at this data a lot easier than doing a port of an app. Perhaps you don't do any programming yourself, but porting OpenOffice to the Z will prove to be a pretty damn hard task- unless you're talking about some theoretical future-Zaurus that is a lot faster, has a lot more RAM, and more storage space. [1] Or do you mean not a port of OO to the Z, but just running it using VNC or a remoted X window? Ha! A huge OpenOffice window displayed on the wee Zaurus screen is the stuff of demos, not real work.
What is this scriptability and automation you speak of? Are you just talking about the ability to write shell scripts as well as python/ruby/perl/etc, or something more? That is, like DCOP or AppleScript? I don't have real automation on my Z, but if there is a way to get it, I'd certainly be interested in hearing about it. If you're talking about the former- big deal! You can get that on just about any platform, PocketPC/WinCE included.
I don't use WMA. I don't own any sort of machine which can play a WMA file, I merely mentioned it because it was an option that was perfectly functional for playing music at the time you bought a Z for playing music. Call me crazy, but I like my audio-player to last longer than one or two hours when playing music.
Again, let me remind you that I am a Zaurus owner myself, I'm not saying it's a bad machine, and I'm not saying that it's useless.
[1] Well, you could always get up to 20 GB on a Z using a CF->PCMCIA adapter and a 20 GB PCMCIA harddrive. But then again, you could do this on any platform with a PCMCIA slot and ATA/IDE support, including Newton OS and WinCE.
RTFA. You do not have the functionality that I or the article is talking about on your Z. I have it to an extent on my Z, but that is only because it is software that I am writing and that no one really has their hands on so far.
So, people who want to use the best tool for the job- in a lot of cases, what this Sproqit app provides- are just lazy morons? C'mon, I'm sure all the bois think you're awful 1337, but get off it. Why do you need a portable Ogg player? Why not just settle for a P100 laptop? If you're willing to take a hit in usefulness just so you can play Oggs (when plenty of MP3 and WMA players are and were already available), it seems that you are the lazy moron who isn't willing to take some minor inconvenience.
The best tool for the job of taking notes would be a good PDA. And no, the Zaurus doesn't make a good notetaking platform nor much of a good PDA. The Newton was truly the best tool for the job of taking notes, for me, PocketPC does the job adequately. There are a number of advantages of taking notes on a PDA.
And yes, I know I'm wasting my time trying to reply to a troll... but sometimes, it's so hard to resist!
The product talked about in the article isn't about duplicating the functionality of X11 or VNC on a PDA- that can already be done using free and open source software on many PDAs already, including the Newton, PocketPC, vanilla WinCE, PalmOS, and PDA Linux.
It's neat- but as a person working on a "next-generation" [1] computing environment for PDAs called Dynapad, I see it as a symptom of poor applications and application frameworks on both the PDA and the desktop.
In Dynapad, this app is completely
It is really too bad too see companies working on various PDAs- Microsoft, Palm Source, and those providing LInux PDA solutions- staying so... legacy. The PDA is the perfect opportunity to actually move forward in software, but these companies stick to the ways we do things on the desktop. The notable exception is the Newton OS, but Apple killed that.
Dynapad uses a database as it's means of data storage, rather than flat text or binary files using a wide variety of file formats- many of which are poorly documented or not documented at all. In Dynapad, if I want to get at the data on my desktop, I just specify the IP address for the database to use, or simple use the local one. Naturally, you have a different UI in the PDA mail client than in the desktop version, but the underlying data can be used in either. No magic tricks, no special pain-in-the-ass programming. I'd even say it is easier to write code using this system than to go through the motions of inventing a new file format or even using XML.
Just because something is old doesn't make it bad. However, there is a point at which it does make sense to move past the old paradigms and start to do things the better way. Dynapad is aiming to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
Long have C people rallied behing it for all uses simply because it can (and usually should) be used for writing drivers or kernels, even when the application in question is a desktop GUI app.
No longer does that argument apply- Schemix could be a great tool for those without a prejudice against Lispish languages who want to develop drivers or learn about the kernel. The value of an interactive environment cannot be understaed in the realm of learning, debugging, and development. I imagine this could be especially useful with kernel development, where debugging can be a bit harder than the usual user-space app.
Naturally, for most drivers, you'll end up converting or compiling the code to C from Scheme, but I imagine there are some situations where straight-up Scheme would perform fine. From what I can tell, Schemix itself doesn't include an implementation of a Scheme->C compiler, but I bet some wrappers for one of the many Scheme compilers could be written to allow folks to write, develop and debug drivers/kmods in in Scheme, and when you're all ready to deploy, compile to C.
Let's hope this sort of thing is the future of development- the lucky of us out there have been doing this for desktop development with Smalltalk and Lisp systems for quite a while.
You *can* touch-type on a keyboard this small. Up until just recently, I was using a Jornada 720 for a lot of things, and it is about the size of this MiniPC. I could touch-type quite easily- and after a couple hours of getting used to it, was typing about as fast as I do on my iBook or on a desktop. I could type fast enough to use it as a definate iBook replacement- I used it for writing papers in LaTeX, coded, web browsing, SSH/telnet, email, even running apps remotely with XFree86. (And yes, all under WinCE)
However, I do notice one huge difference between this miniPC and the Jornada720 (or a Psion)- the keyboard of the latter was meant for touch typing, while the miniPC's keyboard doesn't look like it was. Look at a photo of it, and it looks to have little rubber chicklet keys rather than a regular low-travel spring keyboard mechanism. A keyboard built like a real one, just 25% smaller than full size, is why people can type so fast on a Psion or a Jornada 720.
The only reason I don't use it still is the screen isn't reflective like you find on most color PDAs now, making it useless during the summer, when I do these computing tasks outside on the porch or in the woods up against a tree.
Why can't one company make a device that does what so many of these different new small computers are aiming for? All of them seem to have some imperfection-
1. The Sharp Zaurus C700: The keyboard mechanism and size is way too small for doing any real typing on. It is a thumboard, although one slightly bigger than on the SL-5500. I guess a PXA255 XScale CPU instead of the PXA250 would be nice too.
2. The OQO may never come out, but would be damn close to the perfect thing if a good, yet small (75% of 'full size', size of most Psion and Jornada 720 keyboard) attachable keyboard is available.
3. This miniPC has the bad kind of keyboard and cannot be configured into a tablet mode like the C700. There doesn't appear to be a touch screen, so it does seem that the Vulcan folks really weren't thinking, and didn't consider a tablet mode. Any computer aiming to take the place of both a notebook and a PDA really should accomodate the wide variety of situations that are hindered by a keyboard that isn't needed hanging around by allowing the user to hide it and operate the computer with a touchscreen.
4. Almost all TabletPCs are too damn big.
I doubt you are the only one. I can't say I liked Jar-Jar all around, but I'm not ashamed to laugh when something he did was funny. I mean, christ, it sure if fun to jump on the "Jar-Jar suxxxxx" bandwagon, but that is a helluva lot more lame than Jar-Jar himself.
You can get some Palm OS models pretty cheap, like the Zire at $99, but PocketPCs aren't as expensive as you may think. Rather, they're not all that expensive and haven't been for a couple years. Yes, there are $700 PocketPCs, but there is also an $800 Sony PalmOS device.
You can buy a 300 MHz Dell Axim for $200. Before that, you could buy a iPAQ 3100 series for $150-200. A Palm OS device that does everything that these do can't be found, but something mostly similar in functionality as well as hardware capability easily costs $300 with the Zire 71, and $400 before that. How much did that m515 cost when you got it? I imagine quite a bit more than $200, when for that money you could've had a much more functional device. Don't take that the wrong way, I am not saying people should just buy PocketPCs instead of POS devices, but don't pretend that PocketPCs are all $500+ (as you say) while POS devices are all cheaper.
A giant case? Heh. You're grasping at straws my man. Yes, pretty much any PocketPC is thicker than a Palm m515 for sure. But look at the newer Palms, just as big as an iPAQ. I guess a 206 MHz processor rather than a funny little 20 MHz Dragonball, a relatively big screen compared to a silly 160x160 as well more RAM may have something to do with that.
Again, I don't think that PocketPCs are better for everyone, but you've got your reality distortion glasses glued on if you think that Palms are half the price of most PocketPCs, or that PocketPCs don't fit in a pocket. Maybe you should employ google or a local retailer and have a look at PocketPCs, new and old...
Umm, I don't think I missed your point considering I said "I guess they could have flash built-in, such that you'd have 16 MB of regular RAM and then the 256 MB Flash, which would basically just be an internal SD card."
But yeah, it would be nice if they did do something like that. I mean, 256 MB of RAM is like $20- battery back it (skip the flash), and bam, there you go, a cheap place for a lot of data.
Yes, I've tried IQNotes. See my post about notetaking on the Zaurus in this same story... IQNotes falls woefully short. For now though, that is what I am using on the Z- at least I can get some organization to the notes.
You probably don't have to complie anything, just grab the right packages from debian-arm.
Again, what good would that do me? The LaTeX package for debian-arm would be good to have, but I am still stuck without anything useful, as there is no practical front-end for LaTeX on the Z. Furthermore, it was simply an example out of many similar- a cohesive LaTeX package for the Z may show up, and I hope it does... but that won't fix all the other problems with the Zaurus.
I don't think that's a fair statement. There are 807 applications currently listed in the Zaurus Software Index. Seems like someone's doing software development.
Perhaps my statement was a bit confusing. Naturally, I do not think that there is really no one doing any development for the Z, and that isn't what I meant to say. However, anyone who has used a Zaurus for more than a few minutes and has previous experience using almost any other PDA (Newton, PocketPC, WinCE, PalmOS, Psion) knows that the Z is sorely lacking good apps. Look through the ZSI, try out as many of those apps as I have- a lot of them simply duplicate the functionality of another Zaurus app with a few changes, but not really improving toward an actually good or great app. And there are some great apps for the Z, don't get me wrong. I am still using mine.
Well said- I wholeheartedly agree!
However, what the tax payers want isn't so much of a concern. If you think it is, you are dreaming. Most big research Universities want some of their projects to be profitable, and run the place accordingly. Yup, it sucks and leaves what the tax payer wants completely out of the equation.
Indeed, the Zaurus sucks at a number of things. The disapointment and shock I experienced moving from an Apple Newton MP2100 to the Zaurus was quite gigantic.
Some of those things you mention may not seem like actions most people would perform very often... But one thing I've not been able to do worth a damn on my Z is take notes. The built-in software is worthless, and I have yet to find a third-party app which can do the job. It's kind of funny, but mostly sad- what the Newton did so perfectly, and Pocket PC does good enough, the Zaurus fails entirely.
I am not talking about little memos, but real notes. I am a college student, and have been using a MP2100 for taking all of my notes in lecture for 4 years now. Since the Zaurus has no real handwriting recognition, and not even decent character recognition (the built-in CR is way too slow when writing letters), a notes app that takes notes in drawn form is a must. If anyone knows of an app, or future app for the Zaurus that has the following features, I'd be willing to pay $50-
1. Be able to organize notes. A monolithic list of all the damned notes on the PDA, without any sort of sorting or organization is worthless.
2. Have a continuous scrolling canvas for writing notes, not something fixed at either the size of the Zaurus screen (as with IQNotes) or fixed at some pixel value (as in DrawPad).
3. Have the notes stored in some sort of vector format, not straight bitmaps. A 5 page note, approx 220x1500 in pixel size should not be 60+ KB.
4. The app should be able to keep up with the drawing. That is, in DrawPad, you cannot even draw a circle without it being recognized as a 12-sided polygon. I don't know, maybe the Qtopia events system sucks or is very slow.
Optional feature, but it would be very nice:
5. Be able to take both text and drawn notes in the same note. See the built-in PocketPC notes or Newton notes for an example.
Overall, my Zaurus experience has taught me that Qt/Embedded is really poor for writing pen-based applications. It works wonderfully if you're just wanting to write an app that works about the same as it would on the desktop, but with a design better fitting the small screen, but as soon as you want to write something that really fits the way one interacts with a PDA, it seems to really lack.
Dynapad, my own OS/OE for PDAs already has a Notes app that is light-years ahead of anything on the Zaurus. Luckily, Dynapad runs on the Zaurus (and faster than on a similarily CPU'd iPAQ!), but until other apps in Dynapad are more functional than on the Zaurus (which they are fast approaching- not to brag, it's just the built-in Z apps are not hard to beat), I'd really like a Qtopia solution.
(Anyone want to buy me Z for $200, incl shipping? Only two weeks old... rev aaron {at} hotmail {dot} com )
256 MB on board wouldn't be possible as far as regular RAM is concerned. I guess they could have flash built-in, such that you'd have 16 MB of regular RAM and then the 256 MB Flash, which would basically just be an internal SD card.
Why do we see POS devices top out at 16 MB? That is, until Palm OS 5.2.1 and the Tungstep C... That is because, until a few days ago, POS devices couldn't have more than 16 MB of internal RAM! You see, Palm did us all a favor and had a major breakthrough in technology, allowing the PalmOS to finally utlitize more than 16 MB of RAM.
That sounds great and all, but guess what? You still couldn't have your 256 MB of on-board RAM, because-- even with this super-advanced technological breakthrough -- the POS can still only have 128 MB of RAM. How splendidly limiting!
Yup. It's funny, and we've all seen it. Yet, there is nothing that can challenge the Newton in a lot of respects, with POS and Linux (Qtopia or X11) devices not offering any sort of real HWR. You can get Newton-like real HWR on PocketPC, Windows CE, desktop Win32 and OS X, but there is scarecely a device worth using it on, between something too big (a laptop or big tabletPC) and too small (a PocketPC).
:P
I just watched that again and was surprised to see that they made no cracks about the HWR not working right- I thought that the guy would write "Your girlfriend called" and the Newton would recognize "Your girlfriend dumped you." I think that "WARMING UP" part actually was longer than it takes for a Newton to boot after a reset, and it certainly has instant-on regularily.
If by proper keyboard you mean a slightly bigger thumboard, then you'd be right. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but the C700's keyboard is far from proper. I was hoping it was something touch-typable- a small keyboard on the order of that of the Jornada 720 or a Psion. Not so. Stop by in #zaurus on ircfreenode.net sometime, there are a couple folks there who are C700 users. The keyboard can only be used practically for thumboarding, it isn't a regular keyboard at all. It looks like one in the photos, though. I wanted one pretty darn bad, and almost considered trading in my iBook for one, but I am very glad I sought one out before making any rash decisions about spending US$700 on something with a bigger screen, but otherwise no better than a SL-5600.
Why can't someone make me the perfect (for me) PDA? The C700 would be if it had a bigger keyboard. The concept is great, but what use is such a tiny keyboard- it's too small to type anywhere near fast, yet it takes up so much space. Oi.
Why could Palm make something like the o-Zire, but not so shitty? I mean, yes, not everyone needs a super-fancy PDA- but I've met plenty of non-nerd folks who would like a simple PDA with a backlight and maybe 4 MB of RAM.
Especially when it is the Palm OS driving it- what is the use of a 400 MHz CPU in a PDA if the OS ls so archetecturally limited?
Sure, it sucks, but what do you expect? Research universities are all about the money- why do you think they're so well funded? Why do you think they do that research? Because they do research that in some percentage of the time produces something they can make a return on. Universities don't get rich off that 48.5% they get in overhead off an NSF grant... Yes, that pays the bills, but project commercialization and subsequent profit is what pays for expansion of programs and physical conquest as well as for all the non-profitable research going on.
It seems like shitty thing, especially when you're youngue and impressionable- an undergrad or master's student with her head full of ideas about Freedom and Information Equality. I wish it was that way, but most people aren't willing to fund science for its own sake- they want a return on that investment.
While POS devices have typically had very tiny screens, with these models they're the same as what you can get in the PocketPC world. The Sony models at 480x320 have the same res of a Newton screen, but are physically smaller and Palm OS still lacks the advanced features of the Newton OS. Some non-PocketPC WinCE PDAs have a screen about the size of Newton 2100, but they're overpriced and hard to find. It is a damn shame- it is a huge pain in the ass to take notes on a tiny 320x240 screen, especially when you've been spoiled by a Newton 2100...
Believe it or not, different people have different needs/wants.
For me, a Palm m100 is mostly worthless. For that matter, any current Palm OS model is. I use my PDAs like a 'real computer,' it is just as useful (or perhaps even more so) than a cheap laptop.
But then again, as you say, until Palm makes a PDA that replaces a cheap laptop, you'd have no reason to upgrade. And I would have no reason to buy a Palm OS device. Perhaps by Palm OS 6, the POS will both be good enough for me and compelling enough for you. For someone who uses a PDA as an overpriced organizer and gimpy gamestation, darn near any model of POS device works great. My girlfriend has a very old Palm Pro, and besides the hardware sucking, I does pretty much everything the vast majority of what POS users do with their Palms. No wifi, no color, but eh. POS is POS, how useful is that stuff without a real OS backing it?
The main PDAs I've used were a Newton MP2100, a Jornada 720, and a Zaurus. The first two managed to be great for both using as a computer as well as a PDA- the Newton was 100% perfect for notetaking. The Jornada wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damn good. (No reflective screen, so I had to say bye-bye)
The Zaurus is another story alltogether- it kind of sucks as both a small 'real' computer as well as a PDA. No decent notetaking app exists for it and the software can often be slow, memory-hoggish, and flakey. Oddly enough, I honestly think that there has been more Unix software ported and adapted to WinCE (which I used on my Jornada 720) than for the Zaurus. Take for instance LaTeX- I could certainly cross-compile the full distro. I could even show that I'm super l33t and run LyX under X11... But why the hell would I want to waste my time doing that? With WinCE and PocketPC, there were a couple nice packages that gave you an integrated LaTeX front-end. Tap on a button and it would compile the TeX and display it in a port of WinDVI. Not so for the Zaurus... it seems people are too busy cheerleading that no one has time for any software development.
And yes, I'm taking matters into my own hands and working on Dynapad, a PDA OE/OS which manages to already pack more functionality is a number of ways than the Zaurus does- 1 developer (me) vs all of them. Heh.
Hrmm, definately an interesting way of doing it- with arbitrary keywords. Huh, whodathunk. :) But yes, it helps quite a bit, just what I was wondering. Thanks again!
Naturally #Smalltalk is a wrapper around the .NET object system- and I didn't say to imply that SmallScript or other languages on .NET merely compile/convert to C#. However, I meant that some .NET implementations merely take the syntax of the language in question and one-to-one it with the regular .NET API. In Smalltalk, with a library many of us are quite used to that would suck. For something like a C.NET, that'd be fine. However, I've seen lisp implementations where you have a very-very barebones regular lisp library, and then have to use .NET like so:
:)
:x :y | (x + 2) raisedTo: y ]. In Smalltalk, we'd name that method like MyClass>>#addTwo:thenRaise:. In #Smalltalk would one call a method defined in C# as addTwoThenRaise(int x, int y) like obj addTwoThenRaise: #(10 22) ?
(call some-dotnet-object "myMethod" 1 "hello" 42.3)
without even wrapping it all around a Scheme or CL library. Poor example perhaps, but I am just singing praise all the same.
How does #Smalltalk deal with method names? That is, let's say you have a method called addTwoThenRaise(int x, int y) that would do, in Smalltalk [
Thanks for the reply!
.NET mobile runtime for WinCE 3 and 4? I suppose it is up to how much is or isn't supported/provided in the WinCE .NET runtime, but it'd be great to have that combo!
.NET runtime.
.NET- I'd love to have access to pretty much every library for Windows, but do it all using Smalltalk, to never have to soil myself with an inferior language. :P Some .NET implementations just seem to be a syntax wrapper around C#, but #Smalltalk sounds more like my thing. :)
1. What about the
2/3. that is really good to hear! It sounds like SmallScript diverges quite a bit from regular Smalltalk in that it adds a bunch of new syntax and looses some other Smalltalk features to work better with the
Your last paragraph is exactly why I'm interested in real Smalltalk running on
Whoops- at first I thought this was for the #Smalltalk channel over at irc2.parcplace.net. :)
.NET runtime?
.NET for the Axim and using Mono for both my iBook and Zaurus!
.NET, and think that version of Smalltalk for .NET could be a very wonderful thing, as long as it doesn't sacrifice some of Smalltalk's better features to run on the .NET runtime.
Since it looks like Don is reading this thread, I'll go ahead and ask here-
1. What are the chances we'll see this running on Mono or dotGNU? Or on WinCE using the WinCE
I'm running OS X myself, with a Dell Axim and a Sharp Zaurus for the development and testing of Dynapad (a PDA OE in Squeak Smalltalk), and I'd love to be able to develop in Smalltalk using
2. How much different is this from the regular Smalltalk we all know and love? Does it come with a Smalltalk IDE like we see in Squeak, St-80 or VW, or do you develop #Smalltalk code in VisualStudio? Even though it is compiled to a DLL, can you do all the great runtime tricks Smalltalk is known for?
Can I still develop using the traditional image method and then compile when I want to deploy?
3. How does this differ from #S or SmallScript?
I will be trying this as soon as I can tommorow at work, where my only Windows machine is. I have a lot of hope for
Thanks to the #Smalltalk team for an awesome contribution!
(rev in #squeak on irc.freenode.net and irc2.parcplace.net)
It was a joke, but incidentally also somewhat true. It certainly isn't a 'law,' but an alarmingly large amount of open source projects just attempt to emulate some MS app.
There are definately a lot of open source projects which aren't like MS stuff, but it isn't what is getting used with the majority of users. No, xedit is little like notepad.exe, but very few people use it. GNOME and KDE and a lot of associated projects do little to 'innovate' outside what MS has already done, to use MS's catchphrase.
Not that I personally think this is too bloated, but in my own PDA operating environment/OS, I manage to fit in about 8 MB a PIM as well as a web browser; IRC client; email client; full development environment including a robust, mature IDE; graph plotter; a cross-platform windowing toolkit and window manager; an object database (used for data storage) and a bunch of useful libraries.
If they are working with Python, I guess that is the what happens- you get stuck with a big runtime. My only point is that these things can be included in a dynamic language runtime without making it quite so huge... Python could do better, but I don't see any push to do so in the Python community. (and no, I'm not ripping on Python!)
I'm not the one pretending to be brilliant.
explain to me the difference between something like this and VNC, X11, ssh and the nature of OSS software.
Again, I urge you to read the article. If it still is unclear, have a look at the flash demo. This isn't a VNC clone or anything like it. What does "the nature of OSS software" have to do with it? I mean, how does it factor in to the difference between VNC or X11+ssh and this Sproqit app?
Repeat after me: "This application does not do remote display of desktop apps." This app does not duplicate the functionality of VNC or X11. This app allows you to get to the data on your desktop, with a UI tailored for the PDA. I use Konq on my Z as well, and I think that is swell.
However, that doesn't change anything as far as easily getting at the information on my desktop without having to deal with potentially poor syncing solutions or going through the trouble of doing a port to a new device. This Sproqit thing would make getting at this data a lot easier than doing a port of an app. Perhaps you don't do any programming yourself, but porting OpenOffice to the Z will prove to be a pretty damn hard task- unless you're talking about some theoretical future-Zaurus that is a lot faster, has a lot more RAM, and more storage space. [1] Or do you mean not a port of OO to the Z, but just running it using VNC or a remoted X window? Ha! A huge OpenOffice window displayed on the wee Zaurus screen is the stuff of demos, not real work.
What is this scriptability and automation you speak of? Are you just talking about the ability to write shell scripts as well as python/ruby/perl/etc, or something more? That is, like DCOP or AppleScript? I don't have real automation on my Z, but if there is a way to get it, I'd certainly be interested in hearing about it. If you're talking about the former- big deal! You can get that on just about any platform, PocketPC/WinCE included.
I don't use WMA. I don't own any sort of machine which can play a WMA file, I merely mentioned it because it was an option that was perfectly functional for playing music at the time you bought a Z for playing music. Call me crazy, but I like my audio-player to last longer than one or two hours when playing music.
Again, let me remind you that I am a Zaurus owner myself, I'm not saying it's a bad machine, and I'm not saying that it's useless.
[1] Well, you could always get up to 20 GB on a Z using a CF->PCMCIA adapter and a 20 GB PCMCIA harddrive. But then again, you could do this on any platform with a PCMCIA slot and ATA/IDE support, including Newton OS and WinCE.
RTFA. You do not have the functionality that I or the article is talking about on your Z. I have it to an extent on my Z, but that is only because it is software that I am writing and that no one really has their hands on so far.
So, people who want to use the best tool for the job- in a lot of cases, what this Sproqit app provides- are just lazy morons? C'mon, I'm sure all the bois think you're awful 1337, but get off it. Why do you need a portable Ogg player? Why not just settle for a P100 laptop? If you're willing to take a hit in usefulness just so you can play Oggs (when plenty of MP3 and WMA players are and were already available), it seems that you are the lazy moron who isn't willing to take some minor inconvenience.
The best tool for the job of taking notes would be a good PDA. And no, the Zaurus doesn't make a good notetaking platform nor much of a good PDA. The Newton was truly the best tool for the job of taking notes, for me, PocketPC does the job adequately. There are a number of advantages of taking notes on a PDA.
And yes, I know I'm wasting my time trying to reply to a troll... but sometimes, it's so hard to resist!
The product talked about in the article isn't about duplicating the functionality of X11 or VNC on a PDA- that can already be done using free and open source software on many PDAs already, including the Newton, PocketPC, vanilla WinCE, PalmOS, and PDA Linux.
:P
It's neat- but as a person working on a "next-generation" [1] computing environment for PDAs called Dynapad, I see it as a symptom of poor applications and application frameworks on both the PDA and the desktop.
In Dynapad, this app is completely
It is really too bad too see companies working on various PDAs- Microsoft, Palm Source, and those providing LInux PDA solutions- staying so... legacy. The PDA is the perfect opportunity to actually move forward in software, but these companies stick to the ways we do things on the desktop. The notable exception is the Newton OS, but Apple killed that.
Dynapad uses a database as it's means of data storage, rather than flat text or binary files using a wide variety of file formats- many of which are poorly documented or not documented at all. In Dynapad, if I want to get at the data on my desktop, I just specify the IP address for the database to use, or simple use the local one. Naturally, you have a different UI in the PDA mail client than in the desktop version, but the underlying data can be used in either. No magic tricks, no special pain-in-the-ass programming. I'd even say it is easier to write code using this system than to go through the motions of inventing a new file format or even using XML.
Just because something is old doesn't make it bad. However, there is a point at which it does make sense to move past the old paradigms and start to do things the better way. Dynapad is aiming to do that.
[1] Sorry, couldn't help the manager-speak.