The other thing is, Tegra is a LOT more GPU-dependent than any other ARM SoC - it's got a CPU that runs at somewhere in the ballpark of 1/6 to 1/4 the speed (and I don't mean clock, I mean performance) of everyone else's Cortex and Snapdragon-based SoCs, IIRC.
Keep in mind that Windows Mobile and Windows CE are two different products.
To put it another way... think of (insert Linux distro running kernel 2.4 with a bunch of shit backported from 2.6 here) and Linux.
The Windows Mobile that your phone runs is BASED on Windows CE. (FWIW, that's Windows CE 5.2, not the current 6.0.) It's got quite a lot of UI and even some bits of API, IIRC, different from plain Windows CE.
The best you can do is go up to the 12.1" form factor, double the weight to get a tablet hinge, and get a previous-gen Fujitsu or Lenovo tablet with a 1400x1050 screen. Which is what I did in 2007. (Well, I could've gotten a non-tablet that weighed 3.3 pounds, but to get the 1400x1050 screen, it had to be a 4.3 pound tablet.)
And now I'm moving to a ThinkPad T60p 15", just to get a 2048x1536 display - look for IAQX10N and IAQX10S on eBay and Google, it's a 15" QXGA panel for laptops. And thinkpads.com has directions on retrofitting that panel to the R/T60 line. (I'm sending my panel off to someone else to get it reflashed, though, which is the hardest part.)
What that article is forgetting is chipset power, which is 2.3 W for the Poulsbo, which is more expensive and requires a more expensive (although 2 W instead of 2.5 W) CPU. So, 4.3 W there.
But, most netbooks run the cheaper Atom N270 and 945GSE, which is... 2.5 W for the CPU, 6 W for the northbridge, and 3.3 W for the southbridge. Total platform power consumption, 11.8 W.
The problem is, people in general don't care about choice, they care about stuff working. And the more fragmentation/freedom/forking/whatever f word you want to use to describe it, the less stuff just works, the more confusing stuff is.
There's always something that some people want that there's no open source equivalent for. And, remember that people consider netbooks as underpowered laptops, not as portable internet appliances.
It certainly brings speed to the table - I've got an old Acorn RiscPC with a 233 MHz StrongARM, and it's surprisingly usable (and in many day-to-day tasks, might just be faster than my ThinkPad with a Core 2 Duo running XP...) but it's mainly a curiosity at least for me, and many of the limitations of RISC OS have been mentioned already.
The ARMs aren't THAT slow. If it's usable on an Atom, it'll probably be usable on a modern ARM.
And, here's the kicker... the ARMs have hardware DSPs that the Atoms don't, making them potentially much faster in certain situations, if software takes advantage of the DSP. (Granted, that does require modification.)
One thing that doesn't require modification to the code, it just requires the JVM to be modified, is Java acceleration - many ARM processors, including the ones under discussion, have Jazelle support, which means that they natively support a subset of Java bytecode. Seeing as "complete development environments" were mentioned... and Eclipse is written in Java...
Usually "integrated graphics" refers to graphics on the northbridge, not a discrete 2D chip on the motherboard - that Supermicro board has a Matrox chip on there to handle 2D graphics.
They do put habitual gamblers deeply in debt, but the difference is, the habitual gambler has convinced himself that he "needs" to keep gambling, but can walk away at any time.
Scientology actively tries to block people from leaving, casinos passively try to block people from leaving.
Also, I was under the impression that the harassment and murder stuff was used against those that were too SUCCESSFUL, not those that were too unsuccessful or trying to stop gambling. Not that it's good.
But Scientology uses various tactics to FORCE you to stay in the organization. Putting you deeply in debt, isolating you from all of your friends and family so that it's hard to reconnect with them if you leave Scientology, harassment, suspected murder, etc., etc.
Casinos do none of that. Sure, there's psychological pressure to keep gambling, but you can walk away at any time with no repercussions, and they don't do anything to actively make walking away painful.
Windows 1.x and 2.x supported full cooperative multitasking, just like Windows 3.x.
The only thing that I'm thinking was an issue was multitasking of DOS applications, and that was a hardware limitation in Real (Windows 1.x and 2.0x) and Standard (Windows/286 2.1x) modes, and it affected Windows 3.x in those modes, too. And, Windows/386 2.1x didn't have that issue, being the first 386 Enhanced version of Windows.
There's only one other thing, on Windows 1.x... it only had tiled windows. But that's the window manager, not the kernel, and it didn't affect multitasking.
Slashdot Mirror
The other thing is, Tegra is a LOT more GPU-dependent than any other ARM SoC - it's got a CPU that runs at somewhere in the ballpark of 1/6 to 1/4 the speed (and I don't mean clock, I mean performance) of everyone else's Cortex and Snapdragon-based SoCs, IIRC.
Keep in mind that Windows Mobile and Windows CE are two different products.
To put it another way... think of (insert Linux distro running kernel 2.4 with a bunch of shit backported from 2.6 here) and Linux.
The Windows Mobile that your phone runs is BASED on Windows CE. (FWIW, that's Windows CE 5.2, not the current 6.0.) It's got quite a lot of UI and even some bits of API, IIRC, different from plain Windows CE.
Nitpick: That's StrongARM (ARMv4i) and ARM11 (ARMv6.)
Anyway, yeah, the best bet probably is Ubuntu for these things, not WinCE.
They ask their geeky friend to install a pirated copy of Office for them. If you're lucky, said geeky friend installs OpenOffice.org instead.
The best you can do is go up to the 12.1" form factor, double the weight to get a tablet hinge, and get a previous-gen Fujitsu or Lenovo tablet with a 1400x1050 screen. Which is what I did in 2007. (Well, I could've gotten a non-tablet that weighed 3.3 pounds, but to get the 1400x1050 screen, it had to be a 4.3 pound tablet.)
And now I'm moving to a ThinkPad T60p 15", just to get a 2048x1536 display - look for IAQX10N and IAQX10S on eBay and Google, it's a 15" QXGA panel for laptops. And thinkpads.com has directions on retrofitting that panel to the R/T60 line. (I'm sending my panel off to someone else to get it reflashed, though, which is the hardest part.)
There's also the Zip GS, that's a decent enough option, too. Looks like Digital Dinos has some.
Anyway, although I strongly dislike the iPhone, I did this to my GS: http://i539.photobucket.com/albums/ff354/bhtooefr/apple2gs.jpg
What that article is forgetting is chipset power, which is 2.3 W for the Poulsbo, which is more expensive and requires a more expensive (although 2 W instead of 2.5 W) CPU. So, 4.3 W there.
But, most netbooks run the cheaper Atom N270 and 945GSE, which is... 2.5 W for the CPU, 6 W for the northbridge, and 3.3 W for the southbridge. Total platform power consumption, 11.8 W.
The problem is, people in general don't care about choice, they care about stuff working. And the more fragmentation/freedom/forking/whatever f word you want to use to describe it, the less stuff just works, the more confusing stuff is.
There's always something that some people want that there's no open source equivalent for. And, remember that people consider netbooks as underpowered laptops, not as portable internet appliances.
It certainly brings speed to the table - I've got an old Acorn RiscPC with a 233 MHz StrongARM, and it's surprisingly usable (and in many day-to-day tasks, might just be faster than my ThinkPad with a Core 2 Duo running XP...) but it's mainly a curiosity at least for me, and many of the limitations of RISC OS have been mentioned already.
Performance would be terrible, but I suspect it would be usable for some stuff.
IIRC, FX!32 could run x86 applications on a ~533 MHz Alpha at equivalent speed to a 233 MHz Pentium II. Back then, that was decent.
Of course, ARM doesn't have the extreme clock speed advantage over x86 that Alpha did, but I'd suspect it'd be in the fast Pentium II ballpark.
The ARMs aren't THAT slow. If it's usable on an Atom, it'll probably be usable on a modern ARM.
And, here's the kicker... the ARMs have hardware DSPs that the Atoms don't, making them potentially much faster in certain situations, if software takes advantage of the DSP. (Granted, that does require modification.)
One thing that doesn't require modification to the code, it just requires the JVM to be modified, is Java acceleration - many ARM processors, including the ones under discussion, have Jazelle support, which means that they natively support a subset of Java bytecode. Seeing as "complete development environments" were mentioned... and Eclipse is written in Java...
I'm wondering if the OP was looking for WISPs, like what you find in rural areas...
Run their trojan in WINE, in an account that can't do anything?
Or that they're also run by the corrupt lawyers?
Microsoft is big enough to push a migration to ARM, though. If Apple can pull it off, Microsoft sure as hell can.
Just push out a silent update to Visual Studio that makes an ARM/IA32/AMD64 fat binary by default.
Here in the US, Symbian is almost unheard of, and Microsoft does quite well here in the smartphone market. (But, RIM definitely is a major player.)
The parent may not want to run x86 cruft, but the mass market wants to run Windows apps.
This means x86 cruft.
Usually "integrated graphics" refers to graphics on the northbridge, not a discrete 2D chip on the motherboard - that Supermicro board has a Matrox chip on there to handle 2D graphics.
They do put habitual gamblers deeply in debt, but the difference is, the habitual gambler has convinced himself that he "needs" to keep gambling, but can walk away at any time.
Scientology actively tries to block people from leaving, casinos passively try to block people from leaving.
Also, I was under the impression that the harassment and murder stuff was used against those that were too SUCCESSFUL, not those that were too unsuccessful or trying to stop gambling. Not that it's good.
Oh, I certainly thought of that.
But Scientology uses various tactics to FORCE you to stay in the organization. Putting you deeply in debt, isolating you from all of your friends and family so that it's hard to reconnect with them if you leave Scientology, harassment, suspected murder, etc., etc.
Casinos do none of that. Sure, there's psychological pressure to keep gambling, but you can walk away at any time with no repercussions, and they don't do anything to actively make walking away painful.
Because Scientology won't let you walk away, casinos will.
There's also using Polaroids as proof shots for large format work.
Arguably, Al-Qaeda's power, and therefore the war on terror, comes from us hiring Afghans to fight the Soviets.
So, preventing one war by preparing for it started another.
Windows 1.x and 2.x supported full cooperative multitasking, just like Windows 3.x.
The only thing that I'm thinking was an issue was multitasking of DOS applications, and that was a hardware limitation in Real (Windows 1.x and 2.0x) and Standard (Windows/286 2.1x) modes, and it affected Windows 3.x in those modes, too. And, Windows/386 2.1x didn't have that issue, being the first 386 Enhanced version of Windows.
There's only one other thing, on Windows 1.x... it only had tiled windows. But that's the window manager, not the kernel, and it didn't affect multitasking.