Re: Handheld device

[Francois-Rene Rideau <fare@xxxxxxxxx>]

>>: Fare Rideau
>: Greg Alexander

>> For a handheld dream machine, I'm getting more and more interested
>> in ARM-based designs: Psion Series 5 is readily available and runs Linux!
> 
> I have a rule against purchasing portable machines that will run Linux --
> it's too much bloat!
I sure wouldn't want to run Linux on a resource-starved handheld device.
The reason why it is important that the device can run Linux is that
1) the architecture be well documented enough for a free software OS
to have been developed (and hence have free development tools and device
drivers), and 2) it be powerful enough to cope with even the Linux bloat,
so it will have plenty of resources for a well-designed system :)

>> [Gameboy pad and buttons on edges]
> [remind 7-key OKAD]
Yup, I thought about that, too. So that with a pad and 4 to 8 buttons
(including power/reset/whatever), we can have quite a useable system.
All the more if sound AD/DA allow for voice interface (?),
and USB (or otherwise serial extensibility) allow to plug a keyboard
(or there be a pen).

> IrDA is a bad idea.  The group controlling the standard is best defined as
> annoying, at worst assholes.
Indeed. That's why I considered it as a remote possibility,
just in the improbable case the IrDA group becomes more sensible.

I *really* need to go to sleep!

[ "Faré" | VN: Уng-Vû Bân | Join the TUNES project!   http://www.tunes.org/  ]
[ FR: François-René Rideau | TUNES is a Useful, Nevertheless Expedient System ]
[ Reflection&Cybernethics  | Project for  a Free Reflective  Computing System ]
The reason why we must be tolerant is NOT that everyone is as right as
everyone else. It is that no system allows to reliably distinguish right
and wrong beforehand. Only by having the right to err can one have the
right to be correct. The attitude of tolerance is thus to let the fools be
victims of their own folly rather than of ours, as long as they in turn
do not impose their folly upon us.