[seul-edu] Linux-based palmtop

["TJ Miller jr" <tjmiller@datc.tec.ut.us>]

I have one on the way -
http://www.agendacomputing.com

My supervisor recently requested (okay, pretty much required) that we all
carry palm-tops so that no one has any excuse for missing meetings, not
taking notes at one, etc etc. The school reimburses our out-of-pocket cost
up to $250 (the cheapest Palm Pilots are within that range), but not beyond
that. So, Instead of choosing between a decent Palm Pilot that costs too
much, and cheap one that doesn't do anything, I went with the world's first
all-Linux PDA :)

It isn't officially due out as a consumer product until April, but the
developer version is out now, and it cost me roughly $ US190, including
shipping. It comes with a standard suite of programs, but there are
cross-compilers and libs out there that allow you to build your own programs
for it, or port someone else's into it (someone even ported apache into the
thing just to say they could) Almost everything in this palmtop is GPL'd,
including the kernel. Also, the commercial version comes in 7 languages (at
least as far as I could gather from the site), though I don't know if the
handwriting recognition package can handle things like umlauts and other
non-western iso characters (something for the developer community to work
on, IIRC.) The packages used in the Agenda VR (the name of the PDA)  involve
FLTK, Busybox, Kaffe, etc etc... it also uses XF86 (albeit a smaller
version), which allows even more compatibility.

There is one caveat, though... if you get the developer version, and decide
to really tinker with it (you can even put your own MIPS-based kernel in
there if you want), expect (and expect to report) bugs. Otherwise you may
want to wait until the consumer version comes out in a few weeks.

Anyrate, I figured that if you're looking for a cheaper PDA that looks nice
but is more powerful than the Palm Pilot, go for it...

Regd's,
TJ Miller jr
Linux Instructor
http://www.datc.tec.ut.us

--
Years ago the late, great Italian racing driver Tazio Nuvolari, the survivor
of a dozen hair-raising wrecks, was asked why he chose such a dangerous
career. "How do you want to die?" asked Nuvolari. "Peacefully in bed," was
the reply. "Then how do you find the courage to turn off the lights each
night?" he mused.