Re: interpreted languages

> From: Arent Kits van Heijningen <kitsvh@bio.vu.nl>
> Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:04:43 +0100
> To: "Jim Gettys" <jg@pa.dec.com>,
> "Handhelds Mailing list " <Handhelds@handhelds.org>
> Subject: Re: [Handhelds] interpreted languages
> -----
> jg@pa.dec.com (Jim Gettys) wrote:
> (2000/09/28 07:22)
>
> >
> >I agree the Jornada looks like a really nice machine for its form factor.
> >
> >Last I heard, HP was being stingy about specs to enable it to be supported:
> >is my memory correct? Or have they seen the light?
>
> Wich light ? This thing is hardly 2 weeks on the market and trickling in at
> resellers , it is not sheduled to reach the markets in large quantities
> before Christmas season
> HP approaches the post-PC/post-MicroSoft market more stealthily than Samsung
> and CompaQ , they catered for use in MicroSoft-free environments by including
> the CHAI JVM in ROM in addition to a PCCard slot supporting
> networking,vgaout, and scsi

Microsoft supports these things under WinCE: we also support PCMCIA on
the iPAQ. And it was nice of HP to do the VGA card: we hope to get it
running on the iPAQ, but they didn't do a full PCMCIA implementation so
the card doesn't do the normal ID stuff, and we have some headscratching.
>
> Rest assured , this thing will be running Linux/NetBSD within weeks
> Using Java/Python is a faster route to support these things in MicroSoft-free
> environments as no reflash is needed ( the Python interpreter for MS-CE is
> however in need of an update )

I hope you are right. It did take us (Compaq) several months to get our
ducks in a row about the iPAQ to go public with the specs, but this was
mostly internal confusion. I hope HP is in a similar state.
>
> remember that there is as yet no handheld with Linux/netBSD in volume
> production , this is NOT likely to happen before the end of Q2 of next year !
>
We're at volume production (our problem is that people want a much higher
volume that we expected), but the time isn't yet ripe to preinstall Linux,
given the state of the environment... Time will tell what the right thing
to do is. Most commercial interest we see to date is more around vertical
applications, rather than end users.

In any case, the Jornada 720 looks like very nice machine, though I haven't
physically seen one, and would be a nice compliment to our system.

                                - Jim

--
Jim Gettys
Technology and Corporate Development
Compaq Computer Corporation
jg@pa.dec.com