Re: [jornada] Jornada 720 vs Sharp Zaurus

On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Peter Gerwinski wrote:

> Hello, Andy!
>
> > [...] and that one day I could replace WinCE with Linux or NetBSD.
>
> This was my primary reason for buying a Jornada 710 (which is the
> 720 without the internal modem). So far, I am primarily using it
> as a paperweight and as a platform for experiments, but things are
> slowly getting better.
>
> The current state is that I have GNU/Linux/X11 up and running with
> - latest news! - PCMCIA support and a custom (German) keyboard
> layout. Using a PCMCIA network adapter, I can `ssh' from and to the
> Jornada, including `scp' for file transfer. (FTP, NFS, etc would be
> possible, but I prefer `scp'.) (Thanks again, Viktor!:-)

Yes, I prefer scp (and sftp) too. But the basic WinCE installation on the
J720 doesn't include a ftp client, although you can download from anonymous
ftp sites using Internet Explorer. (Trouble with that is as soon as it
sees an MP3 file it tries to play it when what I really wamted to do was save
it to CF memory!)

> The main obstacle is missing power management. It seems to be
> impossible to get the Jornada back from sleep mode without a
> replacement ROM from HP - which I do not have. :-(Hmm... is it
> possible to burn such a thing by oneself? Any hardware hackers
> around here?)

Is there anything special about that ROM or is it a standard part?

> My hope is that there will be, in the future, at least a possibility
> to reduce power consumption by switching off the display - which
> would enable me to use the Jornada for the intended purpose as an
> organizer (with `vim', `bc', `cal', etc).
>
> > I'm now looking enviously at the Sharp Zaurus [...]
> > But what's the keyboard really
> > like to use? It seems tiny compared with the 720's - this is very important
> > to me as a mainly shell user and one reason why I chose the 720 over, say,
> > the iPaq.
>
> Same here. Exactly.
>
> I did not try it by myself, but a German computer magazine reported
> that some people have succeeded to type with ten fingers on its
> keyboard. However: My hands are comparatively small, and I find the
> Jornada's keyboard to be the smallest one that I can use with ten
> fingers for more than just experiments.

I've been put off the Zaurus for the moment as others have pointed out the
keyboard (and screen) are smaller than the Jornada's. I too have smallish
hands but find it difficult to type with more than two fingers on the
Jornada, let alone 10! How do you do it?

> There is another device called "Yopi" which comes with Linux
> pre-installed and which has a keyboard of reasonable size with five
> keys in a row, Y U I O P located below Z X C V B. I can imagine that
> it can be reasonably used with one or both hands, using a 5- or
> 10-finger system. Unfortunately I did not succeed to find it in a
> hardware shop.

I have seen pictures of this and it looks interesting although the
keyboard looks like it might take getting used to.

> My opinion: There is nothing which can replace the hardware of
> the Jornada 710/720. It's a pity that it makes so much trouble
> to install GNU/Linux on it. IMO, HP's decision to install Microsoft
> Windows CE on it was a mistake: Those who prefer the Jornada 710/720
> over an ordinary PDA are the same people who prefer a shell over a
> GUI - and thus the typical Unix/GNU/Linux users.

That's right. So HP should have offered a Linux version perhaps, as well
as WinCE.

Well, I am a much, much happier person today than I was yesterday - I
visited Rainer Kuechel's site http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/
(thanks Curt!) and now my Jornada has vim, a shell, various text utils,
gzip, tar, ftp client and even apache up & running. All this is running on
WinCE, not Linux, but I can for the first time since I bought it actually
begin to use it for something other than a terminal. (I have no use for
the Microsoft applications that came with it - Pocket Access, Excel, Word,
etc and the only things I ever used were the HP dialler and Mochasoft's
ssh/telnet client). I wrote a couple of shell scripts on the train home
(using vim), plus a page for the web server! I will be adding more things
tonight - perl, etc and even Xfree.

> In case HP decides to sell those replacement ROMs I would be one of
> the first to order one.

Me too! I hope someone in marketing at HP is reading this - HP could sell
a huge number of Linux J710/720/728s as there are lots of Unix/Linux
people around who find other PDAs rather limiting. But even if they don't
do this, please make the ROMs available!

Andy
Received on Wed Oct 09 2002 - 19:21:05 EDT