RE: [jornada] pm with jornada720 flashrom

On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Roy, Sumit wrote:

> Hmm,
> considering that I `reverse engineered' the
> FLASH based boards, I'd really like see the
> design made public. Meanwhile, I will lean
> a little harder on the powers that be ...

I think there will be a ready and commercially viable market for
these boards if HP manufactured & supported them as an 'official'
option; from the interest expressed in this mailing list the demand
might seem small to HP but what if the J710/720/728 got the reputation
for being 'the' Linux handheld it so richly deserves to be? OK, a lot
of people are buying iPaqs, Yoppys and Zaurus because they run Linux
but if they could buy something that had all the features of the
Jornada 720 (like the real keyboard, screen, etc) then I'm sure sales
would rise - there are a lot of Linux users out there who'd jump at the
chance of getting a sub-miniature Linux PC.

> The boards cost us +$100 a piece for the low
> volume that we did in the original batch. A
> major PIA is that the connectors are typically
> sold in quantities of 10,000 (!). FLASH ROMs,
> DRAM etc. is not much of a problem in small lots.

Perhaps a deal could be negotiated with the connector suppliers for a
smaller quantity but higher cost? It would still be worth it.

cheers,

Andy

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jamey Hicks [mailto:jamey.hicks_at_hp.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 7:58 AM
> > To: Jacek Lipkowski
> > Cc: jornada_at_handhelds.org
> > Subject: Re: [jornada] pm with jornada720 flashrom
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 2003-02-27 at 10:28, Jacek Lipkowski wrote:
> > > On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Jamey Hicks wrote:
> > >
> > > > In response to the plea for flashroms, I think we could
> > release the
> > > > design to someone who wanted to fabricate the flash modules.
> > >
> > > could HP make the design publicly avaliable? (not only to
> > "interested
> > > parties").
> >
> > What I meant by my comment above was to make the design publicly
> > available. We're working on getting it cleared for publication now.
> >
> > >
> > > btw. whats keeping HP from just making these boards and
> > selling them?
> >
> > It's too low volume. However, I think that there are companies that
> > specialize in this kind of thing.
> >
> > > - judging from the amount of hits that my page regarding
> > booting linux on
> > > the jornada (around 4000) there is alot of people desperate
> > enough to boot
> > > linux via hpcboot - so probably at least a few hundred would buy the
> > > board. ask Peter how many people downloaded his images.
> >
> > I would like to get the jornada720 supported on handhelds.org under
> > Familiar, even including hpcboot, but I do not have time to work on
> > this. I think it would be best to discuss this further on
> > irc.freenode.net #handhelds.org when nelson and I are around.
> >
> > -Jamey
> >
> >
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> >
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Received on Thu Feb 27 2003 - 20:07:18 EST