>At 2003/03/17 20:24:11 John Ankcorn wrote:
>jca>
>jca> For clamshell products in the future, I honestly don't know
>jca> what the current chances are. Although there is a very strong
>jca> (but small) market for sysadmin type usages, the main product
>jca> line effort seems to be aimed at integrated pda/communications
>jca> devices. I think that this market is quite well defined
>jca> and solid and hope that there is a home for it somewhere
>jca> inside HP!
I hope so too. Many people carry around add-on after-market keyboards
so I think a clam shell makes sense. Plus the Jornada 720 is much
more expandable and no stupid bulky expansion sleeves.
>"pda/communications devices. " "Daar zegt U zo iets " goes the saying
>here in Holland , freely translated "There you have it !"
>Communicators !
I own a 9290 and it's great. There is even a version of putty for
free. I am using it to read and reply to my email. I am reply to
you now by shelling onto a server a thousand miles away and running
emacs.
>Currently , there's only Nokia's 9210/9290 , which suffers from some
>severe shortcomings compared to the 7** models
>1 Proprietary operating system and file formats
This is true but not too bad. I'm disappointed that there is no self
hosted programming for perl or ruby. There is some support for Java,
though.
>2 Ergonomic issues ( no touchscreen = certain functionality only
>available through complicated keyboard shortcuts or not accessible at
>all !)
True but we Linux users are comfortable with a CLI.
>3 Limited memory
Again true but Java doesn't need much. It's all about battery life.
Doing a lot with very little juice. I do "see out of memory" a few
times a day from loading large webpages.
>4 Bluetooth ,GPS , GPRS , CDMA and WiFi require additional box
>connected through IRDA or cable
I'd like to see blue tooth and WiFi.
>Well here's my pick :
>Keep the current form factor and size
Maybe a little larger. The keys are a bit too small.
>Replace the "dumb " passive matrix CSTN and CCFL backlight by an
>intelligent" active matrix DSTN and LED backlight (as used on SHARP's
>SL-C700 )
Yes. The communicator has a great screen, BTW. Something like that.
The only thing I would change would be to make it 1/4 wide screen
aspect ratio. Is 640x380 right?
>This makes room to integrate Bluetooth and WiFi antennae and chips in
>the lid of the device Double up the PCMCIA slot to allow a
>TDMA/GPRS/HSCSD and a CDMA card to be inserted and used at the same
>time
No, pcmcia for wireless networking, any telephony card or maybe
GPS. There is no need for two slots.
>Provide support for combocards like the Nokia D211 ( and similar
>products from the other Symbian partners ) That it becomes thicker in
>the process , so it be , this is a small price to pay for simultaneous
>use of two cards Voice support for both built-in modem as well as
>cards ( latter may require a headset supplied by card manufacturer )
Ditch the modem in favor of a power-over-Ethernet port right where
the modem is now. This would enable it to be used as a WiFi access
point with a built in console. Maybe even charge the batteries this
way too. If you need a modem get a pcmcia/cf/usb/irda one from the
aftermarket. That's what's done for Ethernet now. I say swap their
positions!
>Provide support for MMC as well as CF in bottom card receptacle
Naw, you can use a pcmcia or CF adapter. If such a slot is included
it should support SD as well since they come in 1GB sizes now.
>Make the ROM a plug-in module (slot behind the battery , so preloaded
>ROMS can be shipped to both corporations and end users )
Naw - but dual booting Wince and Linux would be nice. There are some
Wince for-pay programs I like.
>Make the specs available from DAY ONE to both the Open Source as well
>as the MicroSoft/Palm community
I would not expect this. Except maybe the hardware specs for Linux/BSD
porters.
>Provide at least 128 MByte RAM Broadcast-quality voice recorder
Don't they already have this? Can't you record straight to the CF
card? It would nice to record straight to mp3 format. Maybe some kind
of hardware mpeg encoder might be neccesary to include. It would be
nice to be able to mpeg encode in realtime.
>Fully supported USB host port instead of serial port
Yes. Have an option to turn on power kinda like when you insert a
pcmcia card.
>Processor should be 400 MHz X-Scale to provide complete hardware
>compatibility with 5400 series iPaq and Sony's PEG -NX/NZ/TG series
Only CPU compatibility. Even though it is a pain sometimes, I like
the Epson 2d acceleration.
>Builtin device manager , independent of operating system
Huh? Does this make sense? The OS is the interface to hardware.
>WindowsCE environment should include all libraries to allow
>applications written for PocketPC to run Installer that can handle
>.exe as well as .cab installation archives , allowing it to be used in
>Mac and UNIX environments
Definitely. I don't even have a Windows machine and must always beg
for .cab files.
>Self-contained ActiveSync , allowing use with non-partnered desktop
>or workstation
Yes. However, I backup my deice to CF.
>Include an improved version of HP Macro , as found on the 680/690
>series with possibility to export/import macros as plain text files
>and with a "waitfor " [string] function to create connection scripts
Not sure what this is but if you need it, ok with me.
>Device Manager ( essentially something like the BIOS on a PC ) to
>allow device configuration/reset before starting the OS as well as
>"debricking" by the user or the sysadmin without having to send it
>back
No. Why the extra source of trouble. I think I saw some kind of
de-bricking software on the list awhile back. Maybe a recovery method
based on powering-up and finding an install file on CF could be used.
Then someone in trouble could go to a PC and download the recovery
image to a /boot dir and put this in the unit and turn it on.
Mike
Received on Mon Mar 24 12:02:54 2003
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