[ILUG] simputer...

[Justin Mason]

John P. Looney said:

>  Has anyone seen this;
>     http://www.simputer.org/
>  Sounds nice. Open source hardware project, to bring portable linux
> computing to the masses. 200x320 screen, ipaq-like specs, for about $200.
>  Not in volume till next year though. Sounds nice.

Yeah -- it's quite cool as a really low-cost device.

Big problem however, will be this:  IMHO, the hardware is too low-cost
(and the screen real-estate too small) for many Linux apps to run; it'll
need porting work for most apps.

Actually, now that I think about it, their situation is not as bad as it
was, first time I looked.  The handhelds.org projects have already put a
lot of effort into a free embedded Linux distribution, and ported some
apps to a small screen and a low-memory, flash-storage environment.

I hope it goes well...

ps: they're dead right about smartcards too ;) --

    "We say 'A smart card driver' advisedly. The smart card business is so
    full of proprietary variations on the "international standards" that
    the driver needs to be modified for each type of card from each
    manufacturer."

argh,

--j.