[geeks] Ultra-Portable UNIX

[Micah R Ledbetter]

I've been turned on to the HPC market again, from digging up my old  
Velo1 (which won't run Linux in its current state - I need to upgrade  
RAM and Windows CE, of all things, to make it work).

What is an HPC, you ask? It stands for Handheld PC, which were  
invented before the Palm IIRC. They have keyboards smaller than full- 
size, but larger than a Blackberry - I can't touch-type on my Velo1,  
for instance, and almost all other HPCs were that way.

I have come across quite a few interesting things since then, but one  
of the coolest is the NEC MobilePro 780 (in the same family: the 770,  
790)
You can dig up some specs and user reviews on Amazon[1]. It's  
discontinued, so you'd have to find it used. I just saw one leave  
ebay for $50; at non-ebay stores, they're two or three times that,  
but may come with a warranty.
Specs: 168MHz MIPS, and has a CF Type I/II, and PCMCIA Type I/II,  
640x240 (half VGA). 24MB RAM, 32MB ROM. 10.9"x5". I've heard that you  
get about 5 hours of battery life, which of course varies tremendously.

The best features, however, are these:

1) It runs NetBSD; see the hpcmips page[2], and scroll down for  
compatibility.  So, it ought to run any normal NetBSD package -  
anything you can fit on a flash card or microdrive that will run with  
24MB of RAM (I'm not sure... that may or may not be upgradable). I've  
even seen binaries for gcc complied for this thing. A couple of very  
basic "screenshots" are in this thread[3] (top of page 4 is the  
screenshots). The touchscreen is supported under X.

2) it has a 93% sized keyboard. I've heard great reports about it. It  
means that, unlike on palms and other HPCs, you can type in real  
passwords, ssh, edit in a real editor like vi/emacs, have a decent  
IRC/IM conversation, write an email, etc etc.

A couple of cool ideas on my mind:
- Wardriving. Obviously. Though you could go back to warchalking  
pretty easily, without having to lug around a painfully monstrous  
laptop (aww).
- Mega-blackberry. Running UNIX, and perpetually connected to the  
internet - through a phone or one of those internet services provided  
by cell phone companies (what is this called again?). 'Course, it  
won't connect to Exchange, but then, Blackberries won't mount an NFS  
server, now will they? ;)

That's all I've got. I don't own one yet, though I'd like to (when I  
can get the cash, that is). Discuss.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005BHRV/104-8116795-6878330? 
v=glance&n=172282
[2] http://netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/
[3] http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp? 
tid=2078&start=1