[geeks] Ultra-Portable UNIX

[kevin marshall]

I was thinking HPC meant "High Performance Computing", of course
as soon as WinCE was mentioned that idea became ludicrous.

/KRM

On Mar 04, 2006 01:05 AM, Micah R Ledbetter
<vlack-lists at vlack.com> wrote:

> 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
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