Build this and they will come...

[1/17] from: depotcity:telus at: 27-May-2001 22:21

Here's a project for the seriously motivated... A Rebol PDA with the following specs... - Built on a Rebol friendly hardware platform (avoiding Palm type limitations) - Rebol friendly OS (or even, do I dare say it... a Rebol OS?) - Color graphics, Multimedia capable. - Small Qwerty keyboard ( like the Blackberry RIM www.blackberry.net) - 500 MB rewriteable DataPlay discs ( www.dataplay.com ) for a storage. - Bluetooth chip for adhoc networking (perhaps dual chips, the other for CDMA or whatever the latest broadband that's readily available) - 128 mb of ram :) - Under $300 I'll preorder 100! TBrownell

[2/17] from: al:bri:xtra at: 28-May-2001 17:42

I'll buy one! Andrew Martin ICQ: 26227169 http://zen.scripterz.org

[3/17] from: agem:crosswinds at: 28-May-2001 8:31

May be related ;-) ---found on comp.lang.forth

>->-> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Urspr�ngliche Nachricht <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Am 27.05.01, 21:28:01, schrieb "John Passaniti" <[nntp--JapanIsShinto--com]> zum Thema Charles Isn't The Only One With Odd Keyboards:

> This doesn't have anything to do with Forth other than the topic of

Charles

> Moore's odd keyboards sometimes comes up in this newsgroup, and I

thought

> people might find this URL interesting or amusing... > http://www.halfkeyboard.com/ > The company produces a 22-key keyboard chorded keyboard. But unlike a

lot

> of designs, theirs is designed for touch-typists and is just the left

half

> of a keyboard. The concept here is to use the same fingers on the

left hand

> to type the characters one would on the right. I downloaded the

sample

> application that illustrates how this works, and I found it spooky.

> they claimed, I only needed a couple minutes of playing around with

the

> keyboard before I was able to use it without looking at the keys. And

> I've continued to play with it, I found I could type even faster. > I'm seriously considering getting one of these for my Palm and seeing

how

> well it works. I think it might work out nicely with Quartus Forth.

<-<-<

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Urspr�ngliche Nachricht <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Am 28.05.01, 06:21:50, schrieb "Terry Brownell" <[depotcity--telus--net]> zum Thema [REBOL] Build this and they will come...:

[4/17] from: rishioswal:yaho:o at: 28-May-2001 0:34

qnx has shown demos of their os running compaq ipaq type devices...and rebol already runs on qnx..i'm sure view for qnx rtp should be coming any month now...maybe in time for next release of qnx this june??? ok...maybe wishful thinking... --- Andrew Martin <[Al--Bri--xtra--co--nz]> wrote:

[5/17] from: cyphre:volny:cz at: 28-May-2001 10:11

Hello Terry, Very interesting project...and not impossible if RT keep the cool way and release asynchronous, modular etc. REBOL v3.0... Starting such project would speedup developing of REBOL itself miles ahead!!! Anyway, I will be interested in RebOS developing :-)) BTW, anyone knows any investor who will be put his money for that?? :-)) Regards Cyphre

[6/17] from: gchiu::compkarori::co::nz at: 28-May-2001 21:06

On Sun, 27 May 2001 22:21:50 -0700 "Terry Brownell" <[depotcity--telus--net]> wrote:

> Here's a project for the seriously motivated... > A Rebol PDA with the following specs...

<<quoted lines omitted: 13>>

> - Under $300 > I'll preorder 100!

Sounds like the new Sharp Zaurus running the Amiga DE. -- Graham Chiu

[7/17] from: mat:eurogamer at: 28-May-2001 11:54

Heya Terry, TB> A Rebol PDA with the following specs... What physical form? TB> - Built on a Rebol friendly hardware platform (avoiding Palm type limitations) TB> - Rebol friendly OS (or even, do I dare say it... a Rebol OS?) If you're talking off the shelf, it has to be WinCE? Which isn't bad as it means you've got Pocket Word and a decent browser I suppose. TB> - Color graphics, Multimedia capable. Stereo is so often lacking on PDA, annoying stopping most of them from doubling as MP3 players. I can't claim to care about colour, it's nice but the big problem is battery consumption. Double life with B&W. TB> - Small Qwerty keyboard ( like the Blackberry RIM www.blackberry.net) Absolutely. None of that Palm silliness :) TB> - 500 MB rewriteable DataPlay discs ( www.dataplay.com ) for a storage. TB> - 128 mb of ram :) That sounds like full client spec parts. Not really necessary is it? PDAs need and use very little memory. So long as it takes CF you've got plenty of options. Although using SODIMM memory would be nice, like the discontinued Compaq Aero 8000. That unit *is* pretty much what you have specced but it's kinda sub notebook size. The keyboard is wonderful though. TB> - Bluetooth chip for adhoc networking (perhaps dual chips, the other for CDMA or whatever the latest broadband that's readily available) I'm afraid I'd have to seriously disagree here. Bluetooth is a horribly broken standard. Well 'standard' is giving it more credit than it deserves, it's an absolute abortion. If you want to interface with a mobile, the best bet is a bog standard serial port IMO (even infrared has a bag load of issues). For LAN networking, 802.11b all the way. TB> - Under $300 TB> I'll preorder 100! Probably doable if you lowered some requirements like the big memory, re-writable disks or colour screen. The Compaq Aero 8000 is going extremely cheap here in the UK as it's clearing out old stock but it's still �250, way way over $300. You know, the Psion Revo would be a really really nice Rebol platform but unfortunately with RT being American they can't be bothered with porting to it :( A nice /view port to such a device and you could work entirely from within the rebol desktop. That'd be nice assuming that everyone jumped on board and started writing the necessary apps. (Which I think would happen if such a platform and a /view port existed. It'd be cool!) -- Mat Bettinson - EuroGamer's Gaming Evangelist with a Goatee http://www.eurogamer.net | http://www.eurogamer-network.com

[8/17] from: holger:rebol at: 28-May-2001 5:10

On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 11:54:59AM +0100, Mat Bettinson wrote:

> TB> - Bluetooth chip for adhoc networking (perhaps dual chips, the other for CDMA or whatever the latest broadband that's readily available) > > I'm afraid I'd have to seriously disagree here. Bluetooth is a > horribly broken standard.

Agreed. The fact that it disrupts communication of computers using an existing standard, and an IEEE standard even, is bad enough. The specs are worse.

> For LAN networking, 802.11b all the > way.

Yes. Still, Bluetooth may win though. Marketing power often wins over reason and technology...

> You know, the Psion Revo would be a really really nice Rebol platform > but unfortunately with RT being American they can't be bothered with > porting to it :(

Huh ? What gives you that idea ? The fact that there is no Psion port for REBOL yet has nothing to do with nationality. Personally I like Psion palmtops a lot. I have a Psion 3c at home that I use a lot for travelling. At RT we looked at Psion ports several times. Porting to Series 3 is not feasible (too slow, too small etc.). Porting to Series 5 and EPOC 5 is a possibility, and we do have the development environment. Last year we spent a few weeks on getting Core ported, and we made some progress, but eventually hit some road blocks. Basically, their development environment is horrible -- fundamentally different compilers, behavior, functionality etc. in the PC-based "simulation" compared to the real thing, making development very slow and tedious. We eventually had to stop because the EPOC port was taking too much time, and we had other priorities. AFAIK EPOC is up to version 6 now. Do you know if Psion uses it in Series 7 or Revo ? What OS is Revo running anyway ? Their web site is all marketing and "organizer hype", nothing else... Hopefully EPOC 6 will turn out to be a little more development-friendly than EPOC 5 was. In any case though, with a 480x160 display the Revo seems more like a target for Core than for View. It might be possible to port View as well, but with that low resolution most existing View scripts would not work. -- Holger Kruse [holger--rebol--com]

[9/17] from: joel:neely:fedex at: 28-May-2001 7:17

Hi, Terry... Get out your checkbook! Terry Brownell wrote:

> Here's a project for the seriously motivated... > > A Rebol PDA with the following specs... >

Since REBOL works very well on Linux, you might look at http://www.gicom.com/yopy/ http://www.yopydeveloper.org/ or http://www.agendacomputing.com/products/agenda_linux.html http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/05/18/agenda_pda.html or (going a little further out on the limb) http://www.ipaqlinux.com/ http://research.compaq.com/wrl/projects/itsy/ or (falling completely out of one's tree ;-) http://rehmi.www.media.mit.edu/~rehmi/pengachu/v3_document.htm http://www.simputer.org/ FWIW, I suggest that there would be more leverage to be had by supporting an existing effort than risking further fragmentation of a fragile market. -jn- ------------------------------------------------------------ Programming languages: compact, powerful, simple ... Pick any two! joel'dot'neely'at'fedex'dot'com

[10/17] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 28-May-2001 14:46

Yes, I just wanted to say it too: - there are already some embedded OSes available. QNX RtP, Linux, BEiA, upcoming Tao/Elate based AmigaDE. We can run hosted with Rebol on most of that devices. What do we lack a little bit is speed, but we are living at non-compiled, interpreted world, right? I would like to see RebolOS too .... It would be the most nice OS ever, but, I still prefer to run (even in hosted mode) on existing solution first ... Cheers, -pekr-

[11/17] from: cyphre:volny:cz at: 28-May-2001 14:51

Hello Holger and List,

> In any case though, with a 480x160 display the Revo seems more like a

target

> for Core than for View. It might be possible to port View as well, but

with

> that low resolution most existing View scripts would not work. >

Just one comment... Don't be afraid of porting /view on machines with small resolution displays ;-) 480x160 is enough for vector-based graphics user interface which could have been developed under /view and replace(and partialy emulate) the obsolete static VID. I wanted to make something simmilar using DRAW but I haven't enough time to do it for now...maybe next month or two? :) regards Cyphre

[12/17] from: mat:eurogamer at: 28-May-2001 14:59

Heya Holger,

>> I'm afraid I'd have to seriously disagree here. Bluetooth is a >> horribly broken standard.

HK> Agreed. The fact that it disrupts communication of computers using an HK> existing standard, and an IEEE standard even, is bad enough. The specs HK> are worse. I think it may still not be approved in France? HK> Yes. Still, Bluetooth may win though. Marketing power often wins over HK> reason and technology... I think there's a good sense for common sense prevailing here. After all, Microsoft refuse to support Bluetooth!

>> You know, the Psion Revo would be a really really nice Rebol platform >> but unfortunately with RT being American they can't be bothered with >> porting to it :(

HK> Huh ? What gives you that idea ? The fact that there is no Psion port HK> for REBOL yet has nothing to do with nationality. I assumed it was a market share thing in the domestic market. After all, Rebol is ported to some shades of WinCE with far less market share than Psion has... Perhaps I'm just bitter because indirectly you forced me to buy a WinCE PDA :) HK> Personally I like Psion palmtops a lot. I have a Psion 3c at home that HK> I use a lot for travelling. I remember it fondly. HK> At RT we looked at Psion ports several times. Porting to Series 3 is not HK> feasible (too slow, too small etc.). Yes, of course. HK> Porting to Series 5 and EPOC 5 is a possibility, and we do have HK> the development environment. Last year we spent a few weeks on HK> getting Core ported, and we made some progress, but eventually hit HK> some road blocks. Basically, their development environment is HK> horrible -- fundamentally different compilers, behavior, HK> functionality etc. in the PC-based "simulation" compared to the HK> real thing, making development very slow and tedious. We HK> eventually had to stop because the EPOC port was taking too much HK> time, and we had other priorities. I see. I had no idea the EPOC dev environment was so poor. I'm amazed really, given that it is the basis for Symbian and them trying (and succeeding) at getting several companies onboard as a result. I wonder if it has improved? I'm kinda surprised you take a dim view of PC-based simulation, I thought that is a fairly good environment for developing on PDAs? HK> AFAIK EPOC is up to version 6 now. Do you know if Psion uses it in HK> Series 7 or Revo ? What OS is Revo running anyway ? Their web site is HK> all marketing and "organizer hype", nothing else... As far as I know, those are version 5 or at least that's what they shipped with initially. There's been a fair bit of movement on the EPOC/symbian front in the last few months so I hope the development environment has improved in that respect. HK> In any case though, with a 480x160 display the Revo seems more like a target HK> for Core than for View. It might be possible to port View as well, but with HK> that low resolution most existing View scripts would not work. That is a completely fair point as well. I don't actually have a Revo, only a series 5. I mention the Revo as I think it's an excellent mass market keyboard-equipped PDA. Larger display on the series 5 of course. Rebol may not be very fast on them though, the CPU is fairly weak even in the MX (current) versions compared to WinCE devices. -- Mat Bettinson - EuroGamer's Gaming Evangelist with a Goatee http://www.eurogamer.net | http://www.eurogamer-network.com

[13/17] from: jean:holzammer:faedv-n:bayern at: 28-May-2001 16:03

> Hmm, have you considered getting a series 5MX (about $450 last I > checked), Revo (a bit less) or Series 7 (a bit more) and doing the > development native instead of using the emulation?

AFAIK there is no C-Compiler for the EPOC Platform !! Jean

[14/17] from: meta:dimensional at: 28-May-2001 7:46

Holger Kruse wrote:

> On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 11:54:59AM +0100, Mat Bettinson wrote: > > You know, the Psion Revo would be a really really nice Rebol platform

<<quoted lines omitted: 4>>

> Personally I like Psion palmtops a lot. I have a Psion 3c at home that > I use a lot for travelling.

You should try the 5MX. I have one and it's a very good general purpose computer. The fact that it's also small, fast, multitasking, portable, instant-on/off, relatively inexpensive and runs for a month on a set of AA batteries are extra bonuses.

> At RT we looked at Psion ports several times. Porting to Series 3 is not > feasible (too slow, too small etc.). Porting to Series 5 and EPOC 5 is

<<quoted lines omitted: 5>>

> development very slow and tedious. We eventually had to stop because the > EPOC port was taking too much time, and we had other priorities.

Hmm, have you considered getting a series 5MX (about $450 last I checked), Revo (a bit less) or Series 7 (a bit more) and doing the development native instead of using the emulation?

> AFAIK EPOC is up to version 6 now. Do you know if Psion uses it in > Series 7 or Revo ? What OS is Revo running anyway ? Their web site is > all marketing and "organizer hype", nothing else...

AFAIK EPOC 6 is used in new phone-based products from Symbian partners like Nokia and Errickson (sp?). The Psion 5MX, 7 and Revo use EPOC 5. Probably Psion's next round of products (speculation) will use EPOC 6.

> Hopefully EPOC 6 will turn out to be a little more development-friendly > than EPOC 5 was. > > In any case though, with a 480x160 display the Revo seems more like a target > for Core than for View. It might be possible to port View as well, but with > that low resolution most existing View scripts would not work.

Having View on my Psion 5MX would be most appreciated. Perhaps you could make it so the display scrolls to show more resolution. But even if not, I could work within the physical resolution. The two places I would next like to use View are the Psion 5MX and Mac OS X. I wait (mostly) patiently... :^) Best Regards, -Jamie

[15/17] from: meta:dimensional at: 28-May-2001 8:19

Holzammer, Jean wrote:

> > Hmm, have you considered getting a series 5MX (about $450 last I > > checked), Revo (a bit less) or Series 7 (a bit more) and doing the > > development native instead of using the emulation? > > AFAIK there is no C-Compiler for the EPOC Platform !!

Hmmm, I don't know, I'm just responding to what Holger implied about compilers being different between the PC-based "simulation" compared to the real thing. In that case why not use the real thing? Perhaps I misunderstood him. Holger wrote:

> At RT we looked at Psion ports several times. Porting to Series 3 is not > feasible (too slow, too small etc.). Porting to Series 5 and EPOC 5 is

<<quoted lines omitted: 4>>

> etc. in the PC-based "simulation" compared to the real thing, making > development very slow and tedious.

Best Regards, -Jamie

[16/17] from: holger:rebol at: 28-May-2001 9:14

On Mon, May 28, 2001 at 02:59:54PM +0100, Mat Bettinson wrote:

> I'm kinda surprised you take a dim view of PC-based simulation, I > thought that is a fairly good environment for developing on PDAs?

I don't object to PC-based cross-compilation and simulation at all. WinCE does that, too, and it works fairly well. The problem I have specifically with the EPOC environment is that it appears somewhat half-baked. The installation script is incomplete (took hours to figure out what is missing), for the simulation it uses Visual Studio in Windows, but for the final compilation it needs Linux with gcc (with different makefiles, compiler settings, include files etc). Plus the simulation itself is incomplete, e.g. wrt sockets and DNS, making debugging difficult. And, of course, there are the architectural EPOC restrictions regarding global variables, use of shared libraries etc. that make it difficult to port software to EPOC anyway. -- Holger Kruse [holger--rebol--com]

[17/17] from: rishioswal:yah:oo at: 28-May-2001 10:43

rumor has it that psion will be announcing a new revo in june based on the 6.x operating system from symbian (which took over development of the epoc operating system). i'll post details on this list once it is announced. Also, qnx is releasing new version this june (i think). They are using the new Opera 5.x browser and supposedly many improvments... and they've also been showing it running on pda's.. It would be nice if view was ported in time for their next release...not many other high level language there yet...and their has been a bit of discussion about rebol on their message boards at www.qnxstart.com. rishi --- Holger Kruse <[holger--rebol--com]> wrote:

Notes

Quoted lines have been omitted from some messages.
View the message alone to see the lines that have been omitted