[LUNI] Making my own PDA

[Larry Garfield]

Well, I can't help you on the EE side, being clueless there, but for 
software and drivers take a look at Opie and OpenZaurus.  They're a GPL 
fork of a fairly nice professional setup from Trolltech and Lineo.  You 
know, the software in the Sharp Zarus?  They probably have a fair number 
of perfectly functional drivers available for selected hardware, so you 
may find that just custom building a device around their driver set is 
the easiest method.  Of course, what you end up with will probably be a 
Franken-Zaurus, which is not necessarily a bad thing. :-)

Curt Crandall wrote:
> Ok, this isn't really related to Linux (although my
> end product will hopefully run Linux).  But I'm
> curious to see if anyone has any helpful hints to give
> as I try to create my own PDA.
> 
> I recently bought an old Apple Newton MP100 for a few
> bucks.  Works perfectly, but I have no way to sync...
> so it's only really good for taking notes... and it's
> AWESOME at doing that.
> 
> I love the form factor of the Newton and feel that it
> is far more rugged than any PDA, tablet, or laptop
> I've seen.  The probably, of course, is that the
> Newton is obsolete and not as useful as a
> tablet/laptop.
> 
> I want a Newton-like device to use as a full-feature
> mobile device.  The size is perfect as the screen is
> large enough to have a decent terminal window, play
> regular games, browse the web well, etc... and I can
> toss it in a backpack and not worry too much about it
> busting.  Then I could pop a keybd/mouse, monitor on
> it and use it as a mobile desktop.  OQO has a device
> that's similar to what I describe, but so far it is
> vaporware.  Rather than wait, I want to build my own.
> 
> What I envision is this.  I'm thinking of dropping $10
> on a gutted Newton 2100 case.  I'd like a color touch
> screen, G3-400 processor, one SODIMM slot, 2 USB, 1
> Firewire, DVI or VGA out in addition to the 2 PCMCIA
> and IR the Newton already has.  Ideally, I'd love to
> run OS X on it and use InkWriter to interpret stylus
> input (admittedly, though, I know very little about
> InkWriter)... of course, if it could run OS X it would
> be able to handle Linux/*BSD.
> 
> These are what I see to be the biggest challenges:
> 
> * Where would I find a mobo that'd fit the form factor
> and work with the G3?  It'd probably need integrated
> video and sound too.  Is these even realistic... if
> not, what about Intel based boards?  Has anyone seen
> one that'd fit the Newton case... I have not found
> any.
> 
> * How would I get the OS to recognize the touch
> screen?  Am I looking at having to create my own
> driver?
> 
> I admit that I really don't know what I'm doing,
> probably will never finish (if I do... they'll
> probably be shipping G9's in the Mac), and I probably
> sound like a nut for even considering something like
> this.  I'm interested in trying something like this
> because it seems fun, hopefully will give me greater
> insight into the nuts and bolts of a computer, and
> it'd be a pretty cool hobby to keep me busy for many
> many many months.  Besides, I really should put those
> 2 sophomore level EE courses from 10 years ago to good
> use.
> 
> I'll continue my google search for answers, but any
> input from the group would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Curt

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an 
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it 
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possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of 
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