Oh, I have way more toys to play with than I have time.
You and me both. It's especially time consuming when many of the great Z websites are now dead links. I am very glad to see this forum is still alive, though I often wonder if it too might someday be unavailable... but luckily that seems unlikely. It's too bad the wiki did not have more actual downloads (rather than links to external sites) as that would have prevented alot of god zaurus apps/OSes/etc. from falling into oblivion. Granted most stuff still seems to be *findable* on the web, but not in a format that is usable by newbies to the Zaurus. Like many Z owners, I have toyed with putting up a new zaurus site/archive... but as you mentioned, time is tough to come by.
It's amazing how fast devices and their accessories disappear these days...
Considering the Zaurus's past popularity and still quite significant capabilities, it amazes me as well. Perhaps this is due to the non-US status of many of the more popular/powerful models, but even the 5500 (which was available in US I believe) appears to have a very small following. Kinda strange considering that many of the *really* old and (comparatively) slow Radioshack TRS-80 models seem to have many more sites/groups. But then again, those were probably sold in the millions of units so percentage wise the active community may actually be about the same.
One thing that I think may eventually be the death knell for the Z is the availability of batteries. And it seems that the 6000L is the poster child for that issue.
[Begin Rant]
Why manufacturers cannot standardize on battery formats is beyond me...and why the government(s) have not mandated standardization is even more of a mystery. For years we have had A, AA, AAA,C, and D cells as the primary battery sizes and 90% of devices could make due with those. But now
every single device has it's own shape, power, and pin requirements (even different for each generation of the same device). Which is just absurd.
I realize the old sizes may not be usable today, but I am also certain that a new group of standardized formats could be found to allow manufacturers to standardize on a group of about 10 or so (at most). And let's not forget the AC adaptors that are all plugged into the walls sapping a trickle charge while waiting for the one dedicated device they serve. Of course, the manufacturers cannot be expected to switch without being forced to, but that is why the governments need to push them... it's not a huge issue for them to switch and standardize, but since corporations are money-making institutions, not conscience beings, they look for competitive advantage and customer lock-in, which is at odds with any standardization mentality.
Let's face it, the ecological impact of all these wasted batteries (and devices that must get tossed when batteries disappear) has got to be insanely huge and will only get worse over time.
It will probably take a new generation of tech-savy (Facebook/iPhone/Android generation) politicians to start addressing these obvious flaws in our culture and pointless abuses to the environment and resources.
Don't get me wrong, I love technology, I just wish we were just a
little bit smarter in our execution.
[End Rant]Okay, I feel better, it was nice to get that off my chest... sorry for the somewhat off-topic rant, but sometimes it is good to just let it out. ;-) ;-)
