Messages

16

Deals and Great Z Buys / C1000 Available On Conics.net For $549

« on: March 14, 2005, 08:31:21 am »

I am tempted, but I think the $699 dynamism are charging is profiteering.

17

General Discussion / Screen Dust! How The Heck?

« on: March 13, 2005, 08:13:01 pm »

try a can of compressed air from a pc shop?

18

Deals and Great Z Buys / Another Zaurus Ebay Seller - Thisisde1

« on: March 13, 2005, 07:15:23 pm »

Nice one, enjoy, I may be tempted back into the Z fold with the C1000.  Have fun with it ;-)

See what the wife starts saying when you take it to bed and are coding at 4am, oh, maybe it's just me that does that!  

19

Cxx0 General discussions / Eops Tv Cf Tv Tuner On C7xx Does It Work

« on: March 13, 2005, 11:48:44 am »

i  have a long drive from work to home so i sometimes miss my favouriote shows.
this cf tvt tuner would be perfect for me.
does anybody have experience with this on zaurus, and if yes, on what rom?

here is the link!
 its on german

http://www.cylife.de/shop/products_id/1787...v-cf-karte.html

thx!
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70472\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

No, you'd need a driver and TV viewing application. I doubt you'll get a driver.

However, for about that price, you should be able to find a pocket TV on eBay.de which will deliver the same TV reception.

Admirer of Cato?  
Ave et vale
-Francis

20

Off Topic forum / Winxp Explorer Search Doesn't Actually Search?

« on: March 13, 2005, 08:05:23 am »

A solution. Perhaps I should have googled before ranting ;-)

http://www.petri.co.il/windows_xp_search_bug.htm

Si
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No, no, dear sir, a full-on rant is good for the soul    

21

Sharp ROMs / Video Player Success stories

« on: March 13, 2005, 06:41:54 am »

Just to answer the original question, I had perfect playback on tkcVideo, smooth, fluid movement, using MPEG-1 @ 160x120 (half it's res full screen - looks like pocket TV) 25fps 128kbit, MPEG-1 layer II audio 22,050Hz, mono. 96kbit. Been a long time so I'm working from memory here, but a whole movie fit snugly on a 128MB CF.  I was really impressed with the results using tkcPlayer and tkcVideo on the 5500, worth the money.  In fact I still have the binaries and since I no longer need or use them I'll transfer ownership to you or anyone who wants them I'm sure I can do that if I recall.

22

5x00 General discussions / Sl-5500 Battery Life

« on: March 13, 2005, 06:23:10 am »

What about minimum brightness? And howq about just word processing w/ min backlight?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=68691\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Maybe my 5500 had a fault, I got about 1 hour maybe 1.5 hours at most ever at low to average light power while doing wordprocessing.   Towards the end it went down to 45 mins, just playing mp3's.  I didn't use any wifi or anything, just a 512MB CF card and a 32MB MMC.  Could be the battery just dying though, I did consider replacing it. Great machine though  

23

SIMpad forum / 2 Questions...

« on: March 12, 2005, 10:22:02 pm »

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...ssPageName=WDVW

Brand new. Says UK only, but maybe if you ask they'll ship to the US.  Only a day left though.

24

Deals and Great Z Buys / Available Preorder Sl-c1000

« on: March 12, 2005, 06:18:16 pm »

Sorry for the delay padishah_emperor your mail has been answered. I will answer any questions about our services via e-mail. Thanks.
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Just got it, thanks ;-)

25

Accessories / Pretec Compactcamera

« on: March 12, 2005, 01:20:49 pm »

Or a cheap camera which is CF or SD/MMC compatible?

26

Deals and Great Z Buys / Available Preorder Sl-c1000

« on: March 12, 2005, 10:39:43 am »

HA! LOL!      

Yes, upon relection (and as my email hasn't been answered yet) this is quite valid.  The best price I've found so far is Conics $549+$49 Shipping to UK = $598 = £310 at xe.com

For that price, as I said elsewhere I'm prepared to wear my glasses.  

27

General Discussion / Using Internal Flash On Handhelds

« on: March 12, 2005, 08:10:32 am »

My personal opinion - I don't really care about internal flash life time (I think it will be long enough for my needs) and my next Zaurus will mostly likely be C1000
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70355\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Well Anton I guess that is the answer that counts    

If the life of memory were the issue, shouldn't the built-in microdrive be even scarier?
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Indeed, I think I mentioned it. I've had plenty of flash devices fail - and even more hard drives fail! That's why these things should be replacable by anyone who is brave enough to use a screwdriver.  I know my microdrive will die probably within a year but I can budget for a replacement and the critical thing is it takes a second to swap it out of the CF port.

I have to agree with Maslovsky on this, unless you are putting a page file on the flash

Which I do as needed

then I doubt that you are going to generate enough writes over a period of ownership for it to be an issue.

I think you are more likely to experience battery problems well before you start to see flash problem.

But that is usually replaceable, even on my machine where it's sealed in, it's a simple screwdriver job

Note that some of the early 5500 ROMs offered an SD based home structure, not sure if they mounted everything RO but that would simply be a waste of resources in something like the SL-C860 with 128Mb flash,

But would extend the life

Personally I think it's still much better than the Palm/PocketPC position of running everythig from RAM - especially if you are going to 'push the envelope' from time to time.

My wife has given up on PDAs and returned to Filofax because she originally had a Handspring which you only needed to charge every few months - when that packed in I gave her a Sony Clie that I had knocking around and she couldn't get to grips with the fact that she needed to charge it at least every couple of weeks and consequently lost her data a couple of times - NAND flash therefore has some distinct benefits but she just can't be bothered with PDAs any more and wouldn't carry anything as big as a Z anyway.

- Andy
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Yes and for a normal PDA I'd agree, but how many of us what to use it for more, X for example, C compiling - I used to do that on a Z, using the swapfile applet which Cacko used to have.  I hammer flash as I want to use the device for more than PIM stuff.  Sadly, I fear my current device which uses RAM over flash is still the only device which is can meet my demands, real shame - I was soooo close to ordering a C1000.  I just don't rate flash, despite the arguements, I've killed too many flash devices - they cannot take the punishment  

If I may digress for a moment, with my YP3700, it uses SDRAM for r/w operations everything else is r/o from a cramfs.  There IS a flash memory but it can't get hammered as it's used to backup PIMs (which is more useful to me than backing it up to a PC) and putting apps to be pre-installed in the event of a full reset.  I think that is a much better design and yes, the battery will be the first element to wear out.  But with care, I know I could still be using this in 10 years from now. End digression.  

I think the Z can last much longer by mounting it's internal flash r/o - it does not need to be wasteful, fill it up with apps! -a simple control panel applet could lock/unlock it!- and move the r/w ops to a user replaceable element like SD which is formatted with a wee GUI utility as jffs2 and/or a ramdisk.  I believe it will extend the device's life and allow much heavier usage.  IMHO.

Sincere thanks to everyone who answered    I'm going to stick with what I have until I find another device which will do what I want, after spending over £750 on a device I was too scared of breaking, I'm severely stung. The ~£300 C1000 is attractive, I could even keep my glasses on and put up with VGA, but I plan on buying with a long view - I still have my HP200LX, if it were flash based it would be dead by now for sure.

I'd not realised PPCs were non-flash based, can you elaborate? Or point me to info about this? If I can compile on it, then sadly that would be up for consideration as I understand they can work with Macs nowadays.

Sincere thanks all.

28

General Discussion / Using Internal Flash On Handhelds

« on: March 11, 2005, 07:22:29 pm »

With the release of the C1000 which like other C series machines, uses internal flash memory, I was thinking what a naff idea it is.   After all, flash wears down and eventually dies so the only logical reason for it in my mind is that people will have to keep buying new hardware.  Using an internal microdrive doesn't solve the idea as that can develop bad sectors and unless it's replaceable in the 3000, it leaves the machine a brick. I know the arguements about levelling etc. but even on my old C860, it started to deteriorate since I was coding and compiling and using swap maybe, the 512MB lexar card I had died a little while after my C860 went.  That card wasn't even 18 months old.

So, I was wondering (and this is semi-directed at Anton   ), can't a ROM be built to move all read/write operations to a CF card/Microdrive or SD card? Selectable by the user during the flash operation? Mounting the internal flash as read only?  I'm not too knowledgeable about building ROMs etc on the Z so maybe someone out there knows or would like to share their opinions on the wisdom/merits of slowly rotting flash.

I'm quite attracted to the C1000, even with a VGA screen   but the flash thing is a major issue for me, I'd really like the option to wear out a replaceable item rather than a non-replaceable one.

-Francis

29

C1000/3x00 General discussions / New Zaurus Announced: Sl-c1000

« on: March 11, 2005, 06:33:15 pm »

I'm pretty sure CF cards have a limited number of writes, so you are putting a potential timebomb in your system if you start to rely on them as storage for something like an operating system.

Sorry to say but NAND flash has the same issue, limited number of writes.

This is a flaw I think in the design of many machines now, what (in principle) would be involved in moving the read/write operations to a replaceable memory card?  The price of this new machine is very tempting but I still worry about hammering the internal flash, especially with compiling and swapping on the machine.
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I symlink all of my datafiles onto my SD card. I install applications to the internal memory on my 860, but all of my working files end up on external cards. Not a perfect solution, but enough to extend the usable life of the internal flash.  This issue is one of the reasons that I'm so looking forward to a 3000, and won't be getting a 1000.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70313\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

mmh, I did something similar with the 860, I wish someone would bring out a Linux handheld (apart from the Yopy of course) which didn't use internal flash, even an internal microdrive is problematic, what happens when it dies? Is it replaceable? Sigh! The C1000 is very attractive, I've been very close to taking the plunge in the last hour or so...

EDIT: I've started a new thread on the flash issue if anyone cares to pitch in - [a href=\"https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11272&hl=]https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11272&hl=[/url]

30

C1000/3x00 General discussions / New Zaurus Announced: Sl-c1000

« on: March 11, 2005, 04:27:44 pm »

I'm pretty sure CF cards have a limited number of writes, so you are putting a potential timebomb in your system if you start to rely on them as storage for something like an operating system.

Sorry to say but NAND flash has the same issue, limited number of writes.

This is a flaw I think in the design of many machines now, what (in principle) would be involved in moving the read/write operations to a replaceable memory card?  The price of this new machine is very tempting but I still worry about hammering the internal flash, especially with compiling and swapping on the machine.