THat was very informative, espesially the part about the regulator catching fire , one thing i might mention because i am unsure if you nticed it but PORT 2 is MULTIPLEXED with the USB client port meaning you can have PORT 2 and client at the same time
not that i am worried about losing usb client if i gain wifi, however i just noticed that USB host ports would fit perfectly in the 2nd CF slot and it would be easy to have 2
as for yaur power calculations it would be the Voltage drop across the regulator * current accross the device so power in watts (P) = ((voltage to the chip) -5v) * 500ma or for those not comfterble with unit conversion in electronics P = (Vin - 5) * 0.5 i would assunme this chip is getting about 5v to 6v so at 6v it would be 0.5 watt
power disipation can be improved by lowering the voltage, cool ambeint temp, active cooling (fan or peltier) heatsink (mainly for disipating heat not moving it) if you look at my calacs above i would say the chip is getting 5v or 2 * battery voltage it depends if it is getting its power off the zarus,s 5v rail or has another arangment (like a voltage doubler)
atm i am wondering how hard it would be to repackage my zaurus and blend it with my targus keyboard and add VGA out, or mabey i should finish porting linux to the Dell x30 and use that instead. (it has a nice daughter board that has 802.11b on the CF bus and bluetooth connected to the BTUART)
BTUART support would be good as it has a larger buffer for comms