New "ultimate" Devices By I-mate

[Antikx]

Has anyone taken a look at the new "Ultimate" series of devices set to be released by i-Mate?  The 7150 could quite possibly be my C1000 replacement if a Linux kernel and OpenMoko can be ported to it.

Nice design (clamshell), nice specs and a rather generous keyboard.

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I'd love to see a picture of the 2.2 inch external OLED display on the 7150, nice touch.
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Wud up with the attachmentid=xxxx] tags?

[gr8ful]

Has anyone taken a look at the new "Ultimate" series of devices set to be released by i-Mate?  The 7150 could quite possibly be my C1000 replacement if a Linux kernel and OpenMoko can be ported to it.

Nice design (clamshell), nice specs and a rather generous keyboard.

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I'd love to see a picture of the 2.2 inch external OLED display on the 7150, nice touch.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=154901\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Wud up with the attachmentid=xxxx] tags?
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Sorry, overzealous on my house cleaning and deleted the pics...restored.

[Snappy]

I completely agree with your analysis which is coherent with my experience in this industry.

Not being a MS or Win specialist at all, the following quote pushed me to a question:

And believe it or not, MS did the consumers a favor with the DirectX HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). While its driver model is not the cleanest nor the most technologically advanced, together with the DX HALayer and HEL (Hardware Emulation Layer), OEMs don't have to bother too much with the 'details' of the customisation of hardware.

The question is: Is it possible to develop a (heavily modified) Linux Kernel that sits on the HAL/HEL that is already provided by the device?

This would result in a generic PDA/Mobile Linux kernel that is booted from within Win that comes with the device. It would dramatically reduce development and hardware adaption time for new devices.

Unfortunately, I believe nobody is interested in such an approach, because it would have to throw away most of the fun of Linux, i.e. reverse engineering drivers and devices.

-- hns
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I think it's possible, but it would either like cygwin (as speculatrix mentioned) or like vmware player, though a cygwin on wince should be faster, since it's not really emulating the whole system.

Well ... it will be interesting if such an emulation or cygwin was ported.
btw, I do develop on Win32/WinCE handhelds. Though I'm still struggling with the Zaurus ... grrr

[dhns]

I think it's possible, but it would either like cygwin (as speculatrix mentioned) or like vmware player, though a cygwin on wince should be faster, since it's not really emulating the whole system.

Well ... it will be interesting if such an emulation or cygwin was ported.
btw, I do develop on Win32/WinCE handhelds. Though I'm still struggling with the Zaurus ... grrr
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It is like I have expected - a cygwin approach could be simpler.

So - since you have some experience: how difficult do you estimate to really port the latest version of Cygwin from desktop Windows to WinCE? Or is it easier to start from scratch and implement a WinCE only .dll (which is an approach I had experimented 2 years ago but just to learn how VisualC works)?

-- hns

[ZDevil]

Look, these specs are what the would-be next Zaurus should have!  With the phone functionality, it looks even more tempting than EM One!

... the more i look at the pics, the more the pics look like a Zaurus clone ...

Then again, given the price (imagine the price of this I-Mate) and the product quality (how often do we hear a Z die of physical damage?), Z still has the best values in all respects.

It's always hard to ask for the best in this world (otherwise it won't be), let alone both worlds.

[Snappy]

I think it's possible, but it would either like cygwin (as speculatrix mentioned) or like vmware player, though a cygwin on wince should be faster, since it's not really emulating the whole system.

Well ... it will be interesting if such an emulation or cygwin was ported.
btw, I do develop on Win32/WinCE handhelds. Though I'm still struggling with the Zaurus ... grrr
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It is like I have expected - a cygwin approach could be simpler.

So - since you have some experience: how difficult do you estimate to really port the latest version of Cygwin from desktop Windows to WinCE? Or is it easier to start from scratch and implement a WinCE only .dll (which is an approach I had experimented 2 years ago but just to learn how VisualC works)?

-- hns
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Well, developing on WinCE is ... surprisingly quite easy. I believe the development kit (SDK + IDE) is free for downloads. As to whether porting cygwin to WinCE or writing one from scratch is easier ... I think it should be easier to just port. Though that itself could be tricky as well.

hmmm ... about dlls, it's basically an option from the IDE, or you can write a c/c++ file with dllmain functions, and export them with .def files. Selecting the option thingie will autogenerate a skeleton dll for you and you just fill in the initialization, uninitialization code + any custom code in functions that you wish to export for usage. Of course there are stuffs like class (c++ only) and variable exports but those are really details.

hmmm ... so are we really thinking of doing that?  
Incidentally, I don't think anyone has a device yet right?

[dhns]

Well, developing on WinCE is ... surprisingly quite easy. I believe the development kit (SDK + IDE) is free for downloads. As to whether porting cygwin to WinCE or writing one from scratch is

Yes it is. I had it installed last year on a Win machine to play a little with it.

easier ... I think it should be easier to just port. Though that itself could be tricky as well.

hmmm ... about dlls, it's basically an option from the IDE, or you can write a c/c++ file with dllmain functions, and export them with .def files. Selecting the option thingie will autogenerate a skeleton dll for you and you just fill in the initialization, uninitialization code + any custom code in functions that you wish to export for usage. Of course there are stuffs like class (c++ only) and variable exports but those are really details.

hmmm ... so are we really thinking of doing that?   
Incidentally, I don't think anyone has a device yet right?

Well, there are several millions of WinCE devices out there. We do not need to wait for the new I-mates  

So, I think there could be enough user demand to start such a project... And there should be some WinCE programmers who have some newer PocketPC or Windows Mobile device.

Or am I completely wrong?  

-- hns

[speculatrix]

Well ... it will be interesting if such an emulation or cygwin was ported.
btw, I do develop on Win32/WinCE handhelds. Though I'm still struggling with the Zaurus ... grrr
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get yourself the qemu/vmware developers image... makes life very easy, honest.

it's a pity that there's no Qtopia/QT for WinCE, otherwise we could at least encourage pocketPC developers to write applications which could be ported across to the Z (opie or qtopia).

[Snappy]

Well, developing on WinCE is ... surprisingly quite easy. I believe the development kit (SDK + IDE) is free for downloads. As to whether porting cygwin to WinCE or writing one from scratch is

Yes it is. I had it installed last year on a Win machine to play a little with it.

easier ... I think it should be easier to just port. Though that itself could be tricky as well.

hmmm ... about dlls, it's basically an option from the IDE, or you can write a c/c++ file with dllmain functions, and export them with .def files. Selecting the option thingie will autogenerate a skeleton dll for you and you just fill in the initialization, uninitialization code + any custom code in functions that you wish to export for usage. Of course there are stuffs like class (c++ only) and variable exports but those are really details.

hmmm ... so are we really thinking of doing that?   
Incidentally, I don't think anyone has a device yet right?

Well, there are several millions of WinCE devices out there. We do not need to wait for the new I-mates  

So, I think there could be enough user demand to start such a project... And there should be some WinCE programmers who have some newer PocketPC or Windows Mobile device.

Or am I completely wrong?  

-- hns
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Actually the concern is that without actual devices, developers will have to test it out on the emulators. I don't really know the current state of the SDK, but there used to be emulators in the SDK or as a separate download. However, my experience with earlier versions was that the emulatoe was not a fool-proof 1-to-1  emulation, so it may not necessarily work in the same manner on the actual device.

That said, there's nothing to prevent development from starting ...

[Snappy]

Well ... it will be interesting if such an emulation or cygwin was ported.
btw, I do develop on Win32/WinCE handhelds. Though I'm still struggling with the Zaurus ... grrr
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get yourself the qemu/vmware developers image... makes life very easy, honest.

it's a pity that there's no Qtopia/QT for WinCE, otherwise we could at least encourage pocketPC developers to write applications which could be ported across to the Z (opie or qtopia).
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Yeap, I got that and tried for a while. Was fairly easy I guess.

Qtopia/QT on WinCE is unlikely to happen. 'cos if they wanted to do something like that, they would have done on Java already.  Furthermore, with the visual IDE tools that WinCE has, developers on WinCE/Mobile platform is way too pampered to consider anything else, especially when the Windows platform commands the lion's market.