[openbeos] Re: MIPS32 port for GSoC

I also believe that the whole IA game for Be was too early.  Some of the
stuff we were working on at Qubit on BeIA was just plain ahead of it's
time.  Not only did the hardware cost too much then, but the general
idea wasn't sticking too well with the consumer.  But, given we won 2 TechTV
best of categories, we were on the right path.  Now, 7 years later, I'm just
starting to see the stuff emerge into the market successfully.  I think what
killed us was cost of entry ($1500 for a tablet that performed less than a
much cheaper laptop), in addition to the fact that Be went out of business
and our investors didn't want to pony up money to either buy BeIA source or
start over on WinCE.  :P

That all said, to bring this back around to topic... MHO is that a
1.0release on x86 should be the only priority at this time.  Once
there, other
platforms can be examined... but the community needs the one complete
platform before starting to worry about others, nevermind the lack of an
army of devs to keep all platforms moving forward.  Stay focused on a single
target for now... ;)

Deej

On 3/20/07, François Revol <revol@xxxxxxx> wrote:


> > I'd welcome anything that moved Haiku closer to running on my SGI
> > O2,
> > though...
>
> Yeah, I think we need a focus shift toward HaikuIA. That always works
> out well. :)
>

Well, at the time Be did it it was too early.
We only start to see real-life handhelds around.
Even though tabletPCs weren't really a success (but maybe because the
OS wasn't suitable), there are many more form factors that are really
used. PDAs sell less, but we see PDA-shaped smartphones instead. ultra-
laptops are more usable. The Nokia n800 is more a niche stuff though.
That changes from the kitchen computer that was bigger than a laptop
and too slow to do video.
Set-top-boxes are gone, but intelligent DSL modems now have a GUI to
show on the TV, even if only to preset records. (bénie soit la Freebox
:)

So as I said, not it's no more "embedded" stuff, but real mobile
desktop.
Then it's not really a focus shift anymore.

#include <ForwardLookingStatement.h>

François.

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