[openbeos] Re: MIPS32 port for GSoC
- From: "Niklas Nisbeth" <noisetonepause@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:05:41 +0100
On 3/19/07, Jonas Sundström <jonas@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Niklas Nisbeth" <noisetonepause@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Another interesting hardware would be the EFIKA
> (http://www.genesippc.com/efika.php),
Or one of these:
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/8641d.php
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/tetrapower.php
(I suppose the power requirements don't quite fit the embedded niche..)
Well, no. They do look like very potentially interesting *desktops*,
though, and one of the things Linux and free software in general is
doing is making the x86/POWER/SPARC divide less meaningful, so we
might just see them making inroads, but who knows... Many people seem
not to care (it's dark in the box and all that) but I'm an olde tyme
Mac user and I still haven't learned to love the Intel hegemony...
But I'd rather have resources spent on the Playstation3,
which is available, fascinating and potentially very powerful,
and also not that expensive if you can truly use its full potential.
Great point. I have mixed feelings about the PS3 - they should sell it
under a different name with more RAM and call it the next-generation
PC/workstation, I think - but it's an obvious target, in that it's
here in volume and has some very interesting features. Haiku might be
able to draw in a very exciting crowd of geeks if we got this working,
too... though I suppose buying PS3s for all the devs might be a bad
move in the short term:)
> Also, there's the iLiad "book reader" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILiad),
> > which has WiFi and wired LAN, 64M RAM, 224M internal flash storage,
> and
> a 400MHz XScale processor... It's a tad on the expensive side (>500
> euro), and I'm not sure you can get the documentation you'd need + it
> only has a greyscale screen (but it's an 'electronic paper' screen,
> which is very, very interesting in that it doesn't need a backlight).
Is it open to hacking, and documented?
I'm not sure. I don't think it is, actually, but then it's only a few
months old and I've yet to see one in the flesh. It could be a piece
of junk for all I know, but the specs look amazing. I'm particularly
interested in the screen - from what I've read, not only does it not
require a backlight to be readable in daylight - which also makes it
easier on the eyes -, it also only draws current on redraws, making it
very battery light.
Can Haiku provide a better e-booking experience?
Well, probably not a better e-booking experience directly, but one
that's just as good (PDFs are hardly rocket science). I'm mostly
thinking of it as a platform for a great palmtop computer. The
hardware is certainly right, and Haiku is almost small enough to fit
in it. I use an Apple Newton, and I could certainly see Haiku moving
in to that space (and the smart phone space) - with the lean apps and
the great interprocess communication and filesystem attributes. I keep
meaning to write something about exactly how great Haiku would be for
this, but it's still just notes.
> I'd welcome anything that moved Haiku closer to running
> on my SGI O2, though...
How do the O2s compare in watts, heat and noise?
Do you have it on your desk or on the floor?
It's in the post... I bought one on eBay a few weeks ago to 'upgrade'
from my Indy, which is a bit slow and uses old 50-pin HDs which you
can't really find, plus the O2 is beautiful and I got it cheap. By all
accounts the O2 can be made near-silent with the right HD and a simple
fan replacement. I know people have them on their desks (I personally
keep everything on the floor as I'm not too keen on chairs). I think
the PSU is 175W, which is nearly nothing in today's world... it is 10
years old, mind. It's not an obvious target though, unless Haiku wants
to be the next the NetBSD... The SGI-specific firmware would mean a
lot of work that wouldn't really benefit anywhere else.
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