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Re: Alternitave Wearble (GB/Z80)

From: Joseph Gaffney <>
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 18:08:22 -0500

At 08:21 AM 3/3/98 -0600, Kent Lofley wrote:
>I know that 4mhz seems slow but it will work for the things that I 
>want to accomplish with my wearable.  I think that it is a cheap 
>alternative that could run many apps, and be very profecient for and 
>use little power but almost no one is willing to look into it.  The 
>pocket gameboy can run for 25 hrs on 2 AAA batteries.  That is a 
>million times better than any other wearable.  Somewhat limited but 
>very effective and possible.  If you interested give some older 
>technology a new chance.
>
>Kent

Ok, you have to think this out a bit more.  Do you remember 286's? I do, I
have one.  It is 3 times the speed of a gameboy, yet I still feel like
popping the thing open and pushing the data (whenever I'm forced into using
it).  Keep in mind as well that the 4mhz is the max speed of the processor,
that does not mean its ever going to get to 4mhz while doing some
processing (in fact, it probably won't).  A 6mhz z80 in a calculator (The
TI-8x series) can be clocked at 2mhz.  Say you can reach 2mhz with the z80
in the gameboy.  Don't forget now that you'll want some I/O there, because
of the need of a hard drive and other such devices.  After this, what speed
do you think you'll reach?

As far as 25 hours of life, don't expect half that.  You're going to need
power for the hard drive (which is basically an improbable addon), the HMD
(even if you use the screen as I suggested, you may need to make some
modifications), and any other device you have hooked up to it (which will
probably entail an I/O card so you can add things on later).

While it would be nice, it may be more... effective... to think about some
other chip, such as those used in PDA's (Such as the NEC VR series, my
choice).

- Joseph Gaffney
- 
- http://www.thethinker.com/members/gaffney/
- http://www.ArchAgency.com/

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