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Re: Corel NetWinder as a wearable?

On Sat, 3 Oct 1998  wrote:
> Thank you for answering a question before I had the chance to ask. I was
> wondering if the Netwinder was powerful enough to play mp3s, and now I
> know--and more specifically, I know that xaudio, the particular player I was
> planning on using, is available for it. A couple of questions, though.
> First, does playing an mp3 leave any CPU cycles to do other things, or does
> that put the Netwinder at it's limit? And is it possible to attach, in any
> form, an IDE drive to a Netwinder? I really need a very large (10GB+) drive,
> and a SCSI disk that size is ridiculously expensive (and probably
> unobtainable in a 2.5" form factor, to boot).

I vaguely seem to recall the press release for the StrongARM xaudio saying
that it took something like 18% of CPU time. Pretty good, I think you'll
agree. It's still in beta, but you can find it at the main
http://www.xaudio.com/ web page. It was actually Hugo Reinnes who
comissioned the port, for his SA1100 Linux based in car mpeg player (a
commercial product; it's web page is at http://www.empeg.com/)

In theory, you can't upgrade the hard drive. In practise, it has two
internal IDE controllers so, if you are willing to void your warranty by
opening the case and run the drive from a seperate power supply (the
Winder's is just about at it's limit as supplied), then it can be done. As
for SCSI, the only way you can do it at the moment is either through NFS
or a parallel port SCSI converter (can you say sssslllllooooowwwwww????).
A NetWinder with built in SCSI is apparently quite high on the list of
CCCs priorities though (along with firewire and USB).

Best wishes, Alex.

--------------- Linux- the choice of a GNU generation. --------------
: Alex Holden (M1CJD)- Caver, Programmer, Land Rover nut, Radio Ham :
-------------------- http://www.linuxhacker.org/ --------------------

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