> >Has anyone attempted to integrate a netwinder into a wearable? If so, what >were your results? Also, what good/bad points did you find? > Been there, done that... I had to give it up until I find a suitable HMD as a Compaq 286/LTE was too clunky. Lessee...the Netwinder has the plus that it can eat anything from 9VDC to 15VDC *max* (inluding ripple), has massive amounts of peripherals (2 ethernet ports, SVGA out, NTSC in/out, serial, parallel, 16bit sound in/out, microphone, irDA, PS/2 mouse/kbd, programmable switch, internal EIDE hard-drive (4GB or more)) and consumes 15W nominal power. Typical runtime on a 12V/7.2Ah gel-cell: 4hrs Minus: the form factor is a bit clunky. The plastic case seems too fragile to expose to the elements, so mine is in an aluminum super-case..this makes for a 12"x8"x4" block strapped to my thigh. (connectors facing forward, otherwise I can't sit down! :) Large, but not heavy, and seems to survive regular knocking-around nicely. Minus: runs very hot internally (typ: 50deg C) and is *not* hardened like most PC/104, so I wouldn't use it without major mods in a harsh environment (very humid, dirty and/or hot), although I have used it for a couple hours in < -20C weather (I love Canada! ;) without problems. Plus/Minus: 275Mhz (222-250 useable MIPS) RISC CPU (StrongARM SA110) running Linux (Red Hat/Debian only for now) which is quite snappy, but has no floating-point hardware, so it has to be (slowly!) emulated or you have to use integer-based code. Integer-based MP3 players consume about 18% of CPU time. It's also totally custom hardware...nothing is upgradeable...even the SO-DIMM RAM is custom...some internal specs are available, but it's (IIRC) a 10-layer SMD board..definitely *non*-trivial to hack. All in all...given suitable peripherals (a PS/2 input device of some sort, a good headset/mic combo, small NTSC-output CCD camera, some low-power 802.11 wireless ethernet interface (or packet radio), line-powered batterycharger/powersupply, and a HMD) one could turn a Netwinder into (IMHO) a uber-wearcomp power-wise (it's not very concealed though, unlike WearComp 7) i.e.: one could probably recap most of the Media Labs projects on it. (MIT people: correct me if I am wrong...) ...but then you would *really* look like a Borg...(and a rich one at that) ;> -- Eric LaForest Nascent Linux Something -www.netwinder.org/~elafo/- #define Hacker !(Cracker) //FYI: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon Breaking into computers does not make one a hacker, for the same reasons that hotwiring cars does not make one a mechanic... paraphr. from ESR -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
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