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Author Topic: Jackito: A Handheld Hypercomputer!?  (Read 4148 times)

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Offline FloidTopic starter

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Jackito: A Handheld Hypercomputer!?
« on: July 13, 2004, 01:42:05 AM »
Picked up from Slashdot, this just blows my mind.  Some company, apparently French, has announced the Jackito... A PDA (well, they want you to call it a 'TDA,' because they've given thought to stylus-free control) based around two impressively weak CPUs (a 20MHz M16C, and a TI all-in-one DSP), and some sort of Spartan FPGA with inobvious specifications.  (One page seems to reveal a single 10MHz clock for everything.)

Claimed hardware specs are here, and a slightly goofy block diagram over here.  The 'dedicated automata' in the FPGA are listed here, and aren't much more exciting than the functions of a dedicated chipset... but it's hard to say what the flexibility to re-blow them will allow.

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This is a really interesting approach to a low-power design, and could, perhaps, promise one h*ll of a different approach to software development.  That benefit is muted a bit by the decision to make the standard SDK some sort of 'clip-on' to MSVC... which will allow for rapid development, but probably insulate coders from the sheer insanity of the architecture.  (Without knowing more about it, I assume this mode of development hinges on how well the compiler can 'optimize' routines into the FPGA, and I'm going to guess they haven't actually left themselves a lot of spare capacity in it.  The erstwhile MyLinux used one simply for reasons of convenience, after all, and it takes two -- possibly larger, possibly not -- 'just' to implement a CommodoreOne.)

One thing's for certain -- right now, it looks like it can't handle JPEGs, let alone a browser... and while the FPGA *might* allow some miracles (at the least, performance on par with iBrowse on a classic 1200), you can get a lot more conventional horsepower for the $600 being asked.

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As such, I'm personally going to be ambivalent about it.  On the one hand, this is a much more 'interesting' design than a Palm, for the "No, really, it's an organizer, stop thinking of it as a palmtop!" crowd, and I continue looking forward to the day when something PDA-shaped hits the $20 point, with the flexibility to replace my remote controls, wall plates, wireless thermometer, dedicated-proprietary GPS mapper (well, if only I could afford one of those), etc.  If this proves more likely to develop 'down' into that, more power to it.  On the other hand, embedded CPUs keep getting more powerful, standards keep getting more standard, we're already well-past the performance of an A1000 or an early Sun 'workstation' in the handheld space, and maybe I just wish someone would come out with a single conventional platform with a full assortment of 'sane' real-computer features (a USB host controller, soft-loaded OS, and documented bootloader, for a start) instead of finding new and different ways to make crippled address-book replacements.  After all, you're already going to own a (>Mac Classic-powered) cellphone if you care so much about that.

Whatever the case, this is one platform that intent might need a fair rewrite... or at least some careful thinking... to support.

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Edit:  I may as well reference this link directly, too, where the pain of being a startup once again comes up as ever.  The quote, emphasis mine: "We will reduce this price once we have manufactured 500,000 units. After one million units, the price will fall to around $100."  Illustrates how much R&D they might have to pay down... and another arguable 'error' of a company warning away early-adopters, though I do find that sort of honesty (and bounty approach) more refreshing than... say, Apple.
 

Offline FloidTopic starter

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Re: Jackito: A Handheld Hypercomputer!?
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2004, 09:54:15 AM »
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Sparky wrote:
Hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax hoax!

Actually it's just a scam .. but feel free to send you $100 via PayPal ...

That said, it IS a very interesting design idea for the hardware, the lack of touchscreen is stupid though.

Maybe the C-One could morph into this :-)
Yeah, I caught some of that once I finally stopped rambling and looked at the Slashdot thread.  It's quite hard to say, since it *is* realizable (and purchasing a C-One seems nearly as nondeterministic... man, I love that word lately), but it's not like anyone here's actually going to try to buy one, especially at that price.  I hope. ;-)

Where are you getting the lack of touchscreen?  Apparently the $600 won't even get you color by default, but the touchscreen is the one thing they're on about (and can probably be realized with a simple thin-film display, but you'd have to actually force them to produce one to find out).

BS or not, the actual hardware specs (and overall design of the unit - no buttons equals no complicated assemblies, just a premade screen), seem whittled down enough to be the sort of thing that could be assembled for $75 from Digi-Key if they actually got the preorders.  That hasn't kept other projects from failing, but if they're BSing, at least they put some thought into it.  (As with all things, one would expect the software to lag behind the hardware if they do pull through, but given the sheer 'lameness' of everything involved, it's also the sort of thing you could shake down in a simulator on an x86 cheaper than what they're asking.)

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Edit:  In other news, I still want my #$#%^#@ Kaii-based laptop... what ever happened to them, anyway?  :-o
 

Offline FloidTopic starter

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Re: Jackito: A Handheld Hypercomputer!?
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2004, 09:48:31 PM »
Sparky wrote:
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Well if you don't have a touchscreen and you have only a few thumbable buttons .. how are you to enter in data ?  Morse code ?  Spech recognition ? Telepathetic powers ? :-)
Well, scam or not, on the 'buy' page both the color and B&W are 'tactile' screens, and their little assembly diagram (Photoshopped, sure) shows the button overlay is just a stick-on to the touchscreen element... as it is on certain models of Palm, Psion, etc.  So if there's a slip-up *there,* I've missed it.

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It's is a nice idea, having re-configurable hardware (ala. C-One) that you can rejig depending on the application being run.
Well, as noted, they're playing up the 'hypercomputer' aspect... but those 5 'automata' they mention aren't really anything new.  It's one thing to have a C-One or a Starbridge (those guys still around?), where the re-jigging is part of the fun, and might even occur at run-time... and another to 'just' have a system chipset you can flash update. ;)

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I also must say, that it is a superbly setup scam .. heaps of effort gone into it, almost as good as when London Bridge was sold ;-)
Well, they're doing better than Iwin, and Iwin did get me back when. ;-)