[9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Digby Tarvin]

I never thought I would stoop to buying a WinCE machine, but I have
been seduced by the promise of being able to throw out the bundled
software and installing Plan9 on a pocket sized machine and so am
now the proud owner of an H3660.

Unfortunately I don't know much about the machine, and the package
included precious little that I could read through to enlighten me
and while away the hours on my flight after buying it duty free at
the airport...

Most microsoft equipped machines come with woefully little documentation
on the hardware, but the bitsy didn't even have printed docs on the
software facilities....

I am guessing that the documentation must be available out there
somewhere, otherwise the Plan9 port could not have been done.

Can anyone give me some pointers on where to look for a nice
system programmers overview of the beast?

Thanks,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Pjotr Kourzanov]

Possibly off-topic,

"Digby Tarvin" <digbyt@acm.org> wrote in message
news:200109210824.JAA09693@cthulhu.dircon.co.uk...
> I never thought I would stoop to buying a WinCE machine, but I have
> been seduced by the promise of being able to throw out the bundled
> software and installing Plan9 on a pocket sized machine and so am
> now the proud owner of an H3660.
>
> Unfortunately I don't know much about the machine, and the package
> included precious little that I could read through to enlighten me
> and while away the hours on my flight after buying it duty free at
> the airport...
>
> Most microsoft equipped machines come with woefully little documentation
> on the hardware, but the bitsy didn't even have printed docs on the
> software facilities....
>
> I am guessing that the documentation must be available out there
> somewhere, otherwise the Plan9 port could not have been done.

  So, there is Plan9 port for StrongARM? I'm surprised...

> Can anyone give me some pointers on where to look for a nice
> system programmers overview of the beast?
>

    Try www.handhelds.org, they have lotsa links and even 3 Linux
distributions
for that animal :-)

> Thanks,
> DigbyT
> --
> Digby R. S. Tarvin
digbyt@acm.org
> http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Pjotr Kourzanov.

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Digby Tarvin]

Pjotr Kourzanov:
>
>   So, there is Plan9 port for StrongARM? I'm surprised...
>
The 3rd edition docs lists ARM7500FE and Strongarm SA1 core machines
amoungst those supported by the compiler, so I guess it was used on
other ARM based machines before the iPAQ.

An Inferno port also seems to be available
> > Can anyone give me some pointers on where to look for a nice
> > system programmers overview of the beast?
> >
>
>     Try www.handhelds.org, they have lotsa links and even 3 Linux
> distributions for that animal :-)

Thanks. That was indeed a useful site.

An Inferno port also seems to be available, which is encouraging both
because I can run most interesting OSs on the machine, and also because
it implies some pretty smart people have decided the hardware is interesting
enough to have put in the effort to port to it.

I certainly wasn't excited by what the machine seemed to have to offer
as a WinCE handheld, and doubt I would have considered it were it not
for the 3rd party OSs available. Makes me wonder how much of the price
I paid went to Microsoft for software I will never use :-/

Regards,
DigbyT
--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Pjotr Kourzanov]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Digby Tarvin" <digbyt@acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.os.plan9
Sent: Saturday 22 September 2001 3:48
Subject: Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.


> Pjotr Kourzanov:
> > 
> >   So, there is Plan9 port for StrongARM? I'm surprised...
> >
> The 3rd edition docs lists ARM7500FE and Strongarm SA1 core machines
> amoungst those supported by the compiler, so I guess it was used on
> other ARM based machines before the iPAQ.

    This means you'll have to compile everything, and port the drivers. Sure,
given some spare time and access to Linux sources that might prove easy.
 
> An Inferno port also seems to be available

   That's great! The very first thing I'll do when I have spare time is to play
with that a little. Don't know whether I'll venture into Plan9 itself, but its
nice to have Inferno running on Linux as well.

> > > Can anyone give me some pointers on where to look for a nice
> > > system programmers overview of the beast?
> > >
> > 
> >     Try www.handhelds.org, they have lotsa links and even 3 Linux
> > distributions for that animal :-)
> 
> Thanks. That was indeed a useful site.
> 
> An Inferno port also seems to be available, which is encouraging both
> because I can run most interesting OSs on the machine, and also because
> it implies some pretty smart people have decided the hardware is interesting
> enough to have put in the effort to port to it.

    Yeah, that was the reason I bought iPAQ and not Palm. You just have much more
flexibility, that is, besides the computing power of a little outdated desktop.

> I certainly wasn't excited by what the machine seemed to have to offer
> as a WinCE handheld, and doubt I would have considered it were it not
> for the 3rd party OSs available. Makes me wonder how much of the price
> I paid went to Microsoft for software I will never use :-/
> Regards,
> DigbyT
> -- 
> Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
> http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Fco.J.Ballesteros]

The compaq site has a pdf with the description of the architecture.
I've lost my copy though. But you could probably go with google.

You have also the linux source code for the thing (handhelds.org).

The people from the labs may have more info.

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[Digby Tarvin]

Hi,

Thanks for your amazingly fast response.

I had a search through www.compaq.com and found a document called
'iPAC H3000 Pocket PC Reference Guide' in a file 177711-003.pdf
Does that sound like the one you are referring to?

Also checked the handhelds.org site, and it had some good information
also.

Thanks again for the tips.

Regards,
DigbyT

Fco.J.Ballesteros:
> The compaq site has a pdf with the description of the architecture.
> I've lost my copy though. But you could probably go with google.
>
> You have also the linux source code for the thing (handhelds.org).
>
> The people from the labs may have more info.
>
>


--
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk

Re: [9fans] Bitsy hardware docs.

[forsyth]

>>	Pjotr Kourzanov:
>>	>
>>	>   So, there is Plan9 port for StrongARM? I'm surprised...
>>	>
>>	The 3rd edition docs lists ARM7500FE and Strongarm SA1 core machines
>>	amoungst those supported by the compiler, so I guess it was used on
>>	other ARM based machines before the iPAQ.

>>	An Inferno port also seems to be available

The compiler was originally done for an Inferno port to an ARM, years ago,
but needed work, which was done by various people over the past four years
in ports to various Strongarm based devices (using SA110 and SA11x0).
It was used by Plan 9 for the first time for the iPAQ port, with the addition
of some operators that hadn't by then been used by Inferno.