Re: [9fans] Wearables

[W B Hacker <wbh@conducive.org>]

john@csplan9.rit.edu wrote:
>> lucio@proxima.alt.za wrote:
>> But if ever there was a market born to take best advantage of Plan9's long suit, 
>> handheld, or 'wearable' has to be the most obvious contender, and on power nd 
>> bandwidth consumption as much as CPU cycles or 'local' RAM capacity.
>>
> 
> A friend and I are starting a project to create a simple wearable computer. We've
> got some hardware to get started; probably will begin with a laptop, our camera
> viewfinder HMD, and a keyboard strapped around the waist (crude, I know) or 
> some form of home-brewed chording device. I considered using Plan 9, but since
> we don't plan to include a pointing device yet, and the viewfinder can only display
> low resolutions and in black and white, I think we'll end up going with something
> designed to be used 80x24 characters at a time... Linux. If somebody can present
> me with some good reasons to use Plan 9 instead, we can try it, but I really
> don't think Plan 9 actually is ideal for a wearable.
> 
> John
> 
> 

'Ideal' only in two senses:

- Very well-suited to having the 'heavy' resources remoted over reasonably 
efficient (low bandwidth) networking.

- lacking a GP GUI (rio/acme are, IMNSHO, a coder's IDE, not a GP GUI), but 
having lightweight tools to implement one (drawterm, VNC)  - so you can do 
'locally' only what your app really *must* do locally.

As to 'pointing device' - why not a tilt-disk, 'clit' or trackball? All of which 
are cheaply salvaged from new or used hardware. Chording the 'Plan9 way' is not 
an absolute requirement - just one already built-in.

Viewing device?  'Virtual reality' headset, perhaps?

Or go the other way...

text-to-speech in an earpiece, speech-to-text from a mic.

'Heavy' CPU to convert bothways accurately is remoted.

Might mean the heaviest thing you have to wear is...

...a 'dumb' telephone handset and a thin LCD for graphics when needed.

My biggest personal objection to most modern PDA/phone rigs (Blackberry, Treo, 
et al) is the need to grab a stylus and/or otherwise use BOTH hands when NO 
hands is a nicer goal, and ONE hand was possible even with the ancient HP-200-LX 
(thumb-typing).

Belt-mount and Bluetooth or similar seems a good idea though.

Linux? Far too 'heavy', even stripped - which is not as easy as it sounds if you 
need even basic functionality). if not Plan9, then Minix3 revanche is lighter 
(and very Posix compliant)

But might be better-off with DRDOS and GEM. Seriously.

Find an HP-100/200-LX (MSDOS, not DRDOS) and see what was possible lo those many 
years ago with a couple of the right PCMCIA cards and lithium AA batteries.

Used to carry a pair of clip leads and external twin D-cell holder to send faxes 
and login to CompuServe from hotel rooms. Purchased and discarded batteries 
locally so as to not have to carry the weight or a charger. ELSE 'borrowed' the 
rechargeable emergency flashlight found in many hotels.

'Too soon we forget' how much could be accomplished with a lowly VT-whatever 
'dumb terminal' connected to the right support infrastructure at a mere 1200 - 
9600 bps.

These need not replace the entire laptop/desktop 'puterish experience - just 
bridge the gaps.

Bill