Re: [9fans] more little hardware

[John Floren <slawmaster@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 3:57 PM, Axel Belinfante
<Axel.Belinfante@cs.utwente.nl> wrote:
> On Mar 17, 2010, at 20:13 , John Floren wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:57 AM, Stuart Morrow
>
> <morrow.stuart@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> However, there is one "smart" feature that for me would be useful enough
> that
>
> carrying a big chunky thing that lives for a quarter of a day on battery
> might
>
> actually be worth it, and the feature is so damn trivial to do with Plan 9 -
>
> setting/unsetting the ring tone to/from silent in a cron job.
>
> I would like my ringtone volume to adjust periodically to the ambient
>
> noise, which also seems fairly trivial.
>
> What did you folks with bitsies and iPAQs find useful? Any of you
>
> still packing one?
>
> -Jack
>
> I have fiddled with an iPAQ/bitsy on and off over the last few years.
>
> What's really nice about it is that you get access to a "real
>
> computer"; I booted wirelessly off my CPU server, which meant I had
>
> access to all my files and music, which was nice because the bitsy's
>
> sound hardware is supported. As long as you have a wireless
>
> connection, it's the best way to use a PDA.
>
>
> Sorry to spam a bit more, but memory is returning...
> I wrote:
>
> can agree to that.
> used it to play music too, a bit.
>
> there was a time when I occasionally used it as small terminal,
> at the university, at home, or even elsewhere,
> to connect via vnc to a session running on the desktop at the office.
> with a tiny font, an xterm would be big enough to read email via mh.
>
> I also used it on occasion when diagnosing plan 9 cpu server in
> the server room - it was a nice small machine to bring there.
>
> I also used it to play games (sudoku, rush hour)
>
> bulky it was - I have the bigger sleeve that allows
> use of two thin pcmcia cards (e.g. wifi and hard disk).
>
> I don't know exactly why I stopped using it...
> somehow the use I had for it disappeared, I guess.
>
> and there was also the issue that suspend/resume was
> not working for me, if I remember well
> (though it has been working for others - did it work for you, John?)
> and thus battery life was rather limited, unless I would
> shutdown/reboot every time, which was less convenient.
> Axel.

I seem to remember something like that. I don't recall exactly what it
was. I might see if I still have the bitsy in storage somewhere, now
that RIT has just installed a much more extensive wireless network.

I think my biggest problem was with getting wireless set up. I was
also unable to build a new image from source; I don't remember exactly
the problem but I had to fall back on one you provided. Also, the
keyboard gets kind of "squished" when the scribble area is displayed,
the backspace key in particular was nearly impossible to hit. If I
could have successfully built a new image, I could have disabled the
scribble portion, but in my case I was out of luck.

John
-- 
"Object-oriented design is the roman numerals of computing" -- Rob Pike