Hello- especially Ned-
I have aquired a Sigmarion III device as a review/demo unit. There is a lot of interest within some circles (HPC users, people who want an upgrade from their MobilePro or Jornada7xx), but being a japan-only device no good reviews have surfaced on the english mobile sites.
Replying to some comments by Ned when Yoshiki-san brought up the Sig3 and my own impresions.
The Sigmarion III is a newish Handheld PC-like device that runs WinCE 4.1. It is decently priced (as low as $360 in Japan) compared to anything else in its class. It has the usual specs for devices like this these days- 400 MHz PXA255, 64 MB RAM, SD and CF slots. That's about where it ends as far as the "usual" specs are concerned.
In addition to the above, the Sigmarion III is special in a few ways-
* A USB Host (1.X) *and* a seperate USB slave port: the former is for attaching USB devices, the latter for connecting the Sig3 to a desktop for syncing, usbnet, etc. I don't know of any other XScale PDAs that have this, although I think some Toshiba PocketPCs have at least some capability in this respect. You can get a CF card to a USB host port to a PocketPC or Zaurus, but they are pretty expensive (US$140), take up a CF slot (where does wifi go?!) and bulkier.
Reading various forums, people have been able to hook up a number of devices to the USB port- keyboards, mice, USB hard drives scanners, and cd burners (!).
* A 5" 800x480 touch screen. What is there more to say? A smaller DPI, so the screen is a bit taller on the vertical axis than the Zaurus is when they both have 480 pixels. Like the Zaurus C7x0 the screen is very sharp, packing a lot of pixels in a tiny space. Not as bright of a screen as the Zaurus C7x0, but easier to read for me for longer periods of time, though that is probably the DPI.
* A touch-typable keyboard. Very much like the one on the Jornada 720. Which means that the keyboard feel like a laptop keyboard, a laptop keyboard with very small keys, but the same mechanism. As opposed to the click-click TV remote control-style of buttons on the Zaurus C7x0. I have pretty stubby hands and I have no problem typing on the Sig3's kb.
There are all sorts of cellular data services you can get through NTT DoCoMo if you are in Japan. I am not and have no clue what options there are- but they do look sweet.
As far as running Squeak, things are not perfect yet. I have spoken with Yoshiki-san some about it, but nothing has been resolved so far. Using the older, stable VM (which is pointed to on the WinCE Squeak website) there seems to be a limit on the size of image that works for me, even with 58 MB of RAM free, I can only load an image around 10 MB in size. I tried to use his beta VM that allow the user to set the size of the memory heap, but the slider control doesn't show up. I've had no problems running all sorts of standard image versions though.
0 tinyBenchmarks yields: 18017133 bc/sec and 633568 sends/sec. These numbers are very close to what the C7{5,6}0 get.
They can be ordered through various Japan-US importers. The one with the best price (US$525) is Conics.net http://conics.net/shp/pda/sigmarion3/ who also have some good photos up. Other places that carry them include Dynamism (US$599) and www.Japan-Direct.com (US$699).
Regards, Aaron
-- "Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for people not as smart as them." :: paul graham
Aaron,
Thank you for this report.
Older Sigmarion(s) use MIPS chip and there were guys who ported NetBSD to those. It doesn't look like there is no free unix ports for Sigmarion III.
If I have a unit, I can test what's going wrong...
-- Yoshiki
J Reichow wrote:
Hello- especially Ned-
I have aquired a Sigmarion III device as a review/demo unit. There is a lot of interest within some circles (HPC users, people who want an upgrade from their MobilePro or Jornada7xx), but being a japan-only device no good reviews have surfaced on the english mobile sites.
Replying to some comments by Ned when Yoshiki-san brought up the Sig3 and my own impresions.
The Sigmarion III is a newish Handheld PC-like device that runs WinCE 4.1. It is decently priced (as low as $360 in Japan) compared to anything else in its class. It has the usual specs for devices like this these days- 400 MHz PXA255, 64 MB RAM, SD and CF slots. That's about where it ends as far as the "usual" specs are concerned.
In addition to the above, the Sigmarion III is special in a few ways-
- A USB Host (1.X) *and* a seperate USB slave port: the former is for
attaching USB devices, the latter for connecting the Sig3 to a desktop for syncing, usbnet, etc. I don't know of any other XScale PDAs that have this, although I think some Toshiba PocketPCs have at least some capability in this respect. You can get a CF card to a USB host port to a PocketPC or Zaurus, but they are pretty expensive (US$140), take up a CF slot (where does wifi go?!) and bulkier.
Reading various forums, people have been able to hook up a number of devices to the USB port- keyboards, mice, USB hard drives scanners, and cd burners (!).
- A 5" 800x480 touch screen. What is there more to say? A smaller DPI, so
the screen is a bit taller on the vertical axis than the Zaurus is when they both have 480 pixels. Like the Zaurus C7x0 the screen is very sharp, packing a lot of pixels in a tiny space. Not as bright of a screen as the Zaurus C7x0, but easier to read for me for longer periods of time, though that is probably the DPI.
- A touch-typable keyboard. Very much like the one on the Jornada 720.
Which means that the keyboard feel like a laptop keyboard, a laptop keyboard with very small keys, but the same mechanism. As opposed to the click-click TV remote control-style of buttons on the Zaurus C7x0. I have pretty stubby hands and I have no problem typing on the Sig3's kb.
There are all sorts of cellular data services you can get through NTT DoCoMo if you are in Japan. I am not and have no clue what options there are- but they do look sweet.
As far as running Squeak, things are not perfect yet. I have spoken with Yoshiki-san some about it, but nothing has been resolved so far. Using the older, stable VM (which is pointed to on the WinCE Squeak website) there seems to be a limit on the size of image that works for me, even with 58 MB of RAM free, I can only load an image around 10 MB in size. I tried to use his beta VM that allow the user to set the size of the memory heap, but the slider control doesn't show up. I've had no problems running all sorts of standard image versions though.
0 tinyBenchmarks yields: 18017133 bc/sec and 633568 sends/sec. These numbers are very close to what the C7{5,6}0 get.
They can be ordered through various Japan-US importers. The one with the best price (US$525) is Conics.net http://conics.net/shp/pda/sigmarion3/ who also have some good photos up. Other places that carry them include Dynamism (US$599) and www.Japan-Direct.com (US$699).
Regards, Aaron
-- "Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for people not as smart as them." :: paul graham
Hello Yoshiki-
Older Sigmarion(s) use MIPS chip and there were guys who ported NetBSD to those. It doesn't look like there is no free unix ports for Sigmarion III.
I imagine something may come up eventually. There have been Unix ports to various XScale devices. Although if there isn't much interest it may never happen, with it being a rare device in the english speaking world. Not that no-one outside of the US works on such things, but seems to me that the bigger projects are from various english speakers.
It would make a great Unix PDA, IMHO much better than the Zaurus hardware. What Unix nerd wouldn't love a *real* keyboard for emacs/vi? Call me a nerd, but the IRC client I use on WinCE and on the Zaurus is for Emacs... :P
If I have a unit, I can test what's going wrong...
It may not be enough, but if it is, I would certainly be willing to set up a remote access server to the Sig3. I don't think there is a VNC server yet (someone is working on it), but there are some other apps, good ones, that accomplish the same thing. If you're interested, let me know, and I'll set it up. :)
Regards, Aaron
-- "if i don't stay true to live and hate, how do i differentiate between chasing cream and chasing dreams" :: atmosphere
On Friday, November 28, 2003, at 10:57 AM, Aaron J Reichow wrote:
I imagine something may come up eventually. There have been Unix ports to various XScale devices. Although if there isn't much interest it may never happen, with it being a rare device in the english speaking world.
Gronk? XScale is the current main ARM cpu version for all pocketPC machines. Hardly 'rare'.
tim
I said the *device* was rare, not the CPU; "device" is a pretty common way to refer to a PDA, in this context referring to the particular model in question- the Sigmarion III. Which, being a Japan-only item with all Japanese text and no known way to localize to English, is not surprisingly a relatively rare item in the English speaking world.
Regards, Aaron
-- "the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes a river crooked." :: u. utah phillips
On Fri, 28 Nov 2003, Timothy Rowledge wrote:
On Friday, November 28, 2003, at 10:57 AM, Aaron J Reichow wrote:
I imagine something may come up eventually. There have been Unix ports to various XScale devices. Although if there isn't much interest it may never happen, with it being a rare device in the english speaking world.
Gronk? XScale is the current main ARM cpu version for all pocketPC machines. Hardly 'rare'.
tim
Aaron J Reichow reic0024@d.umn.edu wrote:
I said the *device* was rare, not the CPU; "device" is a pretty common way to refer to a PDA,
Certainly true; in my defence I must point out that device is also a common way to refer to a cpu or occasionally even some other chip. The joys of mixing jargon with English...
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Useful Latin Phrases:- Non curo. Si metrum non habet, non est poema = I don't care. If it doesn't rhyme, it isn't a poem.
Aaron J Reichow reic0024@d.umn.edu wrote:
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 12:57:18 -0600 (CST) From: Aaron J Reichow reic0024@d.umn.edu Subject: Re: Squeak on the Sigmarion III To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org reply-to: The general-purpose Squeak developers list squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
Hello Yoshiki-
Older Sigmarion(s) use MIPS chip and there were guys who ported NetBSD to those. It doesn't look like there is no free unix ports for Sigmarion III.
I imagine something may come up eventually. There have been Unix ports to various XScale devices. Although if there isn't much interest it may never happen, with it being a rare device in the english speaking world. Not that no-one outside of the US works on such things, but seems to me that the bigger projects are from various english speakers.
Maybe sooner. A lot of the NetBSD PocketPC work seems to be done in Japan.
cheers
bruce
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
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Aaron J Reichow -
Bruce ONeel -
Tim Rowledge -
Timothy Rowledge
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Yoshiki Ohshima