<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">Hi Aaron,</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> I hope you had a good holiday...</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">>If you find teh PocketPC total crap as a PDA, then I suggest you steer<br>
>clear of any Zaurus model, at least for the time being. PocketPC's PIM<br>
>software is at least a few light-hours ahead of what you can get for the<br>
>Linux Zaurus, even if you spring for commercial replacements like those<br>
>from theKompany.com; the PIM stuff available for Psion or NewtonOS is a<br>
>number of light-years ahead. In general, the software available for the<br>
>Zaurus line is pretty sad compared to what you can get even on PocketPC.<br>
</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> So is wanting a list (i.e. text) of your appointments over the next</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">week all on the same screen such an exotic expectation? The PocketPC</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">week view only gives you an idea of when you're busy, but not where you</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">need to be or what the topic of the meeting is. Sigh...</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> Maybe this is an opportunity to provide the WinCE world with a "good"</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">PIM application? ...in Squeak, of course...</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">>As a Squeak platform, the C760 is very nice though. It gets pretty similar<br>
>tinyBenchmarks values, although I wonder how different this iPAQ (or<br>
>similar WinCE/PPC machines) *feels* compared to a Zaurus C750/760. In my<br>
>experience, Squeak on a Zaurus SL-5500 felt quite a bit faster than the<br>
>Dell Axim X5, even though they had pretty similar tinyBenchmarks results.<br>
</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> Well, by rough count, the 'New morph...' menu takes about 3 seconds or</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">so to appear compared to around 1 second on my PIII/700 laptop (which gives</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">something around 66M bytecodes/s and 1.9M sends/s), so this implies that</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">the sends are the dominant factor for costructing that menu and the iPAQ</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">performance is about what should be expected based on the tinyBenchmarks</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">results.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> The only other thing I can think of that would explain the difference</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">you see between the Zaurus and the Axim is memory bus speed. The Zaurus</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">probably has a faster memory bus than the Axim, and I'm guessing that</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">tinyBenchmarks is small enough that it might benefit more from the tiny-ish</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">caches of the StrongARM/xScale that Morphic/UI operations.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> From what I've read, the iPAQ 2215 has a 100 MHz memory bus, although</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">they do fail to mention the bus width. I would think 32 bits is a good</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">number, but I've heard that some of the earlier WinCE pocket devices were</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">only 16 bit memory busses for 32 (or even 64 - MIPS III) bit CPUs.</font>
<br>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> We REALLY could use a VM that plays nicer with the latest version of</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">WinCE though. The VM Andreas did for Squeak 2.7 on the Casio WinCE 2.11</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">devices was much better behaved as WinCE apps go. I've started to look</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">a little at the sources in the Tarball that Yoshiki referenced to get a</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">feel for what's involved, but I haven't yet found (or looked for) the</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">list of rules for "playing nice" in Windows Mobile 2003.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> Anyway, I'm rambling, and I have to get some work done before it gets</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">too dark. We're still running with reduced lighting and air conditioning,</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">and non-essential government workers will probably have the rest of the</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">week off until Ontario Hydro gets all of it's generating capacity back on</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">line. It's amazing how dark some of our labs in the center of the building</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">can get even during the day.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly traffic flowed in</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">Ottawa on Thursday without traffic lights. I was a little irked</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">though at how CNN et al. took such a US centered approach to the whole</font>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New">thing.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Courier New"> -Dean</font>
<br>
<br>