SqueakOS

William Barnett-Lewis wlewis at mailbag.com
Mon Jan 4 18:15:58 UTC 1999


Well, I have noticed that the best of the crop of these little machines
(i.e. HP's new color HP800 series) have a user "upgradable" ROM. The
HP800, for example, specs says "16MB Burst Mode ROM, user upgradable".
All you would need is the Strong Arm port of Linux, Squeak, and a
compatible ROM for burning...

Now this assumes a bit better HW hacker than I, but it really shouldn't
be that difficult to liberate what otherwise seems like a very nice
machine.

(The HP800 can be found at
http://www.hp.com/jornada/palmtops/hp800/800_overview.html )

William


Patrick Logan wrote:
> 
>     But my real interest in a portable OS is for hardware like the
>     latest crop of WinCE machines which don't have hard disks. They
>     boot from a ROM that's probably soldered to the board. How can one
>     "take over" such a machine with a custom OS? It could be
>     impossible, especially if the OS in ROM turns on memory
>     protection.
> 
> I think this hard-wiring is intentional. Richard Stallman had an
> article about it in a CACM issue a year or so ago. The architecture of
> WinCE hardware and software has been seen by several people as an
> attempt by Microsoft to:
> 
> (1) Wrestle hardware control away from Intel; and
> 
> (2) Wrestly software control away from alternate OSs like NeXT, BeOS,
>     Linux, Solaris on Intel, etc. that were just starting to show
>     signs of life back when WinCE emerged.
> 
> But this has never stopped those amazingly creative software hackers
> before, has it?
> 
> --
> Patrick Logan                 mailto:patrickl at gemstone.com
> Voice 503-533-3365            Fax   503-629-8556
> Gemstone Systems, Inc         http://www.gemstone.com

-- 
Live without fear; your Creator loves you       
as a mother. Go in peace to follow the good	    
road and may God's blessing be with you always. 
St. Claire





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