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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