This device has a 400Mghz PPC that fits in your pocket, is USB port powered and takes over PCs without booting into the PC OS(Windows). It boots and runs Linux on the unit.
400Mhz PowerPC Processor
64MB RAM
256MB or 512MB Flash Memory
Could this be the Mystery device?
It appears to be up AmigaInc's alley seeing as they're into all that USB app stuff.

http://www.projectblackdog.com/site/product.html

And we can't even build a PPC Laptop.

Ok. Going back to my happy place now.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Oh wow. If it had OS4 on it instead of Linux, it would be really really cool.

_________________
Playstation Network ID: xeron6

@xeron

And you all laughed when I spoke about my idea for such a device.
"Oh you can't power it off a USB port stupid." you all said. Well
A USB powered uA1? (The Amiga-book concept) I should have patented it.

Imagine if you stuck a touch-screen LCD and a hardisk on it.

OS4 would be a better candidate for such specs than a really cut down Linux methinks.

Ok. Going back to my happy place now.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

Cool device...

Some kind of "power over ethernet" amiga device would be perfect. They always choose the lame OS's for devices though, like this windows thing you see everywhere :)

Last edited by Step on 12-Aug-2005 at 10:56 AM.

_________________
AMiGA

This might be the 'Mystery Device' tm

Martin

ps, how about UAE on linux (Amiga Forever 6) on it...

_________________
Theres a time to live and a time to die
When its time to meet the maker
Theres a time to live but isnt it strange
That as soon as you're born you're dying

@BigBentheAussie

And it doesn't have a graphical device, so it's not even CLOSE to a laptop. Why are you CONSTANTLY comparing apples and oranges?

Do you HONESTLY think that constructing an embedded PPC device with a USB port and some storage is even COMPARABLE to constructing a full fledged laptop? How stupid ARE you, really?

If this is what you wanted, then you should have said so. Myself I can't see a SINGLE advantage in this design over a normal CF card or USB memory stick. Why do you need a CPU and an OS inside your memory stick? Are you REALLY going to be moving a running webserver around in your pocket, as opposed to just moving the files around?

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Quote:

And it doesn't have a graphical device, so it's not even CLOSE to a laptop. Why are you CONSTANTLY comparing apples and oranges?

I'll take apples or oranges...Hell, I'll even settle for a lemon. Hmmm....Shan't touch that one.

Quote:

Do you HONESTLY think that constructing an embedded PPC device with a USB port and some storage is even COMPARABLE to constructing a full fledged laptop? How stupid ARE you, really?

So you're saying if you can squeeze this into a tiny package you can't put it or something a little more powerful in a laptop? It's not that outlandish surely. And there's no need to call me stupid....I already know.

Quote:

If this is what you wanted, then you should have said so.

Actually I did on 30-Sep-2004 4:43:21 to be precise.
A USB powered uA1? (The Amiga-book concept)

Quote:

Myself I can't see a SINGLE advantage in this design over a normal CF card or USB memory stick. Why do you need a CPU and an OS inside your memory stick?

You can't? How stupid ARE you, really? The reasons I gave in my thread. That's why I, and others, would be interested in such an Amiga.

Ok. Going back to my happy place now.

Last edited by BigBentheAussie on 12-Aug-2005 at 11:40 AM.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

@BigBentheAussie

There's a world of difference between single-chip PPC variants with builtin USB, memory and flash controllers and multi-chip constructions like a laptop. I shouldn't even have used the terms apples and oranges, I should have used "construction cranes and spades". Really, being good at designing spades and shovels does not mean building a construction crane is easy.

Designing a laptop is one of the worst nightmares I could think of. There's so much you need to get right (everything on board, gazillions of pins on more than a handful of chips need to be correct).

Take a look at this:
http://www.lynuxworks.com/board-support/amcc/amcc-440ep.php

It's got on-chip USB 2.0 device controller (and a pair of 1.1 host/device controllers), SDRAM controller, FLASH controller etc. Wanna bet this is the CPU the BlackDog uses? 4 monkeys, 4 weeks (as opposed to infinite number of monkeys, infinite time ). But going from there to a laptop design is a year or two of manpower at least.

Hey, I'm not saying it's _not_ a good product, but slinging mud at people with no basis whatsoever in reality is something I don't approve of. And people with zero knowledge of electronics telling me how this or that should be designed is something I don't particularly like either.


(edit: forgot a critical word in the last paragraph. Memo to self: lack of "not" negates whole meaning. Thanks in advance)

Last edited by olegil on 12-Aug-2005 at 12:33 PM.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

This is more than a memory stick (from the website):

"To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer’s USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine’s monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state."

Though I wonder how it works... especially with Windows

@fisk

You would obviously have a USB driver installed on the host machine that opens up a VNC like application and sends the interface over USB to the device. Nothing too fancy there. Nice idea, not overly impressive from what I've read so far.

Ok, I agree this device has SOME usefullness. But I'm still quite certain that

1: it's not got enough graphics bandwidth over USB to play any of the games we've been complaining about PCI not being able to handle these last few weeks in a different thread

2: it's not very useful to have a webserver in a pocket. A webserver should be serving data to people over HTTP, not sitting in a pocket. Duh

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@all
It doesn't boot into a PC operating system. It seems to treat the USB as an external CD Rom, to launch software from PC bootup that allows you to access the OS on the PPC device. I guess you can probably access it from Windows too.

@olegil
In, what is likely to be, the eternal absence of an Amiga laptop, I wouldn't mind this puppy.
BTW, does anybody know any monkeys. I want an Amiga like this pronto. If we get 8 monkeys maybe we can get it done in a couple of weeks. Hmmm... Less time than the OS4 port will take.

Honestly olegil, I don't understand why you're being so contrary, and why you appear to be taking this so personally. I have only ever repeated to you what you said to me(with smilies even), and some of it has been rather nasty.

Fine, if this hardware is beneath you, then so be it, but I think there are a lot of people out there that might enjoy it as much as I think I would.

I'm sure you know a lot of things olegil and are good at what you do, but you're not quite thinking far enough out of the box as I like and there is no need to chastise me for doing so. Sure, I get excited about stuff like this, and why should I think about plausability when I am a consumer, rather than a electronics expert. I mentioned I wanted something like this nearly a year ago, and a lot of people rained on my parade, and here we are now with almost exactly what I asked for.

Running Doom or a webserver is not the be-all end-all, in fact I haven't done either in a long time and it isn't high on my list of priorities.

Ok. Going back to my happy place now.

_________________
Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

well if you carry your cpu with you, then you should carry your OS and all work with you. And the default 512mb on blackdog isn't enough for anything. I think this is a very bad idea, unless they find a way to squeeze a 20gb flash drive in it.

This thing falls into the "Cool device that you would probably never use" category. Way to many limitations to make it very useful.

_________________
Micro A1 866 Mhz and AmigaOS 4.1
PowerMac G4 1.4 Ghz and MorphOS 2.7

@olegil

Quote:

You would obviously have a USB driver installed on the host machine that opens up a VNC like application and sends the interface over USB to the device. Nothing too fancy there. Nice idea, not overly impressive from what I've read so far.

hmm, i see. from what i understand, the blackdog requires XP or linux, so, as you say, it is not a 'live' OS in that it requires a host environment to function.

ideally, this product would suit me completely if you could just plug in the device, power on the machine, and get a native version of the OS with access to the host's hardware (drives, network etc).

and as for a webserver in my pocket... i already do! i use wamp on my jumpdrive, as an intranet with a homepage of http links. this isn't silly at all (sat in my pocket?). Everyday i use this, and everday it saves me time effort and increases my productivity! an AOS4 pocket server would be even better. period.

as for the gaming issue... this isn't a replacement for your desktop, why on earth would you want it to play games? get a ps3 or something for that then!

I'm confused....

First we get people firing personal insults at BBtA as though he's accused someone's mother of being the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or something , and then there's comments on it being a really bad idea just because they can't see the purpose for themselves....

For myself I think it's a good and useful idea for the right people... I can think of potential uses already - how about cybercafes where you can plug in your own entire machine and thereby have your own machine using their monitor, keyboard and network connection? Or what about if you want to develop software to run on more than one CPU in assembler - you can use the PPC box to develop PPC code quite happily. Or whatabout multi-CPU computers - maybe each box could run some really heavy software to relieve your main machine?

OK, so they might have limited uses generally, but just because we can't think of killer uses now doesn't mean that no-one can.

And BBtA - I agree.... I think it's a pretty cool idea. And no, it's not far off a laptop at all, the only difference is that laptops have a few extra support chips - which could easily be added to this box by any proficient hardware designer. There's nothing magical about laptops, they're just CPUs and chipsets, same as anything else.

Certainly no need for commenting on how "STUPID" someone is or is not.

@olegil

This is a different implementation of the concept pioneered by the IBM Meta Pad and oqo at a much reduced price.

While it may or may not play Doom 3 to everyone's liking, it's got enough throughput for many "personal" computer uses. The fact that they're pricing in the PDA range shows that they know where the competition is.

Also, it's not a web server. It's a file server. Your files. Your MP3s, jpegs, schematics, html pages, whatever. Accessible through any other Windows or x86 Linux computer anywhere. With no hot-syncing, because they're right there in that box, all the time.

And, no, I'm not going to buy one, either.

_________________
Tony T.

People who generalize are always wrong.


1989 - 500 / 1991 - 3000 / 1997 - Genesis Flyer 1200T / 2003 - A1XE

@coze

It does have an OS. It runs Linux. And it holds whatever work you put on it.

As to the storage size, there's a post over on slashdot that claims that they're trying to get micro-drives for it, but the supplier is being somewhat reluctant. The post says that they're releasing the flash version now so that potential buyers won't need to wait for the HD version.

_________________
Tony T.

People who generalize are always wrong.


1989 - 500 / 1991 - 3000 / 1997 - Genesis Flyer 1200T / 2003 - A1XE

@olegil

Quote:

olegil wrote: @fisk 2: it's not very useful to have a webserver in a pocket. A webserver should be serving data to people over HTTP, not sitting in a pocket. Duh

Especially since it´s just dead storage, no accesibility on the move(unless you plug it into a laptop), no wifi and no bluetooth.
Otherwise a pocketserver could be very useful, especially for students...
I fail to see the advantage of this over any other usb-security gadget.

And why is it runing debian and not Tinfoil Hat Linux?

@BigBentheAussie

Cool little device. Instead of bringing files to friend's houses and hoping they have the applications I need installed why not bring the 'whole' computer in your pocket. Sure you have to piggy back on another system but many people in the US have computers. Even some broken slow Pentium 100Mhz system that Grandma has might be usable for your needs and since the processor's on the module at halfway decent speeds.

I could wrap up the AmigaOS, PPC, a few apps and the files I need and just snap it in and go wherever.

One thing this might be cool for is businesses. In business you often require users a particular OS, particular Applications, and sometimes even security. You can now give it to them in a small system which they snap in wherever they are. If these are 1/2 the price of a laptop it could save your business money. Welcome to company X, here's your desktop use it wherever it's got all the security and apps built in.

@BrianK

Quote:

BrianK wrote: One thing this might be cool for is businesses. In business you often require users a particular OS, particular Applications, and sometimes even security. You can now give it to them in a small system which they snap in wherever they are. If these are 1/2 the price of a laptop it could save your business money. Welcome to company X, here's your desktop use it wherever it's got all the security and apps built in.

How do you figure that????
Surely thin clients is both more secure and cheaper(especially to maintain). And any salesman that goes around lending the customers computers ain´t gonna be very popular.

I don´t understand what the big deal is the same could easily be achived with a livecd and some common usb-storage(ipod, lifedrive, common usb flashstick or whatever). But faster of course....