------------------------------------------------------------ Technology/Dream Palmtop, (sdf.org), 01/15/2019 ------------------------------------------------------------ Twice I owned an HP Omnibook 300, and twice I sold it on eBay. Now, they are all but impossible to get (for a reasonable price.) What I loved about the Omnibook 300: - Flexible power options, including AA's (not sure why this still matters to me.) - Large LCD screen with 16 levels of grey, wonderful viewed in full sunlight. - Good keyboard, amazing little mouse invention that worked really well. - DOS and Windows 3.1 - PCMCIA I suppose you can't really go back in time and appreciate things more than you did in the moment (though I'll not stop trying.) In the spirit of the Omnibook 300, my dream palmtop/subnotebook of 2019 would include: 1. An ultra-low-power black and white LCD or eInk screen Remember the interesting b&w/color hybrid screen on the OLPC? I don't know what that thing's power consumption looked like, but it was a fascinating bit of engineering. B&W LCD screens in general have come a long way; I'm fond of the modern ones, which seem to have a very shallow depth to them, compared with the old ones. eInk has also developed nicely, with vast speed improvements over the first screens (have you SEEN the performance on the Dasung PaperlikePro Touch?) Why B&W? Primarily for power consumption and outdoor/full (sun)light visibility; I appreciate the decoupling of the lighting from the machine itself- I have plenty of ways to make or use light. Color doesn't offend me (as you may already know, if you've encountered me in any pubnix settings.) I find it rather useful, generally speaking. But, in a dream portable computing device, I want absurd maximum power savings. I suppose if a backlit color screen won on power, durability, and price, it might be the better bet. 2. A good, solid keyboard I'm no expert here- and I say that because I realize that there are experts who spend a good deal of time and energy playing with keyboards. I'm not sure what the solution is in the perfect keyboard, but I know there have been some glorious failures. That OLPC I mentioned is a painful example, though I'm positive no one would ever repeat it even if they had never seen the OLPC (seriously, what were they thinking?) I've owned a couple of small keyboard devices, such as the Dauphin DTR-1 (decent keyboard), the Journada 300LX (crap kb), Journada 720 (better kb), Vadem Clio (decent kb), Psion 3a (crap kb), and the Diamond Mako (great kb.) Since I'm dreaming here, I don't feel that it's too much to ask that the keyboard gods gather all of the vast learning and experience relating to keyboards and come up with the perfect portable keyboard for this application. Thinking more on it, I'm pretty sure different folks would want different keyboards- so my perfect palmtop/subnotebook of 2019 would have a user-changeable keyboard setup, with 3-6 options, to make everyone happy. 3. A well-supported, low-power CPU architecture Again, I'm a dreamer, not an expert. Something tells me that ARM would win, but that's probably just the availability heuristic coming into play. If it can run Linux or BSD, and it scales really, really well in terms of power usage, I'm fine with it. Ideally, I'd like it to scale easily toward the very bottom of the power specturm; and be able to lock there, based on user preference (s/w controlled.) 4. Cost/power benefit of SoC, with RAM/ROM expansion Does this exist? In my dream palmtop/subnotebook I want the cost and power benefits of a System-on-a-Chip, with the ability to expand RAM and ROM. Expanding RAM and/or ROM might have a cost in terms of power, but I want the ability to be there. As I ponder, I feel that this is an unreasonable dream in today's landscape. Devices are throw-away, and no one cares about upgrading or expanding. I'm a dinosaur. And with the low-cost of today's devices, perhaps I need to evolve. Of course, there is the question of landfills full of e-waste, and a serious lack of decent recycling avenues. Shouldn't a dream include some thought for good old planet earth? Doesn't upgradability help with that, at least a little? Well, this is a dream, so expansion is a go, assuming it's possible to engineer. The Omnibook had RAM expansion, after all. 5. Wicked-long battery life I want the battery life to be so long it's practically a sin. I want the power companies to scream out in agony, "Why did we let this happen?" I want there to be rioting on Wall Street when the energy markets plunge. Off means off. If I shut this thing down, I want it to stay shut down. No magical network signals that continue to wave around, nothing to wake it up except me giving it life-restoring power through my own will and choice. Networking is optional. Backlight (if applicable) is optional. Whatever can be made optional to save power, is optional (especially CPU horsepower, as previously mentioned.) I want the dream battery to be a new hybrid that combines the weight/energy-density benefits of LiPo with the low-self-discharge of rechargeable alkaline. And, I want it to be easily user-changeable without tools (see item 6.) 6. Industrial, utilitarian design At some point, industrial designers decided that screws and bolts and seams were ugly. They were wrong. What's ugly is your equipment after you've torn it all up trying to pry it open so you could fix something that was meant to be thrown away. There is a black stain on the soul of industrial design, and it needs to be addressed. My dream palmtop/subnotebook gets back to our "roadside repairable" big iron roots, and builds from there using our collective steampunk visions and the most modern materials available. Durability, longevity, and ease-of-maintenance are the result, along with a reasonable weight and form-factor. MIL-STD-810 as a baseline. Metal, plenty of metal, maybe even some brass, if it fits. I don't mind if I have to polish the thing. I wouldn't mind being able to buff out scratches either. 7. Open platform It doesn't come with an OS installed, though several easy-to-image packages are available. There is nothing stopping the owner from installing whatever OS they choose. There is nothing stopping software companies from creating an OS for it, even a commercial one. The hardware will be so desperately desirable that the software makers will be forced (although with great pleasure on their part) to produce wares for it. And now, my dreaming has transformed into ridiculous reveling, so it is time for me to stop. It's fun to dream.