A little bit OT, but worth to take a look at it:

http://www.gdium.com/description/

http://vanderled.com/onlinestore/produc ... ucts_id/94

Sadly, no PowerPC

It is sad. There are a few things Freescale could do much better in validating new chips - at least for silicon that could be used in such a product.

There have been some Freescale executive management changes announced this week. This may contribute to improvements in the *system integration and development* process as we move ahead.

R&B :)

_________________
http://bbrv.blogspot.com

thanks karl for posting that link. i though mips was dead. i am mostly interested in any non x86, risc that is efficient.

was dissapointed when i found that it had vga and no dvi or hdmi. i dont understand why modern hardware has to have such baggage. (vga, parallel port ???) it would have been nicer if it had 1 gig of ram too, gigabit ethernet, but i could do without.

i know i dont need a gig of ram for that or efika, but comes in handy so i dont need swap partition.

i am trying to figure out how to get a lemote mini desktop with loongson 2f.

matt

Andd anther netbook (ARM) will arrive :-)
http://www.slashgear.com/arm-cortex-a8- ... n-2320139/

interesting.

what would be nice is something like efika with arm or mips.

No! What would be nice is the PowerPC companies moving their asses and realising that there IS a market for consumer non-x86 devices (ie, not only SERVER and EMBEDDED).

markos, that too of course, i would love to have a new modern powerpc desktop. i was just being general and staying on topic kinda. :P

markos : You are so right ! PowerPC has all what is required to compete with other technologies. If a netbook can be done with a MIPS or ARM processor I don't see what could block a PowerPC CPU to be in such devices.

Another MIPS netbook based on the MIPS64 Loongson processor :
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2928309621.html

Hum ... what about the LimePC based on the Freescale 5121e ?

Well, they can be used as a desktop computer, only with a funny form factor. Of course, a proper (ahem) operating system would be neede, but that's outside a discussion about hardware...
The CherryPal is, after some delay, finally arriving next week. What would happen if we buy a bunch, and send them to our favourite operating system developers?

Sure. Then, the question is: How much money are we able to rise for this?
Of course, if this leads to a good market opportunity, then money will rise easier.

Please don't waste your money :D

Notwithstanding any lack of confidence, giving developers free systems does not work. Believe me, we tried it twice.

_________________
Matt Sealey

jcmarcos
"Sure. Then, the question is: How much
money are we able to rise for this?"

If someone can find a nieche PowerPC-market,
I'm sure he/she can make a ton of money.

However, that nieche is not general desktop
computing. Too many have tried to take on
Microsoft and so far only two have "succeeded"*.

* Together gaining less than 10% of the market..


Are Netbooks a market where PowerPC can work
in? Maybe, if some Flashplayer and working
Java is released, and it works with the sites
people visit. I have said this too many times
before.

OK, Netbooks. They will most likely be this
year's Christmas gift of the year in Sweden,
and I'm sure they sell like crazy in your
country as well.

These are all x86-based. I see no problems with
Linux-based PowerPC netbooks as long as they
fulfill the web requirements of today.

MorphOS does not fullfill these requirements.


Are there any other nieche markets that could
work better? How could the Popcorn Hour get
such market penetration with pretty much no
traditional marketing?

Isn't that PowerPC-based? If it's not, I'm
sure it could have been, pretty easy. They
saw a market opportunity - Full HD capability
with a low price - and that worked.

I have sold a whole bunch of these in the
computer store I work in.

Anyway, I'm too tired right now..

Good night, guys!

Popcorn Hour is MIPS-based.

I really see NO point in what seem to be the classic whiney "they should use powerpc instead" comments on this forum. Why the heck would they use powerpc if mips does the job? Use whatever works, is cheap and simple to work with, and get your product out the door. That's all these guys care about. Who cares if the popcorn hour has a mips, arm, sparc or powerpc processor in it?

How many of you care that the Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ has a sparc cpu in it? (Their new "pro" product has a core2). Noone? Thought so. Try replacing sparc with powerpc, readynas with another product name and take a wild guess how many in the world would care outside of some local fanboy interest group.

I'm not saying that people are wrong in liking powerpc. It's just that most people don't care what's in the box, as long as it works.

Same thing with netbooks. Why make a powerpc based one if it's more work and more expensive (plus the lack of a full web software stack including flash)?

Netbooks demonstrate that the OS doesn't matter too much. I have an Eee 900a myself. These devices sell like hot cakes,
but IMO Xandros sucks way more than MorphOS on the Efika. Generally it feels rather slow and apps crash like crazy, the mouse pointer oftenly is stuttering, sometimes it gets lost completely,
and the list goes on... The only good thing is it crashes very rarely with a hard lock.
But if I compare this Xandros thing on an Intel Atom with my Efika 5200 running MorphOS, I'd say useability is more or less en par.
Long story short: The Eee is full of flaws (but best in town I guess and is nice anyway) and still it sells like crazy.
A 8610 or 5121 based device would of course have the chance to be bought in major quantities (given a competetive retail price).
Surely Linux as OS would be the simple/safe way, but I truely believe MorphOS can do it, too.
If firefox crashes alone or Sputnik locks the entire maschine, doesn't matter too much on such a device. Usually, you don't do heavy multitasking on those things, where a system crash would be really unpleasant.
And since I know this awfully configured Xandros Eee UI I'd say that e.g. even the lack of flash can be compensated partially. MorphOS' every day useability is higher than many ppl think. The Xandros Eee UI comes with many preconfirgured icons that only are some website shortcuts or presets. No flash in Sputnik, but wanna use youtube - just click the youtube icon that launches Tubexx - and there you go.
Sure, not everything can be compensated, but *no* computer offers everything.
Win has to struggle with all these malware things, OS X needs loads of resources, Linux is not easy to maintain if you're not an expert (had serious probs to join the university WLAN (PEAP)) (just recalling the clichees here).
On every system there are pros and cons. With MorphOS it is just the same. It lacks many things, but it has its unique offerings (fast and relatively easy, very good UI).