Interesting article about an odd PowerPC CE machine

http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2024/05/with-powerpc-windows-ce-and-wiin-pad.html

Interesting read! I never saw a PowerPC based machine

Nice find, Karpour!
@C:Amie

I think what would be cool if we were able to make an SDK for CE PPC and we can try to see what compiles for the device! I bet a lot of the Compilepalooza programs would work
https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=20734&posts=3&start=1

Kawara 1.1.1 I use as my baseline for testing the SDKs since it compiles with no modification for everything I've thrown at it

Yeah... I beat you all to it by more than 6 hours... so...
https://www.hpcfactor.com/news/890/the-wiin-pad-there-is-a-ppc-afterall

Nice find, Karpour/C:Amie
haha , we know old bessie C:Amie got new tricks!

I'm so fascinated by this! C:Amie, you have to add PowerPC to the SCL and I need to find a specs sheet so we can add it to the Devices area! ;P

Here's a MS article announcing it
https://news.microsoft.com/1998/10/12/health-care-vendors-adopt-windows-ce-for-mobile-applications/

Woot: C:Amie added it
https://www.hpcfactor.com/hardware/devices/260/Data_General/WiiN-PAD

Edited by torch 2024-05-06 7:09 PM

Great read and an interesting product!

Data General invested in OCR solutions in the early 1980s (another failed effort) so the weak performance of the 1999 powerpc "scanner" is ironic. I suppose the OCR team had moved on long ago so those competencies were lost.

The very early laptops (DG/One) were made in Japan but I don't know who built them. Later on, I thought DG hired Acer in Taiwan for a lot of their OEM work (desktop PC clones) and maybe some of the later laptops (I don't know if these later laptops were just test mules or were sold to the public).

The WiiN-PAD has a "Made in USA" sticker. The WiiN-Pad shared some of the design language of DG's earlier PC monitors, hinting that Acer was part of this effort.