The Flybook...what's keeping it from being YOUR handheld PC?

err ... NetBSD != BSD ... although they stem from common roots. Besides the installation is different.

Well, let me know when you try NetBSD2.0 or 1.6.2 ya?

it was netbsd, I have a dead hand this evening so was being lazy.

i agree with all of you, especially lensman...just UPDATE the jornadas HP!!

...how?

what do you mean how?

like lensman said

This touches on the reason I bought a single-level cell CF card for my 680e. With just 16MB of RAM, I really wanted to put as much stuff as possible on the CF card to leave space on the 680e for programs to run in. Thus I needed something like a hard drive to read and write on. But Microdrives use more power and are more expensive for their capacity than CF cards and they also require the use of the PC card slot, which I want to reserve for other uses. Single-level cell CF appears to me to provide a reasonable solution. Here's what Kingston's Digital Media Guide has to say:

Flash Cell Endurance: Up to 10,000 Multi-Level Cell (MLC) Flash or up to 100,000 Single-Level Cell (SLC Flash) write cycles per physical sector. According to Toshiba, the inventor of flash memory: “the 10,000 cycles of MLC NAND is more than sufficient for a wide range of consumer applications, from storing documents to digital photos. For example, if a 256MB MLC NAND Flashbased card can typically store 250 pictures from a 4-megapixel camera (a conservative estimate), its 10,000 write/erase cycles, combined with wear-leveling algorithms in the controller, will enable the user to store and/or view approximately 2.5 million pictures within the expected useful life of the card.” For USB flash drives, Toshiba calculated that a 10,000 write cycle endurance would enable customers to “completely write and erase the entire contents once per day for 27 years, well beyond the life of the hardware.” SLC flash based-products, typically found in Kingston’s Elite Pro™ cards and DataTraveler 2.0 USB flash drives, offer both high-performance and high endurance.


Edited by Lensman 2005-03-08 1:21 AM

Interesting information,

When the propaganda states "completely write and erase the entire contents once per day for 27 years" how many files constitutes the entire contents. If it is one file then we have a bit of a problem.

These companies do tend to tweak statistics... like ink carterage printer performance.and hard disk sizes. Things aren't always as the glossy brochures seem.

"combined with wear-leveling algorithms in the controller" assumes the controller has them on it (not sure if they are referring to the ATA controller or the Flash controller...)

I have booted from CF, as I have Windows and Linux from Zip disks (which have equally poor life spans). Inever suffered a failure myself, however I wasn't using it productivly, just to show that I could do it.
I have seen and heard from others a large number of reports of people wrecking CF's 'double time' from doing it.

Marketing is a wonderful thing. Notice how Kingston neatly sidesteps responsibility for the claim by stating, "According to Toshiba..." and using quotes.

I'm not familiar with single-level cell CF other than hearing from digtal camera folks that it's much faster - possibly a moot point on the 680e. While the majority of handheld users will never try to do something as complex as run another OS off one, most will probably push CF more (I, for one, intend to) than other devices like cameras would. If SLC flash will indeed handle ten times more read/write operations, it seems to be a much better choice for use in handhelds, especially as it's often only around $5 more expensive than MLC flash.

Excellent analysis. Context is everything. I suspect you cannot count on a hard drive for 15,000 read/writes without failure and I KNOW no Microsoft Windows desktop OS can be counted on not to lose data for anywhere near 15,000 read\write.

The Wintel (Microsoft- Intel led US Computer Industry) cartel is far more damaging to the US economy, consumers & jobs than the foreign oil cartel. The oil cartel seems more threatening because neither the media or the consumer considers the oil cartel within the context of the Wintel Cartel, which is invisible to most people. We do not have Flash systems available for the same reason practical handhelds (mini-notebooks built around PDA technology) never made it to the consumer market and HP or no one else has extended Thin-Client design to fully independent, high quality, low cost home PCs. The Wintel group opposes it.

If you wish to know more about this serious problem consult essays of founder of the Open Source, Public Domain movement: Richard M Stallman, "Free Software, Free Society" & check the news posts at
[Linuxforum.com]; [Distrowatch.com]; [Linux.org]

On what evidence are you concluding that "WinTel" oppose the adoption of PDA orientated devices, and like-wise for concluding "I KNOW no Microsoft Windows desktop OS can be counted on not to lose data for anywhere near 15,000 read\write".

Again the implication here is that a Linux / Unix operating system will have less failover time on Storage operations than a Windows environment.
I will grant you the failover superiority that exists within the likes of EXT3 against the FAT specification. However let's not argue this point on outdated contets, and lets not pretend that FAT is a squarely a Windows paradigm, as it originates in the 1970's with QDOS and what we now call FAT12.

If a storage volume is going to fall over I would instigate that the failure be caused by a hardware or firmware failure over that of a File System driver. Unless you want to tell me that running Windows intrisicly overrules the hardware manufacturers mechanical design, forcably takes precidence over controller firmware and controls all EM operations to a storage volume in a subjective fashion.

Just do demonstrate my point here.

I created the graph attached here using log statistics from a Windows XP Pro system. The system had applications running but was idling for most of the log run. The data is a cumulative total of Reads and Writes for the period, for the most part the Read's were nominal during the idle time.

Log input was with one sample per second.

While I wont pretend that the number will be the same for an embedded os, nor for a mobile OS. I think that it demonstrates the issue.

The time scale involved starts at 42 minutes and 14 seconds past the hour and ends at 10 minutes 35 seconds past the hour.
So 28 minutes and 47 seconds are represented on the chart.





Attachments
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rw-cycle.gif (13KB - 37 downloads)

ooo .... nice chart!

I must say that there is prob no empirical proof (WOW, that very word! ) that windows will fail read/write after any certain amount of run.

From my past experience in development, errors like this often is due to hardware integrity failures over time. Example, hdd failure, ram failure, bus failure. The only time I can think of that the OS (here I refer to the ring 0 drivers that is doing the read/write) failing is if there is some bug inherent in the code. But we must take note that just because a part of the OS may become unstable, and inadvertently cause the read/write ops to fail, may not necessarily indicate that the OS will fail read/write after some time.

Afterall, we know that even if a certain app crashes and/or corrupts the PC or stack or something, then if the next instruction on the PC is to read/write, then we possibly get a failure there. In such cases, it is not easy to isolate and say that its because of the OS. Granted we can always say that the OS is not *robust* enough, but inherently the OS does not exhibit RW failure at some point in time.

OS as above refers to Windows OS.

When an application crashes and a write failure is caused invariably though that is going to be the result of either corrupt data being paged or corrupt data being written. Aside from the case of a complete system lockup - something I have experienced in qual measure under Linux and Windows - the write failure would be a compunded CRC error rather than a problem in the file system.

In the case of a system stall then concievably you could encounter a file system write error, in the same way you can by pulling the plug on the system. In that case the inherent problem is with OS instability and not the file system driver.

Whether said os instability is down to Microsoft code or a hardware fault has to be debated on the merits of the particular case - once again exactly as Snappy! intones.

Bar one disaster with FAT32; prompting me to move all my Windows systems up to one breed or another of NT. I have had no issues from NTFS or generic Linux file systems in the realm of my personal or professional life.

First, I want to point out that I am not interested in either appearing to win an argument or in seeming to be correct. I am just responding to a challenge to provide support for what I said. Of course, anything I say is my humble opinion. I am too old to think I know anything final. I am only interested in learning the truth and I am always prepared, even look forward, to being corrected from anything erroneous that I think to be correct. My accurate critics are my friends. I want to possess correct knowledge, not appear correct, not to win arguments. Knowledge is power. Winning arguments is a fools errand.

I spoke entirely from 20 plus years of experience. My point is that you cannot get even 5,000 read\writes from any desktop PC without any data loss or data component failures. Do the math. What Lensman repeated from Hitachi is correct. It would take 27 years of daily complete erase\write of entire contents to exhaust CF at a limit of 15,000 read\writes. Hitachi conclusion must be disproven mathematically, not by labelling it "propaganda". ( the issue posted is not just reads but read\writes.) So, 15,000 read\writes from CF is not keeping it from being used more extensively. Besides, a computer would be built around ROM & CF most likely.

I have extensive experience with an unusually designed orphan PDA, Casio BE 300, which is easily adaptable and modifiable because it has built-in flash ram & rather safe & easy to break down and put back together. Even with four years of heavy use, no enthusiast has yet reported losing data or programs stored in flash ram. Lets be real. That is more than any Windows desktop user would report! A lot of BE enthusiasts use their BE heavily as an MP3 player, that is a lot of reads in a years time

I expend a lot of time helping small businessmen with their windows failures. I know Windows is inferior stuff. For one thing it is bloat ware. Why hasn't Microsoft adapted a method that has been around for 12 years, modular architecture? Modular design is what makes Linux so powerful. If Windows is so superior why has no super computer built using it? For one thing, it is not Open Source like Linux. NASA's new super computer that is less than 1\15th complete (so it is much too early to declare IBMs finished Big Blue the winner) is run by Linux. It will consist of over 140,000 Pentium processors when complete. No one could begin to do that with Windows, which is released only in compiled form and thus cannot be Open Sourced.

Even if 15,000 read\write limits proved an actual problem, flash ram is not expensive and anyone who uses any computing device knows to regularly backup data. All a flash ram device maker need do is make the flash ram easily replaceable. I can quickly remove the small hard drive from my notebook PC. The knowledge that I have to replace the stock hard drive, after a few years heavy use, did not stop me or anyone I know from buying a notebook

I must disagree with the logic that because Lensman got technical information from a company it is to be dismissed as "propaganda". First, propaganda is political spin, not corporate. The business world uses marketing and advertising, not propaganda. There is a real difference. Most American politicians may lie but most respectible firms do not. Hitachi is a respectible firm. Microsoft is something of an exception. It severely hypes everything. So does Intel. Where is the proof that what the inventor of flash ram devices, Hitachi, is lying when they say 15,000 read\write limits are not a real world problem?

We also want to be mindful that Microsoft has orchastrated a market situation where standard practice in the computer industry is two year use life. This is why so many mp3 and PDAs, smartphones have proprietary, factory installed main batteries. A lot of Apple Ipod owners will not be pleased when in about 2 years the device they paid $300 for has a dead battery and they cannot replace it. Portable game system makers do better by consumers. Maybe that is because Nintendo and not Microsoft sets the standards in that computer world.

As for other Operating Systems, I have two PCs I have loaded with Mandrake and Suse Linux as experiments. My little grand children were constantly crashing and freezing my Windows XP systems but in 3 months of unsupervised use they have not crashed a Linux system. I have one Linux PC that has not been rebooted for a year and it still works like a dream. I keep one Linux system online almost 24/7 as part of my experiment. Not one virus, spyware, crash or freeze up. Due the many Microsoft product security gaps, folks are begining to shy away from email and buying online. No Wonder Walmart decided to invest in Linspire and is looking hard at Xandros. As powerful a corporation as Walmart is pushing Linux loaded PCs only online. Selling them in the stores would mean war with Microsoft. HP is quietly offering a Linux notebook PC. It is on the QT. Wanna bet Microsoft kills that venture? Dell loaded linux on PCs for a short while, a very short while. Now, Dell will not allow its support techs to provide any assitance to owners who want to load Linux.

I know. When I was having troble getting Linux to install fully on my Dells, a tech told me he was not allowed to help me. Tech calls are recorded. As soon as I mentioned Linux, he clammed up on me, and I just wanted information. When I asked "So, Microsoft got to Dell", he said "something like that." I called back later and made sure I did not mention I was installing Linux & got the information I wanted (about the combined graphics-sound card).

I have tried to deliberately crash Linux and found what enthusiasts say is true. It takes deliberate hard work to crash or freeze Linux. When a grandchild freezes or crashes a program (usually a free game), they just open it again (the five year old can do this) and resume playing. Linux does not freeze or crash just because a program does. NT O/S Windows XP crashes and freezes less than the DOS O/S versions of Windows (2.X through 95, 98 & ME) but crashing and freezing is still too common. Like past versions of Windows, you must run something like Norton utilities all the time to hold back Windows deteriation just from normal start ups and shut downs. And how common is it for XP users to experience great problems installing Microsoft software? How many Ford or Chevy parts have you purchased that crashed your same maker car system?

I had this argument in academia before I left for ever. I decided to try my ideas in the real world where proof is concrete success or failure, not aggressive talk or verbal mumbo jumbo. I realize more than anyone ever could that I do not begin to know everything but I did manage to retire at 44 and not by taking an early retirement at tax payer or corporate expense like professors often do nowadays. Research, theory, so-called "proof" is not everything, especially when it comes to things technical. My father and his friends were fine aviation engineers. They spoke strongly about not resting decisions merely on wind tunnel tests, which were used to dismiss half of Howard Hughes' great aviation ideals. NASA engineers rely much too much on wind tunnel tests. If they included experience and things in the real world too, they would not have so many failures.

Just ONE SMALL example. There are thousands. Academics did not discover or prove via tests or lab experiment that round cans are the most efficient for food packaging. Food processors, with no college, discovered this working on the problem in the real world. For years, academics even claimed they were wrong. In the end, they ended up explaining, mathematically, why it is so. It is now established fact that round cans hold the most and use the least materials of any other feasible shape. Today, the most exciting new mathematicians come from ...the gambling world. M.I.T has a former poker genius on the payroll. Possessing no college he has the title of Special Professor of Propability Theory. When he speaks smart mathematicians listen. They get publishing credit proving what he says is so, is so. Nicolai Tesla, the greatest inventor America ever had, never used a lab, never subjected the most complex, most radical creation to model or feild test form. He constructed a lab in his mind and knew when it was ready. Every blue print he made proved to work, the first time.
In 1900, he drew out instructions for a magnetic pulse gun, which was constructed from his plans in California. These guns are mounted on several State Police cars. One shot and a fleeing car is totally disabled, electronically.

Experience, journal articles, discussions with IT professionals, common knowledge tells me that Lensman's analysis is the correct one. Have you heard of users complaining that their even cheap Compact Flash card died from reaching a 15,000 read\write limit? All I use are cheap ones made by Viking and I set up a lot of people with PCs, PDAs, etc. I set them up with Viking because they are cheap and reliable. Not one has reported a Viking failure. I am sure it happens but I do not see any evidence that it is what retards PDA development.

I supplied three websites where you can get access to quality information about Microsoft monopoly practices. You can also read posted testimony from expert witnesses and former Microsoft employes and get access to much more related to the Reno suit against MS at [KMSFS.COM/alternatives] (alternatives to Microsoft and why you should be interested). [microsoft.toddverbeek.com] and a google search of "microsoft alternatives" will reap many resources and information from computer experts.

I did not reach my conclusion about MS from these sites. You asked for proof. You will find it presented in these many, many places. I reached my conclusion many years ago, when I watched Bill Gates use illegal methods to kill a wonderful small firm called Berkeley Softworks and I used every version of DOS and Windows. Geosworks was vastly ahead and better. It offered a gui desktop before Windows and it was tiny and better. It was also not platform specific. Geosworks O/S was released first for Apple II GS and extended its life by two years. Then, Commodore 64 and C-128. It was amazing the O/S Geosworks was on a 64k computer! I saw MS eat, Word Perfect, the best business word processor ever marketed, and many more companies. They illegally killed Netscape browser, when they refused to sell out to them but Netscape founders figured out how to get back. They created Mozilla, released it as free and then facilitated completion of a browser begun by a 14 year old boy, Firefox. This year Netscape will return, built on Firefox.

As we speak, Gates is working to corrupt Torvalds the creater and owner of Linux kernal. As much as Torvalds is dedicated to smashing Microsoft's illegal 500 pound guerilla dominance and to putting Intel & Adobe in their places and as much as he supports Open Source and a free market, he is over 50 and Gates is giving him millions in a contract he signed recently to be a Microsoft "consultant". Just as worldly wise people began thinking Ralph Nader had successfully resisted all temptation, he runs for president and we learn he is worth millions.

If you read major foreign newspapers, especially Bangkok Post or the major English language Hongkong or Taiwan business papers, you will discover what Gates is up to internationally. Read the French Le Monde or British Daily Mirror and find what he is up to in Europe. He is trying to buy (bribe) his way into a patent for MS software, which will allow him to stop all freeware and public domain. You cannot allow patents on ideas. Gates has managed to buy his way into patents in a few corrupt Asian countries and those governments are learning what a huge mistake that was. Hopefully, Gates cannot buy the EU court, which he seems to be trying to do. American wrote the International Patent Treaty. It obligates ALL signatories to respect and enforce patent rights. If Microsoft gets EU patents on "tool bars", desktop and PDA operating system, etc. We will not be able to get a non-Intel, non-Windows PDA and freeware will be illegal. Just last month Gates forced Indonesia, which had granted him patents, to reinstall windows on several government PCs. They had installed linux on several important science PCs, which (Gates informed them) is illegal patent violation. According to Bangkok Post and Taiwan Business News, Indonesia is now trying to get Gates to sell them a license permitting them to put Linux back on science PCs.

What do you call suddenly "donating" exactly 240 million a year to each US political party and sudden Reno trashing of her own anti-monopoly action against Microsoft and the US Attorney General Office's sudden complete dropping of its case against Intel, after Intel founder Chase began "donating" 140 million yearly to both political parties? At least Soros spends millions on one party and his spending is specific. When you give equal huge amounts to the general funds of both parties what do you call that? This is all public knowledge. Do you believe a rich person or firm can really support the conflicting platforms of both Republican & Democrats to the tune of 480 milllion at year? My bet is Gates & chase are more logical than that. Payoff yes. Political supporter of both, never.

Many larger businesses love Microsoft-Intel cartel. I know this for a fact. Too many owners and senior execs have told me so. Why? The expense cuts down on competition. Windows - Intel PCs do nothing for Denny's or Applebee's except put pressure on mom-pop restaurants to lay out bucks to have them before they open their doors. Wintel systems help immensely to kick family owners out of the auto parts business. They do not add much to efficiency but the decent inventory programs are all written only for Windows. Following the software bloat model of MS, small owners must buy a new PC, New Windows, new software every two years or so. This is no problem for a volume buyer like Auto Mart or Murrays but it is for a small auto parts shop. Blockbuster Video uses wintel systems to help knock out small business competition.

Hey at least in other countries pay offs and bribes are not done in the open and they are not tax deductable non-profit "donations."

Evidentiary schemes have their place. In that place, which has limits, it is powerful. but this former Professor says experiential (and even intuitional) knowledge has its place too and in its sphere is powerful. One who relies only on either is half knowledgeable, not most knowledgeable.

...Of course, this is all just my humble opinion.

bruisedquasar,

Thanks for coming back with such detailed clarity of thought. Please do not misinterpret my request for specifc nor my language, I want to encourage strong, intelligent debate.

The Windows *nix argument is always a good one to get people's grey mass working.

I have to go out right now, but hope to come back on this later