A Handheld PC should last for decades

This youtube video truly speaks my mind:



A Handheld PC should last for decades!

I agree about the orchestration and design of equipment for planned obsolescence and preventing end-user repair being a heinous facet of the modern world; be it ethical, moral or environmental grounds.

But to the rest of it, the guy is ranting without any direction or credibility. He's basically like an environmentalist whose objective is really to return the world to the utopia that they think the 1700's were. There is no rational argument or logical assessment of the reality he espouses his support for.

- Firefox gets updated every month because it's a game of war with people trying to break it not because of a conspiracy theory by the illuminati that is designed to force him to by a new computer
- Video codecs get more CPU intensive because the CPU's got faster, with more overhead allowing network bandwidth optimisation to become the primary focus for codec designers. This allows more people to consume on less bandwidth as Moore's law doesn't generally apply on broadband connectivity and it is easier and cheaper to replace a device than a phone network.
- Software got bigger and less efficient because there was capacity overhead in storage and CPU resources: if you build it, they will come. Secondly because coding in second and third gen languages is laborious and difficult and reinventing the wheel every time is slow, expensive and painful when you can just bolt on someone else's bloated C# / Java framework and release your app to market.
- You can't put a 10th Gen i7 in a Slot 1 (PIII) motherboard because it doesn't have the bandwidth, control lines, data lines or address lines necessary to take it, can't supply enough power or even clean power to do anything other than fry the CPU.
- The amount of dev time that would be necessary to get Doom Eternal to run at any frame rate on a PIII would be insane. Why would a developer even consider it?
- In1980 there were a few tens of thousand devs on the planet, now there are tens of millions. It creates exponential progress. Things are going to change quickly and will only get faster.

So no, IMHO his rant is flawed, ignorant and above all best described as self-deluded soap-boxing.

And mine do!

I wish mine will be too!

I suppose Windows CE devices have generally been quite robust but I don't recall them ever getting software updates (well, except for later Windows Mobile and Windows Phone), given that the OS is practically baked into firmware. HPC2000 lost support in 2007, CE.net 4.2 lost support in 2012. They're all stuck with ancient browsers and are only really usable as standalone text processors and organisers these days.

At least x86 computers going back to the 1990s can still run modern OSes, even if it's without a GUI.

Edited by Paianni 2020-11-14 11:53 AM

Thanks to Stefan (__dev-nul) my Jornada 720 from 1999 runs a Linux kernel from 2020 with GUI

So you've got a window manager running? That would be impressive.

Check this thread for the full conversation: https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18740&st...

There is even a 128MB RAM upgrade that you can make

As a HPC user for less than two months only, I have never wished to have a miniature powerhouse. Expecting these 20-year old machines to act like a UMPC of 2020 is simply unrealistic and will doubtlessly guarantee frustrations.
Internet connectivity is not my priority and in fact I am very happy for it being safely offline. Exactly as what you say, I'm now using my J720 primarily for drafting and PIM (and for savoring tons of small vintage programs ), which no smartphones or UMPCs can fulfill this role for me.
What I particularly enjoy the HPC is the low resolution widescreen, the lack of network connectivity (and thus distractions), a decent keyboard, small and fast programs, pocketability, and pretty robust battery life, which interestingly are just the opposite of my home workstation (except for the keyboard of course) which I equally love to use every day.


Edited by hpcboy 2020-11-14 3:51 PM

hpcboy,

Drafting on your J720?

Drafting as in CAD or drafting a letter or ?

Just curious.....

Text (snippets, notes, personal journals) of course Text-baesd programs are ideal for the Jornada.
On the other hand doing CAD thing on such a small screen no matter its resolution I'm afraid won't be a very enjoyable experience.

I wonder if there are CAD programs that work from the DOS era (on the PocketDOS) ...

Yes, at least Autodesk AutoCAD was released for DOS back in 1982.

Others: DesignCAD 2D, DesignCAD 3D, EasyCAD, Generic CADD, KeyCAD, VersaCAD




Edited by hpcboy 2020-11-15 12:53 AM

I remember using a pocket pc CAD software on my Jornada 720 during my early days at engineering school. It was somewhat compatible with AutoCAD which allowed me to start working on my homework on the go. Unfortunately I don’t remember the software name anymore... I’ll check my archives and if I find it I’ll report back

Wow, that was quick! A single search on the SCL brought me the answer: https://www.hpcfactor.com/scl/571/GiveMePower/PowerCAD_Pro/version_5...

This is the software I used back in the day

Edited by ntware 2020-11-15 1:20 AM