Flat out bizarre idea

Here's my most off the wall idea to date.
I stumbled upon some gear with Mips 300mhz TX3xxx and 400mhz Tx4xxx embedded cpus that draw .6w.

Where could I get the datasheets to compare the pinouts to my 6651 mips cpu? Something tells me mips had 300mhz+ chips developed for hpcs but that project was shelved as the arm cpus took over.

Not wanting to waste an investment, mips simply found another market for the chips. It's a really long shot but suppose there's a pin compatible 300/400mhz mips chip for my 6651? I could smoke you xscale guys into last week!

Hey, it may be a dream but I like it.

Even if there were a pin-compatible chip with a higher clock rating, it may not be enough to simply drop it on to the board and go. You probably have to muck with the bus speed to get a different CPU to run, and that means rather extensive mobo modifications. (i.e. figure out how to change the output frequency on the oscillator, replace the RAM with faster chips b/c of faster bus speed, you may have problems with CF/PC cards or other peripherals, etc etc etc...)

Neat idea though.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the cpus BGA packages. If so, even if they are intended as drop-in replacements (like the PXA255 for the PXA250), you still have to have a way of smt de/soldering.

I have a friend with smt abilities.

I know bus speeds and whatnot would take some fiddling, but I also planned to move to the next density of ram chips, they generally increment in what, increases or 4, so instead of two 16. mb chips I'd have two 64mb chips. I expect sourcing replacment chiips to the the least of my worries, with so many types available there must be the right voltage , type and form factor 16 bit wide chips that are 4 times deeper.

IIRC some place on the net mods 7x0 and other hpc/ppcs to increase ram to 128 or more, so I'm confident that part can be done. It seems hpc2k can support 256mb with each process using a max of 32mb. But I doubt I'll find suitable chips 8 times deeper than what I have now, you never know

I know it's a crazy idea but if I can get the cpu datasheets it's a start.

Along these same lines I'd like to ditch the vga camera on my 6651. With so many digicams abailable there must be a 2-3mp ccd unit and lens that would fit nicely in the existing camera bay. If the exisiting 6651 software supports higher res remains to be seen.

If I had a big budget and more contacts in the industry this could be a very interesting proof of concept. I'd line up to buy a Supermec (TM) for $500 if they existed.

edit: why hasn't sharp and the other hpc makers updated some of their better gear with current cpus and more ram? They have all the tooling. The tooling was paid for years ago.
It wouldn't take much to design a better board, drop it into the older chassis and away they go.

Is this what the Clio group is trying to do, revive that series with better specs?

IMO, they could sell it for a fair price what the all the development of the chassis and tooling costs being close to zero.

I would like to encourage you on your project ... yes, its possible, even if very remote ... even if it meant rewiring the whole mobo ... some of which are multi-layered (like the SL4 is! ) ... so, yes, I'm with you, as long as you doooon't come after me with a frankenstein HPC with vengence later!

Well, that's basically what the MP900/C is. NEC took the MP7xx series, changed it a little bit, and put in better internal hardware. It lasted long enough, but eventually they had to discontinue it.

The only HPC more popular than the MP series is the Jornada, which was last updated with more RAM in the 728. Other than that, I doubt updating any other HPCs would be a good business proposition. Unfortunate but true.

yeah, i think it was stupid of hp to make a lame update of the 720...wich in return was the down fall of the the hp jornada hpc then there realy was no market for nec because Hp is more known, then when someone came across the 728 they might go well hey if they have that, let me check what else is out here and in return finding the mp900, but that didnt happen...so its all hp's falt...lol

Me thinks the number *one* mistake all the HPC OEMs did was to continue making HPCs with DSTN screens all the way into the 21st century! grrr

Imagine a Jornada 920 ...

* Same physical formfactor
* PXA 250 - 400Mhz
* Transflective TFT .. ok, even a Reflective TFT in 2000 or 2001 is not uncommon. iPaq had it!

* 64MB ram 32mb rom
* standard features as the 720

and a high-end J928
* built-in wifi
* USB host

and a low end J920e
* PXA 250 - 300Mhz
* Reflective TFT or plain TFT

*sigh* ... I should have joined HP and do up their handhelds back in 1998 instead of joining Creative!! grrr then again, I would be in the Software R&D team and not in the hardward ID team ...

oh well ...

NICE!!!

anyway jornada 928 already exists.. check it out!!! before you get excited.. it's one of the earliest ppc-phone combos.


oh and please no pxa250! crap. at least 255.

BAH! You're going to spec a dream HPC machine, may as well go for the best! Gimme an HP Ipaq HX4700 or Dell X50v in HPC form factor!

PXA270 at 624MHz
Transreflective TFT full VGA screens (but tiny 4" screen hurts mah eyes )
built-in Bluetooth/802.11b
CF Type II and SDIO expansion slots
64MB SDRAM / 128 MB ROM (80 MB of ROM is available for user files)

And they run about $500 US.

Gimme one of those, but with a larger (maybe 8" or heck even 6" ) full VGA screen, a PCMCIA slot instead of SDIO, and an attached keyboard, and I'd happily buy!

Heck, just update my 6651 to 3/400mhz with 128/256mb of RAM and I'll eat any PXA powered unit. Add an updated 3mp camera, swap out the usb 1.1 chip to 2.0, price it at $399 and watch it set sales records.

Hp, take the 7x0, add the PXA 400mhz, 128mb ram, .net OS and a TFT 640x320 display. Price it at $399 and watch it set records.

Nobody disputes the form factor of their beloved machines. All the original tooling used to make our marvels are gathering dust in a warehouse somrwhere, just itching to spit out updated units.

oh yes...

hm, display for the jornadas should be 960x360 if you want to keep the exact same form factor. i'd be happy with that.

How much did the 900 & 900c last retail for before they were dropped? $800US or so?

It's no wonder they never set the world on fire. NEC got greedy. Other than the cost of the new mainboard , since the machine is exactly (or very nearly) a clone of the MP7x0 series it cost NEC nothing to design and pay for tooling. They simply dusted off the 7x0 series molds and tooling.

NEC could have easily sold the 900x series for $300 and made a healthy profit. Maybe if NEC added a TFT screen and some other refinements, like a microdrive, they could have sold it for $500 and had enough sales to keep it alive.

An analogy I like. NEC replaced the flat 4 VW engine with a flat 6 porche engine and never even bothered to include a leather steering wheel.

worse... 899$ for the 900, 900C even more. iirc.

My understanding is the fault lies with Microsoft. Hardware insiders have said that MS failed to upgrade the display drivers, so a display like the cheaper Zaurus SL-760 had isn't possible even today with any Windows handheld or PDA.

MS is the company that never updated copy con, after they acquired it and used it years ago to wipe out a superior product sold by the author in shareware form. How could he stand up to MS's free variety? I would like to know where MS got that lame security set they included in SP2 for XP. There is no danger of it knocking System Mechanic 5 Pro off the radar anytime soon. Norton (symantec) is self-destructing with their huge, slow new version of their utilities. Peter Norton needs to retire.

If Amatuer Radio buffs can design and build highly sophisticated radio statellites and create and develop packet radio without one government grant, I don't see why a group of handheld enthusiasts can't get together to design and build a good, practical handheld PC. Clive Sinclair made the famous Sinclair XL from off the shelf parts 20 years ago & he designed a fantastic 16 oz, two AA battery "tablet" PC that came with everything most buyers needed embedded. It was very fast, reliable, practical. I owned one in 1990, a Z-88...It had three card slots for adding programs or memory, built in phone modem, a cable that connected to any printer and automatically printer through them. The manuals included British Basic & one on the O/S-- OZ. The expansion cards were much like Gameboy cards.

The NEC 780/790 & Jornada 680/720 was made so small daughter boards can be added to upgrade them. It seems to me if a daughter board with a rom for a newer version of O/S is possibile, it should be possible to put together a daughter board with a still different O/S & maybe some Flash Ram?

So far, the Chinese have done what the Japanese did. Observe the US market. Identify serious US consumer complaints and take over by supplying real responses. Number 1 was some quality in new cars. The Chinese seemed to have noted the initial error the Japanese made, exporting very shabby products. It was not that long ago when cartoons and consumers would laugh when something new and flimsy broke and say "made in Japan".

Before we knew it, quality cars were made available to us after ten years of pure junk came from US makers. New Cars with ball bearings running around loose inside, steering columns coming loose, bodies rusting out within two to three years. Exhaust systems falling off shortly after 12 months, driver side floors rusting through within 3 years (Ford Pinto and Pony were famous for this one), early Escorts had still experimental rubber timing chains that had to be replaced before 60,000 miles. A break would destroy the engine. Detroit & Flint tried to force Americans to buy a car every three years. Instead, they nearly bankrupted the country. Gates-MS\Intel monpolistic conduct and consumer be damned view are heading us into serious trouble.

Well, lets see what Lenovo-IBM does. No one tells the Chinese what to do. That government is the only one that stands up against Bill Gates/Microsoft/Intel and doesn't risk corporate suicide.


...or so it seems to me...

---Bruised