MP890 USB capabilities?

Well, I love my 790 and my 880. Time to experiment. I'll put the 790 ROM into the 880 and create an 890. Since the 880 has a USB host port with limited support (mice only?) will the hpc2k ROM and the mips USB package give me full USB operation?

I hope that memory keys, external hdds, hubs, card readers and whatnot will work.

Has anyone tried this and what USB stuff works well?

In a way I hope nothing USB works becuase that means my 6651 has lost quite an edge over the MP890 series for flexibility. Oh well, who says I can't enjoy the 6651 still when screen quality is important.

BTW, FWIW, I find the dstn of the 880 more than OK for general work. I had a dstn lappie and I managed with it.

My last question. Can anyone confirm the 880 will use 18650 lion cells? I might do a rebuild down the road but I get 5-6 hrs now with wifi. My 790 gives about 7-8 hrs with wifi on a factory pack. I really like that.

These things are addictive. Too easy to acquire and too hard to quit !

Can't argue with that. I'm up to five H/PCs now, and I'm jealous of you for having not one, but two 6651s.

Lol, I keep telling myself I'm done buying. I might as well say I'm done breathing......

There have been a number of posts -- some from me -- on this subject on the NEC Handheld Forum at PocketPC Magazine; you might want to look at the following:

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11844&SearchTerms=,mp,890

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13408&SearchTerms=,mp,890

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12315&SearchTerms=,mp,890

The bottom line seems to be that you can replace the 880 ROM with a 790 one and get the increased functionality of HPC2000 (esp., the better browser) but you will probably need to replace the backup battery, and you will LOSE the USB functionality.

Some of us have speculated that the USB problem could be fixed by "borrowing" the sample USB mouse driver from the 3.0 Platform Builder, but as far as I know, none of us has had an opportunity to try it. You might want to see the last several posts in this thread (http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=1624&posts=18) in the Developers Arena.

I hope you try the experiment -- I think you will like the results -- but I'm biased.

Hope this helps.

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist

hey don't worry, wally has nice usb drivers compatible with hpc2000 mips. they SHOULD work... i'll be very surprised if they don't.

and why am i so optimistic? i think the usb functionality is lost only because hpc2000 on the MP790 has no usb drivers (as the 790 doesnt have the host capabilities). this is as easy as that

cmonex, I hope you are right and Wally has usb drivers that will "fix" the problem. In fact, I am hereby offering to test them. I have a second 880/890 that I use as a "test" machine -- if it locks up too badly, etc., I just do a hard reset and clone off my main machine again.

So, Wally, if you are anyone else has any USB (or other) drivers that you would like to have tested on an 890, please send them on. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

Bruce
MP890 Evangelist