Found this.....interesting.....

Hi,

I put this in off-topic instead of Developers Forum, because there is no realistic chance of this being useful to HPC developers.

Anyway, I was poking around for something else and I stumbled across this page at Microsoft Embedded:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/usewinemb/ce/supproc/default.aspx

It's a list of CPU platforms that have been "validated to support Windows CE", from CE version 3.0 up through the latest version 5.0 release. If you happen to scroll down past the vast list of "ARM" CPU's listed, there are categories for "MIPS", "SH", "PowerPC" and "x86" CPU's listed.

Interesting things I noticed: NEC VR4121 and above is listed as CE 5.0 validated. This is, as I recall, the CPU used in the MobilePro 780/880/790 line. So, in principle, someone could build a WM 5 kernel image and burn it on to EEPROMS for all us NEC users out there? Also noticed that SH3 support has apparently been dropped (sorry you Jornada 680/690 users, noWM5foryou!), but several SH4 chips are supported.

Again, don't think this information is at all useful from a practical standpoint. (But hey, I can dream can't I?? ) I just found it interesting that some really old CPUs are capable, at least in principle, of running the latest and greatest MickeySoft WinCE release.

well there are ce.net mips devices (for example the be300 with the ce.net upgrade, etc), so i'm not surprised to hear ce 5 still has mips support. platform builder 4.x also has mips and sh3 support.
so the j680 could have ce.net 4.2..
you cna do this in theory but no one will have the resources to do it.

edit: oh wait, you want WM5, not just CE5? then i'm not sure about the supported resolution (640x240), and even about the supported cpu's, oh and of course you would need a flashrom for wm5 to be able to write all stuff there instead of ram, but i might be talking nonsense when i'm worried about that

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-08 9:32 PM

Mickeysoft, rofl. I've not heard that one in a long time.

Bleh, I meant CE5 with an H/PC shell. not WM5 shell. Sooo hard to keep them separate sometimes.....but at least the numbers match up! (Like the whole H/PC 3.0 being CE 2.11 thing don'cha know).

And yeah, you would need to burn the ROM image to compatible EEPROMS and solder them on to a replacement ROM/RAM board. The MP line doesn't have Flash memory, and I don't think you can load the O/S in to RAM. (As I recall, CE 5.0 doesn't even use volatile RAM for data storage any more - only for running programs.)

Like I said, it'll never happen in a million years. Just fun to think about.

If i was a millonare i'd do it .....

well, you probably cannot load the OS in ram... or at least you need a little rom for booting. that's what Psion did with the 5mx pro and the netbook (not netbook pro - don't know that one but probably it just uses nand flash). the OS was loaded in ram but of course there was still a boot rom module. (what would you do then if you hard reset...)
if was quite a cool method in my opinion upgrading the system was very easy, no flashing needed - just hard reset and load the new OS from a CF card... that was all.

CE 5.0 can use volatile ram for storage, it is WM5 that doesn't. even ce.net 4.2 can do this, it depends on how you build the OS. so i think it isn't necessary for CE 5, just like it wasn't for 4.2 either.

hey it would be an interesting project anyway... did you know that some linux guy wanted to put a plain CF in place of the rom on the J720? they were trying to guess if the cpu can directly access the CF.. have no idea what became of the project.

Edited by cmonex 2005-12-09 12:51 AM