From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Feb 3 22:41:26 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id WAA02692 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 3 Feb 1996 22:41:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA02680 for ; Sat, 3 Feb 1996 22:41:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from msmith@localhost by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.6.12/8.6.9) id RAA03478; Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:27:30 +1030 From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199602040657.RAA03478@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: FreeBSD Suitable Laptop To: nate@sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 17:27:30 +1030 (CST) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, terry@lambert.org, questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199602040620.XAA28676@rocky.sri.MT.net> from "Nate Williams" at Feb 3, 96 11:20:00 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk Nate Williams stands accused of saying: > > > Just as an observation, for people who want portable BSD machines, a visit > > to http://www.primenet.com/~acme/ may be illuminating, _particularly_ > > the bit about their 'knock-down-kits'. They're also promising 1024x768 > > mid-late this year. > > No offense, but a 22 lb. box doesn't fit into my idea of 'portable'. I > can get a NEC that weighs about 6lbs with all of the features of their > portable minus the expansion slots. And, the 'knock-down' kit starts at > 19 lbs., which is still pretty heft. I just can't see dragging one of > these around the airport, and I don't even want to think about battery > life. :) You'll note that I said _portable_; ie. everything slaps together in one piece with a handle. If, like us, you want to add extra peripherals beyond what you get in a notebook, or you want more disk etc., one of these boxes is not so bad. (Incidentally, you'll note they don't have batteries 8) Before you start making noises about PCCARDs; I don't see any high-speed digital I/O cards, and nobody is making them easy to design 8( > Things are looking up. Now, if we could only get folks to do as much > R&D into memory and batteries so we could actually *use* these really > fast CPU's w/out requiring really funky memory systems and heavy > batteries. There was a lot of really aggressive battery R&D going on a while ago in the automotive industry; I recall the hot thick polymer batteries as being all the go (except for their oprating temperatures 8) back then, but apart from LiFe we haven't seen much flow-on. > Nate -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] "wherever you go, there you are" - Buckaroo Banzai [[