Out of curiosity, what kind of battery life are you getting out of your Z50
with the Microdrive installed ?  How often do you hit the disc ?

Thanks

Dave


-----Original Message-----
From: George Sollish [mailto:gsollish@mail.gisco.net]
Sent: 07 March 2001 16:33
To: Marc Rogers
Cc: port-hpcmips@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: E100/Microdrive


On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Marc Rogers wrote:

>    Some people were talking about modifying the newton keyboard for
> use with this kind of device, but other than that the only way to access
> a handheld device such as this, when it is running netbsd is to log into
> the serial port.
>
>    Also im not clear as to what you mean by native. If you mean that
netbsd
> is or can be the primary os, booted from eprom then as far as I am aware
this
> has only been acomplished with testboards. All commercial handheld devices
are
> booted into netbsd via the botloader. Some can be booted automatically by
> placing the bootloader within the autoexec directory appropriate to that
> particular architecure.

I spent a less-than-enjoyable weekend trying to install 1.5 on a z50 and
WinCE never booted or found the same hardware three times running.  I was
hoping to sidestep Redmond entirely.  Not really essential if it works
otherwise.

>   You should also bear in mind that the older microdrives wont work too
well in older
> handhelds. They need too much juice. This problem was overcome with the
newer models
> (i have no problem with the 1 gig microdrive in any of my devices).

Left over from that z50 exercise I have a new Microdrive.

> What are you trying to achieve?

Maximum portability for use in the arctic (Its a long story).  Sounds like
a unit with a keyboard is still required.  Any suggestions?

George E Sollish	Chief Engineer		Auto Gear Equipment
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			Project Manager		The Payne Lake Project