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Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead? 115

Posted by timothy from the he'll-be-stone-dead-in-a-moment dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes: "LinuxDevices.com has published a news item about the uncertain future of Agenda Computing and their VR3 linux PDA. According to the article, some members of the Agenda developer community are continuing work on current projects, but many have switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus. Apparently there is an Agenda Germany office which is still shipping the VR3s (including to the U.S.) and which has said that they are continuing VR3 development -- but's not clear whether that means software or device development. Looks like another cool linux device has bitten the dust. Sigh."
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Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead? More

Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead?

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  • Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @07:43AM (#2936478) Homepage
    I don't know. Do you have to buy a device because it runs Linux? Maybe there are better OS-es for PDA's.
    • Not necessarily. Having an Open Source OS for your hand-held can make it more extendible. You get all of the positives from the "Open Source Way":
      • Increased Stability
      • Customized integration
      • Much better security
      • Low Feature Creep
      • Does only what you want it to
      • Configure it to do anything you want
      • Added Bonus: It's free

      Look at the new always-on wireless handhelds. Do you really want some 13-year-old 1337 hax0r breaking into your Palm? Sound rediculous?
      It won't be in the future.

      • Re:Linux (Score:2, Redundant)

        by XoXus ( 12014 )

        Low Feature Creep

        What? You obviously didn't read the previous story on slashdot about the graphical LILO, with built-in game!

        • Re:Linux (Score:1, Interesting)

          by digitalunity ( 19107 )
          I tried. It was /.'d to hell. The best part about OS software; you can make it do whatever you want. Don't want an animated LILO? Get a different LILO.

          Good Times©
          • That's also it's biggest flaw.

            I don't WANT another Lilo. Joe Sixpack doesn't give a rat's patoot what Lilo is, or why he'd want the source for it.

            I've futzed with Linux for over a decade off and on (mostly off) and it bugs me that I _still_ have to know the mount command, that I've got to figgure out print queues on my own, and that I've got to have comfortable knowledge of TCP/IP theory to configure anything more than a minimal ethernet connection.

            Really. Joe Sixpack....eth0, printcap, and fstab...the mind boggles.

            Here's hoping OSX is what insulates the computer USERS from the gears of the OS.

      • Linux v EPOC (A full ground up 32-bit RTOS)

        Stability ? None of my EPOC machines have ever crashed

        Customized integration ? Drag and drop word, excel, powerpoint or whatever docs to the device and back, sync with Outlook.

        Security ? SSL, Digital certificates as standard.

        Low Feature Creep ? Its a good thing that you don't get more features ? Even so all of the documents produced on my old Psion work on my new Nokia.

        Does only what you want it to ? Does all that and things I hadn't thought of an now love (record a memo).

        In terms of stability, integration and security EPOC blows Linux away, the major reason is simple

        It is an OS designed for small devices from the ground up, not the porting of a big iron OS to a small device.
        • Linux.. big iron... that's a good one.
          Sorry, our perspectives are a little shifted. When I think big iron, I think 8+ proc Cray's and Alpha's.

          I wasn't flaming any other OS's. If EPOC works really well for you, good for you.
          • But that is the point, Linux is a nice OS, I actually use it on my desktop at work (over 1000 other people in the company using MS). But it does have issues, and things like EPOC or ARM very rarely get any coverage here on Slashdot, despite the fact that for next gen devices they present possibly the biggest threat to WinTel.

            Linux is nice on my desktop, but I wouldn't trust it on my phone.
            • That is why Embedded Linux is one of the fastest growing segments of technology right now. People are in a mad rush to replace costly,dedicated,specialized RTOS's with something free,extendible,secure and robust. You're right, I think big things will come of ARM.
    • >I don't know. Do you have to buy a device because it runs Linux? Maybe there are better OS-es for PDA's.

      I, for one, was very interested in it because it was linux. Here, you have a PDA with an OS I am familiar with, means to add, change, and remove things at will. At the risk of appearing like an OpenSource zealot, Linux alone would have sold it, had everything else been equal.

      However, it wasn't. When I originally checked them out, the case seemed somewhat flimsy. There wasn't enough memory, and it didn't really follow anyone else's 'standards' for accessories. But I never thought that the immaturity of PDA-Linux was a problem. It would have gotten better over time.
  • Their code base was not all GPL and the device was expensive. I remember some NDA type stuf on their page too. I was interested but those things kept me from going any further into it. Hardware vendors beware, software should be free. All of it.
    • Hardware vendors beware, software should be free. All of it.

      You cheap bastard. What you want sounds a little socialist; wouldn't you agree? Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?

      --BEGIN SOAPBOX--
      Some programs couldn't get where they are without major funding. Look at programs like 3D Studio Max 4 or Lightwave. Those are both $1000+ programs. Do you realize how long it would have taken for them to get where they are now without the kind of funding they receive?

      I'm not saying the community couldn't have created anything just as good. But, look at the competition. Blender, you say? Not even close in terms of features and community support.

      This is but one example of high quality software that couldn't have come about without $$$. These programs are also an example of some of the most widely pirated graphics software in the industry.

      How would you feel if a company producing software you relied on went belly up? Would you not have any remorse for being 'one of them', the piraters?

      I don't agree with many companies rape^h^h^h^h pricing schedule; I just don't use their software.

      --END SOAPBOX--

      • Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Peter Harris ( 98662 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:24AM (#2936540) Homepage
        You know, he could have been referring to Freedom rather than sale price...

        Good reasons for using a free OS on a hand-held are going to include:

        • Freedom from proprietary content-control mechanisms. If these are built into non-open hardware drivers you're fucked. You might as well not buy the device in that case.
        • Weird hardware hacks that the designers didn't anticipate e.g. interface to Lego Mindstorms GPS-targeted siege engine ;). Again, you need free access to low-level drivers.
        So maybe no ranting required.
        • Touchê.

          Like I said, I was on a soapbox. :)
        • I had not thought of the content control aspect, but I did worry about hardware hacks and software interfaces that might change under me. My goal is to build a handheld that can do FFT to analyze noises in the plant where I work. Oh yeah, I'm doing it for fun, no company backing. I also have every intention of sharing any code I munge together. From GPL to GPL. The GSL has reasonable FFT routines that have saved me a bundle of time before. This platform was very attractive, but a bit over priced for a development toy that I might not be able to reproduce.

          It's true, I was being lazy and cheap but that's my right. Another poster has pointed out that I might have been wrong about my assesment of their licenses. In this case the lesson is double: Even the perception of restictions is enough to keep a community from forming. It was enough to keep me from buying one.

          As for that troll on the soap box, there are ways coders can make money besides working for some devilish company that wants to resell their telnet client ever year. I suggest you learn how, and fast.


      • Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?

        You don't understand the difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech. It's the latter which is important GNU/Linux PDA users, not if GNU/Linux or a different free-as-in-speech system is running on the box.

        That doesn't mean that GNU/Linux on PDAs is free-as-in-beer. When I bought my iPAQ last summer, the preinstalled GNU/Linux distribution was priced about 40 or 50 €, and I didn't have any problem paying for free-as-in-speech software. I would of course have been able to flash my PDA, but as I hadn't done it before and flashing the bootloader bears the risk of "bricking" a PDA and making it unusable, it was a fair deal. Apart from the preinstalled iPAQ I got a CD with all source codes used for building the GNU/Linux image, even a cross-development environment (binary packages + source + build scripts), everything.

        It would be a good idea for Agenda to have a similar business model with commercial free-as-in-speech software, too. That's what GNU/Linux users are looking for.
        • Not so, sir. Free as, as in speech, software MUST be free, as in beer, or it is not truly free(s). If you attach strings to free(s) software then how can it be free(S)? The user will have to abide by certain rules that they mightnot abide to, therefore they will not be able to use it and spread the word. Therefore, free(s) software MUST be free(b), otherwise it's chained and shackled by one thing or another. Free(b) software can be free(b) and not free(s) but you can't have it the other way around. This in no way stops people from tryin gto sell free(s) software though they must also make a copy available in a free(b) format (even if a little elbow grease is required).

          This is the problem with using OSS as a business model. You are left giving away yourproduct and selling services. Some companies find it more cost effective to hire their own in-house or contract service personel then to purchase services through the product supplier. Even trying to sell a tangible product on an OSS foundation has proven to be unstable as witnessed by the VR3 PDAs.
      • What you want sounds a little socialist; wouldn't you agree?
        Oh My Lord! A Socialist! Burn The Witch!

        Contrary to what many believe, someones views being "socialist" does not automatically invalidate them
      • Hardware vendors beware, software should be free. All of it.

        You cheap bastard. What you want sounds a little socialist; wouldn't you agree? Is it that you don't think the programmer should do everything for free, or is it that you can't afford any really nice software?

        He was refering to Free as in Speech, not free as in beer. You can sell GPL code.

        How would you feel if a company producing software you relied on went belly up? Would you not have any remorse for being 'one of them', the piraters?

        The original poster was refering to software for a PDA, where the hardware is what makes the company the money. Of course software companies whos sole product is software should charge, and PDA companies who make software should add on a little to the price of the PDA for the software they produce for it. However, PDA software, especially since it was TAKEN from a Free (as in speech) project, should be Free (as in speech)...

        Nobody disputes software makers need to pay rent and buy food, and if for some reason the company wen't tits up and you do have the source, you're covered.

        -- iCEBaLM

    • You are kidding right ? There are roughly three players in the marketplace right now

      Symbian who run on Mobile phones like the Nokia Communicator (I have one, its superb), and Psions

      WindowsCE on those lovely iPAQs, and they are lovely to use even if you hate Redmond

      PalmOS single threaded poor quality OS, with a large user base.

      NONE OF THESE ARE GPLed. All of them are successful.

      People do NOT look to buy a PDA because they can hack code on it. Sure I can develop code for my PDA, but the OS ? Its a commercial product, I don't want it to fail. If you buy an PDA only if its got a GPL'ed OS then you are limiting your choice and are certainly not the mass market.

    • Re:Oh well, a lesson learned (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jay Carlson ( 28733 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @10:03AM (#2936832) Homepage
      Their code base was not all GPL
      No, it isn't all GPL; a lot of it is covered by the LGPL and X11 licenses. :-)

      Seriously, we have the source to every bit on the device. And I mean Open Source [opensource.org]. It did take some effort to get the X11 sources, and source for the PMON boot loader, but we have them all. I know this because Brian Webb, who isn't an Agenda employee, rebuilt everything from source [desertscenes.net] to support my snow ABI, which is not binary compatible---if it wasn't rebuilt, it wouldn't work!

      We're still working on automating the rebuild. Right now, doing this rebuild is a manual process, but I think we're a few weeks away from having a big "make World" that will spit out a cross compiler and then a romdisk image.

      Now, if you're fretting about PDAs with components that aren't Open Source, go check out the Zaurus. Its Java implementation is proprietary. (If you want to write apps for it, they have to be GPL'd unless you're a Troll licensee; I guess some people see that as a positive thing.)

      and the device was expensive
      $250 always seemed a touch high to me. I think there's a Linux PDA niche somewhere below the iPaqs, competing directly with low-end Palm devices. LinuxDA [linuxda.com] is a little too low end for my taste; I want virtual memory. I would think that had Agenda's parent company not stumbled, pricing on the VR3 would have come down.

      I don't remember an NDA on their developer pages.

      (I wish people would stop moderating articles with "overrated/underrated" just to avoid metamod; the parent is at score 3 with no moderation reason. And the parent msg is substantially incorrect.)

      • $250 always seemed a touch high to me. I think there's a Linux PDA niche somewhere below the iPaqs, competing directly with low-end Palm devices.

        I always thought the (monochrome) iPaq H31xx [amazon.com] models were a good bet to fill this niche. They are significantly more powerful than the VR3, with a better price tag.

        Linux development has lagged behind the color iPaqs for some time, but it looks as if the H31xx is finally supported "out of the box" [handhelds.org].

      • I wish people would stop moderating articles with "overrated/underrated" just to avoid metamod; the parent is at score 3 with no moderation reason. And the parent msg is substantially incorrect.

        Mod points to date are +2 interesting -1 troll. Go figure, I said what I thought at the time and someone thought it was interesting.

        The parent message was an oppinion, bassed on my percetion. It looked like it would be hard to get at the source code and it was. As you say, "It did take some effort to get the X11 sources, and source for the PMON boot loader, but we have them all." At the time, I was unwilling to make that effort and it kept me from buying. If they wanted to build a community they needed to make it easy to help.

    • I don't think any of this kept them from being successful. Very little of PalmOS is open source, and WinCE is about as closed as it gets. What kept you from "going any further into it" was probably that you just didn't need it. It did not meet your needs, at least not to a level to justify it's price. However, I would guess the number of people who passed on the Agenda VR3 because it wasn't totally open, though it met all of their needs otherwise, is less then 5. OK, it is probably 0 because there are no alternatives other than a home made solution.

      Actually I think a big reason for the Agenda VR3's failure is marketing and product focus. To be profitable you have to sell the product in number great enough to offset initial research and development costs as well as current production costs. If no one knows about the product (outside of a relatively small market of Slashdot readers) it is hard to meet those numbers. Further, if the people who do know about the product don't see advantages big enough to justify the price or don't have the discretionary income to buy the product, the product just cannot be profitable.

  • Why are people surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by not-quite-rite ( 232445 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @07:57AM (#2936499) Homepage Journal
    How was this groundbreakingly different, and what did it offer over any other PDAs.

    Any product that tries to cash in on the "Linux is cool" will find that people are looking for substance, not gimmicks.

    I doubt there were many people that considered it a serious player in the world of PDAs.

    I am not saying this to start trouble, I believe it just needs to be said.
    • Any product that tries to cash in on the "Linux is cool" will find that people are looking for substance, not gimmicks.

      Unfortunately this will reflect badly on linux, rather than the product's vendor. Let's watch linux's "underdog" reputation mutate into a "buzzword" reputation, like thin clients did.

      Thin clients have been around for 20 years, yet Sun decided to make it sound like they invented it! When they never got around to shipping anything of substance (besides Java), lots of suits thought that "thin clients" were vapourware, and a buzzword that was not worth bothering with.
      • Linux has been a buzzword for years. Though it was more symbolic of a "hacker" culture, i.e. if a company wanted to seem cutting edge and "cool," they would hire "hackers" to do stuff on Linux. This is changed recently, however. A lot of ISPs I've known have, over the past few years, been migrating their servers OFF Linux to either Solaris or FreeBSD. Why? Linux now has a sort of negative connotation in the business world as being very ameteurish (just like many of the "hackers" hired during the dot-com boom.) Anyway, this will probably be seen as flamebait (god forbid I say anything negative about Linux on slashdot) but whatever, I've got karma to burn. :)
    • I'm in the market for a PDA.
      A Linux one would be nice.
      But not with a crummy resolution and B&W screen.
      What were their marketing people smoking?

      ///Peter

      • Re:Why are people surprised? (Score:5, Informative)

        by ProfessorPuke ( 318074 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @09:23AM (#2936663)
        I've got an Agenda (although I waited until the price had dropped more than 50%). Strangly, the resolution and monochromeness were both selling points for me! The resolution is better than a Palm (160x240 vs 160x160, due to no Graffiti area), and monochrome means much better battery life.

        However, their hardware spec was still hugely flawed. Some of the more obvious deficiencies:

        • /dev/dsp: They built in sound hardware (input and output!), with a port for a nokia-style earmike. But to this day no useful software has used it. An mp3 player isn't too much fun when you've got maybe 3 megabytes storage free.
        • too small: It's SMALLER than most Palms! That sounds like an advantage, but the fact is, the customers for a Linux device are going to be geeky hackers, and willing to look like a nerd for hauling around a huge brick of hardware. If the Agenda had been slightly bigger, not slightly smaller, then there may have been room for AA batteries (much longer life), more RAM, more flash, or who knows.
        • not enough memory: Here's the memory on my unit: \w\$ cat /proc/meminfo total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 7798784 7487488 311296 0 0 729088 Swap: 0 0 0 MemTotal: 7616 kB MemFree: 304 kB ... 8 meg is adequate. I guess. Barely. If they could've bumped it up to 16, the device would've been much more useful. Today hardware hackers enjoy pulling apart SIMMs to solder in this upgrade themselves- if its that easy, the factory should've done it.
        • not enough storage: Same deal as the RAM. Had 8, should've had 16. Most of the 8 was already exhausted by kernel, /bin, /usr/bin/X11R6, /usr/bin/games, etc. With 16 flash, the out-of-box device would've come mostly empty, instead of mostly full, which is a world of difference. Many Palm users felt decieved when they found that the advertised "8 megs of storage" wasn't all usable for their contacts and appointments. Here's the stats:
          \w\$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mtdblock0 3.3M 212.0k 3.0M 6% /flash
        • Replaceable batteries: You had to unscrew the case to change the AAA batteries, rather than being able to slap it in the dock every night and never think about losing power, like you can with many Palms and PocketPC units. That would've been an especially important advantage for a device whose usefulness come from software hacking. You want to plug it in, export DISPLAY=workstation:0, and beging to code, without worrying that operating the serial port drains batteries faster than normal unplugged operation. This problem reduced the convenience of developing new software for the Agenda, which thus reduced the benefit that a Free Software operating system should've given them.
        • No USB: USB is cool, what can I say? A USB port could've not only handled the recharge problem from the same plug as the data, but it would've had better bandwidth too, and not require a nonstandard serial-port adapter. And imaging if the PDA could emulate a USB mass-storage device to export its filesystem to random PCs you meet throughout the day (kinda like the Terapin Mine, but that's a $700 system).
        I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If they'd done just 1 or 2 of those rather simple improvements, they could've justified the higher price to average users.
        • Uh - not to mention that they tried to get into a market that is so closed that even Microsoft is breaking into it only slowly and painfully. Even if it was a perfect product for everyone (impossible!) it would have failed because people buy "Palm" (tm) and "Microsoft" (tm) - not "Piddly little company noone ever heard of." I thinlk that this explains Handspring's (apparent) focus change - they need to create a new market to sell product.
    • I bought an Agenda in January 2001 and sold it by March 2001. I was initially blinded by the fact that it ran Linux, but very quickly I discovered that the device was useless to me unless I used it solely as a developer device and did not expect to use it on a day-to-day basis.
      The penstroke recognition was so innacurate and slow compared to a Palm device that it made the Agenda useless and there were no real productivity applications.
      It's too bad that it's dissapearing but the honest truth is that the Agenda had no value to offer beyond the "Linux Inside" gimmick.
      • By any chance was it a VR3D? You know-the model intended for developers. I believe that is when it went on sale *FOR DEVELOPERS*. Unless I am getting my dates mixed around (and according to Linuxdevices they started shipping consumer versions in May, you bought a developer edition) which if you followed the mailinglists was known to be a beta test of both the hardware and the software, and people were expected to know how to work on it. If you aren't a developer, you don't have the right to complain because you bought something that you shouldn't have and it didn't work the way you wanted it to.
        • I bought the device as a developer, fully knowing that the device was not ready for the mass market, BUT at the time the message from Agenda Computing was that the consumer release was to happen within 4 months. That statement to me implied a certain level of readiness and usability in the software and hardware platform which the device failed to meet from the very beginning.

          It quickly became obvious that IMO the device was not going to be anywhere near usable for about a year by anyone but hard-core hardware, kernel and X11 hackers who would be working out the issues with Agenda's hardware and their software distribution.

          I bought the Agenda to develop productivity applications for a viable platform, NOT to help Agenda Computing in chasing down their bugs and fix poorly implemented core features.

          The platform was not viable simply because of the poor usability of the character recognition system that no-one was working on in any sugnificant manner.

          Cheers.
    • As far as I know, it is the **only** PDA offering a full X Server. While causing somewhat more overhead, it makes porting software much easier - heck, you even can use it as an X Terminal!

      While "Linux is cool" shouldn't be the main seller, there are connectivity aspects that simply blast other OS's away. For instance, when I got my Agenda plus Ethernet interface, it was lacking dhcp capabilities. However, I was able to compile and run dhcpcd out of the box - try that with a Palm or Windows CE based device.

      Then, the software useability for basic PDA features is actually very decent in the recent releases.
  • This device bothered me.

    The company that created it touted how it ran Linux, tried to rally the open source programming troops because it ran Linux, but never bothered to give it the ability to actually *SYNCH* with Linux.

    I hope this does not happen with the uber cool Sharp Zaurus.
    • It ALWAYS could sync with Linux, because any two linux machines can sync with each other if they have serial ports, pppd, and rsync!

      If that's not enough for you, then its Free Software, so go and write your own improvements. The only financial reason that a company should try to sell their hardware with Linux (aside from the kewlness factor) is to reduce their software developement costs, because the user community will step in and do it for free.

      (That said, their fatal mistake was that starting to program was too hard- it needed too much hackivation energy. They released the source code, but as a mismash of patches to other projects. If they'd let users download a single tarball which built into a kernel and full set of executables, their software deficiencies would've been fixed faster, and maybe they'd have survived to this day)

    • Re:That's a bummer man (Score:4, Informative)

      by trampel ( 464001 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @09:18AM (#2936646) Homepage
      NOT TRUE.

      I'm happily using an Agenda, and syncs with Linux (gnomecard and gnomecal) quite well.

      Admittedly, earlier versions of the synchronization programs had problems, though.
    • According to the Zaurus booth at LWE, the Zaurus will not ship with sync for Linux, only Windoze. Linux control software is "In the works".
    • and this kept me from buying one. the ONLY pda that sync's with linux effortlessly is the Palm and it's clones. you cant sync an iPaq, a Sharp, a VR3. Sorry, but putting all the development into the PDA and then snubbing all the customers you are specifically targeting is pretty darn stupid.

      I would have bought a vr3 if it would have worked with Linux even 1/2 as good as the palm pilot does.... I would have even loved to see 1/64th of an effort to make it synch with linux PIM apps, or even just text based where I have to write perl conduits...
  • geeks Dilbert people?
    marketing travelers?
    I dont knom.

    Has sockwave flash support?
    ...

    1 saludo
    Tei

  • Not a total dead loss ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by LL ( 20038 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:28AM (#2936548)
    ... there's already some interesting ideas coming out of the VR3 project ... offhand I can think of that Snow ABI which considers building apps in a different way to be more memory thrifty ... unlike a PC with virtual memory, a PDA is severely constrained with no guarantee that a wireless connection will be available. Some of the ideas could be extrapolated ... for example, if you have a transmeta chip, could the ABI refactor themselves in memory (ie reorder libraries to drop non-used portions?) What about mechanisms to detect dead code or where the memory/code hierarchy changes (think reconfigurable chips hibernating in spare memory slots as one HK uni research group published).

    I mean, we evolved from the dwarf binary format to elf ... perhaps we need to consider next generation hardware advances to .... ummm ... create the hobbit ABI. Think reconfigurable. think non-linear memory, think small embedded devices that can join together in a single complex task, think auto-optimisers/refactors a la JIT.

    LL
    • Yeah, the VR3 is a fun lab for exploring the pressures on embedded Linux devices. For instance, 8M is not quite enough memory for the software that people want to run on the device. So we want to cut down memory usage, but before we can do that, we have to understand what exactly memory usage is.

      That's a difficult issue. Take a program that has no heap/stack usage. How much memory does it use while running?

      One 4k page, containing either the current instruction, or the target address the current instruction is loading. All the other pages can be dropped by the kernel VM system, and demand-loaded back in when needed. Plus whatever kernel overhead there is to support the task and memory maps.

      OK, clearly that's not a useful answer. Any real app that's really eating only one page is thrashing so hard that it won't get anything useful done in a timely manner. But it does get you thinking about what the nature of memory usage is, and possible ways to reduce it.

      eXecute In Place support is one strategy. When you build VR3 compressed rom images, you can flag some files as sticky. Through the magic of VM, those uncompressed files are mapped directly into processes, and their code really does run from ROM---no copy in RAM needed. But VR3 ROM is slower than RAM, and you use up more ROM space this way. VR3 hackers have spent a lot of time exploring the tradeoffs here. But there are plenty of other strategies, and some that go deeper into the build process.

      For instance, it would be nice if each code page had as much useful stuff on it as possible. If you have a short "hot" function, a long bunch of rare exception handling, and then another short "hot" function, you have to keep the exception handling code paged in even though you're not using it much. It would be better to reorder the hot functions so that they share a page.

      You can do some of this with gprof's function reordering profiles and some linker scripts, but I haven't gotten around to trying this on the VR3. I think that some of the approaches to small-device tailoring do require the deep, system-wide approaches the parent article describes.

      • After thinking about this a little, I realized that you actually need two pages; on MIPS, a load instruction won't complete if there aren't TLB entries for both the instruction and its target. I really need to instrument the kernel TLB code; I have this suspicion that part of why snow is such a faster ABI is that it gets rid of the GOT pages, which are inherently quite "hot".
        • ... hmmm is there an off-line forum where these items are discussed? I'm not an assembly level hacker but I would like to explore some ideas on how you can retrofit non-linear memory systems into a von-neumann machine. For example, if you have a FPGA sitting in SRAM slot (I need to dig out that HK research paper), then you could have a deliberately dirty page as a guard ... then when you get that cache miss ... try to analyse the last set of instructions and work out if a different memory access pattern (ie alter the algorithm residing on the FPGA) might be better.

          LL
    • You know I never liked the SNOW idea. I jumped onto the Agenda VR3 wagon back when we were using the ELF compiler and sure it created slower, larger, more memory intensive binaries, but it did have one significant advantage over SNOW. While the SNOW compiler made the Agenda VR3 apear faster, it became nearly impossible for developers to distribute binary versions of thier apps.

      My project (shameless plug) The Religious Agenda [sourceforge.net] was offered as a binary only for the alpha release because everyone was using ELF at that time and I didn't have to worry too much about dynamic run time linker choaking on it. Once people started using SNOW and several incompatible SNOW ABI's came out, in order to offer binaries to the public I needed to offer for each SNOW ABI people had chosen to use.

      One of the ways SNOW works is by making shared libraries appear as if they were static libraries. The entry points into the library became staticly encoded into the compiled binary. You make a slight change to your library and all of a sudden everything that links against it needs to be recompiled as the offsets to these libraries change. ELF uses symbols instead of static entry points and allows backward compatibilty for minor changes and fixes.

      So I had to simply resort to distributing source only. This excluded all MS Windows users since there was no cross compiler available for them. This made a lot of the available open source apps unavailable to anyone but hard core geeks who were into customizing their Agenda with their own cross compiler environments.

      Now I believe you are suggesting that the SNOW idea can be used transparently without loosing the ELF flexibility. If so I'm all for it. And I'm not blaiming SNOW on the death of the VR3, however it was my biggest gripe. Also keep in mind without symbols, debugging becomes a nightmare. I wouldn't want to see symbol less core dumps on desktop or server machines. The SNOW ideas are only applicable to PDA's IMHO.

      • Now I believe you are suggesting that the SNOW idea can be used transparently without loosing the ELF flexibility.

        I suppose one could argue that "letting loose or releasing" the ELF flexibility is possible; however, context would indicate that you were concerned about failing to retain ELF flexibility. The word you were looking for is losing.

        Congratulations! You have been participant #24 in my campaign to rid Slashdot of this error.

  • Note to future PDA companies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:32AM (#2936552)
    PDAs don't sell very well if they ship with a half-baked OS and the expectation that your customers will fix it for you.

  • From the developer community (Score:4, Informative)

    by VertigoAce ( 257771 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:42AM (#2936563)
    As a company, Agenda Computing USA is long gone. The office in Germany (Agenda Computing GmbH) still exists and is finacially a distinct entity. They are still developing software and even accessories that weren't available from the US.

    The community itself is currently debating the best way to move off of Agenda Computing's servers (which are likely going to disappear without notice in the next several months). Once the community switches over, all of the software can be maintained by the community.

    Other people, such as myself, are working on Linux-based PDA software that is platform independent. PicoGUI [picogui.org], for example, runs on the VR3, the Helio, PC's, OS X (I think...), and several embedded systems. With this kind of development, the success of the software does not depend on the success of any particular piece of hardware.

  • Nothing to do with LINUX (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SerpentMage ( 13390 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:44AM (#2936566)
    I think this has nothing to with LINUX. And the GPL is good because how often has it happened that good code was lost because the company went under.

    The problem with palmtops is that I have tried and tried to use them. But what I keep going back to is the smallest leanest notebook possible. And many other people think the same way. A Palmtop is in many ways a "toy".
    • I know what you mean...
      I recently dusted off my libretto 50...

      Runs linux like a charm :)
    • And the GPL is good because how often has it happened that good code was lost because the company went under.
      That is a non sequitur. It may be true that what code the company produces under the GPL is not lost. However, if you want to say that GPL is better on the aggregate, then you also need to show that these GPL-based companies are producing more GPL code to begin with. If the GPL itself discourages the production of code to begin with, then you can hardly say it is better to have 100% of almost nothing. Likewise, if the company dies due to its GPL nature and thus ceases the production of code and the best the community can do with it is barely maintain it, then we'd be better off with a vital non-GPL company that can do a lot better than this.

      Personally, I happen to think the above two points I raised are the rule, not the exception. It's not exactly as if there's a great deal of successful companies that produce high quality code under the GPL, quite the opposite in fact. GPL has a large number of failures, non-deliveries, leaches, lightweights, and outright scams. Where are the successes? Few and far between.

  • Severe Usability Problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by heretic108 ( 454817 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @08:44AM (#2936567)
    The biggest problem with marketing Linux-based PDAs is the miniscule software catalogue.

    I'm not referring to the wide range of GPL'ed Linux applications that work on Linux PDAs (read: can be possibly made to work with reduced features after 'just a bit' of massive re-architecting and 'just a few' 36-hour porting/hacking/debugging sessions). I'm talking about the tiny pittance of ready-to-run pre-packaged apps, compared to the thousands of apps already available for Windows CE/Pocket PC and PalmOS PDAs.

    While I'm a fan of Linux and Open Source, I have to acknowledge the catch-22 problem of trying to capture market share for Linux PDAs when Microsoft and its PDA minions - Compaq, HP and Casio etc, are barging their way in with the support of huge R&D and marketing budgets - and attracting the attention and efforts of legions of corporate and independent software developers who smell the $$ and cut their code, confident that they will recoup their development costs and make a profit before their apps end up on the warez/crack sites, Morpheus, Gnutella etc.

    Growing software catalogues feed bigger hardware sales, and vice versa.

    The moral?
    If you want to push a new hardware/OS combination into the market, all you need is a few billion dollars behind you, and allow some time for the developers to get on board and feed your credibility with a software catalogue before you *have* to turn a profit.
    • Of those "...thousands of apps..." available for CE and Palm devices, they are either extremly vertical (Keeps track of meds for the busy neuro-surgeon), or variants of Minesweeper, Tetris, Solitare... etc.

      I waste enough time browsing /. and K5.

      I don't need something to occupy my time while I sit in front of the tube.
    • The biggest problem with marketing Linux-based PDAs is the miniscule software catalogue.

      Some people have looked into porting POSE (the Palm OS Emulator) to the Zaurus and other Linux handhelds, so that it could run Palm apps. Unfortunately, POSE needs a Palm ROM image, and those are not freely redistributable. You'd need to have a Palm anyway to get it to work. And the speed would likely be atrocious on a 200MHz ARM chip. It's not full speed even on my K6-II 500MHz.

      I had a different idea. The Palm SDK's are available, and there's prc-tools and such for Linux. Why not create an emulation layer for the Palm API, like Wine emulates the Windows API on Linux?

      The Palm API is better-documented, and much simpler. It'd probably be fairly easy to get to at least Palm OS 2.0 or so. Then you could recompile Palm apps for a Linux PDA. There would be a speed hit due to redirection, but the underlying processor is much faster; overall I'd think there would be a speed boost.

      You'd still need to recompile, but there are lots of open-source Palm apps, and lots more developed with Linux; the developers might have good motivation to quickly port their app to a new platform.

      I think the endianess is the same, so that's not a problem. To be legally safe there might need to be a clean-room effort, I'm not sure yet, but this'd be a way to get a lot of apps for, e.g., the Zaurus, and quickly.

  • The moral of the story (Score:2, Interesting)

    by elvum ( 9344 )

    It looks like a product marketed almost solely at the technical community just can't succeed in economic conditions like those at present, if ever.

    Even industry heavyweights with large technical communities are in trouble (Psion [psion.com] - who invented [ukonline.co.uk] the handheld computer - are pulling out [psionpress.com] and there are continuing rumours [slashdot.org] about the future of Palm), so what hope is there for a newcomer to the market? (Sharp take note! :-) )

  • Financial problems and an unfinished product (Score:4, Informative)

    by Johku ( 74195 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @09:18AM (#2936643)
    The parent company of Agenda Computing, Kessel International Holdings, had severe financial problems. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong suspended trading in Kessel shares on 23rd May 2001.

    Agenda US was said to be "temporarily closed" because Agenda Germany (Agenda Computing GmbH) as an independent company was planning to establish an office in US (which would have become the new Agenda US). Apparently they were never able to come up with sufficient funding for that (at least not yet).

    This is what we have heard from an ex Agenda employee Shane on the Agenda mailing list (I hope I got it right).

    The financial problems might have been one reason why they started selling Agenda VR3 when it was still way too unfinished as a product. But there were also some technical problems such as not having enough available RAM. It made it harder to quickly come up with usable set of PDA applications. I guess it was the result of trying to push for a too low price point.

    Anyway, I continue using my VR3. It is a nice device and certainly has been one step forward for Linux PDA devices. I am just sad that the step didn't carry very far.
  • a month or so ago. I figured then that they must be discontinued. I was going to get one (hard to resist at the price) but didn't get around to it. I don't know if any are left. I'll check next time I'm there. Really though, the device was just not all that impressive. I don't know what I'd use it for if I had one. The Zaurus is a lot nicer.

  • Agenda died because it was premature... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GKChesterton ( 462113 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @10:02AM (#2936824) Homepage
    Agenda's problems had nothing to do with linux and its fitness or lack thereof for PDAs. It died because it was pushed out the door before it was done. They weren't done with the OS, they weren't done with apps, and they weren't done with the hardware. It was pushed out the door because of the financial difficulties of Agenda's parent company.

    Actually, with the latest kernels and romdisks, the Agenda is a pretty nice device for the low end of the PDA spectrum But its not consumer-ready and probably never will be now. But it could've been. I use it as my everyday PDA currently. But I also have a Zaurus and will probably switch to it once I have a few spare cycles.

    A bigger issue I have with Agenda is that I don't think the target market was a winner. I don't think the low end of the PDA spectrum is where a business wants to be. Its up at the high end with the iPAQs, Jornadas, and Zaurus where anything interesting and profitable would be happening.
    • I like my VR3. I like the command line. I like telneting into it, rsync, and being able to compile little utilities myself. BUT I don't use it nearly as much as I used to use my Palm IIIx.

      1. It eats batteries. It's a good thing data is stored in flash, because the VR3 is dead often. This isn't helped any by the d*** thing turning itself on periodically.

      2. The screen contrast is poor. Turning the backlight on makes it worse.

      3. It is dog slow. Changing dates on the calendar is interminable, and bringing up the month display is almost useless because it takes so long.

      4. Did I mention the battery life?

      I'm going to have to replace it, since I've started missing meetings because it was dead when I wanted to enter something in my calendar, or it was dead when I wanted to check it. Too bad. The clear case is tres cool.

      dv

      2.
  • I have one Agenda VR3 and I have to say: few
    times in my life I was more disappointed with
    something. Technically the device is very powerfull
    but it seems that they concentrated only in
    hardware. If at least I could get java to
    work correctly with it then I could use it more
    (actually java only works with it when your
    code throws no exceptions!)...
    Their website makes the device look very appealing
    but the reality is that there is no decent software
    to support this hardware. Agenda still is nothing
    more than one very expensive toy...
  • they are continuing VR3 development -- but's not clear whether that means software or device development.

    That means device development. Software development is being done by the user community.

    Agenda Germany should concentrate on hardware, since that's not something that we can do by ourselves very well. I'd rather buy a mass produced Agenda with 16MBytes of RAM, rather than spend hours soldering.

  • I owned a developer edition for a while. It was the most disappointing PDA I have ever owned, especially when you consider that it only had a serial port and Agenda's proprietary IO connector. Top that with limited RAM and flash space, short battery life, and the same price as a much more capable iPaq 3135...
  • ...A developers edition (which means it has a different color case).

    It's a piece of junk. It has no end-user benefit over a palm III series. In fact, it is generally slower and harder to use than a palm III. Despite it's 66mhz processor the thing just did not perform. It's a device so unattractive (from a software/hardware POV) that only a true linux geek could even accord it pity enough to use it.

    If Agenda Computing keeps up their MS-style practice of pushing their products to market before they've matured, they'll continue to find themselves where the are now- in the hole. Heck, they didn't even bring anything really new to the world...

    My 2 cents.

  • Excellent low-end PDA (Score:2, Informative)

    by esm ( 54188 )
    I decided to buy a PDA last month, and after careful evaluation, settled on the Agenda. That was _before_ I knew Agenda US was dead.

    But even though I had been willing to shell out $250 for it, I got one for less on ebay. I've had it for a week, and I love it! Consider:

    • Easy to program. I can develop for it an run code natively on my Linux box, without emulators or other stuff.
    • GPL, and documented file formats. I can write my own code (and have done so) to sync data reliably, i.e., correct conflict resolution when records are changed both on the PDA and the desktop.
    • No need for Wintendo. Although there is Linux support for most PDAs, if you have to upgrade the OS, it seems like vendors only provide .EXE files. That doesn't help those of us who do not use the garbage from Redmond.
    • The Right Philosophy. Full CVS access to the sources, Open mentality. Come on! We all bitch and moan about Sony, but how many of you have gone out and bought their PDAs "because they're nifty", despite the evils commited by the company?
    • Great price. Not everyone has $500 to spend on an ipaq or Zaurus or the latest nifty toy.
    It has its flaws... lots of them. But for the price, it's easily the best thing out there.

  • forget the Sharp Zaurus (Score:4, Insightful)

    by markj02 ( 544487 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:02PM (#2937530)
    I have developed software for the VR3. It's a nice little device. Because it uses standard Linux GUI software, I can now take my software and run it on several other Linux-based PDAs.

    The Sharp Zaurus only runs Qt/Embedded. It will not share the screen with any other toolkit, and if I develop for Qt, I may end up having to pay steep licensing fees. Thanks, but no thanks. The point of Linux is that software is compatible among different Linux machines/devices and that I'm not forced to use just the software that some hardware vendor decided to impose on me.


    • That's not true at all. First off, there is an xserver available for the Zaurus. Second, Qt/Embedded is just another layer of software dependencies. Ever try to run a KDE app on your desktop without Qt stuff installed? Ever try to run a GNOME app without the GTK?

      Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?

      This whole post just makes no sense.
      • First off, there is an xserver available for the Zaurus



        If so, they're not making it obvious. I just went to google and typed in "xserver zaurus". Approximately 7 hits came up, 2 of which were in German, a few more in Japanese, and one pdf doc that I didn't bother to read.

      • I contacted Sharp--they had no plans for an X server as of two months ago. Even if there was one, as long as Qt/Embedded "owns" the screen, lots of nifty X11-based handheld software just won't port (input methods, window management, etc.).

        Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?

        X11 can fully support text-only applications, as well as Qt-based applications. Qt/Embedded does not support X11-based applications. Get the difference?

        This whole post just makes no sense.

        Perhaps that's because I have developed handheld software and you haven't?

        • Ummm...no I'm not. I'm running it on my Zaurus.

          I contacted Sharp--they had no plans for an X server as of two months ago. Even if there was one, as long as Qt/Embedded "owns" the screen, lots of nifty X11-based handheld software just won't port (input methods, window management, etc.).

          Just because Sharp isn't producing it, doesn't mean it isn't out there.

          Most servers run with only a text-mode console display, or they run entirely headless. Should we scrap them because its not X?

          X11 can fully support text-only applications, as well as Qt-based applications. Qt/Embedded does not support X11-based applications. Get the difference?

          Yes, but the lack of an X server doesn't make the whole Zaurus useless for those who don't have a need for an xserver. The average PDA user doesn't need or care about X. This is all assuming there is no X server...but there is.

          This whole post just makes no sense.

          Perhaps that's because I have developed handheld software and you haven't?

          Sorry, but you're wrong yet again. I've been paid rather well for developing handheld software.

  • Here's why agenda got it's butt kicked (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:10PM (#2937568)
    • It had a risc processor that was almost four times as a fast as a palm's cisc processor, but responded to user-generated events almost three times as slow. This is probably do to the fact that the linux kernel does not prioritize handling UI events whereas PalmOS does. It is probably also due the fact that PalmOS doesn't try to do serious multi-tasking because something like a PDA really doesn't require it except for a few limited daemon-type things (e.g. alarms, timers, etc). Sure, if it does serious multi-tasking, geeks can run apache on it. But then you have to ask yourself who you're really marketing the product to.
    • The Agenda did not remotely have any serious human factors involved in the hardware design. Most likely they said "we'll design the hardware first, and worry about the interface later on". You can clearly see this from the strangely placed buttons and the ultra-slippery metal stylus that is ultra-hard to get a good grip on. Any UI person worth his salt will tell you that you should always come up with how the person is supposed to interface with the software/device before you ever write code/manufacture it. On a PDA, usability issues are amplified several thousand times: On a sit-down desktop, you might have half a day to navigate a poorly designed interface. With a PDA, you might have 20 seconds to get down a damned important phone number.

      The Palm, on the other hand, was invented after the designer carried a block of wood around in his pocket for a month, pondering what the PDA should act like. Agenda Computing could have used a good block of wood.

    • The user interface was badly designed. The calendar on the agenda was nowhere near as good or as clean as the palm's. And where the palm had a global area for looking over the applications (i.e. home), Agenda made it into an application called Launchpad. File managers should have the feel of being a global entity, not an application that has to be started.
    • Agenda's web site really didn't contain a whole lot of information that was helpful and only contained a few pieces of documentation here and there. There seemed to be this attitude of "if you want help or support or information, check out the agenda community". When you're a company, you just can't say that. Also, Agenda should have put all the developer community apps on their web site. People don't have the patience to follow links.
    • Agenda prevented reselling, but did not provide things of as great a quality as a reseller might (if at all). For example, if someone were allowed to beef up the consumer IR software, to add a whole bunch of IR codes for various consumer devices, and make it generally easier to use and then sell it as the Ultimate Universal Remote, people would have gotten a kickass remote and Agenda Computing would have still made money of the hardware, which was their original business model anyways
    • Agenda couldn't really decide who their target market was: end-users who wanted an organizer or linux geeks with a lot of patience and a love for futzing who wanted a cool toy. You always have to know who your market is if you want to succeed in any kind of business.
    • It had a risc processor that was almost four times as a fast as a palm's cisc processor, but responded to user-generated events almost three times as slow. This is probably do to the fact that the linux kernel does not prioritize handling UI events whereas PalmOS does.



      No, it's slow because of a combination of low-memory and running some things out of flash ROM. ROM is slower than RAM.



      The Agenda did not remotely have any serious human factors involved in the hardware design.



      It/s not as bad as you say. I carry mine everyday, never have problems with it's design. Reportedly the VR3Rechargable that never made it to market was thinner.



      The user interface was badly designed.



      It's an excuse, but it's under GPL. Look at AGToys [sf.net] and numerous other projects where people re-designed it. I think if Agenda had had more time and $$$ to hire a couple usability nerds, it would have gone much better.



      Agenda's web site really didn't contain a whole lot of information that was helpful and only contained a few pieces of documentation here and there. There seemed to be this attitude of "if you want help or support or information, check out the agenda community".



      You and I agree on that one. Luckily the community is still quite strong.



      I bought one. I enjoy it. I wish I had more time to develop on it. I wish it had 16MB. I wish they didn't go out of busines. But what the hell, I've had fun.

  • I work for the largest (paper) agenda company [premieragendas.com]. We supply agendas for almost 50 % of North American schools. I called up Agenda VR3 and said, hey, let's talk. Maybe there's something that we can do here. Unfortunately, I never heard back from them. We then made arrangements to sell Palms, and VR3 was left out in the cold, where, apparently, they are freezing. We've had some corporate changes lately, and our relationship with Palm is in question, but there was an opportunity there that the VR3 people seemingly just ignored. Too bad!
  • One of the reasons for using Linux is its versatility. If manufacturers want a Linux device to take off, they need to put some of that versatility into it. USB, Ethernet, and a standard expansion port would have made a big difference in the success of the Agenda.
  • I was very excited when I first heard about the VR3 and was going to buy one as soon as it was released ... untill I read more information about it. It lacks in storage space and RAM compared to other PDA's and has utilities that you can get from the net, like mp3 player, but no room to actually put them to use unless you map to the RAM which is always a bad idea.

  • I love my VR3! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nontrivial ( 222436 )
    Like most other geeks, I have a long history of hardware addiction. I love my VR3 because it packs a lot of functionality into an incredibly small package. Even better, it runs straight up Linuz and X, so it is a hackers dream! I hope the Agenda manages to stay around, because if it does then it has unlimited potential. Linux software support grows exponentially for a new platform, and for the VR3 it is just now starting to take off.

    James

  • Developers "switching" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dstone ( 191334 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @01:44PM (#2938083) Homepage
    From the article...
    some developers have now switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus

    "Switching" from one Linux platform to another? It's a little ironic that part of the demise of this Linux PDA is something that can't/doesn't really happen to Linux on the desktop and is actually something that keeps the community together -- developers don't usually have to pick and choose which distribution/hardware/etc their Linux apps will run on.

  • US Office (Score:2, Informative)

    by felipeal ( 177452 )
    Agenda's U.S. phone and fax numbers have been disconnected

    Not only that: I sent my registration card by mail (yes, I did it on the internet too :) somewhere in October or November, but the letter was returned. The USPS reason, if I remember well, was 'unclaimed'. I don't know what that mean, but my guess is that they were in a so bad shape financially that they could not afford the USPS fees to collect their prepaid mail...
  • I tried it, and I am glad I don't own it. It screams unfriendliness from every pore. Granted, my Palm has spoiled me, but the guy who borrowed me his Agenda (no pun intended) was disappointed like hell.

    Here's a Linux PDA I think might be a winner. [invair.de]

    And an advice: don't buy ANY Linux of WinCE-based PDA before you try a Palm first. You must understand what a PDA is for, whether you need it, and what level of friendliness you need, if you think a PDA can be useful to you.

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