Computers » Jornada 720
Jornada 720
7.44 x 3.74 x 1.34 inch (189 x 95 x 34 mm)
My Favorite Gadget
This is my HP Jornada 720, an awesome little item I scored for $119 USD on eBay. It comes with a 206MHz StrongArm processor, 32MB of RAM, stereo audio with a speaker/headphone jack, CompactFlash (Type 1), PCMCIA support, a 6.5 inch (16.7 cm) 65,356 color 640x240 LCD touch-screen/stylus, a stock battery that lasts around 9 hours (mine modified to run for ~30 hours under Linux), and a very usable built-in keyboard--one I'm using now to write this page--and the whole thing fits in your coat pocket! Read the official HP specifications for more information.
The machine originally sold for around $1,000 USD. Unfortunately, it is no longer being manufactured, nor are there any modern versions with the same form factor. It comes with Microsoft Windows CE built-in, but you can't expect that to stay very long on a *nix enthusiast's toy :-). In fact, I 100% intended to install a *nix variant on it before I even ordered it! It is currently running JLime, a very well-suited Linux distribution.
The idea behind my purchase is simple. In fact, if you're a typical computer geek with an imagination, you probably don't need me to speak further. But, for those of you who don't know why I'd purchase one of these, I'll tell you. I now have a fully functional computer for my coat pocket that has wireless Internet capability, can run both Linux/NetBSD, has stereo audio output, and can run most of the common software I use on my desktop PC.
Due to the abundance of free wireless Internet access, I can do the following from almost anywhere:
- Read books (ELinks/pdftohtml)
- View images (xzgv)
- Manage contacts (abook)
- Read & post to Usenet (slrn)
- Check & compose email (Mutt)
- Chat on IRC & IM networks (Irssi/BitlBee)
- Surf the Web (Dillo/Links2/ELinks/Lynx)
- Write code (Vim)
- Play various games (Doom/Angband/snes9x)
- Access data stored at home (SSH/NFS/shfs)
- Remotely administrate servers (SSH)
- Play/stream music (moc/mpg123/madplay/cplay)
- Much more!
This can come in handy while I'm at the sandwich shop, waiting for a bus, at a geek party/meeting, or am bored at a friend's house. The applications mentioned here are not the only applications available for said tasks. They are the applications I primarily use, though. I access many of these applications (such as Mutt) via SSH. My IRC/IM/Mail clients usually run 24/7 inside a GNU Screen process. They could also be installed on the Jornada itself, however.
A computer geek/Internet addict's dream.
