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Posted by r_z_aret on February 25, 2008, 1:42 pm
Please log in for more thread options On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:23:46 -0800 (PST), mockturtle
>Dear all,
>I am searching for a palmtop (or any small device) with special
>characteristics and I was wondering if someone could point me to some
>device and/or brand. If you have any first-hand experience
>(especially with sw development), I would be glad to hear it.
>
>I goggled [Calving: "verbing weirds the language" :-] a little bit
>around, but I was not able to find anything which satisfies all my
>constraints.
>
>My problem (simplified):
>I have a small sensor with USB interface and I want to do some
>measures while this sensor is attached to a person who walks around.
>The sensor has no on board memory, but the protocol is well-
>documented, so I was thinking to attach to the sensor a small computer
>(e.g. a PDA) whose duty would be to store the data read from the
>sensor. I have good programming experience, so I have no problem in
>writing my own controlling/data acquisition software.
>
>What I am searching for is a PDA or something similar which is
>
> 0. still produced (obvious)
>
> 1. Low cost (our budget is anything but huge. Say that few hundreds
>euros is the maximum we can afford for the PDA)
>
> 2. with Linux (in case I need to go quite low-level, I would prefer
>working with something open)
>
> 3. with an USB port which is
>
> 3a. _usable_without_any_docking_station_ (remember that the device
>must be weared)
>
> 3b. able to work _both_as_host_and_as_device_ (I need to control
>the sensor with it, but also I believe that any software would be
>uploaded via the USB port)
>
>Wireless interface and GPS could prove useful, but they are not
>necessary. Others "bells and whistles" (such as a video camera) are a
>little unwelcomed since they increase the cost while being useless
>(for my problem, of course).
>
>Requirement #3 seems to be the most difficult to satisfy since it
>seems to me that in most of cases USB port is available on PDAs only
>through the docking station. I found that Acer n30 is a nice match
>for points 1-3, but, unfortunately, it seems that req #0 is not
>satisfied...
Many Windows Mobile devices have a USB port, but very few support host
mode. I suspect the USB ports on docking stations are also device
only. I'm pretty sure at least one (maybe only the Acer you already
found) supports USB host mode. So I just used Google
(http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search) to look up
usb host
in microsoft.public.pocketpc and got 751 hits. I took a quick look at
the first few and was discouraged. Also lazy, so I didn't look
further. But I still think you should wade through the list.
Some industrial Windows CE devices may support USB host. But they are
usually more than $1000 U.S. For a somewhat out of date list, see my
21 April 2005 contribution to a thread called "Looking for special
material" in microsoft.public.pocketpc.
Many PDAs support Bluetooth. Maybe you can find a way to connect your
device to Bluetooth.
You might also want to check this:
http://www.buglabs.net/about
>
>Thank you in advance for your help.
-----------------------------------------
To reply to me, remove the underscores (_) from my email address (and please
indicate which newsgroup and message).
Robert E. Zaret, eMVP
PenFact, Inc.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 400
Boston, MA 02116
www.penfact.com
Useful reading (be sure to read its disclaimer first):
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
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