Trolltech/Sharp Partner on Zaurus

Wednesday, 7 November 2001  |  Dre

Trolltech and Sharp have announced a really spiffy-looking Linux palmtop, named "Zaurus". The device itself features a sliding (retractable) keyboard, a color display, a CF expansion slot (for memory or peripherals), an SD expansion slot (for secure memory storage or other peripherals), an IR port, a USB connector and a headset port. On the software side, the Zaurus uses Lineo's Embedix Linux; Trolltech's Qt/Embedded, Qt/Palmtop and Qt AWT GUI technologies; Insignia Solution's Jeode PDA Edition; and Opera Software's embedded web browser. Sharp is accepting pre-orders from the developer community for the SL-5000D developer unit (register here). With the continuing additions to kdenox, this might just be a great platform for KOffice/embedded.

Comments:

Offline browsing - reihal - 2001-11-07

I want to browse downloaded websites (or parts of sites) offline on my PDA, if I buy one. Reading mail and newsgroups offline would be nice too. But it's only a deam, I guess, it will never happen.

Why not? - Claes - 2001-11-07

If this thing can run wwwoffle, it should be possible.

Re: Why not? - Carbon - 2001-11-08

Sitescooper is cool too, it's one of my favorite small but ultra-handy perl apps. And of course, wget is always handy! :-)

Looks very nice - Claes - 2001-11-07

This thing looks very nice! But as always with small devices, one problem: there are not enough keys for the extra characters in the swedish (and I guess many others) alphabet. I will never buy a PDA with keyboard unless it has got a reasonable keyboard layout.

Availability and pricing? - Rob Kaper - 2001-11-07

When will this beauty be in stores? Where do I sign up for a development model? What's the price tag? I want one for Christmas!

This is difficult - Thomas - 2001-11-07

If I got it right, Sharp sells the SL5000 with a preinstalled Lineo Embedix Linux and a Java Engine on top of it (in ROM). NO QT/Embedded. The Trolls just fiddled around with this PDA and figured out how to get their PDA-Environment to run on this (nice lookin) PDA. That's all... But me as stupid customer want to buy it with QT/Embedded as preinstalled system.... Am I completely wrong? Did I misunderstood the (little) Sharp-SL5000 information I read on Sharps website?

erm... - Thomas - 2001-11-07

What I mean: O.k. there's the Qt AWT, so you can do your programming in Java, but it has native look n' feel of Qt. The preinstalled apps (like the organizer or the mailer): Are they written in Qt/C++ which is all known to us ...or in Java? Will you be able to still use C++ for development _without_ major modifications to the PDA's OS and Desktop Environment settings? Am I right, you can choose Konqui for browser (QT/C++)? Or do you have to get along with Java? Java seems to work out of the box, QT/C++ needs what? (a crosscompiler?)

Re: This is difficult - Frank - 2001-11-07

Qt embedded is already installed (the device was shown at "Systems" fair in Munich in October, with Qt). The web pages seems to be not up to date. Sharp has recognized the power of QPE and switched over in the last weeks. Developer releases should be available in November for around 399$, the target for the final devices is march (with a higher price?). According to there homepage http://www.lisa.de/ is also involved in application development.

Re: This is difficult - Martin Jones - 2001-11-08

Actually, this device ships with Qt/Embedded and Qt/Palmtop pre-installed and there is a development kit to develop Qt applications. The Java engine runs on top of Qt/Embedded. Martin Jones, Trolltech.

KOffice/embedded - brambi - 2001-11-07

This is indeed a good platform for KOffice. I think that for using KOffice as main Word Processor on the desktop is lacks some major features. Star/Open Office does this job much better. Is there anybody working on a port of Koffice to qpe ? Hancomoffice is also working on an office suite for Qpe. <http://www.hancom.com/en/product_service/embedded0905.html> -b.

Re: KOffice/embedded - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-11-11

Wouldn't it make more sense to make a KPE and have some sort of standardized flag that lets apps be aware that they are on a handheld format screen (change the menus and toolbars)? -- Evan

"zaurus" - isn't that out already? - svara - 2001-11-07

I travelled to japan about half a year ago and I saw a PDA called "Zaurus" in stores everywhere. Is that the same? Didn't know it was running Linux...

Re: "zaurus" - isn't that out already? - Janne - 2001-11-07

The japanise Zaurus in the same hardware but with Sharp OS, no Linux there.

Re: "zaurus" - isn't that out already? - Anonymous Clippy - 2001-11-07

Actually I think its got an SH cpu instead of an ARM proccessor that the US version will have.

I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-07

Arrived about an hour ago, we are working on porting Kivio mp to it right now. It is a sweet unit, I hope they forget they sent it to me :). It's much nicer than the iPaq and smaller, it's just a touch larger than my Handspring Visor. There are some humorous misspellings in some of the current dialog boxes. Shawn

Re: I just got mine in - me - 2001-11-07

Wow, that's gotta be the best part of your job, getting to play with those gadgets! If it only included a cellphone, I'd have ordered mine by now... But Shawn, to be honest, I think Kivio should be the very last thing to port to a handheld. I haven't done too much diagramming, but i found out that it takes quite a lot of screenspace to create bigger diagrams, since you tend to quickly lose overview. Don't you think that aethera would be a better idea?

Re: I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-07

Actually this is the first decent thing I've gotten in. As far as applications, out of all the things we have, Kivio seems the most appropriate, if not particularly appropriate. We're going to look at Aethera too when we finish the Qt port later this week, but I think it's too fat for this device. I'm open to suggestions for products that make sense though. shawn

Re: I just got mine in - All_troll_no_tech - 2001-11-07

Kapital

Re: I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-07

kapital is too fat and needs KDE - on a palm you just want something lite weight to keep certain information and then sync up with.

Re: I just got mine in - Brad C. - 2001-11-07

how about making it able to sync with Aethera... that would be sweet (oh, and i would REALLY like to see a finished Aethera....) Kivio would be pretty cool, I installed a diagramming program on my ipaq called First and it wasn't as bad as you would expect it to be with the limited screen space. I did order one of these already(developers adddition) I hope they ship pretty soon!

Re: I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-08

well I know you here this a lot, but early next week will have the new Aethera with the new UI and plug in architecture with a couple of commercial plug ins to follow a couple weeks later.

Re: I just got mine in - Carbon - 2001-11-08

This is a bit OT, but why in the world did you guys decide to make custom toolbar icons for Aethera, even for standard functions like 'print'? Or, have those been removed?

Re: I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-08

You think I've got time to check every feature and function when I'm so busy following these talkbacks? :) Seriously, I'm not sure what the original situation was, or what the current situation is with regard to the icons. I know we made all our own icons because that's just what we do.

Re: I just got mine in - Timothy R. Butler - 2001-11-10

Would you please consider an option to make Aethera use KDE's icons? I'd love to see Aethera's look mirror my KDE desktop as *closely* as possible. Thanks, Tim

Re: I just got mine in - Janne - 2001-11-08

Since you are the first person I know that has the device, could you give us a mini-review :)? How is the keyboard? Does it have a good feel to it (I guess Psion Revo has spoiled me when it coms to PDA-keyboards). How about the screen? Is it good? How fast is the device? Any slowdowns?

Re: I just got mine in - Shawn Gordon - 2001-11-08

The device is slightly longer than my Visor. Qpe feels like a cross between Palm OS and WinCE, I'm not totally sure I like it yet, I don't care for the handwriting recognition on it at all, but the keyboard is pretty nice. You're going to be using your thumbs to type basically, and there is a enough room on there so it's not a problem. There is a version of Opera on there, but I can't think of anything more painful than surfing the net on a screen this size, but at least there is a keyboard, trying to type a URL takes about 5 to 10 minutes (seriously, I tried it on a larger test unit some months ago). The display is very nice and all the applications I brought up were very zippy, I was pleased with the performance. So at this stage I would give it a positive review.

Um... - Mr. Guy - 2001-11-08

What the hell is this site, a forum for free advertising for TrollTech?

Re: Um... - Christian A Strømmen [Number1/NumeroUno] - 2001-11-08

Troll-detection... *bip bip*

Why not a USB port? and video out?? - SVG wanter - 2001-11-10

I wanna plug in a keyboard and monitor and use this like a computer ;-) OK really I just wanna be able to use it for doing presentations instead of lugging a laptop around and using windbloze and F!@#$%@#$%#$ING PowerPoint

Re: Why not a USB port? and video out?? - Anti-Twit - 2001-11-10

you are a twit sir! Even if those things were available in hardware (and if they wer the think would be half the size of a laptop by that point) what uhh **APPLICATION** would you use for presentations? Staroffice -- nope Hanoffice -- nope Gobe -- nope KOffice -- nope .... nope nope nope

Re: Why not a USB port? and video out?? - Timothy R. Butler - 2001-11-10

Hmm... maybe the port for syncing could have an add on for video out? If KOffice could (is being?) ported, and so is HancomOffice, such an idea would be kinda neat. -Tim

Re: Why not a USB port? and video out?? - Damion - 2004-05-03

http://www.shirtpocket.co.uk/cat/product_info.php?products_id=89

Re: Why not a USB port? and video out?? Look here - My other email address - 2001-11-12

LOOK HERE: http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/gadgets/57a3.shtml ... use of Qt is optional ;-)

zaurus - ljp - 2001-11-11

As soon as I can help it, gutenbrowser is also going to run on it. This thing looks Kool! Never had a pda before- really never had a reason to have one. C'mon December!! :D ljp