Palm Sunday (On Board The S.S. Within)
Mar. 6th, 2004 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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redcountess has been remarkably unwell this week, hence our
notable lack of social lives. This pushes forward the urgency of getting
some sort of computing device she can use from bed. The options are:
- A cheap laptop. Colour pixels and Ethernetability are just about all it needs in technical terms, because it doesn't have to run more than an X server to connect to her FreeBSD machine. The catch is if it's too inconvenient to use in bed. And we don't have five hundred quid to drop at Morgan's.
- A recent Palm, such as this tempting toy. Liz already plays solitare on a TRGpro (Palm III clone) tippy-tap and can use it even on quite bad days. The catch for intarweb is the 320×320 screen.
Your advice is sought: is something Palmlike usable for browsing, not just text, without wanting to throw it against the wall after ten minutes?
Also, if someone has a frustratingly ancient laptop they don't need that can do (or be made to do) Ethernet, for a suitably low price, please get in touch!
Happy birthday, by the way, to sbp, whose 43rd (octal)
birthday party is tonight. Quite a lot of the people I wanted to ask the
above will be there.
Update: How useful and/or available in the UK is the Toshiba Libretto or something of similar form factor?
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 02:34 pm (UTC)I've used a laptop in the past, but currently have a monitor on a swivel / rotate thingy that lets me lie in bed to have access (and rotated/swivelled in other direction is usable from desk instead)
If laptop, you need to check where went / airflow works btw as my old work laptop required the base to be kept clear for ventilation which meant I had to first put it on a tray before resting it on the bed...
(ps. One day we shall manage to meet and know about it!)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 04:38 pm (UTC)http://www.clonesuk.com/notebooks.htm
Despite sounding like it should be staffed by blokes who resemble Right Said Fred in appearance and wear a lot of leather, it's a lot cheaper than Morgan's. They don't give a 6 month warranty as they did 2 years ago when I bought mine, but there is a 30 day warranty (should be enough to spot any obvious problems) and mine is still going strong other than a dodgy battery (which one expects to replace every couple of years in a laptop anyway -- and isn't that much of a problem if one's using it from bed in any case).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 05:22 pm (UTC)And then you want to throw it at the wall, but remember it cost $1k so you don't.
Go with the laptop.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 05:40 pm (UTC)And of course the problem of how to get data into the thing. Might be OK if she bookmarked everything she was interested in and never went anywhere new without clicking on a link, but entering URLs with the stylus will get old real fast.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 06:46 pm (UTC)Just find a table or something big enough and the right height to hold the machine and monitor right up against the bed where she can use it leaning on her left side (If she's right handed.) Get her something to cushion her right elbow 'cause she's going to be leaning on it a lot. Put the keyboard on the bed itself. For the pointer, I used to use a trackball so that I could point and click without having to deal with a mouse. (Now I just use an optical mouse on a big flat book.)
If the monitor has a swivel base and you put it a bit down from the head of the bed you can switch from your left to your right side just by rotating the monitor for a bit.
I'm a lot better than I was when I first became ill but after all this time there is absolutely *no* way I'd go back to using a computer while sitting at a desk. I've gotten to spoiled by being able to lay down while using the computer. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-06 08:49 pm (UTC)A woolier option might be to look at a Newton 2100. There's a semidecent browser now (Courier) that has jpg support though it's a little lacking in javascript. It's got an GOOD IMAP client in active development though (Mail V) and telnet terminals, a Nintendo emulator, and can even handle 802.11b with some cards. (Wired ethernet is definitely available. Mine works.) You can probably fine fairly full kits of those for £100-150 on ebay.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 01:27 am (UTC)Trying to decide if I like this mental image or not...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 02:17 am (UTC)IME: no. Lack of decent screen size and a real keyboard are the main issues.
The problem with cheap craptops is usually that you can have one of ethernet and sound, but not both. ebay-alikes here suggest that an i586-craptop can be had for ~ EUR 80 and a PCMCIA ethernet card for ~ EUR 20. If you don't need sound, that should be sufficient.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 04:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 12:50 pm (UTC)If you don't find anything else and want me to check this out then let me know, it's at the back of the top of my closet and I don't want to bother if it will be a definitely not. If it might work it is yours.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 01:01 pm (UTC)brutally sodogently persuaded to do Ethernet ...(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 01:24 pm (UTC)The bumph on the back says ©1995, so it is fairly old.
I don't know if I can make it go as (this is silly) I cannot find the plugshapechange dongle. I do have the power supply and it is dual voltage, so it should in theory go. I can't get it to show any sign of life from either of the batteries, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 01:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 02:19 pm (UTC)The joys of Ethernet on it are detailed here. Need to find and buy an odd bit of hardware: a LocalTalk/ethernet adapter. Wonder if those are obtainable on the planet Earth ...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 03:23 pm (UTC)(As a bonus, they work rather reliably (eg better than the rest) under my choice of Free OS.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-07 04:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 01:17 am (UTC)So, see waht other offers you get for machines and whether they will be better value/less hassle than this one, but know that this one is available. I really haven't used it for years and it is one less thing to move.
If you decide not to use it I may very well buy such an adapter myself and use it. I've been meaning to investigate for AGES whether I can make this laptop useful to me and concluded that while it may be possible it is likely to be fiddly. Similarly if you use it for a while and then upgrade to something else I will have it back please and may buy the adapter from you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 01:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 04:09 am (UTC)The going rate for a small laptop that would do everything we want, e.g. a Compaq Armada M300 (one of which was my work machine at Ericsson), is around £300 now.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-08 06:15 am (UTC)You can get the bare-bones (unconverted, japanese) one for £450... and it is *incredibly* easy to update the flash.