[NCLUG] vr3

[Brian Stanback]

William,

I have a VR3, it was a developer version which I had received for free.
The US site has not had any updates for a while, however the german site
(agendacomputing.de) has seen more updates.

I believe the unit had plans for an automatic alarm, however I think there
were still some troubles with apm not being able to wake itself up. I
would reccommend looking in the Agenda Computing mailing list archive for
more details.

My comments on the Agenda VR3:

The agenda's apps are definetly usuable, and the unit is well
designed. The unit runs X and comes with a mips compilier, so porting
applications was fairly easy.

I did have some issues with the Agenda, and I have retired it for an
IPAQ running Linux - things you might want to consider before buying.

1) The agenda takes standard AAA batteries and doesn't have a built in
   charger, nor does it have a powered cradle. Furthermore, the cradle
   drains power from the agenda while it is docked.

2) The agenda has no memory/hardware expansion - despite the marketing of
   16mb flash, after the os and pim apps are installed you are left with
   about 3.5 mb. (It has a modem and soon to have a 10/100 network
   adapter. note: these things are pretty bulky!)

3) The LCD has some issues: a week after receiving the unit, the top 1/3
   of the screen stopped working. I sent it back and got a new unit
   promptly. The new unit worked for a few good months, after which,
   a couple of pixels on the screen went out.

Recently, I have had more success with putting linux on an IPAQ. The
IPAQ supports expandiblity, such as a keyboard and pcmcia adapter. Compaq
has actually been supporting development to the bootloader and kernel. I
know that alarm applications are also available for the unit.

Despite the Agenda marketing, both operating systems still in development
state. If you don't mind forking out the extra dough, I would take a look
at the Familiar Linux distribution for the Compaq IPAQ at handhelds.org.

P.S: if you would like, I could get my lazy ass over to a meeting and let
you play with the unit.

Regards,
Brian Stanback
www.stanback.net

>
>
> On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, William Dan Terry wrote:
>
> > If I recall correctly there was to be something about the Agenda VR3 at
> > the Install Fest. If so, who was doing this? Either way, I'm trying to
> > find out a few things about the VR3. Their site after months still has
> > little info. Mostly I wonder if the VR3 has alarms, both for appointments
> > and daily alarms. Also, I'd just like to find out a real user's
> > impression.
> >
> > Peace, William
> >
> > ___________W__i__l__l__i__a__m_____D__a__n_____T__e__r__r__y___________
> > How do we acquire wisdom along with all these shiny things? -David Brin
> >
> >     PGP public key:     http://www.knotworks.com/wdt_pgp_pubkey.asc
> >     fingerprint:   DC 80 E4 18 E2 CB AC F4  8C 59 9B 9C BB A2 D7 4B
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > NCLUG mailing list
> > NCLUG at nclug.org
> > http://www.nclug.org/mailman/listinfo/nclug
> >
>
>