Itsy: Stretching the Bounds of Mobile Computing

  • Authors:
  • William R. Hamburgen;Deborah A. Wallach;Marc A. Viredaz;Lawrence S. Brakmo;Carl A. Waldspurger;Joel F. Bartlett;Timothy Mann;Keith I. Farkas

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Computer
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Built to explore the possibilities, demands, and limitations of mobile computing, Compaq's Itsy pocket computer research prototype strives to attain high performance with minimal power consumption, size, and weight. Itsy's design incorporates a rich feature set to support user-interface and applications research and the flexibility to add new capabilities. Daughtercards provide comprehensive expansion capability, and Itsy supports the Linux operating system with extensions for a flash file system, resource sharing, and power management. Itsy has sufficient processing power and memory capacity to run cycle-hungry applications such as continuous speech recognition, a full-fledged Java virtual machine, and real-time MPEG-1 movie decoding.A useful tool for exploring the bounds of mobile computing, Itsy is powerful and flexible enough for applications, systems work, and power studies. Designers inside and outside Compaq have built daughtercards for the pocket computer, including CMOS cameras, a PCM-CIA adapter with a large battery, a low-powered radio, and memory expansion cards.