N800 Is Back!
=============

The first Linux PDA  which I bought as a new was the  Nokia 770. If was
(and still is - I still have it)  a cool device but it was the first of
the line and it was a rather experimental one. This it was underpowered
and it  have several design flaws.  It has weak touchscreen  surface (a
plastic one which was prone to scratches),  it was too weak CPU (an ARM
@224 MHz) and  just 64 MB of  RAM. It also has  somewhat small internal
storage a  slot for not so  common miniSD cards (2GB  card at maximum).
The stylus was an elegant thin one but it was uncomfortable to use. But
the  biggest problem  was old  and  limited WiFi  chipset which  didn't
supported some  common encryptions even  when the device  was released.
Yes, the device have had a gorgeous 800x480 display which was excellent
for web browsing  (a task for what  was the 770 designed)  but the slow
CPU and limited  RAM made browsing experience not as  good as one might
expected. Well, it the device was able  to connect to a WiFi network at
all.

Also the software was somewhat  limited: it was originally shipped just
with a  browser (the Opera if  I'm not mistaken), an  e-mail client and
something for  instant messaging. There  was also a terminal,  a simple
calculator and a  couple of games. No  PIM and no office  stuff at all.
Fortunately it was improved by  the community in relatively short time.
There appeared a  GPE (Gnu Palmtop Environment) port  qute mature tools
(a calendar, a to do list and so on), an AbiWord port (well, that thing
is always unreliable but it allowed  me to write several long documents
on the  device), the  Gnumeric and much  more. I even  sold my  Palm Vx
because the 770 was able to replace  it completely (plus it was able to
replace my notebook in many situations). I was even able to compile the
OpenGL libraries here and to run some of my software on the device (but
they ran with many limitations, of course).

But it  was still  slow... So after  2 years I  got a  secondhand Nokia
N800. It was an improved device (excellent glass-covered screen, 128 MB
of RAM, a  much faster CPU and 2  - TWO - full-sized SD  slots). It has
also the  radio receiver and  a 640x480  camera (very low  quality one,
unfortunately - it was meant  for videoconferencing). I used the device
for several years but later I got the N810 (with a screen readable on a
full sunlight  and with the  build-in GPS) and  even later I  sold both
N800  and N810  and replaced  them with  a OpenMoko  phone and  the Ben
NanoNote micronotebook.  After that  I used several  different handheld
platforms and at the end I have returned to the Palm for daily use. But
I decided to got a cheap N810. Unfortunately, it died.

So before few weeks  I found a cheap N800 on the  eBay. It arrived this
Monday so now I'm playing with it.  Of course it is abandoned for ages.
The  Maemo.org has  the latest  update for  the N800  from 2014.  Nokia
software repositories  are of course gone.  So a lot of  software is no
longer available. But many of other repositories are still alive.

So a lot of  stuff can be used and the most of  functions of the device
are still accessible. There is  a radio application (thus a third-party
one), a program  for taking of pictures, several WWW  browsers (all are
horribly  outdated, of  course), the  whole GPE  suite (though  I'm not
brave enough to try synchronisation  with the Google calendar). The Vim
7.x is still available and both  the Gnumeric and the AbiWord are here,
too. There is also something called  TCC (Tiny C Compiler) so one might
be  able to  compile some  C programs  here. There  is also  the DOSbox
available of one needs to run some DOS-based software.

In the past  it was possible to  use and external USB-VGA  card. It was
useful for presentations  (it was slow to show a  live desktop but fast
enough  to  show static  images  -  so one  has  to  convert a  PPT/PDF
presentation to a  set of PNG images). The software  is still available
and I  still have  the necessary  hardware (a  USB-VGA adapter  and the
cables) so I'm going to try it. It does not sound like a big deal today
but in 2008-2009 there have been just several pocket devices which were
able to do something similar.

There are some games (the Doom and the DopeWars are both available, and
much more)  and of course  there are many multimedia  applications (but
I'm not sure if their on-line functions will work today). And, I forgot
about the MaemoMapper - the  OpenStreetMaps still can be downloaded and
used!

After all, I'm feeling to be 10  year younger with this device. Most of
things are  working (for  me) as  they worked in  2009, the  battery is
still as weak as it was in 2009 (well,  I have got a new one for mu 770
before some time) -  the device can survive 3-4 hours on  a WiFi and it
can probably stay  for a whole week in standby  mode (these Nokias were
always very good in standby battery live).

At the  moment I have loaded  all software that  I wish to have  on the
device (no  office application if  I don't count  the Vim) and  put two
low-end 32 GB SanDisk  cards inside. I will use them  for music and for
e-books (I'm not sure  if the old FBReader can read  ePUB files so I'll
have to try it). It might be a nice travel companion, I think.