From what you are saying you want I would suggest the z50. at 133 mhz it
has 'plenty' of speed. It runs X nicely with a small wm like fluxbox, ion
, etc.

It has a full keyboard that is similary to the ibm thinkpad in feel. I
like it a lot (in fact I liked it so much I bought a laptop style
keyboard for my desktop, the icekey from mcally). It also has a regular
scale screen (640x480) so you dont have to worry about weather your wm is
going to handle things correctly.

It does not have USB, which would be nice for external storage and a
mouse. It does not have a touch screen, which may be a big deal for some
but for a plain xterm its no big deal. The PCMCIA does not accept cardbus
cards so you will have to go with older cards, which are usually cheaper
anyway. I can recomend the Xircom RE-100 for wired, it fits flush and
looks and functions really well.

As far as I know, no one has tried to get docking working on any of the
models. For the most part I think is probably not something really
necesssary. Since you will be using a flash compatible disk for the OS if
you really need to backup you can just toss that disk in a card reader and
backup to your hearts content.

Another plus is that the z50 is getting really cheap. I regularly see them
on ebay for about $100, which is a great deal for what you get.

The final plus is that a lot of the people on this have a z50 and are more
than willing to be helpful and friendly.

-Mikel


On Sun, 16 May 2004 dantes@vif.com wrote:

>
> Hello everyone,
>
> OK, this is my first post on this list, and actually my first foray into
> the NetBSD world. :)
>
> I'd like to get one of those little HPCs with keyboard to have an
> uber-mobile Unix computer, mainly to type in a few quick notes (vi's
> enough) and to do some network monitoring (therefore a NIC, wether
> built-in or in a PCMCIA card, is a must).
>
> I was having a look through the list of supported models, but in the end
> it didn't help me much. So my questions for tonight are:
>
> - do you have a particular model (or manufacturer) to recommend?
> - do you have a particular model (or manufacturer) to avoid absolutely?
>
> I just need enough CPU power to work decently, a strict minimum is
> probably around 60 or 70 MHz on MIPS processors. X would happily be
> used, as long as there are some useful pointing devices, of course. And
> in the end, I don't have much spare cash, so I'm looking for maximum
> bang for my bucks (student subventions tend to run out quickly, sadly...).
>
> Additionnaly:
>
> - what about other architectures (hpcarm and hpcsh)? Would you know of
> any model in those that fit the bill?
> - I'm running a Sun under Solaris, and ATM I've got nothing else, and
> very limited access to PCs. What about the availability of
> cross-platform tools? (eg. for connecting to the devide, and doing some
> backup or uploading)
>
> Thanks a lot for any help!
> Jef
>
>

-Mikel