Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] A good hand held digital recorder
From: Richard C. Burnett (burnett_AT_tality.com)
Date: Wed Jan 10 2001 - 16:38:45 EET
Here is another idea for you: Compaq Ipaq handheld PDA. Runs CE or Linux
( And the linux distro was put together by Compaq and is obtained at
handhelds.org ). The device has a microphone and 32Mb RAM. I am not sure
if it has a line in. You can also get either a Compact Flash II or PCMCIA
sleeve for the device. With compact flash I have seem up to 1 Gig drives
from IBM for sale. I have one of these devices and it works great, no FPU
but has 206Mhz ( which runs a Nintendo emulator :) just fine )
Rick
On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Josh Green wrote:
> rob wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, David Olofson wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 27 December 2000 11:20, Josh Green wrote:
> > > > I'm looking for a good portable digital recorder for recording
> > > > sounds and then transferring them to computer via something like
> > > > USB. Flash memory would be nice, but suggestions of other recorders
> > > > is okay. Needs to support Linux or have open standards for writing
> > > > of driver, if you're not sure, please tell me anyways. Would like
> > > > it to record raw audio data at 48+ khz, the higher the better. Any
> > > > suggestions?
> >
> > hey all,
> > i dunno how much money or time you want to put into it, but with
> > off the shelf components (pc104 mb, camcorder battaries, palm, etc) you
> > could have a small computer which would fit in a shoulder bag, run linux,
> > and you could slap in something like an 40 gig drive if you really felt
> > the need. battery life would be much better than a laptop (upwards of 5
> > hours depending on how many batteries you want to carry). the whole thing
> > could be control-able via serial with a palm or whatever. (the thing that
> > makes this better than a labtop in my opinion is the form factor).
> > i dunno what audio IO solutions are out there for pc104, but i'm
> > sure something could be found (at worse resorting to USB solutions easily
> > available).
> > regards,
> > rob
> >
>
> [My response is more related to embedded Linux systems, probably should
> find a more appropriate list].
>
> My application is basically to record sounds for making Sound Font
> instruments. I therefore don't need a huge amount of recording time.
> Like 15 minutes or so of 16 bit mono data would be quite adequate.
>
> You just reminded me that I have an MBX860DEVKIT motherboard. I gave up
> on it when I wanted to make a car MP3 player out of it, and realized
> that it doesn't have an FPU. It runs Linux though I'm not sure how much
> of the hardware is supported as its a Power PC type setup (though I have
> gotten it to boot via a networked NFS file system). It has a laptop hard
> drive interface, PCMCIA, ethernet, and one PCI and ISA slot using an
> expansion board that I also have. I can forsee 2 solutions for this:
> 1. Use a laptop hard drive
> 2. Use a PCMCIA flash card to store Linux file system and audio data
>
> I thought I saw something mentioned last time I compiled the kernel
> about Flash devices. I'm assuming Linux could boot the root FS from
> something like this. I like the idea of using FLASH memory to eliminate
> hard disk crashes and provide more battery time. Of course using a
> PCMCIA flash card would not allow a PCMCIA sound card, and the bus slots
> stand up vertically from the expansion board (lays over the
> motherboard), therefore making things a little bigger when putting in an
> ISA/PCI sound card (hard disk would be smaller).
>
> I think I'll go the FLASH memory method. Probably need to check out
> write speed of FLASH devices. I can't imagine it being slower than a
> hard disk though.
>
> Things I need to find:
> 1. Portable ATX power supply using battery
> 2. 64mb+ FLASH card
> 3. A parallel/serial port LCD display and a handful of buttons
>
> I wonder how small I could get a Linux FS to be, I see there are many
> "mini" Linux distros, though most are for i86 stuff, need PPC. An
> example is LEM which is for i86 and its less than 8mb with XFree!
>
> Probably would end up being a carry over shoulder deal. Would work for
> my application though. Thanks for reminding me of this option! Lates..
> Josh Green
>
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