> To be clear this (probably) wouldn't be in the style of an E3. We'd probably
> ditch a lot of the "telephone" gubbins. It'd basically be a box (maybe
> pressed steel or something) with an E3 board at the heart (maybe with modem
> section depopulated) and the LCD/backlight module fitted into the "roof" - a
> trailing cable would go to the PS/2 QWERTY as found on the E3. So it'd just
> look like a generic little computer in a box - nothing like a telephone. I
> think we probably would put a JTAG header on it for those interested in such
> things (though maybe this isn't such a necessity now that Linux is ported)
Why go to the expense of manufacturing a special unit in small volumes? I
would gladly pay the difference in price (£50) to unlock a standard E3. If
Amstrad were to accept payment by e-commerce, I expect it would be feasible to
unlock the phone by automatically sending the specific unit on its specific
telephone number the required software upgrade.
There's a much bigger market that Amstrad could enter this way -
computer-literate people who want to buy an unlocked (but not dev-enabled)
E3, as a gift for friends and relatives who are freaked out by the
complexity of a PC or Mac. At the moment, the E3 is not an ideal gift,
because the recipient has to pay for it to phone home every day, and might
also find the adverts annoying. The giver, not the receiver, gets the benefit
of the hardware subsidy - unless he stuffs £50 into the box before wrapping
it up.
Keith.
