[E3-hacking] Making life easy for you

[Will]

Cliff Lawson wrote:
> But the board we have working (as anyone who's "broken in" to an E3 will
> know) is the 5910. We're not going to make a board specially for this but
> will simply re-use E3 boards but will probably go the trouble of making some
> form of case to house the board and the display.
> 
> Cliff

Just to add my lurking opinion to this debacle. I wouldn't be at all 
interested in a Linux box with simple IO. If I was I think I'd have 
already bought one of the other Linux mini-PC type devices (gumstix 
etc). What I would buy is an unsubsidised E3 with easy access for 
developers to upload software onto (USB etc).

There is no other commonly available device on the market today like the 
E3 (reasonably powerful, colour screen and phone) and this would be the 
ultimate open standards voip / videophone platform once the linux 
hackers got their hands on it. I think Amstrad would reap the rewards 
allowing open source developers to develop for it, which it could then 
apply into it's own product line if it chose to (with suitable revenue 
generating modifications).

Example of software modifications; porting of emulators (of sufficient 
age so copyright isn't a big issue), a basic word processor, a decent 
web browser, an instant messaging client to it etc etc.

Sure, I'd love to pay £49 for it and have it do this stuff. But to keep 
Amstrad happy (and in business) I'd be more than happy to pay a decent 
amount for one instead.

Will