I used to be an Early Adopter.
Back in 2001 I managed to convince
Sharp Corporation in Japan to send me this PDA.
It's a
Zaurus SL-5000D, the developer version of the first portable device from a major manufacturer to ship with the Linux operating system. It has an
ARM processor, 32MB of RAM, a
Java virtual machine and crucially, connects via WiFi.
We didn't call it "WiFi" back then as the term hadn't gained broad acceptance. We still called the technology "
Packet Radio" -its original, archaic name.
The serial number on the back of my Zaurus is 17000110. I'm confident I was the 110th person on the planet to possess one and there's a very good chance I was the first outside of Japan.
Above all, the attraction for me was that it ran
Linux, a variant of the venerable
Unix operating system in which people like myself feel most comfortable.
The technology made sense to me. Linux and the broader spectrum of
Open Source and
Free Software were moving into the brave new world of the portable form factor. The device was an open platform. It had a modern processor architecture optimised for power consumption. Rapid application development could occur in a broadly-adopted language. The potential for 'always on' Internet connectivity offered a whole range of wondrous possibilities.
I
marvelled at the magic of our science, for I had Unix in my pocket. My partner at the time could order our grocery deliveries from the comfort of our kitchen by visiting the newfangled 'mobile' websites offered by
Tesco and
Sainsbury's, while I could operate on the Internet from anywhere I happened to be that was in range of a hackable wireless signal.
Science Fiction become fact. Kirk was never this cool.
A portable ARM device, a Unix variant and a Java virtual machine: just like the Android SmartPhone in your pocket today, eleven years later.
And in the pockets of 700 million people on Earth.
-SRA. Auckland, x/2012 (reposted.)
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