[Tinkerphones] [OHSW.org] [Tinkerphones-Stammtisch] Happy New Year - and a better new year

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

> Am 17.09.2022 um 15:33 schrieb David Boddie <david at boddie.org.uk>:
> 
> On Sun Sep 4 22:03:38 CEST 2022, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> 
>> But as far as I see all of them are absolute niche an none of them got the
>> same attractivity and general public attention as the original Openmoko got
>> back in 2007. Well, it is like sending people to the moon for the second
>> time. Nice, still challenging technology. But no breakthrough any more. No
>> revolutionary approach. Smaller media coverage.
> 
> Linux on a phone isn't an interesting topic in itself any more, and even the
> phones where the software is open have practical limitations on what you can
> run. The idea of a phone where you can "hack" on the OS isn't as appealing
> as one where you can write your own apps, especially when most of the effort
> on the OS is directed towards a narrow stack of software.
> 
> Maybe those involved with OpenMoko could say something about the excitement
> around the original phone. Were people excited about the OS, or were they
> simply excited about the idea of a phone where you could run your own
> software?

My main excitement was about having a real Computer with a real OS (i.e. some
UNIX flavour and not some crippled wannabe) in your pocket.

So the Sharp Zaurus series made me very excited for such a pocket computer.
It was portable, had keyboard and display and Linux. And some connectivity through
a WLAN PCMCIA card.

After some years as data rates of mobile networks became higher it was a more
or less obvoius step to integrate phone and wireless internet into such a device.

Better screens made removing the keyboard an option. And voila: the smartphone
with some UNIX inside was about to be born. Helping this idea to get attraction was
one of the factors to become one of the first (non-core-team) supporters of the
OpenMoko idea (AFAIR the Neo1973 was announced 6 weeks before the iPhone 1).

BR,
NIkolaus