A PowerPC Windows CE device: the Data General WiiN-PAD

[ClassicHasClass]

The WiiN-PAD (yes, really, they spell it like that) is the first PowerPC Windows CE system I've ever found. Does anyone know of any others?

This is a little handheld slate intended for medical applications with Windows CE 2.12. It has internal flash and a camera for reading barcodes, and it can be docked to use a PS/2 keyboard. The system runs on a Motorola MPC821, one of their early embedded CPUs, though I suspect it's been downclocked from its rated 50MHz to around 25MHz or so.

There is virtually no software for this thing - no love exists for PPC WinCE. But Platform Builder 2.11 will make compatible binaries and I was able to port a couple things to it. The processor is run using the PowerPC page endianness switch, though it is still internally big endian.

This appears to have been the last computing device Data General developed before the EMC buyout, by the way (circa 1999).

With PowerPC, Windows CE and the WiiN-PAD slate, everyone's a WiiN-er (except Data General)

Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the pandemic emergency, but speaking as someone wit...

oldvcr.blogspot.com

 

[NJRoadfan]

The battery looks suspiciously like a Sony HandyCam battery, specifically the InfoLithium Type L (NP-F550) that were current at the time the device was made. Checking an actual Type L battery, the tabs are all sorts of different. You could likely get it to fit with some grinding of tabs. Sony used pins vs spring tabs at the device end although some aftermarket batteries have exposed terminals like the DataGeneral's factory battery.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Yeah, I thought so too, but none of the ones I had here fit (I use an InfoLithium clone with my DataRover 840, but I *knew* that one was Sony-manufactured). I'm likely to do exactly what you're suggesting but fortunately the original battery holds enough of a charge to make it useable undocked.

 

[lauland]

I always wondered why there weren't any mainstream PowerPC PocketPC's...at the time I thought they just couldn't get them small enough, less power hungry, and fast enough. Seemed like a bit of an embarrassment for the PPC alliance that there were no handhelds. Was even the smallest 603 not good enough? And I know the 602 (if used for anything but the lamented 3DO M2) would've been even worse (at least speed wise). But now I wonder if it wasn't just licensing and cost?