[geeks] Speaking of embedded systems...

[nate at portents.com]

Don't know if you folks heard of the GP32 handheld game system from South
Korea that came out a few years back, or have been following the GamePark
Holdings/GamePark GP2X/XGP products, but the GP2X piqued my curiosity
enough to put in an order for one, since it's less than $200. I just love
the idea of an open-source handheld game system (even if it is linux based
- though nothing stopping someone from doing a *bsd port I suppose).  The
biggest downsides to it in my opinion are the lack of any networking
(wireless or wired, at least without the external development connection
kit), and the lack of any hardware 3D acceleration (which the XGP has, but
the XGP costs more and has a proprietary lithium-polymer battery rather
than standard AA type, which in my book is an issue when we're talking
about hardware from South Korea).  Right now there's no commercial
software out for the GP2X, so it's mostly ports of emulators and old
commercial games that have now been made free.

Wikipedia's entry on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X

Here's a some reviews:

http://craig.gp2x.de/review/GP2XReview.html
http://info.alllinuxcd.com/
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=7486

I bought mine from lik-sang (a HK-based importer), though I also noticed
it's a bit cheaper right now at play-asia, and there's also a reseller
called "thebige76" on ebay selling it.  If you're in the UK, there are a
few official resellers there apparently.

I've been thinking something like this could be the perfect device if only
it had a touch screen, modular keyboard/keypad and a few more
connectivity/networking options, so it could also function as a real
pocket computer and/or an uber-powerful graphing calculator.  I think it
could be done in almost the same form factor.  Maybe someday...

- Nate