[ale] FW: [ale] Is this a great country, or what ?

[Charles Shapiro]

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Shapiro 
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 9:48 AM
To: 'sts at minitower.gtri.gatech.edu'
Subject: RE: [ale] Is this a great country, or what ?


Hmm. I think it depends on how geeky the kid(s) is(are).   If I were
buying for a present, I'd definitely try to buy two; one is technically
interesting but clearly limited. Think of it as a complicated
walkie-talkie.

The intended age group appears to be 13-20 or so.  In the profile, the
default choices are age 19, male, interested in "romance". A bright
14-year-old would probly get $50 of fun out of it without too much
trouble.  If a kid wants to connect it to his/her machine, I'd strongly
recommend access to a Lose 98/ME computer connected to the internet,
unless he's already a pretty heavy-duty coder type with a lot of
patience.

The included games are mildly interesting, and the apps, while clunky,
are useable. So far I haven't found a way to back it up. Security is
nonexistent; there's a toy password, but it's limited to 3 base-10
digits (do the math). There's some kind of provision for a parent to
lock the radio feature stuff out, if they're paranoid enough -- at 43 I
din't bother investigating this.  Learning curve is a lot quicker than a
palm for a kid, since they can hunt & peck almost immediately. Don't
expect anyone to crank out 30 wpm on it though. I'd worry about my kid
bringing it to school, since it could be a major distraction. I'd also
think about providing some kind of case for it before I handed it out --
perhaps a camera case from best buys?

Hope this helps some.

-- CHS

-----Original Message-----
From: sts at minitower.gtri.gatech.edu
To: ale at ale.org
[mailto:sts at minitower.gtri.gatech.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 9:40 AM
To: Charles Shapiro
Subject: Re: [ale] Is this a great country, or what ?


Howdy

If I were going to get one for one of my brothers kids as an
xmass present what age group would you put this at?  I guess
I'm mostly thinking of the games.  Or is it realy an adult
toy?

sts

On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 09:02:47AM -0500, Charles Shapiro wrote:
> In case you missed it, Cybiko (http://www.cybiko.com) is rolling out
> their new model "Cybiko Extreme" this Christmas season. This means
that
> last year's model has moved from the "conscious decision" range ( >
> $100) to the "impulse purchase" range ($50).  I picked mine up at the
> Northlake Toys R Us for $49.95, and they seemed to have plenty in
stock.
> Discounted models are also allegedly available at Best Buys and
Staples.
> 
> So for your $50 you get a machine a little larger than a palm which
> contains a meg of RAM, a 32-bit processor, a tiny screen and full
qwerty
> keyboard, 2 lithium batteries, an RS232 interface, an expansion slot,
> and a ->> radio link <<- .  The devices are designed to do
> bluetooth-like radio communications within a 150-300 foot range.  All
in
> all, a pretty impressive technology package at this price point.
Judging
> from the manual, you can stick memory cards into the expansion slot in
> some way, although I haven't explored that yet. The unit comes with an
> assortment of games and apps, most of which are far k00ler if you have
> two units.
> 
> On the down side, the user interface is clunky and the doc is
> horrendous.
> If you're used to a palm, the lack of a touch screen is disorienting
(I
> almost scratched my unit with the stylus even after I'd been playing
> with it for a while), and the keyboard is primarily designed for
> compactness. Stock models also lack a case of any kind, a curious
> omission in a device designed to bang around in a backpack or pocket.
> The quickstart guide features lots of exclamation points and is short
on
> specific instructions such as how to use the included DB9 RS232 patch
> cord to download files to your device (try cycling power). You have to
> download the PDF format manual off the web or buy a printed copy by
> snail mail for $3 or so.  The manual is reasonably complete and gives
> lots of non-obvious information such as how the published radio
profile
> works, how to check your battery level (!), and what the "wizard"
switch
> in setup mode means.
> 
> Cybiko also erred in their quest to make the device easy to use for
> teenagers by tying it too closely to a single technology; figuring out
> how to download files to it from Linux is -- shall we say -- exciting.
I
> still haven't found out how to obtain most of the apps allegedly
> available from the website with the browsers I have in the house
either.
> Apparently it uses some kind of magic Lose fiddle to go directly from
> website to cybicon without human intervention.
> 
> In spite of these missteps, I wasted far too much time playing with my
> unit this weekend. The most easily available Linux interface for it, a
> program called "cyucon", works but features a truly abominable user
> interface. The guy who wrote it (Jeff Frohwein) apparently understood
a
> little bit about Unix argument parsing, but had not actually gotten as
> far as getopt(3).  The result is that, for example, "cyucon -d<space>
> /dev/ttyS1" will not open /dev/ttyS1, but "cyucon -d/dev/ttyS1" will.
> Entering command and filename options is similarly fraught with peril.
> All in all, it took me about two hours to figure out how to download a
> file to the device from my linux box. Fortunately, mr. Frohwein
> distributed cyucon as C source with a makefile, so I will probably
> rewrite the annoying parts and republish a properly working and
> documented version.
> 
> -- CHS
> cshapiro at numethods.com
> 
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