OSWALD Hand-held Computer (designed by students)

Nifty device. Sort of a BeagleBoard + LCD and physical IO devices. It has IP over 802.15.4 for a more power efficient wireless internet connection than 802.11, but you can always plug in a USB WiFi if you need speed.

I wonder if there is a way to acquire one other than enrolling at Oregon State University or building your own from the open source design?

Quote from the site:

There are (and will be) times when the first few bytes of the NAND contain the correct information for the OMAP to think that there is a valid boot program but the program is actually broken. This can happen when trying new boot programs that don't work or for some reason the NAND become partally erased. When this happens the OMAP will begin running the broken program and never make it to the MMC/SD card thus turning your system into a brick. Fortunately there is a small button (#25 above) that when pressed, will reverse the device boot order (i.e. it will start at the MMC/SD then try the NAND). This allows a simple method to recover the system by using a normal flasher SD.

Sounds like there are still a few issues to take care of, but all in all I am very impressed. This is great work, especially when you consider that they pretty much designed everything from scratch. The device is still sort of ugly and the most notable omission would appear to be keyboard support (perhaps they plan to make an onscreen keyboard.)

At the moment it is still more of a game console.

The software section of the site is limited, but there are lots of fascinating pictures in the hardware section. Definitely worth a look!

Can't wait to try this with my JFK commemorative keyboard.