little laptop

[oldbugger]

One of my learners [ I show old people how to use a computer] has this little jigger.
It has no names etc on the case. It starts with a splash screen that has Designed for Highne 2008 on it
It will then take  about a minute to boot up, and then display a desktop with a few icons including, excel,word,explorer and MSN and plays the windows tune [bloody awful]
No amount of trying with F3, ctrl+Leftshift+rightshift, crtl+function +F2, which is only crtl+F12 or any other combination of keys will give you anything like the screen that is mentioned here.
Whilst it's not imperative that it should do anything other than what the manufacturer gave us, it is now at the stage of annoying me because I can't put MX or, indeed, anything else on it.
The name given to this one is Pock 400, which is probably chinglish for pocket 400.
Do any of you know if this thing has the capability to be brought into the real world or will it forever remain very basic and simple???
Regards
Oldbugger 

[Mijzelf]

It sounds as this machine runs Windows CE. There seem to be 2 types of CnM Minibook-like WinCE machines around, those with an ARM processor, and those with a MIPSEL processor.

The ARM type definitely cannot run MX, due to an incompatible processor, and the MIPSEL machine has a different bootloader. Although it could be possible to run MX (depends on the exact hardware inside) the only way to get it on the machine is by using a JTAG cable or something similar to program the flash memory.

[oldbugger]

Definately Linux Also called NPC400. I cant find very much info about the program it uses, Highne 2008 as most of the instructions are in Chinese. The windows version uses WinCe5 and you have to buy a licence for it before you use the machine. Apparently it has a non-genuine copy in it to start with. Probably the same as the Sat Nav units have as they also have a 400Mhz processor.My satnav unit is a Mio with a hacked operating system giving me all manner of options including 4 seperate nav programs. I wa sable to jump that with an SD card with the mods loaded to it.
Interesting to find out if it was the same??
Regards

[jimux]

I'm confused.  If you have Excel and explorer on the machine then it is running Windows.  Probably WinCE 4.x.  If that is the case then I suggest you consider MIOPocket ( www.netfresco.com/MioPocket/) .  It is aimed at a range of PDAs so covers the favourite processors for this class of machine.  Many are marketed as SatNav devices as the previous reply states and have a semi-locked version of WinCE so the notes on www.plocmstart.com/myguide/index.htm may give you an insight.  If you are lucky you will have a version of msd or winmsd which will give you technical info about the hardware and operating system.

If you think it has Linux then open a terminal and type 'env' [enter] to see the environment strings.  the PATH will include /usr/X11** . Type 'free' [enter] to see how much memory you have, how much is used by the operating system and if you have a swap file installed.  And finally whilst in the terminal type 'busybox' [enter] as most small Linux boxes use this multi-tool instead on a host of native tools.  The response to the command will be a bit of comment plus a list of all functions provided by the tool. 

If it is running Linux and does not have a swap file then consider adding one to assist the memory - do a search on this site for the various posts on the subject - 40 Mb would make a big difference and stustantially reduce freezing up and slow response during application loading. 

[KneeOn]

Hmmm... Not to be patronising, but could you be using Excel and Explorer to me SkyTable and Bon Echo?

Just a guess...

Seems odd we have a Mips(?) laptop with CE... or an ARM with Linux... or even a Linux with Windows on there...

Hmmm...