Ramses
I was part of the core development team for the handheld device Ramses, later named MNCI-RX by the sales people.
With just 3 people in the core team we developed Ramses as a powerful
gadget with lots of built-in hardware. Our target markets were the
transportation, logistics and warehouse industries. It could both work
online and offline. It was freely programmable and very versatile.
Some of the technical specs was really outstanding for such a small device at that time.
Newer devices and also the European ecological ROHS directive eventually killed this device.
| CPU | Intel XScale PXA255, with 99 to 400 MHz 32 MB Flash built-in 128 MB RAM (saved while sleeping) |
| Physical | 210x90x38 mm up to 550g, including accu -10 to 60 degrees centigrade operation |
| Built-in peripherals | Barcode laser scanner WLAN card Bluetooth device with serial profile Dual-Band GSM module with GPRS data capability Touchscreen LCD-Panel, 16 Bit color, 240x320 pixels Keyboard (that even man with huge fingers can use) with 24 keys Microphone Loudspeaker Serial ports with TTL signal on docking connector Ethernet with TTL signal on docking connector USB Host USB Client (without isochronous USB protocol support) MMC Slot LiION accu, lasts for about 6 hours operation time (without sleeping!) Infrared transmitter/receiver |
| Connectors | external Microphone external Loudspeaker external GSM antennna Power charger USB Host USB Client Multi-function plug with - 2 serial ports - Ethernet port |
| Extensions | Docking station (for desks) with power, ethernet, accu charger, one ports Ethernet/Serial adaptor (simple PCB board) Vehicle dock (for cars and trucks) Charger for multiple accu Charger for one accu Power supply |
| Software offerings | Bootloader (u-boot) Linux kernel (version 2.4.2x) Qt/Embedded 3.x Qt/SQL proxy, to connect to any Qt/SQL supported database via TCP/IP SQLlite OpenZaurus/OpenEmbedded based filesystem IPK based package management VNC-Server (useful for demonstrations) IEEE 802.1x client with EAP TTLS support Demo-Application with - Telnet - Telnet 5250 - Webbrowser - Windows RDP client - WLAN-Monitor - Signature recorder - Cell phone application - Settings for Barcode scanner, Power management etc Any customer can get all of this (and more) in source code. |
I've done all the low-level stuff (cross-compile environment, hardware test environment, Bootloader, Kernel, Filesystem, Qt/Embedded adaption, Ramses SDK documentation) and a good share of the high-level stuff like 802.1x, VNC-Server, Signature recorder, Qt/SQL proxy, IPKs...
