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The Sharp Zaurus is the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) made by Sharp Corporation. The Zaurus was the most popular PDA during the 1990s in Japan and was based on a proprietary operating system. The first Sharp PDA to use a variant of the Linux operating system was the SL-5000D. The variant was Embedix Plus.
In September 1993, Sharp introduced the PI-3000, the first in the Zaurus line of PDAs. Featuring a black and white LCD screen, handwriting recognition, and optical communication capabilities among its features, the Zaurus soon became one of Sharp's flagship products.
The PI-4000, released in 1994, expanded the Zaurus' features with a built-in modem and facsimile functions. This was succeeded in 1995 by the PI-5000, which had e-mail and mobile phoneCellular links here. For the 2004 movie, Cellular see Cellular (movie). A mobile phone is a mobile device which acts as a normal telephone whilst being able to move over a wide area. Mobile phones allow connections to be made to the telephone network, nor interfaces, as well as PC linking capability. The Zaurus K-PDA was the first Zaurus to have a built-in keyboard in addition to handwriting recognition; the PI-6000 and PI-7000 in brought additional improvements.
During this time, Sharp was making significant advances in color LCD technology. In May of 19961996 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty''. Events January January 5 Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone Jan, the first color Zaurus was released; the MI-10 and MI-10DC were equipped with a five-inch color thin-film transistorA thin film transistor TFT is made by depositing thin films for the metallic contacts, semiconductor active layer, and dielectric layer. Its main application is in design of flat-panel displays, a kind of LCD (liquid crystal display). TFTs are the better (TFT) LCD screen. This model had the ability to connect to the internet, and had a built-in camera and audio recorder. Later that year, Sharp developed a forty-inch TFT LCD screen, the world's largest at the time. In December, the MI-10/10DC Zaurus was chosen as the year's best product by Information Display Magazine in the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in.
Sharp continued to make advancements in display technology; the Zaurus gained additional multimedia capabilities, such as video playback, with the introduction of the MI-E1 in Japan in November of 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri. The MI-E1 was also the first Zaurus to support both Secure Digital and CompactFlashCompactFlash CF was originally a type of data storage device, used in portable electronic devices. As a storage device, it typically uses flash memory in a standardized enclosure, and was first specified and produced by SanDisk Corporation in 1994. The ph memory cards, a feature which would become standard on future models as well. Although the MI series was extremely popular in Japan, it was never released in either the USA or Europe - probably largely due to the strictly Japanese UI, which was never translated into any other language. As a result, the machines released outside Japan were the Linux based SL series, the first of which was the SL-5000D "developer edition." This was shortly followed by the SL-5500; both used 'Embedix', an embedded version of the Linux operating system developed by Lineo. The development of the MI series in Japan was continued for a while, but the MI-E25DC has been officially declared to be the last MI-Series Zaurus.
Sharp has continued development of the SL series in Japan releasing the SLC-700, 750, 760 and 860 models which all feature 640x480 VGA screen resolution. They are all based on faster 400 Mhz Intel XScale technology, although the SLC-700 was flawed and the apparent speed was the same as the 206MHz SL-5500. All four of the SLC models are clamshell type devices with the unusual ability to rotate the screen. This allows the device to be used in 'landscape' mode with the keyboard, much like a miniature notebook PC, or in 'portrait' mode as a PDA. While these devices are not sold by Sharp in the US or EU there is an active market on the internet. Devices from Japan are converted to English language and offered for resale through internet merchants. Since the release of the SL-5500G a German company called 'TRIsoft" sells the Zaurus all over Europe. Because the newer models aren't distributed by Sharp, you may get machines and support by them.