Compaq: The Itsy Project

“Itsy is a research project done by the Western Research Lab,
and Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, CA. The Itsy project is
one of several research projects at Compaq that are related to
pocket computing.”

“The goal of the Itsy project is to learn about issues relating
to the development of small devices: power management, user
interface issues, networking, and the development of applications
for small devices. There are a number of other projects, some
within Compaq and others outside of Compaq, that are addressing
similar issues to those we are addressing.”

“The Itsy prototype offers considerably more computing power and
memory than other PDAs, enabling demanding applications such as
speech recognition. It is designed as an open platform to
facilitate innovative research projects. The base Itsy hardware
provides a flexible interface for adding a custom daughtercard, and
Itsy software is based on the Linux OS and standard GNU
tools.“

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The hardware specs to build an Itsy may be found here.