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Finally, a PowerPC Windows CE device: the Data General WiiN-PAD

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ClassicHasClass

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I can't seem to find any record of any other one. Does anyone know? This appears to be the last computer hardware Data General made under their own name before the EMC buyout and is circa 1999.

This was a device I found from an Atlanta-area scrapper. It runs Windows CE 2.12, has a Motorola MPC821 and was intended as a medical applications slate. It has a DiskOnChip internal flash drive and a camera for barcode reading, and can dock with a PS/2 keyboard. Fortunately, Platform Builder 2.11 will make binaries for it because there's virtually no software for PPC WinCE. It runs the CPU little-endian using PowerPC's page endianness switch.

oldvcr.blogspot.com

With PowerPC, Windows CE and the WiiN-PAD slate, everyone's a WiiN-er (except Data General)

Telemedicine (and mobile health generally) accumulated a hunk of public mindshare during the pandemic emergency, but speaking as someone wit...
oldvcr.blogspot.com oldvcr.blogspot.com
 

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If you want to know what the CPU was truly clocked at, have you been able to determine how the PPC core was set to run at a set clocked speed in the first place? If there is an external oscillator that the PPC chip uses, you might be able to determine the setting by examining the oscillators on the board.
 
I found a report of a former DG employee saving one from the trash. So unless you got that one, there should be at least one more out there.

Without the Data General logo, I would have thought that to be a Compaq design of the time.
 
krebizfan said:
I found a report of a former DG employee saving one from the trash. So unless you got that one, there should be at least one more out there.

Without the Data General logo, I would have thought that to be a Compaq design of the time.
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Where did you see that report? I don't think this came that route. Did the employee mention if these were actually released, or just prototypes?
 
Ah, thanks for that (he calls it a "wiinpad" without the dash, so that's probably why I didn't run across it doing the research). The device itself definitely hyphenates its own name. I'll reach out to him to see if any of this jogs his memory but this one's provenance seems to be external to DG.
 
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