Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 13:46:43 -0500 (CDT) From: Paul Iadonisi <iadonisi@colltech.com> To: lwn@eklektix.com Subject: REX PC Companion to be supported on Linux! I just submitted this on Slashdot, so I figured I'd send it to LWN as well. For those of you not familiar with the Rex Companion, it is a PC Card with an LCD display which plugs into a laptop PC Card slot (or specialized docking station for a desktop). It's a PDA. The original REX released last year had no input other than your laptop PC Card slot, but the new REX PRO now has input and double the old memory of 256k, bringing up to 512k. The original product was a great proof-of-concept product, but the new REX PRO looks like a must-have gadget. The 512k limit sounds small, but from what I've heard their compression technology is superb. The original REX now goes for $99.00 (down from $130.00), while the new REX PRO goes for around $230.00. The best news is what Philippe Kahn, CEO and Chairman sent out to the rex mailing list a little over a week ago. All I can say is kudos to Linux users who have been giving feedback to Starfish Software. The message could be found at http://www.linkmagnet.com/rex/rextalk.html at the bottom of the page, but here it is in it's entirety in case it goes away soon: Philippe Kahn <philippe at starfish dot com> -- 09/01/98 -- 01:03:42 Hello all, This is Philippe from Starfish again. We have greatly appreciated the enthusiasm which the Linux community has demonstrated for REX. Last month, I told you that we wanted to find a smart way to help the Linux community and were working to deliver what it takes to create a TrueSync synchronization component for Linux. Well I am happy to say that we are ready to begin rolling this out. We have developed the software and documentation which allows users to connect to and write synchronization to the REX (and upcoming versions of REX) on Linux systems -- the REX (and upcoming versions of REX) on Linux systems -- the TrueSync Connectivity Pack for Linux. We would like to begin privately testing this with a small group of developers from this forum this week. This exclusive Preview is intended to enable us to learn more about your development needs and polish up the documentation before releasing this to the community on whole. We will then roll out a public Beta next Tuesday, September 8th. After receiving further feedback, we expect to release a public "Version 1.0" release on September 21st. In addition to the release of the TrueSync Connectivity Pack for Linux, we are creating a dedicated space for developers such as yourself on our website which will unveil next week along with some other exciting announcements about REX. If you are interested in previewing our TrueSync Connectivity Pack for Linux, please send your name and a contact phone number to developer@starfish.com and we will send you instructions on how to download the Preview software and documentation. Thanks for your ongoing support of REX! -Philippe- You can find Starfish software at http://www.starfish.com and Franklin electronics at http://www.franklin.com -Paul Iadonisi / Consultant Collective Technologies Team Yankee, Local Linux Lobbyist Ever see a penguin fly? -- Try Linux.