Seems like a popular question, and it’s somewhat hidden in the Maemo.org Web site, so here’s the official way to get involved in Nokia 770 developer device program:
Maemo.org is launching a Developer Device Program to provide open source developers with Nokia 770 Internet Tablets at a discount. Maemo.org will be providing 500 devices at a price of 99 euros/device to qualified open source developers. To apply for a developer device send an email to providing a short description of your involvement with open source. Eligible developers will be provided a discount code to be used at the Nokia 770 web shop.
For device availability please check the following link: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,75114,00.html
Don’t miss the LinuxJournal interview with Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia. Now we know why Nokia went the Linux path, why out of all the distros Debian was chosen.
An interest fact - Nokia 770 battery is the same as any other Nokia phones, so it’s not a lock-in situation that Apple has with iPods, where only a single source is available, and the price is quite high.
It looks like Slim Devices, manufacturer of a really neat Squeezebox, a home media player that connects to a wired or wireless network (review by DesignTechnica, an older review by PC Magazine and a tutorial on hacking the Squeezebox with Perl) will be offering support for Nokia 770. That’s according to the company CTO, Dean Blackketter, posting in maemo-developers:
We’re planning on adding support for the 770 to the open source SlimServer music server and our hardware player, Squeezebox.
Matt Croydon got SDLQuake to run on Maemo under x86. Screenshot available.
Om Malik could be fueling a rumor about the real reason behind Apple and Intel alliance - slim devices:
Secondly, I think Apple will exploit Intel’s chips for often rumored Tablet PC, that could have features in common with Nokia 770 tablet. I would not be surprised that Monday morning, the announcement circles around XScale, or low powered Centrino chips.
The author of ParticleStorm seems to be excited about Nokia 770 coming out:
Anyone want to buy me one so I can start hacking on it? With such an open platform, the possibilities for this device are limitless.
Over at PortaGame the author acknowledges that Nokia’s Maemo strategy might be paying off:
Other companies have tried similar tablet things, but failed miserably. I see the Nokia having a very fair shot in this small, but expanding, market. First off, it’s open source! The 770 runs Maemo code, an open source toolkit based on Linux, Gnome and GTK+. This makes it fairly easy for developers to cook up applications. I foresee many ports of favorite games and emulators headed our way.
Over at Lepow.com the author is ready to buy one already:
I did however find the perfect device Nokia 770, its an open sources PVP/web device but it won’t be coming out till the Fall (YUCK!)
Check out the screenshots for Atari800 and C64 emulators running on Maemo. The question on whether the emulators will run on the actual hardware is still valid, however:
Frodo chewed through almost all of the CPU on my Athlon XP 2500+, so getting that to run on the actual device might be a bit iffy.
Thanks to The Gadget Blog for pointing to the Sony Vaio U71P model, another entrant in the field of Internet-enabled tablets. The Gadget Blog points the main advantages of the Sony model:
It beats the Nokia in terms of storage options since you can plug in a 20GB/30GB Hard disk, Compact Flash or Memory Stick whilst the Nokia supports only the RS-MMC storage
However, the model is not too easy to find in the United States, and the only site that had something interesting to say about the U71 that was not in Japanese was Dynamism shop, a well-known importer of Japanese goodies that are not available in the States. Dynamism, however, still doesn’t quote the price, but with the functionality shown it looks like U71P is more of an entrant into the PC Tablet field, than it is a competitor to Nokia 770.
