Novel industrial PDA
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)

Now for something really interesting: TouchStar, in a partnership with Olympus, is offering the R1000 rugged handheld.

Named a TDA--"Tough Digital Assistant"--it looks like a standard Pocket PC (and is just a bit larger) but is really a different animal. Its Freescale (a Motorola company) MC9328MXL ARM920T core processor can run both Windows CE .NET and Qtopia Linux. It comes with a very generous amount of RAM and ROM, a 3.5-inch transflective TFT, integrated Bluetooth and WiFi and the common Pocket PC controls including four programmable function keys, but it really isn't a Pocket PC but a very flexible enterprise handheld with amazingly robust environmental specs. How many Pocket PCs sport an IP54 rating and can survive 4-foot drops? The only drawback is the lack of an expansion slot.

Note: the R100 was introduced sometime in 2005. We do not know whatever became of it, or if Olympus is still in this market at all.