An anonymous reader sent us a link to a nice piece of hardware that you can drool over, and maybe ask Santa to leave under your tree next year. It's a 1.25 Terabit Router, course you need 2 and a wire that can support it, but it's still sweet.

Josh Baugher writes " Reverse Engineering the LEGO RCX Really interesting notes from a talk on the reverse engineering of the LEGO RCX. Gives an idea of how reverse engineering is done. "

EricRCH writes "I found a link to some bugs and micromachines. Or rather bugs on Micromachines! Take a look and get a feel for where Nanotech is right now." Just a reminder that Hemos wants nanites for Christmas. And those things look sweet.

Alan Wild needs help with this problem: "I have an IBM DTTA-3714400 14.4G hard drive. I cannot get Linux fdisk to recognize the whole drive, only the first 8gig. My BIOS (in autoconfigure mode) will see the whole drive but I had to load special 'busmastering' drivers to 'see' past the 8Gig barrier under NT. Does anyone know if this is a kernel or an fdisk limitation? What are other people doing?"

DDJ has a report on the Palm Dev Conf, which is worth a read. Although Palm did release the source code to all but 10% of their ROM, people may not modify it or use sections of it. It's therefore mainly of interest to those trying to extend the OS with cool hacks, but denies PalmOS the chance of becoming the "Linux of handhelds". The report also covers the Palm VII, a PalmPilot with a 9600 RF modem included, which distributes processing off the PalmPilot onto the base-station for expensive operations such as HTML parsing.

Richard Silver writes "Found a press release about Compaq releasing a Linux driver & source for thier Smart-2 PCI Disk Array controllers. Looks like more corporate support from a big fish... "

This Anonymous Coward asks: "I've been trying for some time to find software to write CDs on my IDE (Sony CDU928E/CH) CDR, but it seems all the software is for SCSI drives only. Is there software for my drive that I just can't find, or am I cursed to reboot to burn CDs?

Norm writes "Are Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins of Handspring, the original inventors of the PalmPilot, going to make a PalmPilot for less than $100 and target kids and students as well as corporate users? That could be huge. Maybe that's why they are smiling. Check out the USAToday article. I already have a PalmPilot and I love it. I can't wait to see what they come out with next. "

Shai Ayal asks "I'm looking to get a SMP machine for Linux. From what I managed to find on the net, there are currently only dual Pentium II motherboards for sale. Quad and up only support Xeon chips which are a bit too expensive for me. So, does anybody know of a Quad Pentium II motherboard? Also, are there any suggestions on how to get more bang for the buck (maybe 4 pentium Pros)?"

heller writes "Ok. I've been waiting almost 9 months for these 2G floppy drives at $30 per disk! Castlewood Systems has finally finished beta testing their ORB drives and is shipping them to OEMS, hopefully this means end users can buy them soon! I want one. Does this also count as the christmas presents for geeks? " I'd say so. These things look sweet.

[null] writes "The mouse is now 30 years old. It's probably also the only hardware that hasn't changed much over such a span too. Anyways, story is here. "

Jon Leech asks "Has anyone successfully used the Sony "Superstation" 6.6/10 GB tape drive? This has only been out about a month, and I've had no response to queries on the linux-ftape mailing list and comp.os.linux.hardware, so maybe it's just too new for anyone to have taken a chance yet? "

Joe Peden writes "Found this in New Scientist. A new(?) use for the PalmPilot's IR port. Disable car locks and alarms. Works in the UK, anyway." And you thought using your Palm III to change channels on your TV was cool. Finally I know the real reason I drive a p.o.s.

Andrew Taylor writes "According to this news report, 3Com announced that PalmOS source will be made available to developers. Sounds like they are taking a cue from Linux and making it open source. "

Carl Parisi writes "Palm Computing just announced a wireless Palm, the Palm VII. Should be available next year. Very cool! 2 way Internet access is only $10 a month! Check out the press release." Well, $10 month does look cheap, but almost $800 for the actual device does not. It sounds like their R&D dept. has been busy, too - Web Clipping sounds neat (albeit a bit obvious). It'll be several months into 1999 before these babies hit the street, though.

ensor writes "O'Reilly & Associates are holding a PalmPilot Programming Contest "There is some exciting and innovative work being done in PalmPilot programming" said Tim O'Reilly, president of O'Reilly & Associates. "This contest was one way to reward this spirit of innovation." " H:And the prizes actually look decent.

Randy Scott asks: "Since Avatar went bankrupt and liquidated their assets, the Shark drives are being dumped all over the place. Been considering getting one, tho I know I'll be hosed when it comes to media or troubleshooting. Syquest is faster than the Zip, but they also filed Chapter 11 recently and the media is expensive. The main thing Zips have going for it is that everyone seems to have one (good for file sharing). My question is should I get an Avatar drive, Syquest drive, or play it safe and go with a Zip?" Hmm...decent choices...but what about Jaz, too?

LogicStorm writes "Looks like 3Com is going to give us a waterred down wireless Palm Pilot before we get full interet connectivity. I havne't actually heard of the Eleven though, only the Razor, which isn't mentioned. Could they be the same thing? Also, future plans for the Palm V are mentioned as well. (Looks like they may need to go to something smaller than a AAA battery). Click here for the whole story. "

Andy Tai writes "This news.com story reports on the new 600 mHz third-generation Alpha chip, 21264, from Samsung. It is twice as powerful as the previous generation."

David Weekly wrote in with a somewhat lengthier more detailed hands on review of the recently released Diamond Rio. Check it out if you're interested in a bit more practical information on the little device.