thoguht i would share this photo, its a sharp zaurus sl-5500 linux pda with a strongarm v4 cpu (200mhz) 64mb onboard ram, running Qtopia, it has slots for cf an sd. theres a multitude of stuff that can be done with it, since its SDL was open, i bought this about 3 years ago i think, for 175usd.
the last 2 years ive been trying to get a tracker on it.
well that time has now come, an its all because of Peter! AKA Pailes the lead Developer of Milkytracker!
atm it still has some bugs, but i imagine in the near future it will be released to the public.
only i have trouble even composing on laptop. i dont know what i would do with this thing i need my desktop pc with normal keyboard + mouse, midi keyboard and my monitors, then i feel like composing
I couldn’t agree more. I was about to explain how I could not imagine tracking on something like this, and then something hit me.
I have a palm with an IR keyboard that the palm sits in. Allows me to type away without any worries.
Something like the PDA shown in these pictures with a keyboard that it rests in would be ideal and I could easily see tracking in it.
Throw some various simple instruments in. Kicks and snares, basic leads, etc. and then when you are at work on break and have some down time and have a melody in your head you can get it out quickly!
When you get back home you could transfer it to your pc and then go even further.
trepain: there is a tracker for palm os but i cant remember the name of it!
i found it from browsing the milkytracker forum. but atm the thread eludes me.
when i get home i will search my drives for the pxx file an post the link to the site.
fuick!! this is awesome. i have always wanted a portable music creation environment. too bad there’s not a tracker for PSP (i have one)… that’s awesome that there is one for DS…
so now i am seriously considering getting this zaurus sl-5500 … but i don’t know anything about PDA’s. are there other brands/models of pda that would also be able to run this tracker? (that would be potentially cheaper?)…!!! this is awesome!
please keep us posted on this
edit: since milkytracker is fasttracker compatible, does that mean that it saves XM files? and if it saves XM’s… can renoise import XM files? i know it can do IT but i have never tried XM … (excited here)
you are a matematician or something right choice? I’m a mofo statistician and terms like markov process and gamma shite has to come from crazy people like us!
definitely. i would get one of those small 1 or 2 octave midi controllers, and take it with me to work and on trips and stuff, when i can’t bring my whole big computer (i don’t have a laptop)
edit: i have huge ideas for this!!! now i can tap out some songs while i’m at work, do the songwriting whenever i get a chance, and then i can import them into renoise later and do the actual production stuff there !!!
i’ll try to answer you questions to my best ability.
you can do an absolute crazy amount of stuff on a zaurus sl5500, but it is linux.
when i say linux i mean eventually if you really want to do the obscure stuff you will need to learn the console. i had mainly bought mine to read ebooks & war walk. dont let that discourage you tho, there is a massive amount of documented information on doing virtually everything. this model was embraced by a large following of hackers, so much so someone even wrote a book! it was called z4ck. (i never got around to reading it tho)
more than likely milkytracker would also run on a 5600, 5600 is a little bit better than a 5500.
last i checked 5500’s were around 160usd or so, i got mine refurbished for 170usd with all supplies & looked an flet brandnew,excpet for the refurbished sticker, that was i think 3 years ago. so you could probably get one off of ebay for real cheap. they dont usually come with media so you would want to probably get an sd card, i have a sandisk 1gig works pretty* well. but now they have up to 8gigs. actually if you bought one used, you could more than likely get a pckage deal from someone…i remember seeing ‘like new’ packages around, awhile back.
but ya know there is quite a demand for a tracker on PSP, i would say its just a matter of time before someone makes one. albiet crazy as hell to figure out how to control, since there isnt any stylus ability. but it could be something like Nanoloop or LSD (little sound dj) i imagine those could an would run too.
Yes milkytracker is 100% fast tracker compatible, (one of the main reasons i embraced it) so there shouldnt ever be any problems directly opening up into renoise. Milky saves .xm files. an even writes up to 48khz wavs. (i havent tried that yet)
actually now that i think of it, you can get a much bigger battery for a 5600.
an all the packages that are around that run on 5500 also run on 5600.
thats why i think it should be able to run on a 5600. basically the same architechure. but there is the slighest of chance that it wont. i wish i could tell you yes or no on that one. i myslef would probably upgrade if it was so.
ATM i dont know anything about midi on ther, i had asked Peter about implementing OSC (Opensound Control), so that midi could be used over a network.
He wasnt exactly thrilled about that one but i had to TRY!!
i know for a fact that the zaurus has a midi driver, whether or not it is ever implemented in Milkytracker on the zaurus i have not 1 clue. but could be fun!.
there is a usb interface on the bottom of the zaurus (left side of picture) that you can use a special 16 dollar interface wire an have a usb connection. that would be interesting* to see.
to make a long story short, if Kmuland had not posted that link to Milkytracker
i would have made a big mistake an given my zaurus away to a friend an probably would be looking for a tracker to run on a treo 650. but since then i have discovered a tremendous amount of other stuff that wasnt around before.
bottomline is, thoroughly research the models that have the right operating systems, if i didnt have a zaurus i may have went toward PocketPC. (its probably easier to use)
Gotta post some crappy pics of MilkyTracker running on the original platfrom, PocketPC. My iPaq isn’t the latest and gratest, in fact it’s of the PocketPC2002 standard, running Windows Mobile 3.0 with a StrongARM processor @ 206MHz. Nevertheless, MilkyTracker works with every module, be it 2 or 32 channels without choking and is smooth to use. Getting used to working with the stylus and without a keyboard takes some adjusting but becomes very practical when travelling.
Ok, this is just a pose with better lighting than the rest.
Illustrating the capability of displaying a little more pattern data at once than choice’s Zaurus pic did. Setting the “tiny” font let’s you view 5 tracks/channels at once and switching to flat jam keyboard lets you view 21 rows.
Here we are tapping some melodies with the full scale jam keyboard.
Drawing samples has never been more intuitive.
And of course, you can touch the touch screen. And yes, I can hit the keys with my wiener of a finger.
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i need my desktop pc with normal keyboard + mouse, midi keyboard and my monitors, then i feel like composing 
i would!
but my head is in the gamma quadrant!
I’m a mofo statistician and terms like markov process and gamma shite has to come from crazy people like us! 
