Development of the BTRON-BrainPad

In the last few years, software tools such as electronic mail and World Wide Web browsers have greatly increased productivity. The demand to take these tools out of the office through small, lightweight hand-held devices called personal digital assistants (PDAs) has been especially fervent. Manufacturers have had to scramble to supply this demand, but have run into problems with size, weight, batteries and operating systems (OSs). In order to solve these problems, the BTRON OS was singled out because it operates on very few resources, which makes it perfect for use in PDAs, and through the addition of power management functions, Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII) was able to create the BTRON-Brain Pad, the world's first PDA to run on the BTRON OS with long-life, small batteries for lightweight portability. This paper introduces the technical specifications of the BTRON-BrainPad, as well as how power management functions were added to the newest BTRON OS (BTRON3), to enable the realization of this small-sized, lightweight and easy-to-use PDA.