Could the appearance of a Samsung StrongARM-based Linux PDA the other day be in some way related to Compaq's Itsy project? Compaq inherited the Itsy, "an open development platform," from Digital, and continues to run it as a research project at the old Digital Western Research Lab, but has no plans to turn it into a product itself. But it is making the information needed for people to build their own Itsy prototypes freely-available, and is now up to version 1.5 of the spec. It's also developed a StrongARM 1100 version of Linux for the Itsy, and this is also available for download. According to Compaq most of the components needed to build a prototype are available off the shelf, although the likes of LCD and touchscreen aren't. We can't help noticing that this limits the ability of smaller outfits to mess around with Itsy-based PDA prototypes, whereas companies with ready access to and knowledge of this class of component - like, for example, Samsung - would probably find it fairly easy to knock one up. So one does wonder whether they might not be related. And indeed, why Compaq doesn't want to put the Itsy into production itself. ® Download the spec: Build your own Itsy See also: 'Compaq' invents Linux PDA Samsung's do-everything Linux PDA