The Agenda VR3 was the name of the first "pure Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

" Personal Digital Assistant

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

 (PDA) , released in May 2001 by Agenda Computing, Inc. of Irvine, California

Irvine, California

Irvine is a suburban incorporated city in Orange County, California, United States. It is a planned city, mainly developed by the Irvine Company since the 1960s. Formally incorporated on December 28, 1971, the city has a population of 212,375 as of the 2010 census. However, the California...

.

History

The VR3 was unveiled at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo

LinuxWorld Conference and Expo

OpenSource World is a conference and trade show that focuses on open source and Linux solutions in the information technology sector.The show is owned and managed by IDG World Expo, a business unit of International Data Group...

 in August 2000 by Agenda Computing, which was at the time "a wholly owned subsidiary of the publicly traded electronics manufacturing giant, Kessel International Holdings, based in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

." A developer model, the VR3d, was available by December.

By late 2001, the VR3's price dropped from $249 to $119 at some US retailers, which caused some to wonder whether the promised VR5 (a color handheld) was to be released, or Agenda Computing was closing shop.

In April 2002, after the demise of Agenda Computing, the Softfield Vr3 became available from Softfield Technologies of Tortonto, Canada.. As of July 2008, the device is still available from SoftField.

Hardware

The VR3 was 4.5"x3.0"x0.8". It included a 2.25"x3.25", 160x240 pixel

Pixel

In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....

, monochrome

Monochrome

Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...

, backlit

Backlight

A backlight is a form of illumination used in liquid crystal displays . As LCDs do not produce light themselves , they need illumination to produce a visible image...

 LCD touchscreen

Touchscreen

A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...

. It utilized a 66MHz MIPS

MIPS architecture

MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...

 CPU with 8MB

Megabyte

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

 of RAM

Ram

-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

 and 16MB of built-in Flash memory

Flash memory

Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...

 for storage.

For input, it included push buttons for actions (such as Page-Up and Down, and Left and Right), stylus

Stylus (computing)

In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...

-activated power on/off, on-screen hard buttons for launching applications and a built-in microphone

Microphone

A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...

 jack.

It also included a notification buzzer, an LED

LEd

LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....

 notification light, an IrDA

IRDA

IRDA may refer to:* Infrared Data Association, in information and communications technology , a standard for communication between devices over short distances using infrared signals...

 port and an RS232 port. It was powered by two AAA batteries

AAA battery

A triple A or AAA battery is a standard size of dry cell battery commonly used in portable electronic devices. A carbon-zinc battery in this size is designated by IEC as "R03", by ANSI C18.1 as "24", by old JIS standard as "UM 4", and by other manufacturer and national standard designations that...

, and connected to PCs

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 via an RS232 cable, or a docking station

Docking station

A Docking station or port replicator or dock provides a simplified way of “plugging-in” an electronic device such as a laptop computer to common peripherals...

 that the cable connected to. Both contained a button for activating sync

Synchronization

Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....

 software.

Software

The VR3 came with a 2.4.0 version of the Linux kernel

Linux kernel

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....

, XFree86

XFree86

XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and is now available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the XFree86 License version 1.1. It is developed by the...

, the Rxvt

Rxvt

rxvt is a terminal emulator for the X Window System , originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who took over maintenance for several years...

 terminal emulator, the Bash shell, and a user interface based on the FLTK

FLTK

FLTK is a cross-platform GUI library developed by Bill Spitzak and others. Made with 3D graphics programming in mind, it has an interface to OpenGL, but it is also suitable for general GUI programming....

 GUI library. It included
on-screen keyboard

Keyboard (computing)

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...

 and handwriting recognition

Handwriting recognition

Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...

 software, a number of personal information management

Personal information management

Personal information management refers to the practice and the study of the activities people perform in order to acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve and use information items such as documents , web pages and email messages for everyday use to complete tasks and fulfill a person’s various...

 (PIM) applications (including an expense tracker, e-mail, to-do list, contacts list, and schedule), games, and other tools.

It is possible to telnet

TELNET

Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

, FTP and make remote X

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

 connections to the device.

Numerous applications were created by third-party developers, with the Agenda Software Repository listing nearly 200 titles by the end of 2003.