1. Foreword

I am not a guru in wearable computing, simply after some years using HP95LX and HP200LX palmtop computers more like wearables than like a PDA ( thanks to DOS 5, the HP200LX even allowed me to do a semester CS project using turbo pascal while commuting in the subway ), and living with a palm IIIx and a laptop running Linux, to me the next step is having a wearable running Linux, thus I have spent more than a year reading various informations on wearable and taking a little part in the wear-hard mailing list. As more an more people will be interested in the wearable concept I have decided to start this HOWTO in order to help them ( At the time of this writing I am building my own wearable using my laptop ( Toshiba 430CDT ) with a twiddler keyboard, emacspeak, and camcorders batteries. )

Some people may, at least, be surprised to find the "In the army now" section so I would like to explain my position: I am trying to write this HOWTO both as a journalist and a scientist would do: this implies as a journalist to look for information from every source available, and as a scientist to be neutral: and as the US Army is willing to purchase more than 30.000 units one can hardly overlook this user group. This document is intended to be the starting point of a long term work. If you have any information ( that can be checked ) that you think is of interest, do not hesitate contact me.