I couldn’t help but respond to the Philippine Open Source Conference
2005 thread on PLUG when I saw the posts mentioning embedded Linux.
It’s… amazing, really, to see how people are interested in it. =) So
I went on a trip down memory lane…

I can speak on developing for the iPAQ; my code is still
in the bootloader, and I played around with programming small apps for
it. (You can get a small CGI-capable web server or Python and have
tons of fun hacking in class.) I haven’t touched it in three years,
though. It’s been a while. If someone has made a more recent
contribution, I’d gladly step aside. Besides, (cross my fingers!) I
may be out of the country by the time of the conference.
Still, if I’m in the country and no one else is up for it, then I can
talk about having Linux in Your Pocket.

* * * flashback * * *

You know, that was the title of my _very_ first Linux-related talk at
Linux10 Philippines in 2001… I presented to just _one_ person, as he
was the only one in the room at the time my talk was supposed to
start. He was an IT journalist, so it wasn’t totally wasted. After the
talk, I peeked out and found all these people who apparently had
wanted to hear the talk, but were too shy to go in while I was
presenting…

Incidentally, Linux on the iPAQ was _the_ thing that got me into
development. My first public CVS access, my first instance of getting
sent hardware (Jamey Hicks totally rocks)…

I’m going to stop now before I get all misty-eyed.