Talla-Tech's Ruggedized R-PDA

I first saw the Talla-Tech R-PDA-39 at Comdex 2002. By Comdex 2003, I was helping to demo the newest member of the R-PDA family at the Microsoft booth, and it was a hit. Here’s the history of the R-PDA and its transition from a military-only device to an industrial Pocket PC.

First impressions

At first glance, I thought, “Great, another ruggedized case for the iPAQ.” Boy, was I wrong! This was not a ruggedized case—it was a re-engineered Pocket PC for military applications.

The next thing I noticed about the device was that it was big. Very big, heavy, and green. But then again, it was a military device. Before my eyes, they started to take the unit apart. It was more than just a basic Pocket PC—it had several different expansion options. These included a single or double expansion pack, GPS Receiver, a barcode reader, and more. It was at this point that I realized it was based on the iPAQ line of Pocket PCs. As you can see from Figure 1, the R-PDA-39 resembles the iPAQ h3970 device it is based on.

Fig. 1: The Ahnold of PDAs: Talla-Tech R-PDA-39 is based on the iPAQ.

They then put the Pocket PC back together, powered it on, and dropped it into a pitcher of water (Fig. 2). It was at this point that I knew I had to find out more about this product.

Fig. 2: A pitcher is worth a thousand words to show Talla-Tech’s water-resistant qualities.

A military brat, to begin with

The R-PDA began its life as an answer to Talla-Tech’s military customers who, having been buyers of their Pentium-based computers, asked if they had a rugged PDA. Several of these customers were already developing software on their Compaq/HP iPAQs. They loved the iPAQ device and did not want to compromise on expandability or compatibility in pursuit of a rugged system.

Talla-Tech had an important choice to make when designing the original R-PDA: should they design and own their own processor, motherboard, and display for the R-PDA, or should they turn to the largest producer of Pocket PC handheld computers in the world, HP? While the first approach was appealing in that the motherboard design woul d be owned and controlled by Talla-Tech, it would become quite costly to introduce new generations. So it was decided that with the pace of technology churn, customers would benefit from a decision for Talla-Tech to work deeper with HP and base the line of R-PDAs on emerging iPAQ models. This way, new technologies from Talla-Tech would surface faster, addressing their customers’ increasing needs for more computing power. It wasn’t easy, but the new R-PDA-51 (based on the iPAQ h5100) and R-PDA-55 (based on the iPAQ h5500) testify to their success.

Intrigued by the possibilities, Talla-Tech’s engineering team designed the R-PDA without compromising on the features of the iPAQ, and even added a key competitive feature—battery management. The R-PDA can use various batteries installed in the front, in an expansion sleeve, or even externally to the unit and “pool” the power to distribute it where it’s needed (Fig. 3). Talla-Tech not only kept the flexibility to change expansion backs but also developed a way to add on external batteries if needed. While providing the capability to quickly reconfigure the R-PDA based on the customers needs, a way was found to do this and make the unit completely sealed, waterproof, and to military standards at the same time.

Fig. 3: R-PDA with external battery adapter.