The Pepper Pad was a family of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-based mobile computers with

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

capability and which doubled as a

handheld game console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the con ...

. They also served as a portable multimedia device. The devices used

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

and

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

technologies for Internet connection. Pepper Pads are now obsolete, unsupported and the parent company has ceased operations. The original prototype Pepper Pad was built in 2003 with an

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

-based PXA255 processor running at 400Mhz, an 8-inch touchscreen in portrait mode, a split

QWERTY QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...

keyboard, and Wi-Fi. Only 6 were made, and it was never offered for sale. The Pepper Pad was a 2004

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

(CES) Innovations Awards Honoree in the Computer Hardware category. The Pepper Pad 2 was introduced in 2004 with a faster 624Mhz PXA270 processor and the screen was rotated to a landscape format. The Pepper Pad 2 was the first Pepper Pad offered for commercial sale. The Pepper Pad and Pepper Pad 2 both ran Pepper's proprietary Pepper Keeper application on top of a heavily customized version of the Montavista Linux operating system. The Pepper Pad 3 was announced in 2006 with as upgrade to a faster

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

Geode A geode (; ) is a geology, geological secondary formation within sedimentary rock, sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Geodes are hollow, vaguely spherical rocks, in which masses of mineral matter (which may include crystals) are secluded. The crys ...

processor. The Pepper Pad 3 also used a smaller 7" screen for cost savings. Like previous versions, the Pepper Pad 3 had a split

button keyboard, built-in

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic (), or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publi ...

, video camera,

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

output, and stereo speakers,

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

receiver and transmitter, 800x480 7 inch

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

touchscreen (with stylus), SD/ MMC Flash memory slot, 20 or 30 GB hard disk, 256 MB

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, 256 KB

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

, and both

(b/g) and

2.0. The Pepper Pad 3 used a heavily customized version of the

Fedora Linux Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project. It was originally developed in 2003 as a continuation of the Red Hat Linux project. It contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to b ...

operating system called Pepper Linux. Unlike the Pepper Pad 2 which was built and sold directly by Pepper, the Pepper Pad 3 was built and sold under license by Hanbit Electronics.

Support

Pepper Computer, Inc. has ceased operations and is no longer providing support or sales for Pepper Pad web computers or Pepper Linux.

Software

Pepper Pads ran Pepper's "Pepper Keeper" software and suite of applications. Pepper's software was designed to be easy to use, and offered many features later found in devices like the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and Android. The Pepper Keeper's home screen provided large icons for launching applications including a web browser, mail client, chat client, photo viewer, music player, video player, games, and a scrapbooking application. Pepper offered an application store, automatic software updates, and a simple way to share photos, music, and files with friends. The Pepper Keeper ran atop Pepper Linux, Pepper's custom version of the Linux

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. Pepper Linux was ported to multiple devices including the One Laptop per Child.

Software ported to the Pepper Pad

* FCE Ultra ( NES emulator) *

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Adobe Flash, Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its riv ...

Flash 7 *

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

GTK+ GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and proprietary s ...

* Mozilla

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

RealPlayer RealPlayer, formerly RealAudio Player, RealOne Player and RealPlayer G2, is a cross-platform media player (software), media player app, developed by RealNetworks. The media player is compatible with numerous container file formats of the multimed ...

Helix A helix (; ) is a shape like a cylindrical coil spring or the thread of a machine screw. It is a type of smooth space curve with tangent lines at a constant angle to a fixed axis. Helices are important in biology, as the DNA molecule is for ...

Squeak Squeak is an object-oriented, class-based, and reflective programming language. It was derived from Smalltalk-80 by a group that included some of Smalltalk-80's original developers, initially at Apple Computer, then at Walt Disney Imaginee ...

Hardware (Pepper Pad 3)

* Mass: 2.1 pounds (985g) * Size: 29 cm x 14.9 cm x 2.3 cm (11.4" x 5.9" x 0.9")

Mainboard

* AMD Geode CPU, 533 MHz clock speed,

x86 instruction set The x86 instruction set refers to the set of instructions that x86-compatible microprocessors support. The instructions are usually part of an executable program, often stored as a computer file and executed on the processor. The x86 instructi ...

with MMX and

3DNow! 3DNow! is a deprecated extension to the x86 instruction set developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). It adds single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions to the base x86 instruction set, enabling it to perform vector processing of float ...

extensions, integrated northbridge,

graphics controller A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics accelerator, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or colloquially GPU) is a computer expansion card that generates a feed of graphics output to a displa ...

and PCI bridge * AMD CS5536 Companion device ( southbridge), USB 2.0 / IDE / IR /

SMBus The System Management Bus (SMBus or SMB) is a single-ended simple two-wire bus for the purpose of lightweight communication. Most commonly it is found in chipsets of computer motherboards for communication with the power source for ON/OFF instru ...

APM APM, apm, or Apm may refer to: Technology Computer technology *Active policy management, a discipline within enterprise software *Advanced Power Management, a legacy technology in personal computers * Apple Partition Map, computer disk partiti ...

interface
Wolfson WM9713
AC97 Audio / Touchscreen interface * 256 MB

DDR SDRAM Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR SDRAM) is a double data rate (DDR) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) class of memory integrated circuits used in computers. DDR SDRAM, also retroactively called DDR ...

(DDR-333

SO-DIMM A DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module) is a popular type of memory module used in computers. It is a printed circuit board with one or both sides (front and back) holding DRAM chips and pins. The vast majority of DIMMs are manufactured in compli ...

) * 256 KB

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

ROM * Chrontel CH7013B

NTSC NTSC (from National Television System Committee) is the first American standard for analog television, published and adopted in 1941. In 1961, it was assigned the designation System M. It is also known as EIA standard 170. In 1953, a second ...

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

TV signal encoder *

IrDA IrDA is a wireless standard designed for exchanging data using infrared (IR). Infrared ports for this purpose have been implemented in portable electronic devices such as mobile telephones, laptops, cameras, printers, and medical devices. The mai ...

and TvIR emitters/receivers

Subsystems

* Hitachi Travelstar 20 GB 1.8" IDE disk drive *

Atheros Atheros Communications, Inc., was an American computer networking company independently active from 1998 to 2011. It produced semiconductor chips for network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. The company was founded under the nam ...

AR2413A-based

mini-PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format ...

802.11b/g

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

interface, with externally-attached antenna (external to the card, internal to the Pepper) * Bluetooth 2.0
AU Optronics A070VW01
7.0" 800x480

TFT LCD A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a type of liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film transistor, thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active mat ...

* Integrated 62-key clicky keyboard, including 4-way cursor array and scroll wheel * 3800 mAh

lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energ ...

* stereo speakers * microphone * 640x480 digital camera, fixed focus

External Ports

* USB 2.0 host port * USB 2.0 device port * 1/8" stereo headphone out * 1/8"

out * 1/8" microphone In

Internal Ports

miniPCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local bus, local computer Computer bus, bus for attaching Computer hardware, hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a S ...

(occupied by WiFi interface) *

JTAG JTAG (named after the Joint Test Action Group which codified it) is an industry standard for verifying designs of and testing printed circuit boards after manufacture. JTAG implements standards for on-chip instrumentation in electronic design ...

test-access port. *

Serial port A serial port is a serial communication Interface (computing), interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in Pa ...

with console

References

External links

* DOW
Pepper Computer, Inc.

* DOWN 2011-02-2
Hanbit America
hardware manufacturer website *
Archive of Hanbit America
Web archive of hardware manufacturer website * DOWN 2011-0202
Pepper Pad Community Forums
official discussion forums * DOWN 2011-02-2
Pepper Wiki
Pepper Pad information repository *
Web archive of wiki
Archive
Pepper Linux 4.0 Application Launching Preview
(Video) {{Linux devices Handheld game consoles Microsoft Tablet PC Mobile computers Linux-based video game consoles ARM-based video game consoles X86-based game consoles Computer-related introductions in 2003