The Yopy was the name of a series of 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...

s (PDA) made by GMate Corporation, also used as a popular PDA Phone in Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 and based on the 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...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

.

Overview

At the CeBIT

CeBIT

CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...

 2000, GMate introduced the YDK1000, the Yopy Development Kit. Without a physical keyboard

Computer keyboard

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...

 this device looked very different from later versions. It came with an embedded Linux operating system and the W Window System

W Window System

The W window system is a windowing system and precursor in name and concept to the modern X window system.W was originally developed at Stanford University by Paul Asente and Brian Reid for the V operating system...

. Later also precompiled versions of the X Window System

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...

 and the IceWM

IceWM

IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System graphical infrastructure, written by Marko Maček. It was coded from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License...

 window manager

Window manager

A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...

 became available.

The first official model in the Yopy line of PDAs was the YP3000. It introduced the clam shell design with a full-Qwerty

QWERTY

QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...

 keyboard, and featured a 3.5 inch TFT screen

TFT LCD

Thin film transistor liquid crystal display is a variant of liquid crystal display which uses thin-film transistor technology to improve image quality . TFT LCD is one type of Active matrix LCD, though all LCD-screens are based on TFT active matrix addressing...

. It also came with the X Window System and IceWM.

One of the features of the YP3500 is a CDMA

Code division multiple access

Code division multiple access is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. It should not be confused with the mobile phone standards called cdmaOne, CDMA2000 and WCDMA , which are often referred to as simply CDMA, and use CDMA as an underlying channel access...

 module, so it can be used as a mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

. In 2003, Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

 was widely used in Korea, and so the YP3700 targeted this environment with an additional Wi-Fi module.

As of March 2005, Gmate has stopped producing and selling the Yopy PDA, and has closed down its official web sites.

Yopy models

• YDK1000, the Yopy Development Kit
• YP3000, the first official model of the Yopy
• YP3500, CDMA module was added in YP3500
• YP3700, Wi-Fi module was added in YP3700

Yopy software

Using the Linux operating system, the Yopy became capable of running a variety of open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

software. Some developers are using software they compile on their own.

External links

• Official Yopy site (offline)
• Yopy User Group (in Korean)
• The unofficial YopyWiki, find and share information about Yopy PDAs
• UK Based Re-seller for Europe (offline)
• UK Based Yopy User Group
• Gmate Yopy PDA review (offline)
• Mac OS X USB driver for Zaurus and Yopy
• Yopytheque: Yopy FAQs and how-tos in French @ Tuxmedia.com (offline)