NEC Mobilepro 900/c Frequently Asked Questions

Here is a collection of our most frequently asked questions regarding the NEC Mobilepro 900/c.

• Q. Can I remove Wince from my MobilePro 900?

A. WinCE is contained within a Flash ROM chip which means that you can remove WinCE by reflashing your device. However, so far nobody has created a flashable bootloader and/or linux kernel. There is an effort to port u-boot to the MobilePro 900 that supports booting from the CF card so the Linux kernel and userland can be stored there.

• Q. What Wifi PCMCIA cards are supported by my MobilePro 900?

A. Unfortunately, the MobilePro 900 only supports 16-bit PCMCIA devices so your choices are limited. There Linux kernel has support for Wifi cards based on the Atmel at76c50x chipset, like the the Belkin F5D6020. It is still not clear if the PCMCIA interface is fully supported and working with the latest jlime kernels, more testing needs to be done. Any PCMCIA card that meets the “PC Card Type II” interface spec is a 16-bit card. If it says that it is a “CardBus” card, then it is 32-bit and will never be supported on the MobilePro 900. When the USB host port support is finished, then we'll be able to use more advanced USB based Wifi access devices like the Alfa AWUS036H which gives us 802.11 b/g support. There is still hope that netstumbler/kismet/aircrack-ng will work on the MobilePro 900 someday.

• Q. Where can I get a serial cable adapter for my MobilePro 900?

A. You can't. I have contacted NEC and they do not have any stock left. The retailers online that have stock want $200+ for them. I haven't seen one on eBay in over a year of checking. And to add insult to injury, the connector for the data port on the MobilePro 900 is a non-standard, unknown connector with no known part supplier so we can't build our own.

• Q. Will I retain my data from wince when I install/run JLime?

A. When you start JLime the RAM will be cleared and all settings and data contained in the RAM will be deleted. Anything saved to the Compactflash card will not be affected.