TomTom GO/OpenTom project

So, what do TomTom GO devices have in common with the Sharp Zaurus? They're both physically very different, have very different purposes, and bought by entirely different groups of people!

Under the apparently simple exterior of the TomTom appliance there's an embedded linux device! Not only that, but it shares the same CPU architecture, and TomTom have obeyed the GPL and released their kernel patches and other code. The OpenTom project have thus made their own software releases to make the GO devices do some quite interesting things - see the OpenTom wiki for more information. You can see the chipset for yourself via the GO 300 dismantled page.

Although the Zaurus uses the Intel Strongarm processor, and the TomTom the Samsung, there's sufficient instruction set compatibility that it's possible to take binaries off one device and run them on the other. Note that TomTom are using kernel 2.6, so for maximum compatibility, you need to be using a release of OpenZaurus also based on 2.6.

Stop Press! After much experimentation by myself, which came to a premature end when I broke my Zaurus, someone else picked up my "zomtom" project and has had a little bit of success getting the TomTom program to run on their Zaurus. Check this discussion of OESF forums for an followups. Meanwhile, click the thumbnail image for a photo of a Zaurus running TomTom:

Here's a video of a Zaurus running TomTom navigator in demo mode.