Ever since the N900 came about the "Active Topics" bar has been taken by shallow and uninteresting subjects. This forum is dying to me.

Maemo 5 and its applications being incompatible with previous devices was one of the most terrible of the "non-free" stuff Nokia has been doing. Linux itself is a great example of care for compatibility. I have just installed the latest kernel in my old Pentium III at home, and also the latest versions of my window manager and browser, and it feels great. I have the impression the opposite is happening with the NITs, and It's a pity.

As a N800 user, I feel like I don't belong to this website anymore. I have been coming here only looking for old references about things people have done previously with the tablets, but I can't conceive starting conversations about new things we could do in Diablo...

I can understand many developers will just move forward, but will the development for N810 and previous devices really just die? And if a little community of "old timers" remains, where will they live? Do we have a space here at maemo.org, or will we have to create a new forum where we can go without having to hear about lame discussions regarding N900's incompatible software or worse: the iPhone?

I wish I could log in here and not see a single thread regarding problems in the N900 that have nothing to do with me. I just want to talk with people that run the same software as I do. I want people that can help me, and I want to be able to help people out. Right now I log in here and feel like I was entering the forum of some other device I don't own (e.g. iPhone, Android, whatever).

I'm not saying people shouldn't talk about the N900. I understand _that_ is what is happening in the Maemo world right now. Go on, take the forum. But I own a N800, and I want to be part of the community of N800 owners. Where are they?

In case you missed it (ouch! Sorry!) you may want to contribute at the links mentioned here: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37261

Though I'm here for the N900 stuff, I entirely sympathise with your point of view. Let's hope at least some form of new posts filtering can be done.

I can sympathise too, I'm also an N800 owner and it's continuing to be an extremely useful device for me. I'm even on OS2007 (I don't like OS2008), so it's even less to find here now. I had to get myself the N900 to be able to stay here.

Is Mer not on the radar for you?

I personally got interested in Maemo by getting an N800 through a developer device discount. I like my N800, as well as my new N900. I don't, however, have any complaint that Nokia hasn't made Maemo 5 work on the N800; among other things, how do you expect to get a UI heavily dependent on graphical effects and compositing to work on a device with hardly any graphics acceleration for those things?

As Texrat said, take a look at Mer; it tries to create an OS based on parts of Maemo 5 that will work on many devices, including the N800 and N810. Furthermore, Mer has some community building up around it.

Even though my N800 stays quite charged, its the lack of quality applications for my specific usage needs that drew/draws me away from it from time to time. The N800 (and N810) while solid devices, are now in the position of being the *last* model, not the *main* one - and the attention therefore moves accordingly.

Mer is a better option for restoring faith/opinion in the N800/N810 (Diablo) side of things because of its close devleopment proximity to Maemo 5. But that's pretty much it. Many developers here have had to make a choice about what they will support (Gtk and Qt, or just Qt); with the momentum behind going mainly or just Qt, its just that developing for Diablo doesn't meet a developer itch anymore.

And isn't this one of the reasons why this site has thrived, developers got really itchy with a device tailor made for them to play?

Flash often gets ignored as a cross-platform solution, and often derided due to its ad legacy, BUT-- it remains a viable option that I wish was explored further.

Same goes for other web technologies.

Flash would have been nice for the N800/N810 if it would have stayed light. Its too heavy to do more than just lifting the shell on these devices.

Well written AJAX and an updated microB browser capable of doing HTML5 and CSS3 though, and you've got a nice extension to the platform that does give a lot of future viability (paging Tear and Fennec).

You're dead, but you just don't know it yet. Ever seen the 6th sense?

It isn't on the radar for me either. And I have my radar (EDIT: sodar?) turned up full power! Ping! Ping! Silence.

(Clarification: I really want Mer to be on the radar!)

EDIT: What N900 software is incompatible with the older devices? Mostly it seems that the N900 has modified versions of old tablet software and the really new stuff wouldn't work on the old devices because it uses hardware that the old devices don't have, like OpenGL and accelerometers...