OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => PocketPenguin => Topic started by: Ferret-Simpson on June 23, 2006, 05:01:37 pm
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if it can use palmorb then i am intrested, bluetooth would be a killer app for this thing as then i could hook it into my sysetm and see if i can make my Z pull the phone number from the phone and disploy on the watch then route the audio to my bluetooth headset smile.gif, all we need is a serial port i guess wink.gif
now where can i ind one of these in Australia?
Hmmm. . . Dismantled mine today, just to prod, and discovered something. The IRDA chip (2mmx10mmx2mm) has 8 pins on the back, and a larger pin holding it down. So looks like you could steal a serial port from the IRDA. However, you have a total of 1cmx0.5cmx0.2cm space internally to fit a bluetooth module, although you could hang it of the hole (full of translucent plastic) for the IRDA beam, which is about 2mmx12mm square.
http://www.ratesaver.com.au/products/B0007...OS___Black.html (http://www.ratesaver.com.au/products/B00077ALQ4/Fossil_Abacus_AU5005_Wrist_PDA_with_Palm_OS___Black.html)
Don't know if that link's any good?
Even just as it is, it's a cool, and useful device. (Just a shame about the 1 to 2 day battery life. Ah hell, who cares, you can charge it from a USB port!)
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Link works fine
maybe i should add bluetooth wathch to my things to do i have seen modules small enogh to do it, by the way that qoute sounds familliar, one thing sany has put out recently is a bluetooth remote with headphone jack, i have been looking into that but a serial port would be nice, say an 8 bit Atmel chip with a bluetooth transreciver, a couple of buttons and a nokia LCD screen, current would be about 8mA for the uC, and add in the screens current + backlight as well as bluetooth and you could do it, plus its a small project as it would be bluetooth over serial with the transreciver doing the work
Must... stop .... thinking...... AHGHHHH!!!
the fosil watch in your sig is a holly watch ?
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The bold type (Apart from UNDEAD!!) are names. My Poodle is named Cortana, my Abacus is named HollyWatch.
The problem with the Nokia screens is that they aren't touch-sensitive. The abacus screen is a higher res (160x160 over 128x128) and has a standard 4wire touchscreen interface.
There are only 9 chips on the Abacus motherboard, the CPU (Dragonball SuperVZ-66)
http://www5.atwiki.jp/seko/pages/240.html (http://www5.atwiki.jp/seko/pages/240.html)
Jap site of a dismantled Abacus 5005. (Lo que yo tengo ^^)
Main chips are CPU, Flash, Ram, and USB host. I'm guessing everything else is just there to get the signal electrically compatible with the other components. USB host isn't necessary for a bluetooth wristwatch (Sync to the other box over bluetooth) so you could free up some resources that way. Keep the connector and charge via USB though.
The biggest problem with this board is that it is USB/IRDA interface only. A bluetooth interface, and a little bit more Flash and Ram and this would make a good Linux box. (Even just 16mb ram would run the Kernel and something like PicoGUI great.) I'll admit it. I would love to link this to a bluetooth keyboard and a mobile, and read oesf in Lynx. There could be nothing geekier. But more to the point of this idea, bluetooth and linux would let us link whatever the heck we wanted to the serial port, touchscreen and hardware buttons. Which then of course means we can set it up as a remote control for a bluetooth based media player, (PocketPenguin) using a stereo bluetooth headset.
Could also add a vibe so that when the Penguin got a text it could be read on the watch. Same goes for answering calls: CallerID could be put on the wristwatch screen, and then the call could be accepted or rejected with a touch of the display. You could even route the buttons so that they linked to "Play/pause (Rocker in), Volume up and down (Rocker. . rock), forward and back (pageup pagedown), Main Menu (Back switch).
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I dont see why it should be made "smart" i am thinking an all in one 8 bit chip that handels displaying what comes over bluetooth and switching to automatic clock mode when bluetooth is out of range
the battery life would be better as well, plus you could drop the touch screen in favor of butons on the side as that would reduce the thickness of the device as well as power requirements (cant qoute how much power, must look into that)
i was thinking you could make it behave like a FB attached over a serial link, nothing fancy or make it vt100 compatible and transport the button pushes back over bluetooth using the Remote control profile (and lirc) or using the HID protocal (and lirc listeneng on /dev/event)
i was planning on writing some software to replace lcd4linux so that it supported graphical dilspalys (support right now is a background picture with software rendered text on top), it was basically a X11 clone for the command line with FB suport that also allowed the keyboard mouse and screen to be on seperate computers (ethernet mouse anyone?). it would be perfect for this project as it is a remote screen (or frame buffer)
dont know what you think, just my 2c
i think the smarts should be in the controller not the device itself
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I like intelligent gear. That's why I bought the PalmWatch in the first place, instead of say. . . The Citizen Bluetooth Watch.
We all charge our Zaurus every night, right? We need to, after our long day of wardriving and audio playing. I find myself charging it even more often sometimes.
So why bother about extra battery life? And entertainingly, the WristPDA is pretty bulky, but most people seem to think that makes it look cooler. o.o
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Thats true, i just keep thinking that writing drivers for an 8bit micro would be faster than porting linux, but then again i am not a kernel hacker, i do know hardware wise the 8bitter will be easire to design around and will be fewer chips (uC + bluetooth chipset)
i supose it depends on the chipset you use. you would really want one with flash and ram on board
might have to look into this futher
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I persume your thinking of somthing like ucLinux on a MC68SZ328 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68SZ328&nodeId=0162468rH3YTLCvL2v)
seems like a good chip and shouldnt be too hard to use, perhaps go for a "wide" screen effect so we get more pcb real estate as well as display area?
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Heh, that's EXACTLY what I'm thinking. Basically, an upgraded verison of the PalmWatch I usually use, With more memory, more flash, a better OS , Bluetooth instead of IRDA, and a colour TFT with the touchpanel.
So far, the resst looks easy to build, but the Screen is impossible to find. Ruddy corporations!
At the moment, seems it'd be easier to buy the watch, swap the motherboard for a new one, and use the old Mono 160x160 TFT. . . That way you'd keep the touchscreen, high res (For a wristwatch) and backlight, but get better processing.
On a whim, I just pulled apart my Abacus again and whaddya know? the iMX31 is only a square mm larger than the Dragonball SZ66. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? With components this small, you could theoretically have a fully functioning computer in a wristwatch, If not a powerful one.
My basic estimates of what you could fit into this. . . A CPU, a Bluetooth chip, 32mb ram, 16mb flash, a vibrator.
That gives what, use as a Mobile Phone alert and interface, a remote control for the PPZ, Wrist mounted Web browsing over PAN. . . If Sharp can fit the 5500 OS into 16MB flash on the Zaurus, and run it on 32MB ram (32mb dedicated to user storage.) We could do the same. After all, less memory will be needed for graphics with less than half the res of an old Z, as well as only 2 colours.
So. . . Who wants to build a watch-mounted 5000D? Huh? Huh?
Only thing left to work out is, how do we fit two SDIO Sockets into a wristwatch?
I'm joking, I'm joking. We'd use Mini-SDIO, like the new Nokia mobiles. ^^
DB, If I had your electronic engineering skills, I'd build one. XD
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electrical design isnt so much about elecrical knowlage as reading the docs, knowing your subject area and applying V=I*R (for resistance) or T=R*C (for capacitence)
im in on this project, i say lets bring a faimly of open hardware products to the table and start compeating with the big names of the industry
touchscreen would be nice but i would rather a sleek and elengent design, what if i make a header avalible so you can chose
there is a range finding trick you can do with 2 leds to replace a touchscreen
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Well, I'm just using the Abacus as my yardstick. If they can have a touchscreen, why can't we?
It means that we can build our own software interface for it, and my thoughts were that we could basically, buy the Abacus, and desolder the battery from it, then use that and the touchscreen in a new project.
After all, a resistance layer is about half a mm thick. . . Hardly adds any depth. XD
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Hmmm.
So, shall I put up a proper feature list?
Here we go!
Freescale iMX31L chip. Same as used in the PPZ and DPZ, but without the Graphics Processor.
32MB MDDR266 memory, for low power consumption (Same reason as using the CUT DOWN iMX)
16/32MB NAND Flash (Running however the hemet this runs on the iMX with no DDR eating)
4Mm Bluetooth over USB480 port. (A waste, but what exactly are WE gonna use it for?)
12MbPS USB OTG port.
1 or 2 Mini SD/SDIO sockets externally accessible, used to store rest of OS, and if 2, for User Data.
160x160 Monochrome screen with resistive layer. (Saves on Buttons.) Colour if sourceable.
Internal Battery, charged from USB port.
And the most important point: The vibrator unit.
This is essentially a simultaneously souped up and Cut-down 5000D, running. . . some kind of graphical display on top of the CLI. Because of the USBOTG port, a small keyboard can be attached to this (Perhaps an alternative power input would be better for this reason? Maybe a Nokia compatible charger socket?) for use for basic configuration until the graphical display etc is configured.
Could also put a scroll wheel on this. They're useful.
We now have a Linux powered bluetooth interface for the PocketPenguin, with enough power to run pretty much anything if necessary, and hopefully, through the use of some clever power management, including CPU speed scaling and disabling sockets? As well as the most modern battery we can get hold of. . . We can have at least a day or so's battery out of it. (With 2 days, you've got plenty of time in most circumstances to get it to a power soure. And in this case, if power does die, Everythings on the Mini-SD carrd anyway.
So what can this be used for?
It's a watch. You can tell the time. And because it's linux, it's alot easier to program that palmOS 4 is, if you want a new watchface.
It'll run all the usual PIM apps, which could be modified easily to support the small screen.
It's an alert. The vibrator will activate when you get a call, and the backlight could also be set to flash. If the PPZ is on silent or a few feet away, say docked, then this will allow you to answer the call remotely.
It's a caller ID. It knows to the same degree of accuracy as the PPZ, who'se calling you. You can then, using the touchscreen, Accept the Call, routing it to either Loudspeaker mode on the PPZ, or to a bluetooth headset. Reject the call, cutting them off, or store a message using a form of Local Voicemail, saving the message to an MP3 or whatever you choose, on the PPZ itself. You could even (If intrepid) have a drop down selector for different answerhphone messages to apply. So you can choose whether they hear "Hey, this is Ferret, Not around, message me baby!" or "Hi, You've reached Failing Software. There is currently no-one available to take your call." Or whatever.
It's a media controller. You're listening to your music over the 5.1 Surround output from the PPZ, and you're on the sofa. You wanna change the track. Do you get up? Nah. Just tap the controls on your WPZ (WristPenguinZero - And yes, I'm going to adopt this format for ALL the devices.) to change the track. Or, use it to fetch a list of all the tracks in your playlist and choose one by title, or to select a different playlist from all those stored on your PPZ.
Depending on how well it's compressed, use it as a video screen and feed video data from your PPZ to your WPZ, and the accompanying audio to bluetooth headphones. On this note, the iMX31L has the same CMOS interface as it's big brother, so perhaps a more practical use of this feature would be as a video equivalent of the bluetooth headphones, and stream a VideoConferenceCall back and forth to your wrist, sending the data out from the 3G connection or the Wifi Connection in the PPZ.
This is all feasible, practical stuff, Which I could sure as hell do with. Even a black and White conference call at 160x160 is better than missing the call because your PPZ is in your pocket. . ..
In fact, why the streiburg has no-one done this before?
I'll get looking for parts. . . I take it we're going for a CarbonFibre case again?
I personally feel (As an already regular user of this kind of technology) that this is a much better (Not to mention cheaper) companion to the PPZ than the DPZ.
If Fossil can still make a profit on this then the screen panel can't be an expensive part. . . I've got the numbers from the back of it, maybe I can find a supplier?
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http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=di...roductid=458682 (http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=displayproduct&lstdispproductid=458682)
That wasn't hard. Total time, 12 seconds to find a supplier. Only problem is, the product is about 3/4 times the required size. Their listings are terrible, but I've sent a request to one of their tech sales guys over email for help. Their prices seem reasonable, and the offer bulkbuy discounts.
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seeing as the chips are about the same size i dont see why we cant use that chip, probelly keep it at low speeds most of the time anyway.
personnaly i like 8 bit micros but i dont want to do the entire blueteeooth thing so i guess it dpends on the battery
mabey if we threw an accelerometer or tilt switch in we could tell when someone is looking at the watch and aotherwise turn everything off
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Chip? You mean keep the SuperVZ instead of going to the iMX?
Couple of reasons. the Freescale SZ ios officially Obsolete acording to the website. So it probably won't be in production too much longer. Even Palm, the chip's long time standby, has moved to ARM.
The chip has better linux support than the SZ does, by a long way, and the moment I try and do video on uclinux, at 66mhz, we're not going to get a geburtstagging thing. Then there's the fact that the iMX has got good support for doing the cool stuff I wanna do, with the camera interface, and the mini-SD sockets.
Think back to what I was suggesting earlier, you'e not going to get that functionality out of an 8 bit mcro or the limited slow bluetooth support of the SZ.
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not if we want a camera but if we wanted it just to be a screen and move the smarts to the PP then it works in our favor
i feel that the iMX3 is a bit of overkill but i wont know until i can benchmark the power usage at diffrent freq and see what battries we can get
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If not the iMX31, then there's always the 21!
I just think that the old CPU's aren't powerful enough to do the WPZ credit.
Not to mention the fact that they're older technology, and therefore presumably, watts/hertz, the iMX chips are better.
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http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/p...rH311432973ZrDR (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX21S&nodeId=0162468rH311432973ZrDR)
iMX21s Applications processor.
Has a camera interface, USBOTG, connectivity for SD (mini-SD), TFT and the usual. NAND
It DOESN'T have:
DDR - It has PC133 Sdram only. ^^
GPU - No 3d for me, means again, less power usage.
533MHZ - 266: Less heat, less battery etc. . n'est pas?
What do we need for the WPZ?
TFT, Touch, Camera Interface, NAND (OS), 1x mSD (Data). USB Client (Flashing), Vibrator (Notification), BTUART for Serial Bluetooth.
With the aditon of as low-power an Audio chip as we can get, the 21s can meet all of those. It also has an intelligent speed switch, should save us a bit of battery, PCMCIA - In case the Bluetooth needs to go on PCMCIA for speed reasons. . . an 8x8 keypad interface, and a couple of other interface odds and ends.
Therefore, my proposed specification. . .
Freescale iMX21S 266mhz CPU
32MB mobile SDRam - 133mhz
16MB RW NAND flash for OS (Seriously. . Who gives a dog about flash security on a watch?)
APU for interface of Touchpanel, Battery ADC line, Vibrator.
Mini-SD slot for additional memory expansion
160x160 Monochrome TFT with Touchpanel - Stolen from Abacus?
Rechargeable Battery, charged from USBOTG port - Stolen from Abacus?
1.3MegaPixel Colour Camera - Only running in 320x240 for Video Conferencing over PPZ
Vibrating Alert
Aluminium Case like PPZ
I can't think of any more tech you could fit into, or need in, a Linux Wristwatch. An Accelerometer? Meh. I prefer buttons and the Touchpanel.
Who's up for it? Wearable wireless companion to the PocketPenguin-Zero.
Vibrates and flashes on incoming call, displays CallerID, and you can choose to accept or reject onscreen. If you accept, the call will be routed to your Bluetooth headset, or to Loudspeaker-Handsfree.
Note to DB - Do you think the iMX21s can boot from SD directly? If so. . . You could lose the USBOTG and put the Bluetooth on it, and charge via a Nokia plug or something. You could also then lose the internal flash, which would save a bit of power.
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Why do we need a sound chip when we can use one IO pin and do a BTC thingy (http://www.romanblack.com/picsound.htm) it uses over sampling to get better sound quality or bump it up to 2 io pins, of course we will need a darlington array to protect the IO pins but thats easy to do and means a SMD chip can be replaced with 2 transistors and a cap/resitor
i dont think it could boot from SD however it would be posible to boot strap the thing from flash onto NFS over bluetooth or mini SD. good point about the power, at this size every chip i can iump will be required, that said prhaps we should get one with on board flash as this would give us a bit in the way of power saving
if we are willing to drop usb host and only have usb client (firmware updating and charging) then the iMX chip looks better, it only goes up to 100Mhz but it has everything we need including SPI which we can use to talk to the miniSD card (one bit @ 25Mhz max = 25Mbit)
i assume the "APU" is an 8 bit micro to control everything, if it is i would rather drop it and spend the extra 1ma somewhere else. the camera for expmle will be the highest on my list of things to drop as they are more power hungry than most people relise, but thats only if we run out of room
we need to work out case size and what type of battery will power this thing, that gives me a rough power budget to work with and means i should be able to tell you how long it will run under full load and how long when its idle
the accelerometer or a tilt senseor can be used to save power by turning everything off except when you are looking at it
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APU = Audio Processing Unit - Another name for a sound chip.
If we don't need it for ADC, that's great. XD
I thought the 21S was better because it has a dedicated camera input, which would save us alot of hassle in linking up the camera. . . After all, the three main functions I see for this are to read SMS messages on the fly, instead of having to frell around with getting the PDA out, To announce incoming calls and allow you to answer them over bluetooth headset (And possibly to call numbers, using an onscreen dialler. . . CallerID is also I think feasible, by scrolling down through an addressbook), and in the case of Videophone calls. . on the wristwatch, and for that reason exactly, to be a more practical videophone.
In terms of SDRAM and FLASH, I was thinking the same as I am for the PPZ phone ROM,
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/Uni...et=hardware.png (http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/UniversalHardware?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=hardware.png)
Something along the lines of the Top left chip on that image of the Universal. . a 32MB NAND and 32MB SDRAM combined chip. The camera, because of my main use for this, is one of the things I'm least willing to drop, although I'm happy to sacrifice alot of quality to go for a lower power-consuming Camera, after all. . . The bluetooth connection will only allow about 160x160 monocolour each way anyway. . .
I was also planning on having this thing keep the TFT active, although not the backlight, and like the Fossil Abacus. . call a program once a minute to update the screen with the new time. After all, it IS a watch.
The iMX versus iMX21S
There's a comparison table for this, and only the 150mhz iMXL has the camera interface, and the iMX21S is the lowest power device to have the Keypad, the dedicated SD, NAND support, and the Smart Speed switch to save power.
I'm getting a suspicious feeling you want me to dismantle my watch again. . . .
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APU is not really correct because most dont do any audio processing, thats why we refer to the as CODECs as they COde and DECode from digital to analg and analog to digital
to an extent the RPU is doing the same thing except we are putting the high level stuff on it aswell to make it look like a modem (MOdulator DEModulator, same sort of thing)
yeah those all in one chips are nice, hadent thoght about thet but it does make sense. but do we need miniSD on the thing i fail to see why its useful as i see this more as a thin client type of thing where the heavy lifting is done by the PPC but it is still capable of operating independently (as most thin clients can now days with intergrated web browsers)
i know a trick or two for getting more than that over bluetooth (we will be using EDR dont forget) you dont update the entire screen. nice and easy, hell put an X Server on the device and have the X client on the PP connect to it. that would save on bandwidth
i just worked out you ment for video calls, in that case remeber that most are 10 fps anyway (approx) and we may be able to decode on the watch if we need to
the turn off the screen thing is somthing i have seen in new watches, when you tilt it at a certin angle it turns on the backlight, we can do the same but with the screen as well and make it that a button push turns the screen on
cant we just chuck the camera on SPI and forget about a dedicated camera interface also the SD can go on ethier on its own SPI interface or share the SPI interface (SPI can do that) i am not sure about the nand, i assume that means it would be a glueless interface, if it does then we would want it but depending on the chip we might be able to easily work around it
basically we only need SPI and perhaps a nand interface, we dont need keypad scanning circitry as we dont have that many buttons (we can just use the IO pins)
if you pull apart the watch can you tell me haw many mili amps the battery is and how long it lasts between charges
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Last about 2 days between charges, but I don't remember a mention of product name or mAh on it. . .
Ah, ok. FOund it.
PD3032
http://www.powercellkorea.com/eng/product/model_spec.php (http://www.powercellkorea.com/eng/product/model_spec.php)
180mAh but we could fit a 3535 instead which would give us 320mAh. . .
X server is what I was planning, SD was basically a way to add expansion and backup capability.
If we go to the 200mhz iMX1s (Which can also be run at 150mhz) We should still have enough CPU power to handle the Kernel, X server and the comms. We'd also still have USB client support to flash. Not to mention that model still has a camera interface, though not as powerful as the other models.
The most basic of the iMX's is barely more than the old 68k. . Not really worth the bother, since it wouldn't be fast enough.
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Maybe you should add the finger print scanner? With the ability to communicate the scanned fingerprint to the PPZ.
Bill
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Hmmm. . . That's not actually a bad idea. The only problem is, it would need to be encrypted. . . If someone just lifted the image over the bluetooth connection, they then have an image to feed over bluetooth to access it.
I think a requirement of that would be. . If you log in on the WPZ, you'd have to swipe AGAIN on the PPZ to use it from the PPZ's end. Swiping on the WPZ only gives Access from the WPZ.
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no i dont like the idea of that, it is more complex than you think in terms of authentication unless you want to run kerberos on your wirst watch (ok perhaps it is a good idea then)
i have a problem or two with the finger print scanner, mainly if someone logs in as you and it gets to the fingerprint stage and they leave it until you swipe your finger then they can get in. SO we would have to make it have a time out on the pom module and have an LED indicator to indicate the authentication state. perhaps also make it for local logins as well (really goes without saying but i know a hack or two that could get around it)
but we can leave that till latter
speed i dont belive is that important, power is. the power budget for this thingy is alot tricker than your standard PDA
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Naturally.
I don't think we're going to be able to go lower than the iMX1s, becasue to use a camera, and CODECS, you need a certain amount of hardware overhead.
Another point on the 21s is that the SDRAM is 133, but 96 on the 1s. . . Is that a problem for using standard mobile SDRAM on the iMX1s?
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not really, you can even run 133Mhz ram slower if you wanted too
i dont see the performance of the chip as a limiting factor at the moment, i think that most tasks (inciluding the camera stuff) 5Mhz should be fine.
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FIVE??????
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should have been 50Mhz, but 5 will suffice most of the time it should be at 0Mhz anyway (DC/sleep/idle)
it al depends on how well written the software is
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Right, so we go for the iMX1S then.
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looks like there are a couple of plaforms out there that do this now, non are hackable as far as i have seen but this thing is promising
http://www.freymartin.de/en/projects/jitwa...watch_prototype (http://www.freymartin.de/en/projects/jitwatch/jitwatch_prototype)