Messages

31

5x00 Hardware / External Battery Pack With Sl-5500?

« on: October 24, 2005, 04:49:27 am »

it should work as long as it's the same voltage. What i did to mine was, i added an extra battey which i got out of broken Pocket pc. I soldered some thin wire (so i could close the battery lid) to the battery and just taped the thin battey to the back of the zaurus, now i get about 4 hours of life with wifi and full brightness.

There is thread floating around on these forums just do a search
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=100563\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Are you saying that you wired a second batter IN PARALLEL with the existing one?  I always worry about doing that sort of thing in case they behave like NiMH where, if one battery is weak, the other will dump lots of current into it and potentially overheat it.

32

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Cf/pcmcia For 802.11a/b/g

« on: September 28, 2005, 08:04:49 am »

Let us know what they are, and we might be able to tell you how difficult it might be...


Si
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97293\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Don't know about -g cards, but I have been able to plug in a 802.11b card and get connected with no additional tweaking.  Hentges 3.5.3, OpenZaurus 3.2 and Sharp ROMs all include basic chipset drivers for older cards.

33

General Discussion / Poll: Who Has Sound Problems?

« on: September 21, 2005, 06:14:56 am »

I think it's a problem with the build of mplayer in the 3.5.3 Hentges ROM, but on my SL5500 Iwhenever I try to play an mp2/mp3 file on the command line using mplayer, the sound stutters to the point where I have to do a hard reset to get control back.  XMMS works fine for mp3 files, but mp2 files sound awful, like they're  severely bandwidth limited and with a small bit depth (e.g. 8 bit 16khz instead of 16bit/48k of the recording).

Had no such problems with an 0.9 build of mplayer on OZ3.2.

34

OpenZaurus/Opie/Qtopia / Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

« on: August 26, 2005, 08:07:44 am »

I don't know I'm afraid, but if 'cardctl info' returns no info it would be indicative of a power problem/etc.

Does your PCMCIA-CF adaptor not have an external power plug?


Si
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I wish it did!  Been searching for ages, and the only one I could find is in the USA and costs $125 for a flexible one (that can fold so the PCMCIA card folds behind the Z).
There must be something else going on for the card insertion event to be fired, surely?

35

OpenZaurus/Opie/Qtopia / Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

« on: August 26, 2005, 05:16:36 am »

Some cards are presumably less fussy about their power supply requirements.


Si
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93248\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I suppose so, but I'd like to attempt some sort of diagnosis before giving up.
Are you aware of any tools that I can use to interrogate the card at a lower level without having to write code?  I'm not set up for coding in Linux just yet but it's on a list of things to do and I'd love to contribute when I do.

At the moment, I'm trying to get to grips with the CIS, esp. how the /etc/pcmcia/cis directory works... maybe the solution lies there?

36

OpenZaurus/Opie/Qtopia / Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

« on: August 25, 2005, 11:52:00 am »

I think that you should see more info than that, it looks like that's just the default which would be returned with no card in there (actually give that a go and see what happens).

Are you powering the card, if not, this might be a reason why it's not responding,


Si
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=92483\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

It's exactly what is seen when there is no card in the socket, but what does it mean?
I get the same problem with an old Psion modem card.
Surely the system must be detecting the presence of the card in orer for the anonymous memory error to show...
What do you mean by "powering the card"?
cardctl status reports "5V 16-bit PC Card  function 0: [ready]", but then it says "5v" for the Linksys PCMPC100 ethernet card that I have just bought, which is recognised.

37

5x00 General discussions / Will Cf To Pcmcia, Will It Work?

« on: August 22, 2005, 08:19:42 am »

In the thread I linked, I posted a link to an adapter that takes an external power supply. Pair it with a a 5V source, like the Pelican PSP Power Brick, and you have a bulky, but mobile, solution.

http://www.accurite.com/CFPCAdapter.html
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The problems with this adapter are:
1. Exposed circuit
2. Not flexible so that the pcmcia card has to extend from the top of the Z, rather than being folded behind
3. Expensive.
In other words, it's fine for experimental purposes/development but not for general use.
They will do a flexible one, but the cost is > than a Z is worth

38

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / New Hentges Rom Release Candidate

« on: August 18, 2005, 06:12:05 am »

Whilst we're at it, I'm trying to debug why a PCMCIA card won't be recognised by my collie (CF->PCMCIA adapter).
Can you point me to/include some utilities to help debugging in the next release.  I think there should be a tool called "dump_cis" and "pack_cis" as well as others, but I'm a linux newbie so would appreciate some help.

Thanks.

39

OpenZaurus/Opie/Qtopia / Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

« on: August 17, 2005, 09:18:08 am »

Presumably it doesn't allow you to mount /dev/hda1 after you've inserted it?

What does 'cardctl info' show?

I can't remember off the top of my head how memory cards are recognised & handled, can someone give the name of the script which should handle them,

Cheers,


Si
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No, I can't mount the drive.
cardctl info shows

PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255

...this being the problem!

After a bit of research, it seems that there is a tool called "dump_cis", which I appear to not have in my vanilla Hentges installation.  Would this help?

40

OpenZaurus/Opie/Qtopia / Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

« on: August 16, 2005, 06:13:32 am »

Hi,
Just picked up an Argosy HD530P external pcmcia drive which I was going to use with Z and CF-> PCMCIA adapter.  The card is 16 bit and has been tested on an ancient Win98 laptop that only has 16 bit PCMCIA sockets (IBM TP 560e).
When iserted into my SL5500, OZ3.2, I get the aforementioned message pop up - this is using cardctl 3.2.3(?)
Reflashed to latest Hentges ROM (very nice work, a huge improvement), which appears to have latest pcmcia_cs build, same problem.
As I understand it, the CIS is not being read correctly.
Now, I've been programming commercially for almost a decade, so I'm quite prepared to get my hands dirty in providing as much information  as I can to solve this problem (and hopefully contribute to development efforts), but I'm a Linux/Z newbie so I'll need some pointers in how to e.g. do a dump of the card data.
Can anyone let me know what existing tools there are to do this on the Z, or provide me with some cross-compiled tools?
The next step is to install a Linux distro on the TP560 to rule out the possibility that the problem is a general one with pcmcia_cs rather than the Z specifically.

Cheers,

Arnie

41

Accessories / Can You Use Pcmcia Cards

« on: August 15, 2005, 10:31:26 am »

Tom, thanks for the response.....


Card Spec:
ʉۢCompatible with Microsoft Windows and nearly all popular laptop PCs, equipped with Type II PCMCIA compliant 32-bit CardBus interface
•Card Type:
- Extended Type II PCMCIA compliant - 32-bit CardBus PC Card Interface



I take it the cardbus problem rules this out.
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Correct, it has to be a 16 bit PCMCIA type card.

42

Off Topic forum / Winxp Explorer Search Doesn't Actually Search?

« on: July 01, 2005, 06:13:44 am »

I use TextPad for searching as well as general text editing... don't know if it's the best, but once you've cracked regular expressions it can save hours of dull editing jobs :-)

43

General Discussion / What Is The Most Reliable Rom?

« on: June 27, 2005, 07:43:04 am »

I'm stuck on OZ 3.2 on my SL5500 as I've managed to get it doing what I need, and don't have time to experiment with the ball-ache of getting the right combination of software installed.
I use it for:
1. playing MP3s (mplayer does the job)
2. Reading pdf docs (qpdf2)
Docs/mp3s are dumped onto a CF card using a PC card reader as that appears to be the fastest and least hassle way.

I would love to use it for:
1. composing emails to be fired off when I get in range of a hotspot
2. GPS/route planning in the UK.
3. VOIP/instant messaging
4. General PDA functionality.
But for one reason or another I have given up on these options (poor software, flaky network connectivity, esp. to WEP).
Maybe later versions of OZ are better, but I doubt from reading around that they are any more stable.

44

5x00 Hardware / Tv-out Hardware Hack For 5500?

« on: May 31, 2005, 10:33:20 am »

Cool, so now my Z could emulate a ZX81 computer from 1981 :-D
The geek in me wants this so badly.

45

5x00 General discussions / Zaurus Video is updated

« on: May 31, 2005, 10:31:03 am »

Thanks, the link works for me.
I hope the new version is a bit more comprehensible though. ;-)