Messages

91

General Discussion / big battery or extender?

« on: May 18, 2004, 10:57:26 am »

I  second piotr.  I have an old 5500, with 2 batteries and I\'m very happy with that solution.  You don\'t have a big bulge and the second battery is easy to pocket.

I also agree about the battery extender.  They are VERY easy to build.  Many people to it with 4AA\'s and a small diode, I prefer to use 6 batteries and a 5v2a regulater (I have to build the reg myself because all I can get in this area is 5v1a)  But that\'s easy too.  You just use two 1 amp regs in parallel.  I was told once I should put a capaceter in between the regs, but I\'ve never done that.

I believe that you should be using small value resistors on the output of each regulator, if running more than one in parallel, in order to prevent one regulator from sinking the current that the other regulator is generating (assuming the regs. output voltage is slightly different).
Of course, linear regs burn power, switch-mode is far more efficient (and is what\'s used inside the Z).

Arnie

92

General Discussion / hardware hacking - constructing a clamshell from an SL6000

« on: April 28, 2004, 05:05:10 am »

Why not consider the best keyboard in the biz, from a Psion 5?  Obviously, there would have to be some sort of protocol convertor, and the psion screen dimensions are larger (at least in width).  Maybe the psion keyboard can be connected to the SL\'s built-in keyboard matrix rather than RS-232, otherwise there would have to be access to the original keyboard.
All I\'d need to make (one of) my dreams come true is an EPOC emulator so the Psion software could be run...

93

5x00 Hardware / Attaching mobile phone batteries to Z

« on: April 27, 2004, 05:48:30 am »

Whilst looking at alternatives to creating an external battery pack for my SL5500, it occurred to me that the Z battery is basically the same as any number of 3.6v Li-ion mobile phone batteries, which can be picked up dirt cheap from the likes of eBay.

What I\'m wondering is if the charging circuit of the Z is going to be stressed by, say, attaching 3 batteries in parallel to the existing one (maybe drilling a small hole in the battery cover to allow connecton to the internal battery connector).  Any ideas?

I\'d like to sick them along the back of the Z side-by-side, should be good for 3000mAh without adding too much depth to the unit.

Arnie

94

Accessories / CHEAP USB HOST + PCMCIA CARDS!

« on: April 22, 2004, 04:56:49 am »

I couldn\'t find any european supplier that wanted less than 40 Euros

That\'s not too bad, I could live with that, but it does depend on what I could run. Could you point me in the right direction please?

I assume there will be driver issues (just as there are for non-standard CF devices), but for little money I could attach to a wired ethernet and use a modem which otherwise (as CF) cost a fair bit (in the UK at least).

I\'m a little concerened about this cardbus thing though. I\'ll have to do some digging (I\'ve never had to deal with PCMCIA/PCCARD/CARDBUS stuff before) to see whether there\'s enough stuff still available which could work with the PCMCIA adaptor.


Simon

I just searched through eBay, and the only European supplier was from Germany.  In the end, it was cheaper to win an auction from the USA, and pay $15 shipping for a $10 item :-(

I have been successful in running the EZ-GIG card, but as I said, the modem and ethernet cards did not work, even though the ethernet card was recognised.  Attaching to a 100Mbit LAN would have been nice!

AIUI, although Cardbus uses the same connector, they are electrically incompatible - remember, cardbus is PCI equivalent, and PCMCIA is ISA equivalent.  That\'s why cardbus cards cannot be plugged into a pcmcia-only laptop.

95

Accessories / CHEAP USB HOST + PCMCIA CARDS!

« on: April 21, 2004, 09:06:36 am »

I couldn\'t find any european supplier that wanted less than 40 Euros, best bet is to have a look on eBay.
The power output from the adapter is 3.3v only.
I tried 3 cards:
. A very old Psion Gold Card modem.  No card insertion noticed.
. An Intel Fast Ethernet card.  The card appeared to insert correctly, but the actrivity light on the dongle did not light up.  Maybe a driver needs configuring first?
. An Apricorn EZ GIG IDE adapter card.  This appears to work, but the 3.3v was not enough to fire up an old 2Gb IBM hard drive.  However, a 1Gb Toshiba drive worked correctly (I\'ve only copied a 40Mb file to it so far).

From this, it seems that cards that need to power some external interface might not work, but the cards themselves can talk to the Z.

96

Deals and Great Z Buys / 4gig CF microdrive for $199 US!!

« on: March 26, 2004, 06:49:03 am »

200 pounds for a mp3 player and 4 gig microdrive, sounds tempting, but I dont need a mp3 player since i got my z and 4 gig is peanuts when it comes to mass storage...  what i want is a wifi hdd
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/36534.html

Now that DOES look good!  Could leave the drive in rucksack and just use Z with WiFi card...
Presumably, with an ad-hoc network, anyone within range could share the files.  Should give the RIAA a heart attack :-)
I received the EZ-GIG PCMCIA -] IDE adapter today,the good news is that it should be easy to splice 5v power into the IDE output to feed a HD.  Just have to hope that the adapter itself can run with 3.3v.

97

Deals and Great Z Buys / 4gig CF microdrive for $199 US!!

« on: March 25, 2004, 09:26:29 am »

Why not get a CF -] PCMCIA converter and a Toshiba 5Gb Drive?  OK, it\'s a bit bigger as it folds over the back of the Z, but you get more storage for the money.

98

5x00 Hardware / USB on the 5500?

« on: March 23, 2004, 10:00:07 am »

The CF-PCMCIA was only $25,  and has a \"PPA, Inc\" label on it.  It\'s probably a generic that PPA is importing.  The URL on the package is www.ppa-usa.com.  I believe Semsons carried it at one point.  Expansys probably does,  too,  if you need a UK dealer.  It shouldn\'t be difficult to find,  though perhaps not that cheap.

Ran

Ran,
Thanks to your advice I tracked down the adapter you were talking about and found someone on eBay selling them, starting bid $9.99.  Luckily I was the only bidder, and even with $14.50 shipping it\'s still good value delivered to the UK.  Should be turning up in the next few days.

As for what to connect to it, now I have the choice of the Toshiba PCMCIA drive, which for some strange reason has just jumped in price from www.ebuyer.com (by far the cheapest supplier in the UK), or another \"bargain\" I spotted in eBay.co.uk - an Apricorn EZ-GIG PCMCIA -] IDE adapter, which appears to be supported by ide_cs (does the Z include this module?).

The only question now is can I get away with splicing 5v into the power line and hope that the I/O is 3.3v tolerent.  Anyone have any ideas?

99

Security and Networking / How to get Z online with WinXP?

« on: March 12, 2004, 06:42:35 am »

If your PC is supplied an IP address via DHCP (mine is as it is on a LAN, with my firewall doing DHCP duties), set both the PC and the Zaurus to receive IP address via DHCP.  Bridge the networks as suggested above, then you may need to bounce the Z LAN connection, or \"Repair\" it.
Via USB, I was getting a DHCP lease about 10 secs after inserting the Z.  Now I am using a WiFi connection, also bridged (Need WEP as there is no security otherwise) in an ad-hoc network, the DHCP lease is <1, it is far more solid and much faster.  Plus, I can use the keyboard whilst surfing!

100

5x00 Hardware / USB on the 5500?

« on: March 11, 2004, 09:34:16 am »

1. Microdrive - v. expensive/Mb, low capacity

How much GByte do you need?
CF microdrives are available now up to 4GByte: http://www.hgst.com/hdd/micro/4gb.htm The price per MByte seems to be lower than Flash.

-- hns

I\'d like 20Gb, enough for my music collection and off-air TV recordings, although 6Gb would be sufficient.
And, yes, money is an issue, so one of those microdrives will be out of the question.
Considering I\'ve seen a 2.5\" enclosure for £30 on clearout, and a 20Gb drive costs around £60, that would seem to be the best option for me.

101

5x00 Hardware / USB on the 5500?

« on: March 11, 2004, 05:13:48 am »

The CF-PCMCIA was only $25,  and has a \"PPA, Inc\" label on it.  It\'s probably a generic that PPA is importing.  The URL on the package is www.ppa-usa.com.  I believe Semsons carried it at one point.  Expansys probably does,  too,  if you need a UK dealer.  It shouldn\'t be difficult to find,  though perhaps not that cheap.

There\'s no way to connect power to it,  short of doing your own surgery.  It also doesn\'t give the impression of being very sturdy:  it\'s the one with a rubber sleeve containing some sort of cable or flex-circuit connecting the CF card to the PCMCIA socket.  Good for desktop experimenting,  but I\'d be nervous about using it on the go.

It\'s possible to do the sort of \"mini-host\" you\'re talking about,  but not that easy:  the standard USB architecture expects the host to do all the heavy lifting,  to help keep the cost of the peripherals down.  If you want something that supports more than a few very simple peripherals,  it\'d need enough memory and compute power to make it more expensive than the CF cards.  I doubt that there\'s enough demand to motivate someone to build one,  though.

btw,  despite Ratoc\'s website\'s claim to have the only such card in the world,  there\'s a company in the UK that offers one with fully-supported Linux drivers (albeit at a higher price).     http://www.interpocket.co.uk/

Ran

I tracked down PPA, Inc. but apparently they have no distribution in the UK.  Sourcing one shouldn\'t be too much of a problem though (international shipping will be a pain), but this leads me on to another question...
AIUI, CF/PCMCIA cards can run in 2 modes - memory mapped(?) or ATA.  If the Z supports both modes, it should be possible to attach a 2.5\" HD, otherwise the largest drive I could use would be one of those Toshiba PCMCIA units (according to the specs, these support both modes).
Does anyone know exactly what the Z (OZ 3.2) supports?

102

5x00 Hardware / USB on the 5500?

« on: March 02, 2004, 11:49:34 am »

Would it be technically possible to have a host device connected to the Zaurus that provided a host port for other USB devices, basically the reverse of those USB networking adapters that can be bought all over the place?

I am thinking about ways of attaching a hard drive to my zaurus and it seems that there are the following options:
1. Microdrive - v. expensive/Mb, low capacity
2. CF -] PCMCIA adapter + (Toshiba) PCMCIA drive.  Also expensive, probably too much current drain for the Z, no such adapter exists (cheaply).
3. CF -] PCMCIA adapter + PCMCIA -] IDE adapter.  Again, CF -] PCMCIA not available, maybe IDE adapter requires 5v which I believe Z does not support.
4. CF -] USB + USB -] IDE.  CF-]USB extremely expensive, driver support?
5. USB -] Host -] USB + USB -] IDE.  Host translator does not exist (yet)?

103

Sharp ROMs / Help :( rom update failed halfway through

« on: February 05, 2004, 10:41:41 am »

Would you mind saying what you did to get it back, for those of us who don\'t have such knowledge?

Cheers!