Messages

31

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: December 08, 2006, 02:38:04 am »

a range of products actually sounds like a much better idea. if you had lets say for instance 6 different products designed to work seamlessly together and the user can pick out of them what they needed for thier particular solution it would work out good.

a quick solution for some people might for example be the basic main unit, a cell phone module(cell phone module interfaced through the usb expansion or bluetooth anyone? ) the control watch(add time plus bluetooth connectivityfor caller id on it), and a standard bluetooth headset.
plus you have the bluetooth controller sitting in the other pocket when you have to sit down for some serious work.

32

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: December 08, 2006, 02:23:02 am »

yep i am of the design mind that if you do not use the pin's/ports please at least have some sort of connector/pads on the board so hackers can have thier fun.

i am starting to get some good ideas for a small bluetooth mouse with that small trackball i posted about 2 small buttons and possibly an accelerometer for tilt detection built in. power it off a small lithium rechargable battery that charges by plugging into a usb port and you do not have to worry about building it into the main design.

you could design the whole mouse so you could control it with just one hand if you wanted to and hold the pocket penguin with the other hand.
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here is a quick rough (bout 3 minutes worth of time) 3d model of what i was thinking for a mouse.

[a href=\"http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?image=renderedimagemousedesigpe3.jpg][img]http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/9720/renderedimagemousedesigpe3.th.jpg\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /][/url]

33

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: December 07, 2006, 03:29:37 am »

yep i am of the design mind that if you do not use the pin's/ports please at least have some sort of connector/pads on the board so hackers can have thier fun.

i am starting to get some good ideas for a small bluetooth mouse with that small trackball i posted about 2 small buttons and possibly an accelerometer for tilt detection built in. power it off a small lithium rechargable battery that charges by plugging into a usb port and you do not have to worry about building it into the main design.

you could design the whole mouse so you could control it with just one hand if you wanted to and hold the pocket penguin with the other hand.

34

PocketPenguin / Intel X86-based Development

« on: December 07, 2006, 02:48:37 am »

- I have to toss out no to x86, but having done that I have to also admit it's a knee-jerk reaction to a 25 year old CPU design, and the serious backwards compatibility problems it caused over the years.  Prolly all moot at this point.
- The FreeScale that was going to be used does look like a nice chip, but I haven't read specs on 'the competition' to know how it stacks up.  I've pretty much assumed Da_Blitz and Ferret-Simpson have that covered.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=148317\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

x86 has so much legacy backwards support built in that it is a pain to work with. the newer high end arm chips have almost the same ability and power as the x86 architecture without a bunch of extra obsolete 20 year old technology tossed in. honestly  if it was not for needing backwards compatability for alot of stuff they should just toss out the current stuff and start from scratch or even use a really tweeked out ARM architecture.

35

PocketPenguin / Alternatives

« on: December 07, 2006, 02:37:28 am »

- I think software will be a real issue for this platform.  It's one thing to hack up a bootable command line, it's another entirely to write suites of apps from PIM to wardriving, not to mention just getting X to run stably.
- I've been tossing about the idea of giving the OS a go myself, but therre are numerous impediments:

1. I just bought a house, and have a monstrous list of things to do for it.  I probably have over 500 man-hours to do.  The joys of home ownership.

2. At least through the end of Feb I'm already overcommitted.

3. While I've done software for 20 years and done some fairly complex low-level coding in both C and C++, I've never ported an operating system.

4. The box I'd use for this effort isn't even plugged in yet ... see 1 above.

- For these reasons and others I'm sure I've missed, I haven't mentioned coding.

Oops!
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well the good news is there is not alot of stuff to port since most of it is pretty much standard. you can just take an existing rom like pdaxrom and do a few tweeks and add missing drivers and you are ready to go. we may have to roll a few custom apps for different things but that is not big deal.

the boot loader will have to be custom made if we want to add advanced features that the processor has such as signed kernels support based on a unique serial number for each processor. if some one steals your pda/phone you can have it password protected to the point that only the password will allow it to turn it on and no amount of hacking/flashing would be able to get around it(except replacing the BGA processor with a new one) unless the manufacture uses a master unlock(possibly unique to each pda's serial number).

manual on security features
[a href=\"http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/white_paper/IMX31SECURITYWP.pdf]http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/w...1SECURITYWP.pdf[/url]

i have not problem locking down a phone/pda i have like this so that if some F*** tard steals it that it is only a paper weight to them no matter what they do.(you can make this so that the only way around this is with the master password for the Secure JTAG Controller)

of couse these features can be used to DRM a system all to hell, but if we are running linux we got open source software for basically everything, so who cares if some idiot programmer decides to lock down his media player software (for example). and trust me there is nothing i enjoy more in this world then finding flaws in security systems. you batter be a damn good programmer cause if there is a will there is a way.

you can also roll another version without all the security features so that you have a completely open system. all you would do different if initially program the system with the unlocked version of the software.

with this processor you can lock down a system so much you make m$ proud(re: their paranoia with thier gaming system lines) or make it a hackers heaven, its all your choice.

36

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: December 07, 2006, 02:01:24 am »

you could do what motorola does with some of thier phones. they have the usb port and the headphone as the same jack so save room. the only issue is if you want to use headphones you are taking up one of the usb ports, but if we got 2 usb ports this would not be an issue much. plus the headphone jack that conventional audio cords use takes up alot more cm^3 than a mini usb connector does so internally it will comsume less space. you can always get adapters to use regular headphones if you want also. another good part is the usb/audio connector is much thinner so you can put the audio plug in the same part as the screen so you can save the naturally thicker part of the pda for components that have to have more thickness.

37

General Discussion / Windows Embedded 6

« on: November 10, 2006, 05:46:20 pm »

they seem very used to throwing thier wiegh around and making it stick, i really wonder where this novel deal is going and where novel will be compared to redhat

personally i dont like ethire distro, novel seems like cheap candy with no real meat to the distro and redhat is redhat (basically i have nothing )

it does seem to set a precedent but i wonder how this will play out

well i guess the only thing i have left too do is pool my money, buy an island, get a huge amount of net bandwidth, declare myself a country, refuse IP patents to anyone "visiting" the islad, wether virtually or phisically
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145810\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

nice idea can we call the country penguin?

38

PocketPenguin / Body Design

« on: November 10, 2006, 06:13:00 am »

i think i should just drop the case for now and get back to building, must reinstall windows as the #$@^!$%*&^( thing expired on me so i give myself 30days to get the design working

let you guys decide on the case
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=145956\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

was it the os or the software you were using that expired? if it was the software with a trial period here is a tip. get the free vmware player with a windows xp os image and install on there so you can have a copy that you just reuse the fresh demo every time you have the trial software expire.  
it is so nice of vmware to give away a free version of the player now. you can even create your own images with free/opensource software that vmware player can understand, so you don't have to buy the full version of vm ware if you want to create you own images.

39

PocketPenguin / Hardware

« on: November 04, 2006, 02:23:44 am »

i am trying to get ahold of an i.mx21 devkit hopefully it stays i my price range. the i.mx21 is close enough to the i.mx31 that you can start developing software for it until we get working i.mx31 boards.

40

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: November 03, 2006, 07:14:48 am »

actually thats the thing i find funny, i say move the sound card around in the device and you all see at as not having a sound card in the device

by device i mean the keyboard/battery and cpu combo, i take it that you mean the cpu board as "the device"

it simmilar to pci slots, i am saying "make it a plugin card" over usb. what if there were modules in the keyboard that once the keyboard has been opened could be slotted in, you want better sound? then slap in a sound card and remove the blank out plate on the edge of the case same for a usb hub if you want more ports, just remove the blankout plate and insert a USB hub module

give it an edge connector with power, USB, i2c and perhaps another option or two and it wouldnt be to hard to make a PDA that has the IO you want.

at a minimum i think that bluetooth would be on the cpu card (screen) and perhaps go to wifi on USB in the keyboard and make it an option? the advantage is you can have diffrent types of sound cards or multiple ones and linux will work with them.

i hate to think what it would do to the thickness of the device but ill work that out once i have found a screen (5" seems to be the way to go they are easier to get a hold of)
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if you are looking for a screen one i was looking at before seems to have made it's way to distributors now

[a href=\"https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=19805&st=60#]https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=19805&st=60#[/url]

i looked a week or so ago and pricing for 100 quantity from a distributor runs about 128 USD for the 3.7 inch one and the 4" one i have not seen any prices on it but i would expect it to be just slightly more.  if you go for a 5" screen it may cause isues with size. for most pda's there is problem if it can't fit in a pocket while it has a case on it you don't want to carry it around. the zaurus are already bigger than alot of other pda's with the sl-600 being i think 4" and the c series 3.7 inch displays. at 5" it may fail the "fits in pocket" test at that point you might as well get a small laptop that has more power if you have to carry it in a bag/backpack anyway

41

For Sale / Wanted / Sold! Sl-c3200 W/ Accessories In Canada

« on: November 03, 2006, 06:39:33 am »

if it is not taken i am interested.


missing on this for a day or two teaches me to not miss trolling these boards for more then half a day.

42

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: October 25, 2006, 03:01:25 am »

4 inch screen sounds good. sharp makes one LS040V7DD01 that is 4" 640x480 or 320x240(switchable with a line into the lcd so you can have a switch over to 320x240 for older software compatability). i could not fid any pricing on this, but sharp make a 3.7" model that is the exact same but just smaller. LS037V7DW01 i saw these run at 128 USD at 100 qualtity purchasing from a distributor.

are those batteries Li-polymer or LI-ion batteries?

43

PocketPenguin / Alternative Design For The Ppz

« on: October 23, 2006, 05:02:50 am »

Wasn't there a pocket pc with a detachable keyboard available over in Europe a few years ago?  I'll have to go a'googleing.

Yep,  Samsung had one.

Linky thingy.
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technically that would be considered a tablet not a pda.  
 the way i see if once we get the board designed it would not be to much effort to have the same guts with more than once possible formfactor for the body designed where all you have to do it stuff the main board into a different case. or use the same scematics and just do two different routings of the pcb for different shaped cases. though it would raise the cost since the other cases would be built in a lower volume. i think what we need to focus on now is getting a board figured out that has what we want built in and making sure it can fit in a certain amount of cm^3 and then worry about the details of how the thing open, keyboard, color, what the case should be made out of, ect. the case may be one thing we need to get outside help on since injection molding for plastic is not easy to do at home.    and we need people with the right equipment/friends/experience to get cases made. i would guess the best way would be to have something working to show a company and get them to foot the big bill.
now if anyone here has experience designing/building casing, ect please let us know how we should go about it and what to expect since i and alot of us here would be at a total loss on how to proceed.  

it is 2am here so i may be rambling...... ohhh well time to sleep

44

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Openoffice On Pdaxrom

« on: October 23, 2006, 04:24:00 am »

this an article about the original porting of open office to the arm processor

http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/peter_naulls.html

it said it took 3 days on a 600 mhz arm board to compile it.

45

PocketPenguin / Hardware

« on: October 22, 2006, 08:46:53 pm »

the good thing is sparkfun is good for the hobbiest/prototyping, since they will sell in single quantities. they are actually cheaper to buy from in lower quantities since the manufacture sells that chipfor 100 usd for single quantities. if you buy in bulk though you would go to the manufacture and get the chips for about 15-19 USD each. if would be cheaper to get the raw chips and put your own together, but i can't seem to find much info on how you would go about it. if we had to write our own firmware or have to pay extra fees to use one that someone else wrote that would be even more work to do. what we need is someone with experience is stuff like this to help us figure it out. next time i go to my college class i might have to see if they have any books on the low end aspects of bluetooth in the library. they do got some like this on GSM i might have to pick up anyway.