Build Your Own Linux Powered Pda

[stampsm]

i can work on getting a keyboard design figured out. most likely it will follow the same basic design as the c series zaurus's but with a few modifications

[Ferret-Simpson]

Ok. . .


The i300 chip is designed as a central core processor that would replace the iMx31 chip. . . NOT a good idea. (Lose at least 130mhz, plus alot of the funkay features)

A big internal flash is good, but on the meantime, let's not go overboard. I think a flash of around 256mb to 512mb would be reasonable, 512 preferrable. That gives us the option of using all our expansion as expansion, instead of just an offboard OS storage.

TWO cameras? WTH??? If we have a rotating camera on the lid, then we can rotate it 90 degrees to get a normal camera anyway (Clam open.) One high quality Cmos is cheaper than two. Also means we could use the trackball as a "Take Photo" button.

Also, on the note of the trackball in the D-pad. .  Great idea! But changing modes? If you've got your thumb on it it isn't going to move much. . . But anyway, whatever. If the ball is illuminated, instead of showing trackball mode, why not use it as the power indicator?

When I was looking at the thumbpad idea, my case design had it on the back of the screen panel, or on the front of the screen panel, next to the display, like the new Asus RF1 tablet.

And silver > gold.

Aluminium is a much easier to manufacture (and likely cheaper) case material than Carbon fibre. And what you talkin' about fool? Curved design removes space for connectors and internal circuitry. Besides, you've got a black PDA with a camera, huge screen, Phone, Wifi, Bluetooth, USB, 2 SD cards, Compact Flash, TRACKBALL!

Who the frakk isn't going to notice it?

Also i vote blue LED's. Sky blue. ^^

Freescale is good, I've been a motorola fan since my first amiga. (Now have four, and two palms.) But that Phone chip isn't. It's a replacement processor, not a coprocessor, and is designed for simple mobile phones.

WE ARE GEEKS! LOW PROCESSING SPEEDS ARE BELOW US! |nosebleed|

Internal Microdrive is a big drain on power. .  . If it can be done, fit the socket, But with 20GB MicroDrives due next year. .  What's the point? Anyway, I'll have a look at sketching out a new case design at some point, if Stamp wants to do that keyboard plan?

And yes, I want "Windows" Keys. XP Okay, Okay, I'm kidding I promise! But Ctrl and Alt are a MUST! O.O

[stampsm]

found a vga lcd screen

http://www.gethightech.com/Merchant2/merch...egory_Code=DELL

it's the same screen used on the x50v dell pda

[stampsm]

i just did a scale drawing of the c3000 keyboard last night and i think it would be no issue to follow the same format and add a few of the "forgotten" keys. i originally wanted to make the keyboad amidextrous but i realized that if i put the dirrectional pad in the middle it would be to hard to reach with thumbs it seems.

[Ferret-Simpson]

Hey, good thinking! I never thought to use a rep-part screen. Can we get a datasheet on this? No good in having a screen if we can't interface to it after all. . .

But good work. ^^

Also, while I was on SF, I noticed these. . .

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=66_68

Instead of a replacement for the iMx31, a Quad band version of those modules is what we're looking for.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_i...products_id=547

This has GPRS class 10 too. . . .

That's functional in UK, USA and Australia. . . No networks still use 800 so they?

Ah well. . . It's good to have that as a backup plan. XD

[Ferret-Simpson]

Basic layout of CXXXX works, I think. . .

[stampsm]

it seems like lcd modules are really hard to find in the 3.7 inch size. where do pda manufactures get them from? do they have them custom built?

[stampsm]

ebay to the rescue

it's only 320x240, but......

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sharp-3-5-TFT-LCD-Modu...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Tom61]

Before deciding on a microtrackball, be sure to try one out. They're a far different experience than their larger cousins, IMO. My personal preforence is trackpoints or other analog pointing sticks in that size.

[stampsm]

Before deciding on a microtrackball, be sure to try one out. They're a far different experience than their larger cousins, IMO. My personal preforence is trackpoints or other analog pointing sticks in that size.
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i may buy one to try out in a few days unless Da_Blitz wants to try it out himself.

[stampsm]

i was looking at memory and if we go for 128MB four of these chips, K4H560838D, cost about 44 dollars to get 128MB.

[Tom61]

How about this kind of setup for a motherboard; Have everything that isn't broken out (processor, RAM, Wifi, NAND, etc.) on one card, and then have one or two large headers with connections for everything else (screen, camera, USB, card slots, battery, etc.). I was thinking along the lines of a 2mm pitch 44pin IDC connector (aka laptop IDE connector) mounted with through holes (not SMT mount), as they are easy to get ahold of, small, and versital.  

For your 'development blades' you could put on a right angle IDC on the boards.

For the PDA, since you're going two-board anyway, you could have an female IDC soldered facing down on one board, and a mating male IDC on the other and just sandwich them together. This is common on arcade boards, so if you're having trouble visuallising this, I can take pics if you want.

For people like me, who like the idea of retrofitting existing handhelds (one of these in a Tapwave Zodiac would make a killer games platform!) and other such things, just use an easy to source laptop IDE cable hand soldered to what needs to be broken out.

I've not counted all the pins needed, but I'm guessing two 44-pin 2mm pitch IDCs would be enough. One for the intergrated IDE controller, and the other for dual SD, CF(if it's too close to fit all, maybe put this on another IDC?), battery, screen, touch, dual USB host, USB client, sound in and out, and a few GPIOs.

If the first boards are setup like this, and have power management (i.e. able to run off and charge batteries), I'd be interested in one.

[stampsm]

well if you are looking at making money from the boards i have seen dev boards for the i.mx31 run in the 2k USD range. if you could put one together for sub 1k USD and possibly close to 500 USD range it would be something you could sell.

[stampsm]

well it turns out that the i.mx31 supports "mobile DDR"
micron is a suplier for that memory
http://www.micron.com/products/mobiledram/ddrsdram/partlist

two of these chips MT46H32M16LFCK-75 would give you 128MB of ddr memory and arrow prices them at a few cents under 20 USD each chip. so 40 dollars for 128MB or 80 dollars for 256MB. (remind self to check how many memory chips the i.mx31 processor supports )

the i.mx31 chip also has a built in NAND memory controller (256MB) NAND chip MT29F2G08AACWP that costs about 30-35 USD from arrow. it has the same pinout as the 4Gb (67 USD) and 8Gb(110 USD) chips so it has drop in capatability for 512MB and 1GB NAND if you want that

[Da_Blitz]

iMX3 supports 256MB over 4 chips (64MB per chip select)

The NAND is handy, i was aware of the foct of bieng able to switch them, however did you know that if you use it in 8 bit mode then it gets its own bus, if you use 16Bit mode it shares pins with main mem, personally i would rather RAM performance over flash. anyway its pin compatible so just buy as much as you want, me personally i would get as much as i can but its not really high on my list if i can use other storage

for the camera no ones really said much about it so i assume its 2Mpixel  however i always think of them as bieng very tall for the optics and i dont really care about it that much i would rather keep stuff out of the screen to reduce cabling, thats also why i prefer the fingerprint reader under thu spacebar (swipe bar style not a full thumb one)

The i300 is exactly what you said and i threw it out ther as an example because they talk about Everything you need to implemnt gsm, but i think we will have to go to another chip manufocterer for phone functionality, there is no way i will replace the iMX3 at this point in time without a good reason, one problem i do have with the iMX3 is the 800x600 max for video out, but thats probelly fine for what i am using it for initally and i can just make a backpack latter if i need to

money wise i would just like to cover my costs plus a bit extra for futre R&D, those dev blades are exactly how you pictured them in my mind but i thoght "pci cards sticking out of a MOBO" was easier to imagine

the board sandwich layout with the headers sounds about right except i was hoping to have the chips on the 2 boards back to back and i cant remeber how thick the connector you want is off the top of my head (or how high SMT chips are)

basically i get the blades to test if my general assumptions about how to hook things up are right (as well as help porting and compiling) then i send off for the pda to be built (hopefully only once as while i do have cash to build the prototypes i dont have an unlimited acount, mabey get red hat as a sponser )

 Docking station connector wise i was thinking somthing small and high density (whiich IDC is not), the connector an the bottom of most PDA,s is 20-32 Pin and im thinking most backpacks arent going to need acsess to the mem bus but perhaps the CF slot and USB, i2c, serial

the amount of boards in the final design depends on the hight of the battery, i intend to make the board stack as tall as the battrey used (in the cas of a Z battery) or as thick as the batt + 1 board (in the case af a mobile phone battery)

id love to get a trackball and might in a couple of weeks as i said i think they sound great might program a chip to do trackball to ps2 and plug it into my comp, id love to try quake with that thing, or stratagy on the Z with the trackball for map nav and the touchscreen for selection

by the way anyone got the miltech manufacturing Documents for electronic components, i heard its an intresting read and want to get a copy

the keyboard will be a point of contention as i use a dvorak layout and like having shortcut keys to speed things up, i peronlaly think there are a couple of small things that can be done with the layout of the Z's keyboard to make it better as well as backlit

for the curved case i have my own reasons, mainly for reception and the fact it looks good but i wouldnt mind black aluminium if we can find a place for the antennas