Author Topic: Build Your Own Linux Powered Pda  (Read 172804 times)

speculatrix

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« Reply #75 on: June 19, 2006, 06:08:08 pm »
do you mind if I add a few comments to your geek-fest?

if possible, make everything modular to take advantage of commodity items... e.g. SD memory cards are falling in price and gaining in capacity, USB bluetooth dongles have allowed easy upgrade from bluetooth 1.0 to 2.0.

However, this generally increases size (connector), decreases reliability (connector) and increases power (interface/glue electronics).

So, with that proviso, I'll stick my neck out...

1) two SD slots - make sure they're full-speed; one will be the system disk, the other for removable storage. three would be better!

2) minimal flash memory - LOADS of ram (384 or 512M), a small boot rom and boot the device from an SD card. It's also much easier for people wanting multi-boot devices to switch or for developers to test their kernel/system builds. Even better, use a DIMM socket for RAM - benefit from commodity prices.

3) two CF card slots, or one CF + one PCMCIA.

NOTE! a PCMCIA interface doesn't have to be big - as long as you don't mind the card sticking out! make the slot *just* deep enough for a CF card with adaptor. These card slots can be used for wifi, gps, ethernet, GPRS or 3G card, high performance audio adaptor

this also opens up pcmcia sata adaptors and other interesting things! It also alleviated the need for a full backpack system?

4) mobile phones vary too much world-wide and suck too much current - rely on bluetooth link or a CF adaptor. as things move to 3G or 4G/Wimax/wibro, a gsm adaptor will become as useless as IRDA.

5) built-in sound: mono speaker, microphone for voip or dictation.

6) audio connex: stereo headphone (combined with optical out), stereo line-in (with combo optical in)... think: portable recording studio, or even oscilloscope.

7) wireless: built-in bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP for stereo headphones!
wifi: built-in or module? I'd say rely on CF adaptor or usb, cheap, removable, offers choice of 11a/b/g/n without worrying about becoming a legacy interface like wifi.

8) USB: at least two USB2.0 full-speed host and one client (so can be used as slave for usb networking or mass storage). Consider also firewire as this allows connections to video devices as well as mass storage.

9) serial: make a small module which can be for RS232, IRDA and JTAG, or even another bluetooth!

10a) display. well, I think in a sense this is the easiest choice, and provided you pick the right driver chip and interface, means you can go for a range of devices with QVGA, VGA and higher (such as the Lifebook P7120). Must be daylight readable.

The key here is to allow video acceleration without sucking power, so the video accelerator has got to be capable of operating in a very low power mode.

You could also not have an LCD display but instead the new M1 connector and a head-up display!
http://www.presentersuniversity.com/visuals_visuals_PDA.php


10b) touchscreen... yes please.

11a) keyboard. yes please.  illuminated please!

11b) trackball? maybe?

12) other peripherals:
12a) accelerometer - do microdrives have this built-in?
12b) camera?
12c) ethernet?
12d) math co-pro/ssl accelerator/dsp
12e) I/O expander module for industrial control (A/D, D/A, parallel I/O using I2C), monitoring and measurement.
12f) printer/floppy drive/geiger counter/microwave oven (just checking if you read this far :-)

13) backup-battery - use a small supercapacitor, just so you can switch batteries without losing work. this was a bug-bear with my 860.  Also need a good battery control circuit (like Sony's infolithium), with good input protection so you can charge it from almost any power source!

well, that's my dreaming over with! wake me up when I can buy one.

actually, seriously, I think it's perfectly doable... the hardest part of all? Making it PDA sized.

The flybook is an example of what can be achieved, but then it's GBP1500 or over US$2500! I often ponder that it's too big for a PDA, too small to be a laptop (and the Zaurus would be a better PDA, and the Lifebook 7120 would be a better laptop).
Gemini 4G/Wi-Fi owner, formerly zaurus C3100 and 860 owner; also owner of an HTC Doubleshot, a Zaurus-like phone.

stampsm

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« Reply #76 on: June 19, 2006, 08:05:34 pm »
Quote from: speculatrix,Jun 19 2006, 02:08 PM
do you mind if I add a few comments to your geek-fest?
sure    



Quote
if possible, make everything modular to take advantage of commodity items... e.g. SD memory cards are falling in price and gaining in capacity, USB bluetooth dongles have allowed easy upgrade from bluetooth 1.0 to 2.0.

However, this generally increases size (connector), decreases reliability (connector) and increases power (interface/glue electronics).

So, with that provison, I'll stick my neck out...
modular is good but it has a drawback of size (big consern for a PDA), extra power draw(very big consern for a pda), external connections (the same thing will happen that happened to my wireless card. you keep in plugged in just once and you put the pda in your pocket and sit down..... snap goes the card )  


Quote
1) two SD slots - make sure they're full-speed; one will be the system disk, the other for removable storage. three would be better!
planned two sd cards since they are small in size and the processor has two ports for them already.


Quote
2) minimal flash memory - LOADS of ram (384 or 512M), a small boot rom and boot the device from an SD card. It's also much easier for people wanting multi-boot devices to switch or for developers to test their kernel/system builds. Even better, use a DIMM socket for RAM - benefit from commodity prices.
i agree on the use external memory idea, but ther is a problem. most NAND chip manufacturers have stopped or slowed making chips under 128MB in size.  RAM IS GOOD that being said 256MB is about the most i think we can stuff into this as it supports 4 chips max (someone verify this) and the mobile DDR chips come in 512Mb (64MB) max that i have seen. hence we can only get 256MB max. socketed chips are bad for stuff like this since they are very large in comparison


Quote
3) two CF card slots, or one CF + one PCMCIA.



NOTE! a PCMCIA interface doesn't have to be big - as long as you don't mind the card sticking out! make the slot *just* deep enough for a CF card with adaptor. These card slots can be used for wifi, gps, ethernet, GPRS or 3G card, high performance audio adaptor

this also opens up pcmcia sata adaptors and other interesting things! It also alleviated the need for a full backpack system?
the processor supports 1 ata/pcmcia slot and 1 CF slot. so the you can have one CF slot and possible another CF slot and have on the bottom a expansion port for the full pcmcia port (pcmcia backpack?) that that disconnects the second CF and takes over (must see if this is possible)



Quote
4) mobile phones vary too much world-wide and suck too much current - rely on bluetooth link or a CF adaptor. as things move to 3G or 4G/Wimax/wibro, a gsm adaptor will become as useless as IRDA.
i slightly agree since the clamshell design is not very good for a phone and if you need mobile data connectivity...bluetooth to the resue... , but i have not had enough experience designing boards so da-blitz would be the final decision maker on this. note: if you did add a phone to this the cost would go up and it would make it a bluetooth only device most likely.


Quote
5) built-in sound: mono speaker, microphone for voip or dictation.
of couse speakers are a must (mp3     ) and a microphone would be also. they would take up very little space and exery PDA have them now days



Quote
6) audio connex: stereo headphone (combined with optical out), stereo line-in (with combo optical in)... think: portable recording studio, or even oscilloscope.
stereo headphones would be a must. microphone in is one of those nice but not a pass or fail feature. you could add an oscilloscope but is it really practical on a pda??????



Quote
7) wireless: built-in bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP for stereo headphones!
wifi: built-in or module? I'd say rely on CF adaptor or usb, cheap, removable, offers choice of 11a/b/g/n without worrying about becoming a legacy interface like wifi.
i dont see bluetooth changing much in the future while maintaining it's stand on low power short range use, so integrating bluetooth should be no issue. a bluetooth chip capable of stereo audio is something that is a very good thing to work for. as for the 11g access i would see it staying around for a while with the large market it has already in infastructure. plus if something new came out in 3-5 years you could add it with the CF slot.



Quote
8) USB: at least two USB2.0 full-speed host and one client (so can be used as slave for usb networking or mass storage). Consider also firewire as this allows connections to video devices as well as mass storage.
well the processor has 1 OTG USB (host and slave) and two host USB. the OTG would be external for sure, but the two just plain USB would most likely be used for internal connections such as USB and 11g. we could add doccumented contact points though so hardware hackers could have fun.  



Quote
9) serial: make a small module which can be for RS232, IRDA and JTAG, or even another bluetooth!
serial is a must especially for debugging. i think the processor supports 5?? serial ports total (though some may be multiplexed) , so 1 serial external plus possibly a few with contact points on the board for hardware hackers  




Quote
10a) display. well, I think in a sense this is the easiest choice, and provided you pick the right driver chip and interface, means you can go for a range of devices with QVGA, VGA and higher (such as the Lifebook P7120). Must be daylight readable.

The key here is to allow video acceleration without sucking power, so the video accelerator has got to be capable of operating in a very low power mode.

You could also not have an LCD display but instead the new M1 connector and a head-up display!
http://www.presentersuniversity.com/visuals_visuals_PDA.php
VGA display is a definate goal. for size we are most likely looking at 3.5 up to max of 4 inches. i found two displays at 640x480. one 3.7 inch and another the same but it was a 4 inch model.(they have the same interface i think so you can design off of that and when we start doing the case design we can plug in the most appropriate display) some people were looking into an external display port of some sort but we will have to make sure that it is feasible. head-up display??? if you have that much money can i have some.  





Quote
10b) touchscreen... yes please.
yes and built into the lcd i was looking at.



Quote
11a) keyboard. yes please. illuminated please!
keyboad yes    think clamshell zaurus design. illuminated hmmmm with some of the slim led's i have seen it is a definate possibilty. even if we could not put backlighting for the keyboard we could put a few led's on the display part so the could light up the keyboard.



Quote
11b) trackball? maybe?
very small in size so it wont take up to much room. plus it is a unique feature i could see other pda's adopting in the future




Quote
12) other peripherals:
12a) accelerometer - do microdrives have this built-in?
12b) camera?
12c) ethernet?
12d) math co-pro/ssl accelerator/dsp
12e) I/O expander module for industrial control (A/D, D/A, parallel I/O using I2C), monitoring and measurement.
12f) printer/floppy drive/geiger counter/microwave oven (just checking if you read this far :-)
a) nice feature and takes very little space maybe 8x8 mm if pc board space. we could add contact points with no issue and then decide latter if we want to populate in. this also give hardware hackers more fun.  
  camera nice since there is hardware built in to the processor to help this, but i have been trying to figure out where you would put it to be usable.
 c)ethernet possible but wired connections are being superceeded by wireless and those few who need ethernet could buy a CF ethernet card
 d)the processor has a built in 3d graphics chip plus floating point math, so i dont see this as much needed
 e)io expander... well if we add a docking like port with the pcmcia line that really opens it up since it could include data lines to allow custom hardware for this and software to be added.
 f)
printer, use USB(drivers needed) irda(drivers needed) bluetooth(drivers needed) 11g(drivers needed). basically we need drivers so existing USB drivers in linux are the most likely to be usable
floppy, use USB (drivers needed)
other stuff......well good luck stuffing that in  





Quote
13) backup-battery - use a small supercapacitor, just so you can switch batteries without losing work. this was a bug-bear with my 860. Also need a good battery control circuit (like Sony's infolithium), with good input protection so you can charge it from almost any power source!
good idea using a supercap, or better yet use a 2032 battery or some other Li watch battery so you could "sleep" the pda and use it to keep ramother stuff powered while you change batteries.




Quote
well, that's my dreaming over with! wake me up when I can buy one.




actually, seriously, I think it's perfectly doable... the hardest part of all? Making it PDA sized.




The flybook is an example of what can be achieved, but then it's GBP1500 or over US$2500! I often ponder that it's too big for a PDA, too small to be a laptop (and the Zaurus would be a better PDA, and the Lifebook 7120 would be a better laptop).

the goal is to have hardware cost about c3000 range or less but give more


ok i am done for now  
« Last Edit: June 19, 2006, 08:07:49 pm by stampsm »
SL-5600 pxa250
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stampsm

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« Reply #77 on: June 19, 2006, 08:08:49 pm »
i am having trouble getting these quote thingies to work right
SL-5600 pxa250
256 mb lexar sd
netgear cf 802.11b card

iignotus

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« Reply #78 on: June 19, 2006, 08:09:08 pm »
Quote
Quote
Do we have any semblance of a schematic yet? With the number of features this thing is supposed to have, it sounds like it's going to be huge like Xbox.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131884\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]


actually most of the chips are surface mount so they are quite small. the processor itself is close to the size of a postage stamp (14mm x 14mm)
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131888\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Schematic probably wasn't the right word. I'm talking more along the line of things like the D-Pad, Trackball, 3 Card Slots, 2 Cameras, Full Keypad, Fingerprint Reader, Speakers, 2 USB Ports, etc.; almost all of those things have to be of a decent size of they're not even of any use. I'm not worried much at all about SMCs because most of the internals can be handled SoC-style, I'd imagine.

But it sounds like you guys want to build a ultraportable laptop and not a PDA. If I can see some good drawings, I'd be much less concerned.

stampsm

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« Reply #79 on: June 19, 2006, 08:56:53 pm »
Quote
Quote
Quote
Do we have any semblance of a schematic yet? With the number of features this thing is supposed to have, it sounds like it's going to be huge like Xbox.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131884\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]


actually most of the chips are surface mount so they are quite small. the processor itself is close to the size of a postage stamp (14mm x 14mm)
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131888\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
Schematic probably wasn't the right word. I'm talking more along the line of things like the D-Pad, Trackball, 3 Card Slots, 2 Cameras, Full Keypad, Fingerprint Reader, Speakers, 2 USB Ports, etc.; almost all of those things have to be of a decent size of they're not even of any use. I'm not worried much at all about SMCs because most of the internals can be handled SoC-style, I'd imagine.

But it sounds like you guys want to build a ultraportable laptop and not a PDA. If I can see some good drawings, I'd be much less concerned.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131909\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

for the basic shape think zaurus c series
well for the CF one on each side(left and right) (one external one internal same as c3XX series or if we could manage it have both external).  sd slots are small so we could stack two of the on top of each other in the front of the pda, or possible have one regular sd slot and one transflash if we run into space concerns since they are the same connections just smaller. camera only 1 and you would most likely put it on the top with the display since it would work good there and you would have space availible. on keyboard note it would not be a full size it would be like the cxxx series with possibly a few buttons added/moved around. for fingerprint reader they are about 1cm^2 and surface mount and most of the work is done by the processor which will consume about 20-100 mhz of power depending how fast you want to compute it(i talked to an engineer who designed fingerprint readers at a comdex a few years ago). they also make a slide type that takes up less room but you don't just put your finger on it you slide it across it. speaker and mic are small and can take as little as about 1 cm^3 combines i estimate. for USB we would use the small OTG connector most likely and possibly 1 full size if we dont use the port internally.
SL-5600 pxa250
256 mb lexar sd
netgear cf 802.11b card

danboid

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« Reply #80 on: June 19, 2006, 10:05:35 pm »
Glad to see my separate trackball + cursor keys/d-pad idea went down so well!

With all these ports and features that are planned as default I too am very concerned about its size, weight and its battery life. I too would prefer something approx the size and shape of the Zaurus c models but I wouldn't mind if it got just a tad bigger- no bigger than the Psion 5 though (so we could maybe 'be inspired' by its keyboard  ). I'd just like to repeat one of those points, propose a mantra for this whole project even. Please-

CONCENTRATE ON GOOD BATTERY LIFE!!!

I'm sure 99% of the forum will understand the caps.

I'm yet to discover if my C3000 is capable of running audacity well- pdaxrom was very unstable for me and OZ still lacks a few big features so I'm stuck with Cacko still. However, I believe OZ will be a great OS by the time the Pocket Penguin is complete. True, we will probably have to wait for a few drivers again but I have no doubt that this thing could easily be used for multitrack recording and music synthesis/sequencing on a small scale. It would be much more suitable than the C3000 because it would have a dedicated (and stereo) input, more RAM and USB2 for more ports and that all-important hi-speed external DVD burner! Yum!  

OESF is surely the most exciting forum on the web for computing enthusiasts?

EDIT

Obviously this CPU will be much better than the pxa270 at floating point- but how will it compare at integer calcs with a 624Mhz 270? Would our cxxxx's still be better at something?
« Last Edit: June 19, 2006, 10:18:17 pm by danboid »
Zaurus SL-C3000 w/ MD swapped for a Kingston 32GB Ultimate 266X CF running ALARM
Banana Pi running ALARM on a WD Scorpio SATA II HD
System76 Gazelle Pro i7 laptop w/ SAMSUNG 840 EVO SSD running Arch x64

How to install Arch on your C3x00 Zaurus https://github.com/danboid/ZALARM-install

Lance

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« Reply #81 on: June 19, 2006, 11:59:46 pm »
How about a IR LED that are used by standard consumer electronic remote controls.

Lance
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desertrat

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« Reply #82 on: June 20, 2006, 05:11:13 am »
Quote
CONCENTRATE ON GOOD BATTERY LIFE!!!
Ditto. It's very interesting to read about the diverse "gadgets" that people here want on their ideal PDA. But my number one concern is the battery life. It's all very well having the coolest PDA around, but if it cannot operate for more than a few minutes without being tethered to the mains then it's not a very practical PDA. The battery life should be at least on par with the current Zs (ie 6-8 hours in the case of C3100). But if the battery can be hot swappable then probably 3-4 hours could be acceptable.

Making the charging circuitry more flexible would also be a huge bonus. It's quite worrying to hear tales of fried Zauruses when given slightly higher than 5 volts. There are devices available which apparently charges mobiles using a wind-up clockwork mechanism (similar to the "one-laptop-per-child" laptop) and it would be neat if these could be used on the PocketPenguin (TM pending).

As for the case I may be able to contribute. I'm based in HK and have easy access to south China's manufacturing facilities and thus could obtain quotes and prices. However as this is not an area I'm familiar with (my past experience in manufacturing metal items only includes buckles and metal plaques) and so would need as much info as possible from someone more knowledgeable so I/we won't get ripped off

-- cheers
SL-C3100 / Ambicon WL1100C-CF / pdaXrom 1.1.0beta3 / IceWM

speculatrix

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« Reply #83 on: June 20, 2006, 06:07:51 am »
Quote from: stampsm,Jun 20 2006, 01:05 AM
Quote
if possible, make everything modular to take advantage of commodity items... e.g. SD memory cards are falling in price and gaining in capacity, USB bluetooth dongles have allowed easy upgrade from bluetooth 1.0 to 2.0.

However, this generally increases size (connector), decreases reliability (connector) and increases power (interface/glue electronics).

So, with that provison, I'll stick my neck out...
modular is good but it has a drawback of size (big consern for a PDA), extra power draw(very big consern for a pda), external connections (the same thing will happen that happened to my wireless card. you keep in plugged in just once and you put the pda in your pocket and sit down..... snap goes the card )  

erm, you agreed with my "however" there.

Quote
i agree on the use external memory idea, but ther is a problem. most NAND chip manufacturers have stopped or slowed making chips under 128MB in size.  RAM IS GOOD that being said 256MB is about the most i think we can stuff into this as it supports 4 chips max (someone verify this) and the mobile DDR chips come in 512Mb (64MB) max that i have seen. hence we can only get 256MB max. socketed chips are bad for stuff like this since they are very large in comparison

yeah, sockets are not practical. many of the latest memory devices are BGA, which makes it much harder to retrofit memory expansion... hence why I thought an SODIMM socket might be better than on-board RAM. Also, there are sodimm sockets which raise the memory up high enough so there's room for chips on the PCB underneath, so you actually gain PCB real estate.
example:
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp...PN=CT64M64S4W75

Quote
the processor supports 1 ata/pcmcia slot and 1 CF slot. so the you can have one CF slot and possible another CF slot and have on the bottom a expansion port for the full pcmcia port (pcmcia backpack?) that that disconnects the second CF and takes over (must see if this is possible)

does anyone remember Handspring - their add-on modules were virtually pcmcia modules with a slight tweak to allow them to charge a price premium - people found out how to take a pcmcia/cf adaptor and use non-proprietary memory cards etc.

Quote
Quote
4) mobile phones vary too much world-wide and suck too much current - rely on bluetooth link or a CF adaptor. as things move to 3G or 4G/Wimax/wibro, a gsm adaptor will become as useless as IRDA.
i slightly agree since the clamshell design is not very good for a phone and if you need mobile data connectivity...bluetooth to the resue... , but i have not had enough experience designing boards so da-blitz would be the final decision maker on this. note: if you did add a phone to this the cost would go up and it would make it a bluetooth only device most likely.
adding a phone also massively increases getting the device approved for sale in many countries - I think the flybook uses a Siemens GSM module rather than a custom GSM tranceiver made from discrete components - but this adds more bulk and battery load.

Quote
Quote
5) built-in sound: mono speaker, microphone for voip or dictation.
of couse speakers are a must (mp3     ) and a microphone would be also. they would take up very little space and exery PDA have them now days
speakers small enough for a PDA are worthless - a mono speaker is fine for telephony. Oh yeah, need to be able to remote-control the PDA from the headphones. This remote control circuit can have other uses too.

Quote
stereo headphones would be a must. microphone in is one of those nice but not a pass or fail feature. you could add an oscilloscope but is it really practical on a pda??????
microphone in IS imperative for VOIP headset - as you said, clamshell is not the right shape for holding up to your ear. Analogue input without DC blocking allows basic oscilloscope functions - sure, not high bandwidth, but even a megahertz is useful for students.


Quote
Quote
13) backup-battery - use a small supercapacitor
good idea using a supercap, or better yet use a 2032 battery or some other Li watch battery so you could "sleep" the pda and use it to keep ramother stuff powered while you change batteries.
a supercap is fine, trust me, and doesn't need replacing like a 2032.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2006, 06:08:48 am by speculatrix »
Gemini 4G/Wi-Fi owner, formerly zaurus C3100 and 860 owner; also owner of an HTC Doubleshot, a Zaurus-like phone.

dhns

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« Reply #84 on: June 20, 2006, 07:44:51 am »
Quote
3) two CF card slots, or one CF + one PCMCIA.

NOTE! a PCMCIA interface doesn't have to be big - as long as you don't mind the card sticking out! make the slot *just* deep enough for a CF card with adaptor. These card slots can be used for wifi, gps, ethernet, GPRS or 3G card, high performance audio adaptor

this also opens up pcmcia sata adaptors and other interesting things! It also alleviated the need for a full backpack system?
IMHO, you should forget about CF or PCMCIA. Most interesting CF cards are no longer in production. E.g. there is no more Audiovox GSM/GPRS or compatible to buy (besides eBay). Even Prism-based 802.11b CF cards are getting rare (others raises driver issues). GPS cards are also harder to get.

Why? Because the standard PDA or Mobile phone has one or several of them integrated. So, it is no more interesting for this accessory industry.

Finally, it makes the device unneccesarily large - IMHO.

-- hns

My first home-built PDA approx. 1985: http://www.quantum-step.com/wiki.php?page=Z80-Photos
« Last Edit: June 20, 2006, 07:50:23 am by dhns »
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speculatrix

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« Reply #85 on: June 20, 2006, 08:00:14 am »
Quote
IMHO, you should forget about CF or PCMCIA. Most interesting CF cards are no longer in production. E.g. there is no more Audiovox GSM/GPRS or compatible to buy (besides eBay). Even Prism-based 802.11b CF cards are getting rare (others raises driver issues). GPS cards are also harder to get.

Why? Because the standard PDA or Mobile phone has one or several of them integrated. So, it is no more interesting for this accessory industry.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131995\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

There are still new CF things coming out - for example, Enfora only just produced a quad-band GSM/GPRS device (I didn't know audiovox dropped their gsm module). There are also CF gps units, although things are moving towards SDIO (which is useless for linux at the moment).

CF still leads the pack for flash capacity - 16GB at the moment in flash, 20GB in microdrive.
Gemini 4G/Wi-Fi owner, formerly zaurus C3100 and 860 owner; also owner of an HTC Doubleshot, a Zaurus-like phone.

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« Reply #86 on: June 20, 2006, 08:58:32 am »
Why do i bother sleeping this moves to fast (6 pages already!!!), its good to see more people commenting (just from a quick glance, i know have to read all af  that, thanks alot, expect a post in 1/2 an hour thats 2 pages long )

check this out rom the kernel commits for 2.6.17: SD/MMC support for i.MX/MX1
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dhns

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« Reply #87 on: June 20, 2006, 09:20:00 am »
Quote
There are still new CF things coming out - for example, Enfora only just produced a quad-band GSM/GPRS device
Good to know a replacement for Audiovox!
Quote
There are also CF gps units, although things are moving towards SDIO (which is useless for linux at the moment).
That is what i mean to take care of. CF is leading in memory capacity and microdrives but is falling behind in I/O. And more and more I/O is being integrated.

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Da_Blitz

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« Reply #88 on: June 20, 2006, 11:15:09 am »
actually i did mention a virbrater when talking about quake and the trackball

me persanally i have home on its own dedicated partion and / on another, but there pin compatible so just buy as much as you want.

backlight i like the logitech g-15 (what i am using to type with right now under linux) where the letters are the bit that lights up, i dont care between hard or membrane but membrane will be easier as the hard keys sit on the membrane anyway, take your point about it bieng impracticle however it is less of a challenge than finding someonu to make the membrane (unless we use actuall switches)

i thoght SD was slow because of the driver as far as i know its in 4 bit mode, btw the xscales have built in mem stick support

I like the finger print reader and want to keep it as a tribute to Z4CK and digital force, but i dont like it how he had it on the outside but it did make sence because thats how you opened it.

client is a toss up but some people use it, i am happy to stick with a miniusb jack and 2 full sized jacks but it seems obvios to me that one will be on the expansion bourd for IO use and the other for internal parts (bluetooth perhaps) we could add a hub but thats more power and space so i am happy to ditch it as i use a real ethernet dongle anyway as bridging causes me problems (ip on the interface , not the bridge problems)

i tempted to put bluetooth on usb due to bluetooth 2.0s speed (3Mbit) and wifi an the mem bus as mem mapped SRAM (freescale has a chip that will do CF+ SDIO or SRAM), the 3G thing for me is a nice thing but the 3G stuff is really about data, CDMA and GSM arent going anywhere soon so a quadband is fine and can be hooked up to a seriel port but i am willing to put more effort into 3G than i am for Wifi (let someone else on the taem worry about finding a good WiFi chip Madwifi is good but they have a binary HAL (but the do support ARM as a HAL target))

Touchsreen will be somthing like SPI or analog resetive (which can be wired up to a sound chip), i know people want it so i wont leave it out

EMP wise i can do it but it will drain your bat and posible fry your Z, Requires fingerprint reader (truley i am not jocking) consider it a "saftey" feature to prtect you data, but i am a big fan of magnesium encased flash chips as it works better (EMP dosent really affect flash)

for the fingerprint it would be nice with the secure boot feature i mentioned as you can have the key in ROM and do 2 factor authentication (i truley dont belive we have real triple factor authentication because somithng you have and somthing you are are basically the same thing)

not sure were to put the camera or the Rez so ill leave that to someone else, i thoght it would be easire to chuck it on the bottem but its not good for VOIP (unless you rotate the screen) if its on board we can use higher res chips, but keep in mind the camera interface is 60Mhz max (must check how much data it transfers per clock) so if you want 30fps keep that in mind

headphone jack i thoght someone wanted 2? i am very happy to comply as if we use the 4 ring sockets we acn convert it into a full 5.1 setup with external cables or have multichannel input or stereo output and mono input and so on.

the external video would show up as a second independent frame buffer that can be sit to mirror OR use Xinemeria OR as 2 independent heads

I dont mind internal CF i just hate the thoght of external and internal, its one or the other for me and most likly mem only (it will have wifi bluetooth and gsm what else do you need to plug in

yeah it looks like high density low profile sockets (perhaps joined by ribbion cable as everyone dose this in PDAS due to it bieng paper thin, the trackball uses it as well), for the docking connector the laptops i have had in the past have all had high density low depth sockets that would work well, slap that on the side or the back and we should be fine (the side would mean a side loading docking station but it makes sense for backpacks as it means they wouldnt make  it any deeper anly wider and taller (better on pockets for this monster)

the trick for the external screen is to get a serial one or use an 8 pin uC

the trackball i see as bieng seperate and on the oppiste corner to the direction pad (direction pad over the battery as the trackball consumos depth, your right this woould be the ultimte setup for quake 3 now that the source has been released, plug in 5.1 sound and video out plus a keyboard and mouse and youve got a kick arse gaming setup that fts in your pocket (someone pinch me)

at the very least i want rounded corners, extra screen if i have the budget for it (space time cash)

man i can see this thing going comercial just from one flash moive of this thing playing quake, then plugging into a monitor and more quake while being posted to slashdot, i would like to see that!!!! espesially if its 8 people on wifi playing quake in the same room, due to this i shall rate its sucsess on its ability to play quake and moives as this gives us a nice benchmark for multimedia

the auxillary display is low on my list and the finger print reader is trivial to add (its mainly a software thing) but if thats what you want then i will add it to my list of things that i will drop if i need space, in reality it uses SPI and a bit of board space, the reason i like the slider one is that its smaller, not for the extra security (as your fingerprints are all over the thing), i like it as it can be used te prevent network attacks as you phisacally have to be there so with pam you say require fingerprint and username unless user is logged on then only require fingerprint, gerat for sudo as then you can have a timeout of 2 seconds (my passwords are 20+ chars even on my Z)

the funny thing about this is its a laptop taken to the extreme in size like the Z an a larger scale, makes it very easy to chuck it in a laptop case and get 5x the battery life and more HD using the one design (or make the laptop a docking station)

i want LEDS as i am a blikenlights fan and use them for feedback alot, i was hoping 2 on the hinge that are 2 color and 2 or more) on the keyboard (i use the cal, notes whatever buttons as VT changing and an led above each one to tell me which VT i am on would be heaven)

im taking some time off in about 1-2 weeks so expect alot of pics and data sheets then, basically where posible its BGA and 4 layer boards with buried vias, if that means anything to you, not to mentian its a stacked design like the Z's but we have an extra pcb or 2 (c300 has 3 layers, keyboard, mobo, SD), the chips may be samall but these things can be hard to route

i can just imagine my Z acting as an ansewring machine when i m busy;)

so who wants to do what, i need someone on bluetooth chips, mem chips, flash chips, wifi chips, GSM (i might do that as i seem to want it the most), sockets, connectors, pcb anufacture places. and of course anything else you think of, we also need someone on case design (prefrebly with an intrest or backgorund in design espesially industrial or bulk manufacture design, i might know a cheap factorey or 2 in china but i would need high quality design and where to buy the parts from (ie injection material/aluminium) as they do tend to skimp if you leave it up to them, keyboard membrane is also a worry

need to get a wiki up, oh well there should be a site up next week

keyboard wise anyone object to dvorak and qwerty on the same design with qwerty in onu color and Dvorak in another?

as a base Ferret-Simpson seems to have a good idea of what should go in it and i think i will follow the eairler post where he explained ech section, for the moment thats what we are aiming for (post #69)

speculatrix is close but ferret-simpson got there first , no firewire (needs chip) and we think we might drop client as there are better ways to connect (a usb host to host cabel will suffice if you need usb at both ends plus it means driver less install as every lin machine i have plugged into a winbox asks or drivers

M1 is not worth the effort it screams incompatable, hdmi is in most new equipment and you can get dvi to hdmi and vga to hdmi converters and a hdmi to componont i belive so its fairly universal

as far as i can see this chip is very power efficent but we wont be able to tell till we have one sitteng in our hands, most devices can be turned off and the thing consumes about 15mW in deep sleep (apm -s)

math co-pro/ssl accelerator/dsp = fpga  but this has simd in it as well so be happy as well as floating poit

printer/floppy drive/geiger counter/microwave oven (just checking if you read this far :-) = see ion cannon i do read every post

accelerometer= yes definetly (hooked to sound card), its about 2mm by 2mm

ethernet is a mabey the magnetics are huge and we are running out of space alond the outside of the pcb, but i would like to see it, or you can get a gigabit usb ethernet card and get 400Mbps on it

i verify that its a 256MB max however i am unsure if its 4 chip, will have to double check as it said banks, the chips have banks internally and several chips connected to a chip select is also commanly known as a bank, will download the freescale implementation and double chek against there refrence design (thank god they have one)

actually it supports 1 ATA and 1 CF/PCMCIA slot, but the PCMCIA slot can be switched to ATA to give you 2 ATA slots (thats how i interpret the data sheets high level over view, can some one verify this, you can make a secon slot take over and i will try this the tradeoff is that it tokes up a bit of room (1 transitor) as i just divert the chip select line BUT the first slot is still powered unless i add anothe transistor (good idea will do that)

bluetooth audio is a software thing, you can get chips that do it in hardware but they are larger so we dont need a chip that explicitly supports it

Heads up display is a primary motavation, it was this project or buy a heads up display for my Z and build a cf card with VGA out, you can see which one i chose (see tekgear.com, i like ther nomad but i was going to get the pda display they had)


the ethernet in CF is depricated as i dont think we will have a IO capable CF slot (it is connected to the mem bus for onec), i am a user/abuser of the usb ports and am trying to make everyone use them hahahhahahhah, seriosly try getting usb stuff rather than CF for this pda as then you can use it with your PC as well (DVB for example, run mythTV on your PDA, MPAG2 encoding/decoding acceleration included)

Super caps good but wouldnt you charge the batt in the PDA, it takes alot of space and remeber we wont be using ram for storage (unless you use tmpfs) so batt loss dosent matter (think cxx00 sereis or a laptop

But it sounds like you guys want to build a ultraportable laptop and not a PDA. If I can see some good drawings, I'd be much less concerned.::: next week trust me

audio is a big thing, i mant 6 input channel and 6 output over 2x 4 ring headphone jack with 3 of each ring switchable as an input or output, its most likley we weill need to sound chips on board but they are small to begin with or you can get a usb audio kit, i use a audigy 2 NX 24Bit @ 96Khz with optical out/in

size is limited by the size of my pockets, but consider i buy my pants to fit my electronics not my electronics to fit my pants

Bottery life is king and everything can be turned off independently, however nothing can stop someone from turning everything on (i can show you the door you must be the one to walk throgh it)

OZ is good however i do have some concerns about the quality of the packages and the consitency of the packing, but thats beacuse they dont have the number of people that package for edra or debian for example, that said it would be my choice unless pdaXrom wants to port to it, they seem to do a gerat job

OESF is surely the most exciting forum on the web for computing enthusiasts, you said it to bad we cant walk throgh a wormhole and all meat up easily as it seems everyone here is quite lively

integer wise i would expect these to be close but i cant say before hand, however its the the other stuff like openGL that make this chip better, i would expect its probelly worse than an xscale running from cache buh the advatage is that the bus an this thing is F****ing carzy, it can do mulptiple transactions at once and the DDR makes this a killer combination, at 100% load i belve this chip would be 30% faster than an Xscale, but keep in mind these are gousses bassed an what i know about cpu arcitecture, i will say with great acuracy that this should easily get 2x vide playback performance of an xscale due to the mem bus and CF being independent, the multiple transaction bus and the DDR 266 ram as well as the large amount of RAM

IR is CIR and it should charge off up to 12V if i have anything to say, as well as it wont matter what type of charger as long as its below 12v and fits in the socket (dont care about polarity)

sodimm soket is nice but laptop mem is 64bit not 32 bit as well as not being low power chips, i will look into as we can make dimms, this would mean you can plug in more ram without having to change anything (diffrent mem sizes require diffrent settings) however i think i might just say "256MB only, you want less you hack the boottloader youself" the only problem is i can fit PCB in the space that sodimm takes up

there is a small loop hole so we dont have to get them aproved, basically i dont sell them 2 you, you buy them from the manufacturueer as a prototype, thats why i release the design as GPL you send the board off they send it back and you buy he case seperatly, no FCC aprval required (or AUS or EU aproval as well, just cant remeber the names)

i see the point about a mobile phone bieng seperate but i hate acrying the 2 aroundand it allows us to do some nice things and means 1 battery as well, the remote control is done by putting DC on the headphone jack, this is then split with a capcitor and an inductor, the inductor only allows DC and the capacitor only AC, the inductor feeds into one input and the cap another meaning you can get sound and the buttons seperatly, else you can pull it all from bluetooth

a 1Mhz ossilascope isnt posible, try a seperate usb osiclascope (look up fsf software radio, it apeared on slashdot), mak sampling freq would be 24Khz at the moment so a sample rate of 48Khz, i micht be able to push that sampaling freq to 96Khz or 192Khz depending on the chip but you will have  6 channels so use quadreture decoding to improve that, dont forget there may be a FPGA and there will be an expansion port

i agree with dhns i woul however put a cf slot on the ATA pins for internal CF/Microdrive storage as there are 20GB microdrives coming out and i do like having a swapfile
 bluetooth as GPS in my opinion, we need a wiki as some points are comming up again that have been resolved, i blame my long post... which leads me to:


LONGEST POST EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
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« Reply #89 on: June 20, 2006, 11:43:55 am »
well off to work in a few minutes will reply more once i get there.  
i would just like to say that freescale usually has really good datasheets, but for some reason this one for the i.mx31 seems somewhat subpar. i am not sure if this is because it says preliminary and it is a work in progress still. in my opinion a processor like this should have a few hundred more pages to better go into detail on all the features.
SL-5600 pxa250
256 mb lexar sd
netgear cf 802.11b card