Build Your Own Linux Powered Pda

[Da_Blitz]

I second that but looking thregh the 2521 page refrence manual you find there is alot of info in it, some pages to nete, the contents and chapter 1

even if you dont understand electronics chapter 1 will give you an overview of how cool this chip is, 61 is a good place to start, lots of nice pictures, 43 chapters

[edit]
i would love to have multi core but a am not 100% if i can do it, not for the PDA but for the blades, i would only add it if i could garentee that i could fully switch it off
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[Fushnchupsh]

hey, if this becomes a reality I'll totally sell my 3200 and buy one.  All of my wants have already been mentioned but, although I know I don't post here nearlyt enough to hve a say, one thing I would reaaally want is a vga port so we could hook into  full sized monitor.  Maybe put this on the pcmcia backpack?  ::glee:: I really hope this happens

--Fish

[speculatrix]

now, I know people want video out, but can I say four words: vnc, X11 or rdesktop.

if the zaurus is not your only computing device, so if at work or home you connect it to a PC, the PC can become a thin client for it using vnc, x11 or rdesktop... provided it's fast enough to be responsive of course!

when using it as a portable, you're not likely to lug around a big display.. and if you did want one, you'd have a laptop instead!

for me, video out is a nice to have, but I have other ways of playing multimedia content when at home - and if the content is on the Z, well, I'd use Z as a NAS or usb mass storage rather than relying on video out.

[stampsm]

ok for a quick recap i may have missed something so.......... i may go back and edit this

processor: freescale i.mx31 532 MHZ max speed
mobile DDR: 133mhz (266 effective) 256MB
Nand flash: 256MB or 128MB depending on availibility and OS rom size(note to self check to see the larges zaurus rom size)
display: 640x480 LCD 3.7 or 4.0 inch with touchscreen built in
expansion slots: 2 SD slots regular size but possibly use trasnflash if we run into a space crunch. 1 external CF slot and possibly 1 more external or internal depending on space constraints
Keyboard: yes  qwerty with dirrectional pad and small trackball(note to self get one to verify how well it works). also backlighting on the keyboard.
External display: possible for time display or caller id function if phone is built in.
wireless: bluetooth 2.0, 802.11G
camera: possible (most likely 640X480 above the lcd display for video voip use)
external display support: yes plz if at all possible. most likely useing hdmi/dvi if we can find the chips for it to make it work or vga
fingerprint reader: small sliding type fingerprint reader. not sure where it will be put on the pda yet, but it is small so it will fit somewhere.
led's: we would like a few 4+  scattered around for different things
cpld: built in for interconnecting processor with various onboard chips
accelerometer: 2 but preferably 3 axis for orientation detection
super cap: for backup while switching batteries and hotswapping of batteries
sound: built in microphone and speakers plus external connections
IR: irda trasciever
GSM phone: preferably quad band GSM module
vibrator: some people are requesting it. it is especially good if we have a phone built in. we can try to find a way to stuff it in
audio: most likely 2.0 or 2.1 sound out maybe up to 5.1 if chips/connections/cost are ok. at least single channel

[zmiq2]

impressive, amazing, exciting. but really feasible?

stampsm: add battery capacity and battery hot-swap to the list, and get all my $$

[Ferret-Simpson]

Ok ok ok. .  5.1 Audio? WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT??

When you're at home, then plug in your 5.1 EXT usb card. But 5.1 on a PDA? The only available chips are laptop chips, with a bigger power drain. Just stick with 2/1 Sound/Mic at 48k.

The screen is not meant primarily for multimedia at home, it's for use in the work place. Every single teacher at my college, and at just about every other college or Uni in the UK, uses a Projector in lectures, which they hook up to the vidout port of their laptop. I don;t have a laptop. They're too big and clunky. I have a 66mhz Wristwatch, and a Zaurus. I don't have an XGA card for mine but one would be Ruddy useful!

3gg and 4g are NOT going to be replacing GSM any time soon. The networks are less well implemented, and run on top of the current GSM network. The PocketPenguin Zero (Remember, all real computers count from 0) is a 530mhz device. It's gonna last us a long time before it's completely obsolete, but it will become obsolete, and the GSM network will be going for a lot longer than that, as will 802.11g. There are still people who use floppy disks, and CD-RW's have been out since 1994.

ALSO another note on connectivity. a USB OTG port runs in either host OR client mode interchangeably, at 11mbps. So we'll have USB client support off of the CPU's OTG port anyway. The other point to note is that since we have only two USB 480 ports left, only one can be used internally - Otherwise we lose our external USB-HS, which we've all been moaning about wanting.

My vote is that the Bluetooth be a serial one, connected to the BTUART of the processor, and the wifi chip be on the internal USB. Nothing else needs it.

We can support 256MB of DDR-266, so there's no point in faffing around with it. Adding more is impossible, and taking it away is pointless. And if we have 256MB or 512MB of Flash storage internally, the OS can be stored on their, in whatever partitioning makes you happy. Saves worrying about losing an SD card slot for those that like having spare expansion, and for those that want to , they can put their OS on SD.

I'm also all for CF being mem only, we'll have internal phone, USB480, Bluetooth, wifi and display controller. There aren't enough new devices being released to warrant losing memory performance for IO. If you want a HUD, go to Icuiti.com and pick up the M920 which is not CF only. Then you can just plug the HDMI into the VGA port on it.

SOFTWARE bluetooth audio over the internal chip means we have access to the headset profile, including volume and "Answer" buttons. Given the modularity of linux configuration, I have no doubt that you can remap the 3 buttons (Vol+ Vol- Answer) to do whatever the heck else you want.

Supercap? Does it REALLY take that long to reboot after a change of battery? You're probably better off having a PSP external backup PSU if you use that much power.

Stamp, you forgot the vibe.

Also, 4" screen means that (Even if we don't use the design!!!!) a rectangular  case would be looking at around 5.5" to 6" diagonally. My 5600 (POODLE LUV ) is 6".

I think we're onto a winner here.

[Ferret-Simpson]

Anyone think this could be made Sticky?

They did it for ZPSX!


Ta, Ferret.

[Fushnchupsh]

As far as video out goes, I have always had the dream of using my Z for almost everything, since sharp upset us with the true lack of video out support, this dream cannot be fulfilled.  I want to be able to carry my little mchine around and then come home "dock it" with a big monitor and use a almost full functioning computer.  Now, you could say use an oqo... tht's an option but it is an almost pure windblows computer, not to mention it carries a far too heftyprice tag for this college student.

--Fish

[stampsm]

for wifi chips i was looking at the zd1211 chip. i just need to find a source for it now and a datasheet, but it has opensource drivers and seems to be quite compact and used in many iteams.

[stampsm]

well it seems that the MC13783 chip is used on the i/mx31 dev board for handling many features
"    * Battery-charger interface for wall charging and Universal Serial Bus (USB) charging
    * 10-bit ADC for battery monitoring and other readout functions
    * Buck switchers for direct supply of the processor cores
    * Boost switcher for backlight and USB On-The-Go (OGT) supply
    * Regulators with internal and external pass devices
    * Transmit amplifiers for two handset microphones and a headset microphone
    * Receive amplifiers for earpiece, loudspeaker, headset and line out
    * 13-bit voice codec with dual ADC channel and both narrow and wideband sampling
    * 13-bit stereo recording from analog input source such as FM radio
    * 16-bit stereo digital to analog converter (DAC) supporting multiple sample rates
    * Dual synchronous serial interface (SSI) audio bus with network mode for connection to multiple devices
    * Power control logic with processor interface and event detection
    * Real-time clock (RTC) and crystal oscillator circuitry
    * Dual serial peripheral interface (SPI) control bus with arbitration mechanism
    * Multiple backlight drivers and LED control, including funlight support
    * USB/RS-232 transceiver with USB carkit support
    * Touch-screen interface
    * 247 BGA 0.5 mm pitch (10 mm x 10 mm) to optimize the size of the system
    * Compatibility with CEA-936-A carkit regulation
    * Integrated funlights and audio modulation features
    * Capability to support two processor applications with dual SPI"



it looks like something worth looking into

[Da_Blitz]

Funny, you liked to the head gear i was talking about

hdmi can do VGA and DVI so its a universal solution, heck it can do vide out as well for connecting to a TV , i dought there is a consumer display it cant connect to, the reason i want it is i can then use it in a windows enviroment where the system is lockeddown, we only have to add 1 chip as the support is all in the cpu.

hot swap it is;)

the reason i say 5.1 is some people meitoned audio work, i did sugest usb but the sound chip is never just used for sound in a pda its used as an ADC to get battery life info, abient light acellerometer data and more not te mention the internal microphone and speakers are on thier own channels, on a pda they normally only connect 2 outputs and 1 input but that dosent mean thats all the chip is capable of, a chip with 6 inputs and 6 outputs wont be too hard to find and if need be 2 smaller chips will suffice, its what i aim for but we will see if we can do it

actually we have 1 full speed 1 high speed and a OTG that can do highspeed in client or host, i was going to hang the bluetooth off the highspeed for the 3mbps speed.

RAM is fixed at 256MB, i too belive that there is no point in less mem

that chip you mention sounds good as it does most of what we need, just a quick vote, anyone want a FM radio i have seen them in a transistor package so they can be quite small

[Da_Blitz]

http://www.wolfson.co.uk/products/digital_.../codecs/WM8777/

i like thier chips and they are comanly regarded as some of the best, that is an example of a top end chip so keep that in mind take this as a request for comments

might want to note it has power managment in it for those who want great battery life

[stampsm]

well fm audio is not really needed alot. for those who use it there are CF adapters for it or even plain radios that are really sinple and the size of a pen or so. plus think about how much space it along with all the extra components take up. useing the size of a 100 pin tqfg package that the chip comes in to figure out the size of the evaluation board ( i did not see and info on size so i "figured" it out) it seems like it is about 6x8 inched in size. even if  it was stripped of all unessesary stuff i can still see it taking up 5-6 sq inches. do we got enough room?

[lareya]

Okay, you guys build this dream sweet machine, and I will purchase it!  

Lareya

[Ferret-Simpson]

Hey Mikey, I think they like it!

Not too fussed on a radio. But if you look at the specs, the Touchscreen and battery already have their own separate interfaces, I guess the fingerprint bar will be one of our SPI devices, and what, trackball and accelerometer on the iMx31 audio bus? Or will the trackball be serial, and on the SPI?

Also, built in LED support? That looks fun. How many can it handle? Tft, Keyboard, Bluetooth, Wifi, Trackball (Still say blue powerlight ^^), HDD indicator(OpenZaurus 2.6 style), and a 3 colour Power indicator? Or if you can get a full colour one, have Green, Amber, Red for power level, and Purple or orange for charging.

So, 6 channel chip, 2 outputs for internal speakers, One input for internal mic, that leaves 4 outputs externally, and probably another mic with a little software fiddling. 16/48? 24/96 would be NICE, but they're only used in desktops so could be dodgy on power drain.

Heh, one last note: The stylus: Anyone think they can make Laserpen styli?