Alternatives

[Da_Blitz]

intresting things have been happening latley with freescale, in 30 days (i i remeber correctly) they get sold to new owners, what this means i dont really know as i havent looked at the proposed plans if any are even avalible

anyway there was a new product on the market that was simmilar to what i had in mind in terms of casing, its a pxa270 chip (xscale) but it has wifi, bluetooth, keyboard  and more.

some notable features (read must have) are:
ethernet
128MB of ram
8 hour batter life
20GB drive
USB host (most likly full speed)

remeber i am mainly designing this as a portable office and have recently been eyeing the flybook and lifebook after seeing them in person however this device seems to fill 90% of what i was planning to chuck in there, the only things missing seem to be video out and a video card

anyway links:
http://www.slashgear.com/more-details-on-t...reen-201720.php
http://www.seamlessinternet.com/s-xgen/specs.html
http://www.slashgear.com/s-xgen-umpc-field...oard-141644.php

[adf]

very close indeed.

If the PP is like this with vga, linux and video out, it will be amazing-- and hopefully a little smaller?

or, if the screen gets improved are you suiggesting that we port linux to it?  As it is, i wouldn't trade my Z in for it, though it is pretty cool

[Da_Blitz]

the port is what i am talking about, there are some problems with this project, mainly i am keeping myself very busy at the mooment

[uMP2k]

the port is what i am talking about, there are some problems with this project, mainly i am keeping myself very busy at the mooment
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It certainly looks like a very interesting device with many if not most of the things we have been talking about.  The only concern seems to be the screen really - the resolution mentioned seems a bit odd to say the least.  However, if that were to change it might make a lot of sense just to do a port to an existing peice of hardware - assuming it does actually become a reality and is widely available.

[Da_Blitz]

thoght that this is the best place to post this

at the moment the futre of this project is uncertin, i am currently working full time and trying to teach myself xen for a side project that has alot of potential while at the same time battling my OS (its a combination of things but involves fedora core 5, / on lvm on sw raid, nvidia kernel modules)

what is done:
feature set wise its basically locked, i know what can go in as a minimum but what i dont know is what is the maximum i can cram in
chipsets: i know most of them, next is to check if i can get them (just one email) basically i need an audio chip and perhaps a lcd screen interface chip

i may take 2 weeks off in a week or two, at the very least i will have more time to spend on the project so if you see me online at all i recomend that you send me a message telling me to look for chips and work on the project more.

once i have finalised the parts i have to read the manuals and work out which misc chips i need, once that is done then i should have the plans for the prototype done reletivly quickly

i am considering spreading the word about the project a bit more as i would like to spend more time on this project and less working, so does anyone know of a company who may be willing to sponser a project like this?

[Ferret-Simpson]

Trolltech, Freescales new owners, Fedora (If we made a Fed port)

Not many electronics companies DO open source.

[Da_Blitz]

acutally a number of them do provide patches for linux as its a cheap way to prove your platform works without the ce licseing costs and it allaw rapid development in the short term, once it works then you port to CE and affer it as a choice

however are you implying that trolltech bought freescale?

[Ferret-Simpson]

What the heck are you taking?

You asked for companies. I named 3.

Trolltech: Their entire company is based on an open source OS, so is Fedora, and I'd have thought Fedora would have liked the idea of official support for a Fedora Pocket Network Admin Workstation

And the new Freescale owners, whoever they may be.

[Da_Blitz]

sorry missed your point

at the moment i have in a way found a sponser of the project however its a bit of a "ill scratch your back and you scratch mine" so i have to delay this project abit. but in my opinion this maight well be a good thing

the advantage is that the casing will be taken care of and it will be done properly but by waiting it will allow me to see how HTC moves as well as all they have to do is add usb host to one of thier mobile phone range and they would probelly be a better choice (or video out)

anyway i should know more in a week or 2

[speculatrix]

here's another ready-made PXA270 module from Anders:
http://www.anders.co.uk/systems_product.asp?prodID=6993

looks like quite a promising option...
"The CM-X270 range combines Intel PXA270 processors, 128MB SDRAM, a 512MB Flash Disk, with wear-levelling, and many vital computing peripherals. For embedded applications, the CM-X270W offers PCI, 100Mbit Ethernet, 3 x UARTs, GPIO lines, I2C, SPI, LPC and a QuickCapture video input port, as well as many other essential interfaces.
 
The  world’s first System on Module (SOM) with 802.11 Wireless LAN on-board, the CM-X270L is 40% smaller than a credit card, or alternatively the CM-X270W features an advanced multimedia accelerator, supporting up to SXGA (1280 x 1024) resolution with 8MB of dedicated VRAM and MPEG2/4 hardware decoding."

[Da_Blitz]

this one keeps on cropping up. very nice but i would really like to see how far i can push this design. the onboard video card is nice however.

perhaps if we can get a price i may think about it as a fall back

[speculatrix]

I think the key with the anders one is that it's designed for a modular computer; this might be a really good or really useless feature.

[Da_Blitz]

after looking at my current usggestion it seems making it modular can be done in more than one way

chosing this module would speed up design buti feel thati would have to make a sacrifice or two latter down the track

[speculatrix]

of course, you could build early units from these modules, and then produce a monolithic design using the same chipsets for mass production, it might help generate demand and get the software guys on board. You could learn a lot about the design from it, especially the interfacing to the peripherals... and they have a linux BSP too.

[Da_Blitz]

actually that would be no diffrent from just using a Z at the moment, on the plus side the software guys already have them

learining to design is somthing i have done already and i am not afraid to taclk a new design, the only things that are really slowing me down is are:

screen, finding a manufacturer that makes them (not surplus stock)
software (i dont want to be breaking the law now would i
case, secondary really but i am keeping it in mind

apart form thati have everything ready to go and satrt designing boards there are one or two others (such as wifi) but moving it onto USB means its alot less of an issue for me

BSP = drivers, toolchain and a flashing util, considering that drivers are a non issue, toolchains are easy enough to get and the thing can bootload over usb or serial (hence download a program to flash itself) the BSP is not needed that badly