Retrofit the c3000 with internal wifi

[maybeinterested]

Great discussion!

Can't the external cf bay be assigned the home catalog (I don't know myself)? As for the size issue, maybe there is room inside for a standard card, who knows... We'll just have to wait for pictures... Another idea I had though, would be to use something like this:

http://www.wneweb.com/wireless/products/kcc-3.htm

An embedded NIC with coil antenna. Allready smaller than the drive, and with a coil antenna for better performance. Maybe there is an issue with drives though?

If you must, for some reason use an ordinary card, maybe the plastic can be trimmed to fit the space, and/or the card could be tilted a bit.

btw, I found one standard card for external antenna if someone is interested.. Maybe someone wants to add one to improve the range. Don't know about drivers and all that, but here it is anyway:

http://www.artem.de/dyn/epctrl/mod/artem00...pri/artem/lng/1

  Don't stop this wonderful discussion now!

[dhns]

Can't the external cf bay be assigned the home catalog (I don't know myself)? As for the size issue, maybe there is room inside for a standard card, who knows...

Well,
you could fill the standard CF slot with a 4GByte CF card (if you can afford) and try to replace the HDD with a WiFi card.

Or even better to keep the CF slot available for camera, GPS, GPRS: wait until SanDisk has a new ConnectPlus card with Wifi plus 4GByte flash - but unfortunately there is no Linux driver yet (help still welcome!!!).

I personally would not see enough benefit in doing such replacements just to get rid of a (small) antenna sticking out of the CF slot.

-- hns

[amrein]

At present, they are only seling 256Mo CF and SD cards:

http://www.sandisk.com/retail/256mb-wifi-sd.asp
http://www.sandisk.com/retail/c-plus-wifi-cf.asp

The good question could be: do the mass storage and the Wifi can work at the same time.
I mean downloading files via Wifi directly into fhe internal card memory...

Note: Bluetooth is still missing...

I saw a review on last iPaq models. They were saying that you could use bluetooth + wifi at the same time without issue. As the Z use the same kind of processor and componants, I guess the same inbuild wifi/bluetooth componants should be available somewhere.

[kopsis]

solid state has gotta be better R/W performance than a Microdrive.

Not necessarily. The 4GB Hitachi drives are pretty good (much better than the old 1GB IBMs). Recent benchmarksI ran on my C760 showed very little difference between a microdrive and a Sandisk CF card. In both cases, the CPU in the Zaurus seems to be the limiting factor and not the drive. The C3000 with it's newer CPU may do a bit better, but I still don't think you'll see any performance or power gains by going from the built in microdrive to a large solid state CF card.

[kopsis]

I guess the same inbuild wifi/bluetooth componants should be available somewhere.

These generally are not components--they're chips (or chipsets) that are integrated with the "motherboard" in the device. PDAs are not "modular" like PCs. For the most part, everything that doesn't plug into a card slot is integrated into the motherboard. That's why it's so difficult to upgrade RAM, Flash, etc.

Sharp could certainly design a Zaurus that integrates those chipsets, but they really can't be added on later.

[raybert]

How was WiFi added to the 6000?  I thought I remember reading that it was a daughter board.  Could it actually be using the second CF port mentioned in this thread?

~ray

[maybeinterested]

A couple of pictures of the SL-6000... No text, but maybe somebody understands what the different parts are.

http://zaurus.logix.cz/img/sharpapart01-small.jpg
http://zaurus.logix.cz/img/sharpapart02-small.jpg

[skoorb]

not a 6000

[Violator]

 Sorry Maybeinterested but those pics are from a SL5500 not form a 6000 so no wifi is included anywhere.

[tumnus]

How was WiFi added to the 6000?  I thought I remember reading that it was a daughter board.  Could it actually be using the second CF port mentioned in this thread?

I think from what I've read so far it is attached to the USB bus. Remember the SL-6000 has a sleeve to add a second CF slot, so that probably takes up the spare slot without requiring extra hardware.

I still think it would be far easier to leave the SL-3000 internals as is and cut down/hack together a WiFi card that fits within the external CF slot.

[BarryW]

The SL-6000 wifi is a daughterboard.  You can't cut down a cf wifi card and expect it to work.  There isn't enough unused space on them to remove.  I wonder if the drives in these things are like the new ones in the muvo.  They have the hard drive controller parts removed.  It only works in the muvo now, can't be pulled from it and used in a camera or whatever.  I'm just waiting for my 6000's warantie to run out so I can add a better antenna to it.