question on 850... and alternate hardware hack ideas

[Derek Pressnall]

On Nov 13, 2007 9:45 AM, Joshua Layne <joshua at willowisp.net> wrote:

> Secondarily, on the alternate hardware front, has anyone thought of
> using a Nokia N810 with a telit GM862 and the USB eval board from
> sparkfun
I had thought about this myself.  I think the N810 has an IR port, if
so then it is probably hooked up to an rs232 line.  In that case, you
can wire the rs232 version of the GM862 into that line (if you don't
mind giving up the IR).  Still would need to probably modify the case
though.

> (why oh why didn't nokia include a
> gsm modem???? they certainly know how to...)

This is because most people, when they buy a phone, will only get one
that is subsidized by their carrier.  By making the Nxxx series
carrier independant, make their device available to a larger audience.
 Even though gsm w/ a sim card allows use on multiple carriers, in the
US it still excludes the cdma/tdma/iden carriers (Verizon,
Sprint/Nextel).

The optimal device, in my mind, is one that has the cell phone radio
as a seperate module that can be plugged in, like a CF card.  In fact,
you can take a Sharp Zaurus, and plug in a GSM CF card or a specific
CDMA card from the individual carriers (Sprint has one I think), and
be able to do basically what you wanted.  OpenEmbedded is already
running on various Zaurus models, so it shouldn't be that hard to get
OpenMoko ported to it.  But I'm not sure if an incomming phone call
will wake up the Zaurus for receiving calls though.