Openmoko GTA06

[Michael Spacefalcon]

Norayr Chilingarian <norayr at arnet.am> wrote:

> just would like to mention my needs, and unfortunately I cannot satisfy 
> them with your project. [...]
> So I don't need a "phone", but a mobile computer [...]

Then my project is not for you.  It is for those who specifically want
a plain old cellphone (dumbphone) and not a mobile computer.

I already have a mobile computer which I'm reasonably happy with -
it's a Lenovo X200 ultraportable laptop, running Slackware.  But when
it comes to my cellphone, whether I use my old Mot V66 (unknown chipset)
or the Calypso-based C139 or Pirelli DP-L10, I am currently limited to
running Mot's or Pirelli's original proprietary firmware sans source,
with no ability to fix bugs or to tweak the UI design to my taste.  I
am very unhappy with this status quo, hence I am working to fix it in
a way that is within my ability: by reconstructing TI's standard fw
for modems and dumbphones from pieces (Leonardo+LoCosto+misc) and
making it run on the Calypso-based GSM devices I have available.

The related project of building a new Calypso-based dumbphone is
primarily in response to the exhaustion of the surplus supply of
ready-made devices.  If there were an infinite supply of Pirelli
DP-L10s with full schematics and with docs for that darned SPCA552E
chip, or of Mot C139s with unlocked bootloaders, there would be little
need to build new hw.  But the Pirellis are no longer available, and
even the stash I already have is of limited usefulness because this hw
is cripped by the lack of schematics and by those extra chips w/o docs.
Mot C139s are still somewhat readily available, but they are crippled
by the boot ROM being disabled at the board level, so we have to rely
on the original fw's bootloader instead.  If you buy a C139 on ebay,
it will be a gamble whether it arrives with a firmware version that
features an unlocked bootloader, or one which allows no known way of
loading our own code into the device.

Hence I plan on getting FreeCalypso fw running on a C139 and/or a
Pirelli as a proof of concept, then switching my attention to the
design of a new Calypso dumbphone free of Mot/Pirelli's design flaws.

Current status of the project: I've got the tool I wrote that parses
TI's COFF objects and produces disassembly listings which take
advantage of the symbolic information present in these objects (like
objdump from binutils, but more specifically taylored to TI's COFF
objects made by the TMS470 toolchain), and I am now working on
integrating GPF into my gcc-built FreeCalypso fw.  After GPF we'll
have L1, and then the bulk of the GSM protocol stack, yay!

> Also, routing voice traffic through the Intrenet is a way to not be 
> obliged to pay to carrier per minute or per text message.

So you would rather pay those same carriers per kilobyte instead?

I don't know how things stand in your part of the world, but here in
USA the carriers only want to sell mobile data services while giving
voice and SMS away for free - so it is the direct opposite of what you
are picturing: old-fashioned voice calls and SMS are free here,
whereas "Internet" packet data costs $$$.

> I think that carriers earn too much money just because not all the
> people still used to Internet.

But it's the other way around - those mobile Internet users are the
ones feeding the carriers' revenue stream, while outlaws like me who
eschew all that packet data crap and use old-fashioned circuit-switched
GSM services (yay CSD!) essentially get a free ride on that carrier!

> I believe, if we get Internet, then we can manage the 
> rest without carriers.

But why??  I *like* getting a free ride on my GSM carrier at the
expense of all those fools whose sky-high mobile Internet bills pay
for the upkeep of the infrastructure.

VLR,
SF