Welcome

[Joerg Reisenweber]

Am Mo  13. April 2009 schrieb Werner Almesberger:
> >  The next Phone:
> >    1. GTA02 cost down
> 
> Hmm, that would be
> 
> - move BT to the PCB (yield goes up)
> - NOR removal (hard to source and eats space)
>   Need to find a plan B for unbrickability then. Some possibilities:
>   - do as we did in GTA01 and depend on the debug board
>   - add a NAND trap-door circuit
>   - integrate IDBG
> - remove one of the acceleration meters (useless)
> 
> anything else ?

clean up whole audio stuff, eliminate useless amp chip. Use capless design 
maybe. Use WM8753 IRQ to put to function the builtin mic-detect and 
hold_detect functions, as well as overtemp-shutdown detect.

> 
> >    2. GTA02 Glamoectomy - G
> 
> The moment of great liberation :-)
> 
> >    3. GTA02 -G+E Glamoecyomy, new Edge +E
> 
> I'd very much like to see the demise of the Calypso. It's been EOL
> for as long as I remember, and while the consequences of working
> with a hopelessly obsolete chipset were still surprisingly mild, they
> are adding up.

There are nice 3G-modules with GPS out there. Alas no analog audio IF.
http://www.telit.com/en/products/umts-hsdpa.php?p_id=14&p_ac=show&p=14

> 
> We should also review WLAN. AR6001 is about as dead-ended as the
> Calypso, so the least we would have to do is to replace it with an
> AR6002. I don't know how bad the driver situation would be, though.
> Atheros are working on a "lean" firmware for the AR6002, but that
> won't be ready for some more months.
> 
> Switching to Marvell would mean that we'd either have to find a
> different module than the USI we have right now (because we don't
> have a UART for BT), accept that we have a useless BT component on
> that module, or upgrade to a CPU with one more SDIO port.

Or add some other means to multiply/multiplex SDIO.

 
> >    4. GTA02 -G+E+P  add 6410

I seem to know this by the name "GTA03" aka "3D7K", no?

 
> The 6410 would give us more connectivity choices (more SDIO, more
> UARTs, High-Speed USB, etc.), better overall performance (FPU and
> all that), and more flexible clock management.
> 
> Drawbacks of the 6410 include relatively new kernel support, more
> difficult SMT, and more difficult thermal management.
> 
> >    then options of camera, 3g etc etc etc.
> 
> With the design we have for GTA03, the camera interface works. I
> just have to figure out how to get the camera to make good
> pictures :-)

That's the trick. Support from cam-manuf usually is Wincrap blob. Sometimes 
you might get the source under NDA I'd guess. Been there? Seems I heard 
before...

> 
> 3G is the great unknown.

3G is just expensive.


> For a community-centric approach, I think one important requirement
> would be to have a common set of tools, so that everyone can go
> through the schematics or layout, look at the CAD data, etc.

That's the crux. There's no free tools for that.


> In Openmoko, we always had that distinction of engineers with access
> to the proprietary EDA and CAD tools and the second-class citizen who
> depended on others to provide them with PDFs. This was always
> extremely dissatisfying, yielded a disconnected development process,
> and eventually caused problems to get overlooked.

That's not entirely true, as my modifications done to the PADS projectfiles to 
clean up audio for good were ignored completely as well.


> I'm not sure how feasible it would be to convert the existing material
> into something sufficiently free tools can use. PADS to KiCad, Pro/E
> to HeeksCAD ? :)

I don't feel optimistic here.


> Another issue is access to vendor documentation. There's a lot of
> material that is under some form of NDA and that would have to be made
> accessible to the community in order to allow people to understand how
> things work.

Another major topic. Or kick another class of components from your list and 
settle for next worse due to no-FOSS-compliant-doc issue. Old story...

Still I wonder where this thread is going to take us to. Implementitis again? 
Steve?

cheers
jOERG