Welcome

Steve Mosher steve at openmoko.com
Sun Apr 19 20:06:37 CEST 2009



Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
> Following this discussion, I think there are two clear and quite  
> independent paths/projects:
> 
> a) keep GTA02 living as long as possible

    I would pick this path as a demonstration excercise.

     1. To prove that the community can in fact execute a HW project.
     2. I may be able to get parts for proto boards, That is, if the 
community can actually get toether and do a glamoetcony design, then
fabbing some prototype boards should be within reach.
     3. the whole marketing question is taken off the table..
> 
> b) a camera & 3g device
> 
> 
> 
> Am 13.04.2009 um 18:39 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 ?
>>
>>>  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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>>  4. GTA02 -G+E+P  add 6410
>> 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 :-)
>>
>> 3G is the great unknown.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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 ? :)
> 
> Well, community does not necessarily mean easy and simple write-access  
> for everyone.
> 
> I think in terms of small hardware component teams recruited more from  
> the community than employed by OM, Inc.
> 
> They can then decide themselves about the tools they need.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I there is a well defined project organization where it is clear who  
> is part of let's say the GTA03-camera-development-group it should be  
> possible that those members sign an NDA, even if they are not employed  
> by OM. Usually they should anyway be less "Hobbyists" but Freelancers  
> and have some tax and legal status in their respective country.
> 
> 
> 
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