New Life in Openmoko Phones

[Dave Ball]

GNUtoo wrote:
> *will the sound quality be ok(is there a plan to correct the problematic
> capacitor that is between the sound card and the audio connector)? and
> will it fit into the same case than the GTA02...because if I understood
> well the sound problem can't or is too difficult to fix well(otherwise
> it's dangerous...) on the GTA02
>   

We expect to be able to get the 100uF capacitors in the space we gain 
from removing the audio amp and the u4401 (gsm upload) circuitry.  
Retro-fitting to gta02 boards is more complex, as there is neither board 
space or vertical height above existing components and below the can.

> *Does everything fit into the buses(GPIO,SPI etc...) because the
> removing the glamo removes some GPIO if I remember well
>   

Removing Glamo loses the SDIO interface currently used for the SD card.  
So we will be moving the WLAN to SPI, and the SD card to the SDIO 
interface on the SoC freed up by the WLAN  It all fits so far.

> *I bet I will need to buy the debug board if I buy such phone...because
> I'm afraid of bricking it(no NOR means only one bootloader...and I could
> have rendered mine unbootable if the nor was not present: I typed bad
> uboot command and that prevented the nand uboot from beeing used(no more
> usb-serial access and no more booting))
>   

The expectation is that QI and any build data will be written to NAND 
once, and then not over-written.  QI's simplicity means that once it's 
working for the new board, it shouldn't need upgrading later.  Combined 
with the kernel and OS images on the SD card, this should eliminate (or 
at least vastly reduce) any writing to NAND.  This puts the gta02-core 
bootloader in a similar situation to the current GSM firmware, and many 
PC BIOSes - not normally field serviced, but can be if needed.

Debug boards or other JTAG equipment will be needed for anyone hacking 
on the initial boot/bringup, which probably covers all of the handful of 
prototype boards we're currently expecting to produce...


Dave