Openmoko Beagle Hybrid - was: [Community Updates] 2010-08-01 is out

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi,
you may wonder what has happened to the Openmoko Beagle Hybrid [1] mentioned
in the August Community update (cited below).

First of all we had some delay with our SMD assembly company. They had holidays
on one hand and more work than expected (economy appears indeed to flourish
again). But now we have 10 kits available to find a new home.

And we received a BeagleBoard XM some days ago and started to test the OM Hybrid.

We found two major issues so far:

1. the BB-XM already comes with connectors soldered to the board.
    Unfortunately Murphy's law did hit us and the BB-XM uses the opposite gender
    as our approach for mounting to the BB-C4. 
    We now have to adjust for that (by finding a simple adapter solution).

2. the BB-XM uses a different version of the bootloader that is not
    compatible with our own code extensions [2].
    So we have to fix that so that our SD card image works on the both, the older BB-C
    and the new BB-XM.

Why is the BB-XM important at all, considering that the BB-C4 is still available
and a little cheaper? Well, the BB-XM comes with a new DM3730 processor
(1 GHz ARM Cortex A8), has a built-in USB/Ethernet hub for 4 ports and a 
built-in RS232 converter. This makes it even more simple to experiment with
Bluetooth, WiFi, UMTS sticks connected to the Openmoko Beagle Hybrid
while still having a portable design (using an external battery pack) to do
experiments.

So we work on these issues and just need some more days to solve them.

Nikolaus

[1]: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Openmoko_Beagle_Hybrid
[2]: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/ombeagle/

Am 04.08.2010 um 10:28 schrieb Timo Jyrinki:

> Newest community update now available at
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Community_Updates/2010-08-01 and
> simplified text version below.
> 

> Community
> 
> Most important and change making mails on the mailing lists, blogs
> etc.. Coolest hacks, screenshots, themes etc..
> 
>    * Golden Delicious Computers released Openmoko Beagle Hybrid
> Boards including GPS and a gyroscope. At the same time, they announced
> - http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2010-July/062609.html
> - plans to develop the next open hardware phone. Based on a OMAP3530
> SoC this device will bring a lot of computing power to your pocket.