GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900

Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller hns at goldelico.com
Tue Aug 27 15:26:30 CEST 2013


Am 26.08.2013 um 14:35 schrieb Sebastian Krzyszkowiak:

> Hello!
> 
> Short introduction, as I was rather inactive in this community
> recently: I'm dos, long time Openmoko supporter, owner of GTA02 and
> (now broken) Nokia N900. Few years ago I was quite an active developer
> of FSO (opimd) and SHR. Few days ago I've created website draft for
> GTA04.
> 
> As we all know, GTA04 project has few non-technical problems. Poor
> demand is one of them, poor availability of parts is the second one.
> Those two problems together are pretty much show stoppers, cause if we
> fix one, the second one becomes harder.
> 
> But Joerg Reisenweber came up with brilliant idea of adapting GTA04
> board into N900 case. Why?
> - second source N900 housings are very cheap and available on eBay in
> big quantities -> problem with very small amount of Openmoko cases
> solved
> - there are still new spare parts floating around on free market
> 
> But using N900 gives us more:
> - GTA04 with physical keyboard!
> - screen that doesn't appear to be off in full sunlight
> - it seems that while some people like Openmoko case (I do), most
> rather think "it's nice idea, but I wouldn't show up anywhere with
> such a brick" :( N900 case seems to be more commonly accepted by
> public ;)
> 
> Wait, there's even more!
> - if done right, we can engage Maemo community and increase the demand a lot!
> 
> There are LOTS of broken N900s in possession of Maemo community
> members due to problems with faulty USB connector and GSM modem. Many
> of them (owners ;)) are waiting for proper N900 successor that never
> came (N9 is not, and Nokia is not interested in platform anymore at
> all).
> 
> This might be great time to merge efforts from Openmoko/OpenPhoenux
> and Maemo communities. Neo900 project can benefit from both of them -
> there will be QtMoko/SHR/Replicant on the one side (it's just modified
> GTA04, so running all of them should be very easy), and there will be
> Maemo, Meego and maybe more porting initiatives on the other side.
> Joerg's idea includes full port of Maemo 5 (Fremantle) to allow N900
> users to have drop-in upgrade - just like now GTA04 is for GTA01/02
> owners. I think that can increase interest a lot!
> 
> For now we named it "Neo900" - making nods to both N900 and Openmoko roots :)
> 
> I'm super excited about this idea, and it seems that I'm not the only one:
> Look at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142
> 
> You can also read logs from #maemo from yesterday and today:
> https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-25.log.html
> https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-26.log.html
> 
> It seems there is some interest, and that's just on Maemo side :)
> 
> What do you think?

Very good idea. If we can use the same basic design both, the GTA04 and
the Neo900 could have many common components. And adding the
number of chips bought of one type will help to reduce the purchase
price of both. So trying to merg this is to the benefit of both.

BR,
Nikolaus




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