Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
On Wed, 9 Nov 2011 21:32:19 +0100 (CET) Alexander Lehner leh...@edv-buero-lehner.de wrote: On Wed, 9 Nov 2011, elf Pavlik wrote: Someone have just showed me yesterday this one: http://wetab.mobi/en/ It says 'Open Software, Open Hardware' but don't seam to me like open source hardware... Still it runs version of MeeGo as you can see on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBUdiPZ1hA Ha, I applied to this company a few years ago, when the product was still in the pre-alpha phase. I guess it was shortly after the Neo came out and I was interested in opensource development. I didn't take the job for other personal reasons. But there already the whole sofware and hardware stack seemed not open at all. So if you take all disadvantages of the NEO and the iPad, you will get this 'weTab'. (Sorry weTab-guys for the hard criticism). Similair to FIC/OpenMoko, their business plan seems not to work out. And I guess there is no community around the weTab at all. Maybe also have a look at the new 1-Laptop-per-Child XO/3 tablet (german news site): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OLPC-Gruender-will-Tablets-mit-dem-Hubschrauber-verteilen-1374592.html (Hardware is still a mock-up, of course...) I still prefer the 'wooden-case' version after all these discussions ;) WeTab is quite awesome, WeTab OS... not so much :) I'm running Fedora 16 with GNOME and Enlightenment on my weTab. Running Enlightenment is almost like a Moko tablet :) Much better support than most arm devices all around with Free Software drivers. Rui ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
On Thursday 10 November 2011, SZENTE Balint wrote: On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:44:00 + Al Johnson openm...@mazikeen.demon.co.uk wrote: That's about all you can expect with the current state of openness on embedded GPUs. If you want acceleration you get a binary blob if you're lucky. Mostly you're just SOL. There are hints that things are moving slowly towards more openness, but that's about it. It's not much better with embedded DSPs, though Ti seem to have a reasonably open interface. Do you know of a better alternative? To be honest, I was not aware about this. I thought, the lack of specifications of Glamo chip is only a special case of the available embedded GPUs. Quite the reverse - it's a special case that Openmoko managed to get docs that can be released to community devs for an open driver at all, even if they do have to sign an NDA. As a result it's got some of the best open support out there for a mobile GPU. That it doesn't work very well with a 640x480 screen is another matter entirely ;-) However, a possible (but more complex) alternative would be to avoid completely the existing proprietary GPU/DSP chips and make an FPGA based phone instead. Then we could use various open source hardware IP cores for CPU, GPU and whatever else is needed, similar to Milkymist, Open Graphics Project or Project VGA. That would be really cool. Cool, but relatively expensive and power hungry. Any idea how many you need to be making before getting the design burned into silicon becomes cost effective? From my point of view a GPU is completely useless without drivers / specifications, thus practically it is not better at all from a basic VGA 2D accelerator IP core. At least an FPGA based open source IP core design *could be* improved in time without changing the PCB. Just think the possibilities. On the other hand, a closed unsupported GPU is dead from the start. If you want a fast and efficient cpu with a good set of interfaces for making a phone or tablet they tend to have a gpu in them too, even if we can't use the acceleration at the moment. It's like things with an iPod dock - it's a useless feature for me, but something with one may still be better than something without for entirely separate reasons. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
Hello! On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:19:23 +0530 RANJAN infi...@gmail.com wrote: 25$ Linux computer at the size of a USB Flash stick http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pcb1.jpg I am worried about the openness of this hardware. They say the following on their wiki[1]: * GPU core: [...] Raspberry Pi team are looking at how they can make some of the proprietary features available to application programmers * DSP core: There is a DSP, but there isn't currently a public API So it is not quite a fully open platform. Sounds similar to the Freerunner's Glamo chip features. [1] http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#Components ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
On Thursday 10 November 2011, SZENTE Balint wrote: Hello! On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:19:23 +0530 RANJAN infi...@gmail.com wrote: 25$ Linux computer at the size of a USB Flash stick http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pcb1.jpg I am worried about the openness of this hardware. They say the following on their wiki[1]: * GPU core: [...] Raspberry Pi team are looking at how they can make some of the proprietary features available to application programmers * DSP core: There is a DSP, but there isn't currently a public API So it is not quite a fully open platform. Sounds similar to the Freerunner's Glamo chip features. [1] http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#Components That's about all you can expect with the current state of openness on embedded GPUs. If you want acceleration you get a binary blob if you're lucky. Mostly you're just SOL. There are hints that things are moving slowly towards more openness, but that's about it. It's not much better with embedded DSPs, though Ti seem to have a reasonably open interface. Do you know of a better alternative? ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
On Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:44:00 + Al Johnson openm...@mazikeen.demon.co.uk wrote: That's about all you can expect with the current state of openness on embedded GPUs. If you want acceleration you get a binary blob if you're lucky. Mostly you're just SOL. There are hints that things are moving slowly towards more openness, but that's about it. It's not much better with embedded DSPs, though Ti seem to have a reasonably open interface. Do you know of a better alternative? To be honest, I was not aware about this. I thought, the lack of specifications of Glamo chip is only a special case of the available embedded GPUs. However, a possible (but more complex) alternative would be to avoid completely the existing proprietary GPU/DSP chips and make an FPGA based phone instead. Then we could use various open source hardware IP cores for CPU, GPU and whatever else is needed, similar to Milkymist, Open Graphics Project or Project VGA. That would be really cool. From my point of view a GPU is completely useless without drivers / specifications, thus practically it is not better at all from a basic VGA 2D accelerator IP core. At least an FPGA based open source IP core design *could be* improved in time without changing the PCB. Just think the possibilities. On the other hand, a closed unsupported GPU is dead from the start. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
The idea of making the MOKO tab
Hello All, Just got an Idea. I think we can make a Moko Tab (an open source tablet phone/PC) from the existing opensource hardware and the ones related to GSM,Wifi,bluetooth from OpenMoko FR. Take a look at the parts that you can find. http://imgur.com/NCkp9 References: Modular sensors for the Moko Tab http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10724 Tiny GPS with module and antenna http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10890 25$ Linux computer at the size of a USB Flash stick http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pcb1.jpg The rest of the hardware can be taken from the previous moko. I think the idea of the first truly open source tablet PC should be realized. Sincerely Sriranjan ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
Excerpts from RANJAN's message of 2011-11-09 19:49:23 +: Hello All, Just got an Idea. I think we can make a Moko Tab (an open source tablet phone/PC) from the existing opensource hardware and the ones related to GSM,Wifi,bluetooth from OpenMoko FR. Take a look at the parts that you can find. http://imgur.com/NCkp9 References: Modular sensors for the Moko Tab http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10724 Tiny GPS with module and antenna http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10890 25$ Linux computer at the size of a USB Flash stick http://www.raspberrypi.org/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/pcb1.jpg The rest of the hardware can be taken from the previous moko. I think the idea of the first truly open source tablet PC should be realized. Sincerely Sriranjan Hi, Someone have just showed me yesterday this one: http://wetab.mobi/en/ It says 'Open Software, Open Hardware' but don't seam to me like open source hardware... Still it runs version of MeeGo as you can see on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBUdiPZ1hA Cheers! ~ elf Pavlik ~ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
On Wed, 9 Nov 2011, elf Pavlik wrote: Someone have just showed me yesterday this one: http://wetab.mobi/en/ It says 'Open Software, Open Hardware' but don't seam to me like open source hardware... Still it runs version of MeeGo as you can see on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBUdiPZ1hA Ha, I applied to this company a few years ago, when the product was still in the pre-alpha phase. I guess it was shortly after the Neo came out and I was interested in opensource development. I didn't take the job for other personal reasons. But there already the whole sofware and hardware stack seemed not open at all. So if you take all disadvantages of the NEO and the iPad, you will get this 'weTab'. (Sorry weTab-guys for the hard criticism). Similair to FIC/OpenMoko, their business plan seems not to work out. And I guess there is no community around the weTab at all. Maybe also have a look at the new 1-Laptop-per-Child XO/3 tablet (german news site): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OLPC-Gruender-will-Tablets-mit-dem-Hubschrauber-verteilen-1374592.html (Hardware is still a mock-up, of course...) I still prefer the 'wooden-case' version after all these discussions ;) A. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: The idea of making the MOKO tab
Le 09/11/2011 21:32, Alexander Lehner a écrit : On Wed, 9 Nov 2011, elf Pavlik wrote: Someone have just showed me yesterday this one: http://wetab.mobi/en/ It says 'Open Software, Open Hardware' but don't seam to me like open source hardware... Still it runs version of MeeGo as you can see on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBUdiPZ1hA Ha, I applied to this company a few years ago, when the product was still in the pre-alpha phase. I guess it was shortly after the Neo came out and I was interested in opensource development. I didn't take the job for other personal reasons. But there already the whole sofware and hardware stack seemed not open at all. So if you take all disadvantages of the NEO and the iPad, you will get this 'weTab'. (Sorry weTab-guys for the hard criticism). Similair to FIC/OpenMoko, their business plan seems not to work out. And I guess there is no community around the weTab at all. Maybe also have a look at the new 1-Laptop-per-Child XO/3 tablet (german news site): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OLPC-Gruender-will-Tablets-mit-dem-Hubschrauber-verteilen-1374592.html (Hardware is still a mock-up, of course...) I still prefer the 'wooden-case' version after all these discussions ;) A. Hi all, The idea is great, and (I thiunk) not so much hard to do. The project could be based on the GTA04 hardware, (because it can be used with a larger screen, with higher resloution), thoug the GTA02 won't ba able to. So it is only a problem of finding a new touchscreen, and a case (as usual ,-) ). It could be a good idea to ask to Dr Nocholaus Scheller for the screen. Thomas ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
