Re: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

[Paul Bohme]

Jeremy wrote:
I'm no expert at all, but I do know that when we were designing a 
device with a Kyocera m200 CDMA data module 
(http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/m2m-business/index.htm), the module 
itself was carrier (Sprint in our case) approved and FCC approved, but 
once we incorporated it into our device, we then had to get it 
re-approved by the carrier and the FCC (though it is typically an 
easier process when using an approved module already).  I think the 
deciding factor may be whether the module is "stand-alone" or not... 
But I say that with the disclaimer that I could be completely wrong. :)



My experience so far putting modules for both GSM and CDMA into another 
product has been similar - even though the module itself is 'approved' 
the actual application to which it is put must also be run through an 
evaluation process.


As far as carriers in the US, I know Cingular is good for GSM.  Not sure 
who else?  Are approval issues going to be a problem for the Neo1973 in 
the States?  (Am looking forward to getting one, and not being able to 
use it as a phone would be a serious damper.. ;-)


 -P




~Jeremy

- Original Message 
From: Graham Auld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: community@lists.openmoko.org
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 2:06:45 PM
Subject: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

I wouldn't expect such an issue as i expect the GSM module will be 
correctly certified and as access is via AT command set you 
/shouldn't/ be able to make it do things it's not allowed to...
 
someone please correct me if i'm incorrect in my assumptions
 
Graham



*From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Jeff Andros

*Sent:* 13 December 2006 16:17
*To:* David Schlesinger
*Cc:* community@lists.openmoko.org; La Monte Henry Piggy Yarroll
*Subject:* Re: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

>not to mention completely outside the terms of service of any major 
carrier...?


a while ago, I spoke to both Cingular and T-Mob, I told them I was 
doing some work with a gm-862, both said there was nothing in their 
service restrictions about connecting with weird equipment like that


--Jeff

On 12/13/06, *David Schlesinger* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


Do you mean "legal challenges" beyond its use being, strictly
speaking, a violation of Federal law, not to mention completely
outside the terms of service of any major carrier...?




-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 on behalf of La
Monte Henry Piggy Yarroll
Sent: Wed 12/13/2006 7:37 AM
To: community@lists.openmoko.org 
Subject: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

Would anyone care to comment on the FCC status of the FIC Neo1973? In
particular, are there any legal challenges associated with using
prototypes on a live GSM network?



___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

[Paul Bohme]

Tim Newsom wrote:
Once its FCC certified, why would it matter? It should be just like 
getting any phone from any vendor and putting your SIM in to get service.



Heh, I can dream it would be that easy.. ;-)  For the devices I've been 
working with the last couple of years (stationary, constant GPRS 
connection) the FCC approval is necessary to _start_ the other approvals 
the vendors want before allowing a device on their network. 

Am personally not sure if it's real 'certification' or an excuse to 
extract $$$ out of companies.  Don't know if it's the same for 
'consumer' devices or not.


 -P

You may have a hard time getting support for configurations because 
the vendor won't know how to do things with the neo1973, but they can 
push the configuration to the phone with an sms message and most 
modules I have seen support using that for configuration. I would be 
surprised if the one in the neo1973 does not...


Sean or anyone who knows... Is configuration by sms possible with this 
phone? Can we override it with a gui? Or ony by the gui maybe?


--Tim

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:19, Paul Bohme wrote:

Jeremy wrote:

I'm no expert at all, but I do know that when we were designing a 
device with a Kyocera m200 CDMA data module 
(http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/m2m-business/index.htm), the module 
itself was carrier (Sprint in our case) approved and FCC approved, 
but once we incorporated it into our device, we then had to get it 
re-approved by the carrier and the FCC (though it is typically an 
easier process when using an approved module already).  I think the 
deciding factor may be whether the module is "stand-alone" or not... 
But I say that with the disclaimer that I could be completely wrong. :)


My experience so far putting modules for both GSM and CDMA into 
another product has been similar - even though the module itself is 
'approved' the actual application to which it is put must also be run 
through an evaluation process.


As far as carriers in the US, I know Cingular is good for GSM.  Not 
sure who else?  Are approval issues going to be a problem for the 
Neo1973 in the States?  (Am looking forward to getting one, and not 
being able to use it as a phone would be a serious damper.. ;-)


-P


~Jeremy

- Original Message 
From: Graham Auld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: community@lists.openmoko.org
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 2:06:45 PM
Subject: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

I wouldn't expect such an issue as i expect the GSM module will be 
correctly certified and as access is via AT command set you 
/shouldn't/ be able to make it do things it's not allowed to...


someone please correct me if i'm incorrect in my assumptions

Graham



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeff Andros

Sent: 13 December 2006 16:17
To: David Schlesinger
Cc: community@lists.openmoko.org; La Monte Henry Piggy Yarroll
Subject: Re: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

not to mention completely outside the terms of service of any major 
carrier...?


a while ago, I spoke to both Cingular and T-Mob, I told them I was 
doing some work with a gm-862, both said there was nothing in their 
service restrictions about connecting with weird equipment like that


--Jeff

On 12/13/06, David Schlesinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:


Do you mean "legal challenges" beyond its use being, strictly 
speaking, a violation of Federal law, not to mention completely 
outside the terms of service of any major carrier...?


-Original Message-

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of La Monte 
Henry Piggy Yarroll

Sent: Wed 12/13/2006 7:37 AM
To: community@lists.openmoko.org
Subject: FCC status for FIC Neo1973?

Would anyone care to comment on the FCC status of the FIC Neo1973? In
particular, are there any legal challenges associated with using
prototypes on a live GSM network?




--Tim
___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community



___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Internal flash size

[Paul Bohme]

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:

On Wednesday 20 December 2006 15:31, Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:
  

It is easy to find 2GB usb sticks on market for <20 EUR. FIC Phone will get
64MB (preliminary specs)...

Can it get more? 512MB or more with good partitioning (/ + /home) would be
nice




I would second that request. 1GB or even 2GB shouldn't make it prohibitively 
more expensive but a LOT more useful (and still much cheaper for us customers 
than having to buy overpriced microsd cards ;-).
  


Remember that this is still a phone..  Your general 'user' to whom this 
needs to appeal will probably be hard pressed to fill the flash 
provided.  Every penny counts in parts on devices like this, and that 
much of an increase with little end-user gain isn't nearly as easy as it 
sounds.


Last night I got an ad in the mail from a cell company that claims the 
Motorola RAZR phone retails for US$199.  Our neo - which from a consumer 
point of view already has fewer hardware features - is significantly 
more expensive than this.  It could be reasonably said that we should be 
looking for things to leave *out* to reduce the cost, must less trying 
to push it even farther.


Those of us that have delusions of grandeur (myself foremost ;-) are 
more than likely best served with adding our own storage.


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Internal flash size

[Paul Bohme]

Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:

Dnia środa, 20 grudnia 2006 16:27, Paul Bohme napisał:

  

Remember that this is still a phone..  Your general 'user' to whom this
needs to appeal will probably be hard pressed to fill the flash
provided.  



User - yes, developer - no. To get working toolchain installed I need 128M 
for rootfs. So I will have to boot from card or chroot to card or use 
symlinks.
  


Why?  Directories are easily handled through a few environment variables 
to run apps.  With such limited resources building on-board the device 
is a neat toy, but not terribly useful.


Have done a good bit of this on various devices with much success.

 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Idea: Vibrator as keyboard click

[Paul Bohme]

Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote:

That's a nice idea. I wonder a) whether the softest movement we can do
with the vibrator that would still not be interfering with operating
the device and b) how much power such an option would suck.
  


Was wondering this (b) myself, but doesn't seem like it would take much 
more than an incoming call that runs the vibrator for large chunks of a 
second several times..  A worthy tradeoff, especially considering the 
lack of feedback otherwise on the touch screen.


If nobody else beats me to it, I'll hop on it as soon as I get my 
grubbies on a Neo. ;-)


-P



___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Real Neo1973 photo / Neo delayed...!?

[Paul Bohme]

Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:

On 1/10/07 12:47 AM, "Sven Neuhaus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  

Something is seriously wrong if they can't present a working unit the same
month they were originally going to ship them. Didn't they talk about
shipping units to a few devs in December?



I wanted to make something more formal first..but let me just say a few
things now. 


We had some problems with the hardware in a revision I had hoped would be
final. This set us back about month. So we're looking at moving the first
phones out in February now. I can promise you there is nothing "seriously
wrong."
  



Been there.  Can feel your pain, man.



Sure:

Standard Kit:
* 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 (mm)
* 2.8" VGA (480x640) TFT Screen
* Samsung s3c2410 SoC @ 266 MHz
* Global Locate AGPS chip
* Ti GPRS (2.5G not EDGE)
* Unpowered USB 1.1
* Touchscreen
* micro-sd slot
* 2.5mm audio jack
* 2 additional buttons
* 1200 mAh battery (charged over USB)
* 128 MB SDRAM
* 64 MB NAND Flash
* Bluetooth (yes bluetooth!)
  


Huzzah!  Color me *stoked* at this point.  I was looking forward to the 
phone, but the 'icing on the cake' that is bluetooth has me downright 
giddy. 

I work with a couple mac-fans that were ogling the iPhone the other 
day.  Slick piece of equipment, that.  They loaded the press page on the 
Neo and the iPhone and were flipping back and forth - the funny thing is 
that they want to wait six month or so after the devices go on sale, to 
let Apple work out the kinks.  While on the one hand I wish Jobs & co. 
much success with their device, my needs will be amply filled by the Neo.


The punch line?  One of the guys at work joked about starting a pool to 
bet on how soon someone will have a Linux kernel booting the iPhone.. ;-)



We have two more kits that will be available (in addition to the standard
kit): A "Car Kit" and a "Hacker's Lunchbox."

The latter is quite cool. I'll tell you more about it soon.
  


Looking forward to that one.

 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Lightweight 'navigational' app? (Was Re: Real Neo1973 photo / Neo delayed...!?)

[Paul Bohme]

Sven Neuhaus wrote:

Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
We have two more kits that will be available (in addition to the 
standard

kit): A "Car Kit" and a "Hacker's Lunchbox."


Car kit? Please tell me it includes car navigation software... :)
This screen (not to mention the GPS) is just screaming for maps to 
display.




We were  chewing this one over at work the other day.  If you could pull 
a list of waypoints from (say) Google's mapping API, and location data 
from the GPS it might be possible to get something really useful without 
the heavy map data or rendering engines.  Obviously I've done zero 
research on this one yet, but it sounds reasonable from a pure handwave 
level.  We've got a data connection - use it! ;-)


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: iPhone vs. Neo1973 comparison

[Paul Bohme]

Jon Phillips wrote:

I guess this is the perfect example of where you need infrastructure up
on the openmoko.com website. I think having http://wiki.openmoko.org
sooner rather than later would be good, otherwise, the community is
already routing around this and putting content here and there...

I created some on my wiki as well: http://rejon.org/wiki but I would
rather consolidate onto the openmoko.org wiki ;)

Sean, what do you think? It would be great to empower the community :)

  


This was addressed (a few times) in the past - the devs involved are 
focused on getting the product out, then will turn their attention to 
consolidating ideas and such into a Wiki.  Right now it would be more of 
a drain on their resources than they can afford.


Patience, friends.. ;-)



___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Idea: Human screenning

[Paul Bohme]

Dave Crossland wrote:

On 15/01/07, Gervais Mulongoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Heh, until the phone spam operators start using basic voice 
recognition and

to defeat the simple riddle :p


Spammers don't do email address de-obfuscation because it takes too
much processing time; I can't see them doing this in practice :-)


Unfortunately, with zombie bot-nets being what they are, spammers have 
essentially infinite CPU power at their disposal.  Whether the 
investment to get through a single obstinate node is worthwhile, look 
for any mechanism short of a pure white-list to be eventually overrun.


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: keyboard / keypad idea

[Paul Bohme]

Derek Pressnall wrote:

Since devices like the neo 1973 and the iphone don't have a keypad, I
thought of an idea that could provide a close substitute.
How about making a screen protector type of overlay that is
transparent at the top, but the bottom section would have raised bumps
in a keypad layout?  I'm thinking of maybe a rubbery neoprene type of
material or something.  Then you would still be using the touch screen
for input (pressure applied to the bumps would transfer through the
overlay to the touch screen), but the keypad pattern would show up
through the bottom part of the overlay (with the "bumps") where you
could still "blind dial".

Add in a hinged connection at the top of the overlay, and possibly a
sensor that could switch the phone's screen between normal mode and
"phone only" mode when the overlay is in use, and you could have a
very cheap method of obtainin a keypad similar to a Motorola A780.  So
what does everyone think?


They've had various kinds of these for Palm devices for some time.  
Probably depends on the type of touchscreen, I'd think.  Interesting 
add-on idea, but not something that seems easy to homebrew a few of to 
see if they'd work..


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Kingmax announces microSDHC 4G card

[Paul Bohme]

kkr wrote:

http://www.mobile-review.com/news.php?language=en#news12096

Any chance to use those with the Neo? 
___

OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community




As mentioned on http://www.linuxtogo.org/gowiki/OpenMoko/Hardware , the
CPU (Samsung s3c2410) can manage 1 GB of memory. 


Even if I don't know how Linux manage SDcard (or SDHC), I think that the
limitation is bound to the CPU.

Therefore, I don't think that it's possible

Could anybody confirm it?
  


How big is the hard drive in your PC?  I'd wager a lot larger than the 
RAM can be. ;-)


The SD is going to be handled through interfaces that enable much larger 
range than the physical memory limitations of the CPU.


I run a 2GB SD in my Zaurus (C760) and GP2X - both ARM-based devices - 
without issue.


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Fwd: OpenMoko in my area?

[Paul Bohme]

Mike wrote:

Marcel de Jong wrote:

ps.
I really don't like the fact that 'reply' doesn't work on this
mailinglist. I have to add the mailaddress myself. (this is the only
mailinglist that I know, that does that this way)



You'll want to be careful here - is an odd thing that people get really 
bent out of shape about..  Have no idea why.

Interesting discussion: http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html


I agree with this, and I'd also like to add that this list should also
auto-prepend a marker in the subject line like most other lists do, for
example [OMOKO-COM] so that we can set up mail filters.


There are a number of other headers that serve well for this.  If you 
examine the message, you'll see something similar to the following:


List-Id: List for OpenMoko community discussion 
List-Unsubscribe: ,

List-Archive: 
List-Post: 
List-Help: 
List-Subscribe: ,

Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Errors-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Any of these, particularly the List-Id would be perfect for mail sorting.

 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: MicroSD Wifi ?

[Paul Bohme]

Grahame Falvey wrote:

On 15/01/07, Joe Pfeiffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Grahame Falvey writes:
>
>Is the microSD slot accessable while the phone is operational?  Or
>does one have to remove the battery and hence power down the device in
>order to swap out the card?

As far as we know, it requires powering-down the phone.



Not to sound too negative, but that's rather pointless really.  I have
a Nokia 6230 which has the MMC slot under the battery and it's just
plain annoying to have to remove it whenever I want top copy stuff
onto or off it.  Would there be a technical reason why it would be
done this way?


While it's not ideal, it's far from pointless.  Consider the hoops that 
most phones make you jump through - while I'm of the camp that never 
understood why you'd want a camera on your phone - others I know 
complain that their carrier wants to charge them for every single photo 
they transfer off the phone.  Data transfers of any kind tend to be 
incredibly constrained.


With the Neo, moving data to/from the phone can be much easier than good 
ol' fashioned 'sneakernet.'  Hopefully this makes much of the flipping 
of memory cards back and forth to transfer data much less necessary.


That said, I'm hoping that our impressions of having to pull pieces 
apart to get at the card are incorrect. ;-)


(As an aside, what does it look like when the phone is tethered?  Is it 
an endpoint for PPP, or the classic USB mass storage device?  If it's 
the latter, are both the internal flash and the expansion cards visible 
at the same time?)


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Idea: Human screenning

[Paul Bohme]

Ole Tange wrote:

On 1/15/07, Paul Bohme <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Dave Crossland wrote:
> On 15/01/07, Gervais Mulongoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Heh, until the phone spam operators start using basic voice
>> recognition and
>> to defeat the simple riddle :p
>
> Spammers don't do email address de-obfuscation because it takes too
> much processing time; I can't see them doing this in practice :-)

Unfortunately, with zombie bot-nets being what they are, spammers have
essentially infinite CPU power at their disposal.  Whether the
investment to get through a single obstinate node is worthwhile, look
for any mechanism short of a pure white-list to be eventually overrun.


Could you elaborate on that?

To me it seems that if you can solve riddles then you are fairly close
to making a computer that passes the Turing test. Especially if the
riddles are not of the same form: "What is ten plus hundred?" "Enter
the last five digits of my phone number" "Enter yesterday's date"

First of all you need to solve speech to text. Then you need to parse
and understand the sentence. Both problems have proven to be really
hard problems. Throwing a botnet after this is not going to solve it
if the algorithm is simply not there.


Thus the 'Whether the investment to get through a single obstinate node' 
comment above - acknowledgment that cases like this probably won't 
matter enough to warrant the effort on the part of the unwanted caller.  
As a more general note, many suggestions have been put forth in the 
email realm to incur some CPU cost for sending an email - these do fall 
readily enough given enough CPU power.


If someone were to arrange a central call-filtering mechanism to kill 
off these kinds of calls, count on someone  else circumventing it.  
Discussions about algorithms and problems are all well and good, but 
this is money.. ;-)


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Gaming oportunities

[Paul Bohme]

tony wrote:

I am planning a Nethack port. It should be quite easy.


In theory, yes.  In practice...  I have run this on a Zaurus, and it's a 
little hard to see/read.  At least on that I have a reasonable keyboard 
- what are your thoughts on display sizes as well as input mechanism?


If it can be made to work, that's almost enough excuse for me to buy one 
right there (as if there weren't already plenty of them..)


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Alternative input, like Dasher

[Paul Bohme]

Derek Pressnall wrote:

One of my favorite alternative inputs is a system callec QuickWriting
(I've also seen it called qwikscript, qwikscroll, etc).  The concept
is that you have the alphabet aranged in groups along a circle, where
the circle is divided into eight sections.  Each section contains 5
characters.  To select a character, you drag the stylus from the
center of the circle into the appropriate section, then either go back
to the center, or enter an adjacent section(s) then go back to the
center.  The section(s) you enter and leave determine the character
selected.
Once you get used to it (after about a week or so) you start to
develope a "flow" for certain words and you can end up with a fairly
quick input speed (faster than on-screen keyboard).  One
implimentation is called QwikScript for Qtopia, but I haven't seen
this done for GTK yet.  Check it out on qwikscript.sourceforge.net.


I did an implementation of this for the Agenda VR3 some years ago.  Is 
one of the things that I was thinking of pulling in, as it is far 
preferable (imho) to an on-screen keyboard.  It uses some FLTK-based 
libs, should be a pretty straight recompile with some adjustments for 
the vastly higher resolution of the device vs. the Agenda.


http://agtoys.sourceforge.net/ has the existing project.

 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Why do I want WiFi?

[Paul Bohme]

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:

On Thursday 18 January 2007 09:54, Renaissance Man wrote:
  

Seamless swapping needs the carriers' help. And they won't do it
for free, rest assured.
  

Already being done. See http://truphone.com



Doesn't really say how it works. "An all  SIP solution" doesnt really sound 
like it could ever be seamless with GSM. I'd really like to know just how 
this supposed to work, because if they pulled this off, it would be really 
huge. 
  


Perhaps if were drop the assumption that it would try to go from 
IP-based SIP call to GSM voice call.  What if the phone were simply 
smart enough to go from wifi to GPRS - then it's more a matter of having 
the endpoints able to withstand an IP address change mid-call.  
Something like that could go BT->wifi->GPRS and back without missing a 
beat - assuming that each step of the way involved a working IP address 
and the software were smart enough..


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: porting PalmOS apps?

[Paul Bohme]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

Is anyone looking into the difficulty of porting old PalmOS
applications to OpenMoko?  There are a few of them that I'd really
hate to lose (the Pilot-DB flat-file database and the Timing multiple
timer are two I use a lot, and haven't seen any equivalent Linux
programs for).

Hmm, if not, that might give me something to look into...  timing
couldn't be a direct port since the source isn't open (and besides,
it's got some interface decisions I'd want to change), but pilot-db is
GPL.
  


Unfortunately PalmOS apps don't 'port' - the API is so bad that the only 
solution is to rewrite the application.  Unless there are some internal 
algorithms that are totally system independent (and with the above named 
apps I don't see much if any room for this) there is little if any code 
that can be harvested for a port to a new platform.


I worked on the platform from the late 1.x days into the 3.x, and 
because I'm a packrat still have several (including my first unit - a 
USRobotics PalmPilot 5000) collecting dust.


Been there, done that.  Ran away screaming. ;-)

I think I remember the pilot-db app, if you look around there may be 
something that fits the same shoes - perhaps something SQLite based?


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: porting PalmOS apps?

[Paul Bohme]

David Schlesinger wrote:

On 1/21/07 5:52 AM, "Joe Pfeiffer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  

I wouldn't say the API is as bad as you do, but
it's certainly *different*.



  


What's the old rule - 'if you can't think of something nice to say...'

So I'm not going to say anything.  >:)


Only from Linux. It's actually very similar to the pre-OS X Mac OS APIs...
  


Considering my only pre-OS X exposure was far enough back that PPC was 
still really novel, see above comment.



Making legacy apps written for the "Garnet" OS (née "Palm OS") run on Linux
is decidedly non-trivial. An emulator for this is going to be part of the
ACCESS Linux Platform...
  


Interesting - so an emulator for the old 68k stuff?

 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Isn't this a little early?

[Paul Bohme]

Kyle Bassett wrote:

I'm surprised what I came across this evening:

http://macenstein.com/default/archives/757/ Post #7

I was doing my usual digg run when I stumbled upon user "Steve" and 
his signature link.



http://www.freeopenmoko.com/



Too funny.  They're having a little fun with the 'as in beer' part of 
'free'.


Perhaps turn your sarcasm detector up a little.. ;-)

 -P

--
When you posture DRM as a 'direct consumer benefit' you may as well just 
be saying 'It's double plus good' as you strap the rat cage to my face.

 - "parf" on Windows Vista's "content protection"


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: FPGA? [scanned]

[Paul Bohme]

 Remind me again why Sean's dad would care about an FPGA..? ;-)

 Remember guys, while it is eminently hackable, it's still a _phone_.  
Tons of good ideas for a lot of other devices and uses, but it's a 
little much for the tight boundaries we're living with here.  Stack too 
much non-phone hardware into this one unit and it becomes something that 
nobody needs enough to justify the $$.


 Just a thought, from someone with a drawer full of dead PDA's/phones 
(some of them Linux-based and ultra-hackable..)


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: FPGA? [scanned]

[Paul Bohme]

Ole Tange wrote:


That is exactly what the software radio is about.



My original question remains: Why do this with a _phone_?  There are 
more than likely plenty of other kits out there for this, why burden 
something that's otherwise a dedicated device (granted one with quite a 
bit of flexibility, but still) with lots of what has nothing to do with 
its mainline function?


If it had the ability to still be a phone _and_ drive other devices, 
perhaps there would be more merit.  While I'm looking forward to getting 
one of these for my own hacking and projects, there's no denying that it 
would be much 'cooler' if it had bluetooth or wifi.  Guess I'll look 
forward to buying one of those models at some point in the future.. ;-)


Making the main radio unit that accessible would also more than likely 
get the phone into all kinds of regulatory issues, not to mention a 
serious nightmare for carriers.  Have gone through bits of the testing 
required to get a cell product on the market in the States, and it's not 
easy (or cheap!) - nor do they look favorably on changes.


 -P


___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Shiny geek toy?

[Paul Bohme]

Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:

On 12/7/06 12:00 PM, "Christopher Heiny" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

  

Do we really want a shiny geek toy?  Something that is super cool and
technologically advanced, but only nerds will want to hack on?

Or should we be working toward a solid OpenSource platform that will
encourage other phone manufacturers to build on it and in turn give their
work back to the community?



The latter please ;-)


Absolutely.  The last thing I want is another neat but essentially 
dead-end device..  (AgendaVR3, anyone..?)


I'm really stoked about the specs I've read thus far - enough to work 
with, enough to be modern/marketable, but not overloaded to the point of 
killing the price and attractiveness of the device.


 -P

___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: GPLv3 and Mobile Phones

[Paul Bohme]

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
Personally I could care less if there was a binary only module there. I'm 
pragmatic, not religious. Saying we don't add that for such a reason doesn't 
help freedom of choice either.


Personally I say add the hardware, even if it needs a binary driver (or even 
just firmware). The religious group is then free to remove the driver and not 
use WiFi ;)
  


Am of similar opinion - while I'm fastidious about licensing (both on 
personal projects and using Linux extensively at work), it's for purely 
pragmatic reasons.  Am of different opinion, however, on the binary 
modules, again for pragmatic reasons.  The Zaurus was stuck with an old 
2.4.x kernel for an extended period of time because the SD driver was a 
binary.  Since that was one of the features that made the device great 
(CF and SD.. Yum) it was like having an anchor you have to drag around.  
Sucked.


Would like to avoid similar again, if at all possible.  Loading firmware 
into a device is no big deal - it doesn't link into any other code so 
might as well be any random opaque blob of data.  Having to deal with 
the contortions involved when one of the modules you need is pinned in 
time while the rest of the system is straining to grow is something else 
entirely.


 -P



___
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/community

Re: Dot'n reply above quote

[Paul Bohme]

Yocto wrote:
> One more thing I like with other mailing lists.
> They start their subjects with a token describing their mailing lists in 
> square brackets.
> This allow to quickly sort / filter the incoming mails.
>
> Examples:   "[jQuery]","[Qemu-devel]",   "[ECOS]",  "[Rtai]",  "[vlc]"
>
> It would be nice to see the Openmoko mailing list use something like:
> "[OpenMoko]", "[OM]" or "[FR]"
>   

Check the headers:

List-Id: List for Openmoko community discussion 




___
Openmoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community