[Community] Welcome to new Project: Neo900

Sun Nov 3 12:00:49 CET 2013

Hello,

What's the neo900 dimension ?

Can I put it in a pocket or a box ?

Thanks for your answer ?

Best regards

mparchet

> Le 3 nov. 2013 à 11:34, "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at goldelico.com> a écrit :
> 
> 
>> Am 03.11.2013 um 10:17 schrieb Parchet Michaël:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Do you have think about kickstater or other cloud founding site to finance your projects ?
> 
> Yes, but we decided to do it differently, i.e. more innovative. These days every project is done
> through such a cloud founding service, and projects like Ubuntu Edge did fail. To some extent
> by setting unachievable goals.
> 
> One of the key points for a campaign to succeed is not the platform to collect donations, but a
> network with those who are interested (here talk.maemo.org). Even Kickstarter points this out in
> their FAQ ("In most cases, the majority of funding initially comes from the fans and friends of
> each project."). So why do we need such platforms if we have to send fans and friends to them
> and then they give the addresses and money back to us?
> 
> And, it gives us the flexibility to run the campaign continuously instead of defining more or less
> arbitrary limits (in time and budget). For me, such limits have the tendency of forcing people to
> donate, not because they are convinced by the idea, but because the deadline comes close.
> This would be in contradiction of the "Independence" we are looking for.
> 
> All this is experience from the GTA04 "Group Tour" project, we did run some time ago.
> 
> BR,
> Nikolaus
> 
>> 
>> Best regards
>> 
>> mparchet
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Le 3 nov. 2013 à 08:39, "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at goldelico.com> a écrit :
>>> 
>>> Hi Neil,
>>> 
>>>> Am 02.11.2013 um 23:07 schrieb NeilBrown:
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, 2 Nov 2013 12:03:31 +0100 "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller"
>>>> <hns at goldelico.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Neil,
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Am 02.11.2013 um 09:46 schrieb NeilBrown:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Thu, 31 Oct 2013 08:23:29 +0100 "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller"
>>>>>> <hns at goldelico.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>> the new Neo900 (GTA04b7) project has been started within the OpenPhoenux community!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> It is now open for collecting donations to finance the initial development.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> For all details, please refer to the project home page: http://www.neo900.org/
>>> 
>>> We now hit the 15k funding level! This means that we will be able to push the project to
>>> build some working prototypes to learn about issues (as described below).
>>> 
>>> I should also note that the funding is not intended to be time limited. Because it is
>>> more or less a voucher system. So if someone can't donate immediately, it is no
>>> problem to jump in let's say next month. And, it is no problem if we go beyond 25k
>>> because more donators (vouchers) mean that we can the expect to produce
>>> more devices (which may also bring down the production cost to an even more
>>> attractive level).
>>> 
>>> So we do exactly opposite as a standard fundraising, by having no limits (neither
>>> in time nor in budget).
>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Let the Phoenux fly :)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Nikolaus
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>> I've been reading through the web site and have a couple of comments.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 1/  From the 3x3 table on the front page:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>       IrDA and Consumer IR
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Use your phone as a universal TV remote or...
>>>>>> connect the serial console via IrDA link. Low
>>>>>> level debugging couldn't be made easier.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> unless you know something I don't, it isn't possible to do low-level debugging
>>>>>> over a serial console on the IrDA link.  Certainly not possible to capture
>>>>>> early-boot messages.
>>>>>> For low-level kernel debugging I find a serial cable indispensable.
>>>> 
>>>> No reply to this bit?  Should the reference to low level debugging through IR
>>>> be removed, or can someone tell me how to do it?
>>> 
>>> Well, I have not written this in detail. I think it is possible to use an IR interface
>>> as a simple UART3, but there might be an issue with impulse shaping. AFAIR,
>>> an IrDA transceiver works with impulses while UART uses states, i.e. sending
>>> a 0x00-byte would be 9 clocks 0 on UART but 9 impulses on IrDA. This might
>>> be incompatible. Anyways there is no problem of having both. Well, a space
>>> problem.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Also the "Feature Overview" in neo900-feasibility.pdf has an 'x' next to
>>>>>> 'IrDA' for both Neo900 possibilities.  I guess 'x' must mean "yes".  I
>>>>>> usually find "x" to me "no" and a "tick" to mean yes.  Maybe it's a cultural
>>>>>> thing :-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes, appears to be so. Here we see an "x" like a checkmark "✓" meaning "yes".
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Also the table doesn't list any Bluetooth for the GTA04.  Not even an 'x'.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Oops - that is an omission.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have fixed the document.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 2/ In neo900-feasibility.pdf
>>>>>> section 14 - Dual/Quad-core
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -  OMAP4: yes, Jorjin OMAP4 module, same CPU as PandaBoard; but we donʻt know
>>>>>> all hardware details and/or software (power management)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> This seems to imply that we do know all the detail of power management for
>>>>>> the omap3.  But we do not.
>>>>>> The power usage on the GTA04 is still woeful.  This may not be directly
>>>>>> related to the OMAP3 software, but I suspect it is partly related.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What I don't know is if all peripherals are powered down as much as possible.
>>>>> Suspects are the ITG3200 and the RS232/IrDA drivers.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm fairly sure the ITG3200 is being powered down.  It isn't if you don't
>>>> have a driver and when I wrote a driver I save a couple of mA.
>>> 
>>> I remember there might be a problem powering down the VAUX driving it only
>>> but keeping the 1.8V. This might lead to some leakage current in the range of
>>> seveal mA. But I have not looked how we did hook it up and what the driver is
>>> really doing on suspend.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Don't know about RS232...  though I do know that plugging a serial cable in
>>>> increase the current drain.
>>> 
>>> Yes, that is to be expected.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> As I think I've said before, I'm very suspicious of internal USB.
>>>> It is the reason we cannot safely enter "off-mode", and small changes there
>>>> seem to have big effects on current.  e.g. if I hold 'reset' low, current
>>>> usage goes up quite a bit.
>>> 
>>> Yes, I remember - but have no new theory why it is so. The data sheet says
>>> that holding reset of the USB3322 should power it completely down.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In general the issue of power-management is largely missing from the
>>>>>> feasibility study.  It should really state how power (in)efficient the GTA04
>>>>>> is and advise that there is no guarantee that the Neo900 will be any better.
>>>>>> (Anyone know how power-efficient the N900 is?).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes, the N900 (RX51) is better than the GTA04. AFAIK, there is no study
>>>>> discussing why they are such better.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Also: what are the details that we don't know?  I managed to find a TRM for
>>>>>> the OMAP4430 without much effort.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Generally the evaluation result is that we know a lot more about OMAP3/GTA04.
>>>>> 
>>>>> But nothing (except theory like a TRM) for the OMAP4. I.e. we could make a
>>>>> lot of mistakes hooking up the OMPA4 in a way that prevents optimal power
>>>>> management.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And, if we take the Pandabaord as an example, it has no power management
>>>>> and therefore we don't have a power-efficiency optimzed blueprint to learn from.
>>>>> 
>>>>> This sums up in that we know the OMAP3 better to optimize power demand than
>>>>> an OMAP4.
>>>>> 
>>>>> With the current 2-PCB approach it could become feasible to develop an
>>>>> OMAP4 CPU board later.
>>>> 
>>>> That's an interesting idea ... would a replacement CPU board be significantly
>>>> less effort/cost than a whole new GTA04 board?
>>> 
>>> No. We still need a new board and placing an DM3730 or an OMAP4 is
>>> almost the same work. It is even higher with the OMAP4 since we don't know the 6k
>>> pages TRM in all details. Thre may be things like a GPIO112 which is called such but
>>> turns out to be a GPI112, i.e. input only. So you can use it as an interrupt input.
>>> This is a mistake we did in the GTA04A2 revision (now fixed in A3 and later)...
>>> 
>>>> An OMAP4 (or better) would certainly make the project a lot more interesting
>>>> to me personally.
>>> 
>>> Or besser = OMAP5 :) Well, they are not even available yet and TI has a different
>>> sales model for OMAP4 and OMAP5. They sell to a selected group of module
>>> manufacturers only, so we have no chance to get 200 or 2k chips. Not even 20k.
>>> AFAIK, it starts with 500k chips/year that you can get them directly.
>>> 
>>> So this is unfortunately too much challenge so that we do not yet consider it.
>>> It may become easier in ca. 12 months when the newest OMAP chips become
>>> more widespread. But then they are no longer the cutting edge.
>>> 
>>> BR,
>>> NIkolaus
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