Nishanth' tech rambles

keep a watch... next story on the cheap omap boards... ?? - the page is still in progress.. i'd keep a watch on the rss

http://opensource.indt.org/omapbuilds/ -> this is good thing.. something finally to give a bird's eye view of things.. mebbe a tiny perl script will manage to do a daily bootlog.. gotta figure that one out..

http://www.phonemag.com/e28-show-working-android-cellphone-video-from-mwc-02950.php with OMAP730 (gosh that is old...) The real stuff with OMAP3430: http://www.phonemag.com/texas-instruments-touchscreen-android-video-demo-02998.php there is youtube videos in both one can enjoy the same.. Here is the KICKER: as predicted -> the OMAP3430 platform in the demo is a SUB 1k USD platform.. See here: http://www.logicpd.com/products/devkit/ti/zoom_mobile_development_kit for development and ordering info... it also has a crappy icon which looks familiar from the video folks... Two useful links from the Site: opensource.ti.com openomap.org (Additions: http://androidzaurus.seesaa.net/article/74237419.html zaurus android) Must have: android internals list: http://groups.google.com/group/android-internals/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(mobile_phone_platform ) the Android Site: http://code.google.com/android/

For the folks watching out news, here is a news: http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/02/12/wind_river_montavista_mobile_linux/ a bit funny watching all folks fight over things.. Interesting response from Symbian: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/12/symbian_financials_and_google_challenge/ Also see the competition from Qualcomm and NEC boards: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/hands-on-with-g.html The interesting part is that SDP3430 looks hellua lot better that these.. Brain, Brawn and Beauty = SDP?? Anyways, sneaky open labrador... in org.. mebbe it is not time for me to announce, but keep watching TI's offerings for Developers like you and me.. finally boards we can afford, and pretty cool ones too :) On other news, Android fever, see some interesting snaps: http://www.news.com/2300-1041_3-6229980.html?tag=ne.gall.latest The interesting part is TI is showing off OMAP3430 and 850 based Android demos. the link http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142369-p...

Hmm.. after a long line of trial and errors (and blunders) i am posting this off my wifi connection on my linux boot.. :) on my way in kicking Vista offff my laptop.. anyway, since i plan on doing this all over again, here are the steps: get the binaries of iwlwifi (http://intellinuxwireless.org/) iwlwifi-1.2.25.tgz mac80211-10.0.4.tgz (did not need this) iwlwifi-3945-ucode-2.14.1.5.tgz Get the kernel source: sudo apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.22 unziped the kernel, had to play a bit of stupid tricks such as sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.22/ /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/source + copy the .config and build files from kernel-header-generic in /usr/src/... to the source directory.. then buidl iwlwifi: a simple "sudo make", copy the firmware: cp iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.1.20/iwlwifi-4965-1.ucode /lib/firmware/ and the same for 3945 sudo make install blacklisting the ipw3945 driver: /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist add the line: blacklist ipw3945 edited my /etc/network/inter...

http://www.nsftools.com/tips/HexWords.htm has a bunch of words with numbers also Cafe Babe bedded beef ;)

I will be un-shamed of increasing my blog hit, but then what the heck: Following http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dangers.png here are the stuff that died: Many Silicons - cause - Money Many drivers 'nd patches - cause - bad coding U-boot OMAP3430 support - cause - errr.... Me - cause... Laziness :D

I moved to http://quickquote.mozdev.org/faq.html instead of playing around with user.js everytime for thunderbird reply message customization. I would have done the good old days" //vista: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\defaults\user.js (ofcourse you need to change permissions to edit..) // Change the reply header // 0 - No Reply-Text // 1 - "[Author] wrote:" // 2 - "On [date] [author] wrote:" // 3 - User-defined reply header. Use the prefs below in conjunction with this: user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_type", 3); // If you set 3 for the pref above then you may set the following prefs. user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote", "%s said the following"); user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_ondate", "on %s"); user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_separator", " "); user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_colon", ":"); // The end result will be [authorwrote][separator][ondate][co...

What a journey... 2 years of 17 inch laptop to today's 12 inch laptop... My old laptop been dead for a month now.. finally got my new lenovo thinkpad tablet working.. (yep.. Linux is pending.. :D mebbe I will go ubuntu this time).. Love the compact light and extreme configuration... only I got me vista 32 bit and 4GB of RAM but only 3GB visible due to the 32bit OS. Linux should fix it (will save me 139$ for moving to vista 64 bit ultimate).. what else.. blazing config core duo T7200 proc, 4GBRAM, 7200RPM HDD blah blah blah... On the downside of things: a) only rescue CD - the full Disk image or nothing... no customization seen :( b) hate the function key next to control key.. c) missing touchpad. the control stick is kinda cute... but i am a onehand user of laptops d) love the light weight, low heat laptop (my wife's HP is literally capable of making a omlette).. e) love the tablet features.. vista handwriting recognition is: quote my wife:"capable of reading your chicken ...

--NAND flash preps for 4 bits per cell-- Single-chip 16-Gbit MLC NAND flash devices from 50-nanometer-classprocesses were introduced in the first half of 2007. http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBFuD0FyTZ10FrY0FhNF0Ef --NAND to scale for several years-- NAND flash is projected to scale at least for another five or soyears, pushing out the need for next-generation or universal memorytechnologies. http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBFuD0FyTZ10FrY0FSzc0EX --16-Gbit MLC NAND flash weighs in-- To meet increasing demand for more digital storage, leading flashmemory manufacturers are touting their latest single-chip 16-Gbit MLCNAND flash devices. Earlier this year, Toshiba announced a 16-Gbit MLCNAND flash manufactured in the 56-nm process node. Samsung, meanwhile,introduced a 16-Gbit MLC NAND flash using a 51-nm process, a half aprocess node ahead of Toshiba's. http://newsletter.embedded.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/eBFuD0FyTZ10FrY0FhNG0Eg

Sony goes ahead with a change in policy - quote: "The revised Terms of Service and User Agreement will be effective no sooner than October 30th, 2007".. Since the Mail is on Nov 9th, Weee that is "-9 " days of notice.. "oh by the way," 11. PUBLIC INFORMATION SCEA may provide all users with information relating to your game play. (ADDED FOLLOWING) You hereby authorize SCEA to use, distribute, copy, display, and publish information relating to your game play for gaming purposes including tournaments and ranking, without payment to you . In addition, you will have the option to post, stream or transmit pictures, photographs, game related materials, or other information through PSN to share with the PSN community ("User Material"), provided no rights of others are violated. You authorize and sublicense SCEA the right to authorize anyone to use, distribute, copy, modify, display, and publish your User Material in any manner on any medium without paym...

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=154&articleId=9044179&intsrc=hm_topic

Here is what a friend of mine Jayan John has to say (reposted with permission) on a discussion on various processor variants today in Cellphone business. The relevant debate may not be “standalone baseband processors” vs”SOC", but whether or not SOC is the best option... Why ? Quote: “Convergence in the industry of computing capabilities and communication protocols has resulted in the development of devices with enhanced functionalities and capabilities. Providing a range of functions at a low cost while maintaining the reliability and compatibility of existing systems and devices is a major challenge today. As devices become more complex with numerous features, it is of prime importance to find out ways to extract more power from the batteries". With this in mind, choosing the right level of integration is a difficult decision. To make this interesting… Read Texas Instruments vs Philips back in 2005 ( http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=159901628 ...

Here are some interesting news articles in recent days: Appilcation processors are dead ? http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9250186181.html -> that'd be painful... ;) Broadcom : http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9797486-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5 Cnet has some details though not radical http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8838596703.html - that is some indepth info.. Should the world tremble? Colored printk : http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Colored_printk_Output i like jazzy stuff.. mebbe i will steal this for uboot v2??...

So, I am on a slow roll on uboot2 changes for OMAP.. uboot 2 is lot less mature as it can be seen digging into the code, but it is most promising. The main reason I want to jump on uboot2 is that omap support is very nascent here, and lots can be done.. Some areas of concern: * i2c seems pretty unclear * I like the dev concept, but should modules of OMAP be also dev based? I dont think so.. generic modules - yes..i2c etc.. * on dev -> it looks very immature considering that include/driver.h has: 45 struct driver_d { 55 ssize_t (*erase) (struct device_d*, size_t count, unsigned long offset); 56 int (*protect)(struct device_d*, size_t count, unsigned long offset, int prot); 59 void (*info) (struct device_d *); Errrr... erase,protect,info ?? that is flash type device struct rt? it does not fit into a generic driver structure.. * I dont like the fact that there is still a config.h (include/configs/xyz.h SYMLINKed to include/config.h) which makes NO sense to me.. on...

Ok today I had a look of Makefile.. Denx supports a unified make file unlike the strategy in kernel. There are some interesting snippets of code in the same. In short, we could have something for configs as follows: _ _ _config Where, SiliconName = omap2420, omap3430,et.al. boardName = sdp,osk,apollon etc Special = Boot Mode -> e.g. nand/onenand or defined boot mode for that platform. Now, should i have es versions??? 3430 es1 and es2 are different enough to have two code definitions? One thing I don’t agree to : u-boot.arm/doc/README.ARM-SoC cpu/$(CPU)/$(SOC)/ does not facilitate re-use -> coz I might want to reuse across arm versions.. and this does not let me do it.. I am getting diverted again -> this time it is U-boot v2!!!! cg-clone http://www.denx.de/git/u-boot-v2.git/ u-boot.v2 let me see what sacha has got...

Where are the files? u-boot.arm is what i am basing myself on. Directory : u-boot.arm/lib_arm/ Description: ARM specific library function implementation Files: armlinux.c _ashrdi3.S cache.c _divsi3.S _modsi3.S _umodsi3.S _ashldi3.S board.c div0.c Makefile _udivsi3.S Contains: some important (if I may use such a word - all look important): bootm implementation, banner display cache functions start_armboot Directory :/u-boot.arm/cpu/arm1136 Description: ARM1136 CPU specific logic. This is kind of common for most part. I can see that ARM integrator and 2420 are the two folks using this so far at least.. Files: config.mk cpu.c interrupts.c Makefile start.S Contains: start.s is the basic starting point of the boot process.. __start is where the code starts the boot.. So... after almost an year and a half of CCS assembly, I need to brush up the GNU ARM Assembly.. i got it somewhere.. hmm.. Ref: GNU ARM Assembly Quick Reference Guide: http://www.microcross.com/GNU-ARM-Assy-Quick-Ref.pdf An I...

I am starting off with a fresh OMAP port of uboot . Nothing is proper unless i answer some of my questions.. Why Do this? * The main reason of doing this is coz I am sick and tired of crappy code and repatch folks have been doing.. and am hoping that I can do a clean reuse for OMAP platform * U-boot is largely ignored for maybe the lack of fame and fortune stuff, but I kinda like it at the moment, coz it reminds me the first line of code i wrote for 2430 port.. it was in uboot .. on virtual platform. kind of presilicon . pressures were high, could never do a clean job then.. here is a chance to get things right.. * I am kind of tired doing my "project" work * My wife is getting busy for her exams and other than an hour's walk, I wont get troubled much for a week at least (I hope ;) ). What is my plan? I am hoping to integrate a lot of modules and avoid repetitions where possible.. e.g.: why have multiple board file for each of omap 2420 platforms? GPMC as an example...

cordic algo seems pretty powerful: http://www.ddj.com/embedded/196700769 C Code for the same: http://my.execpc.com/~geezer/embed/cordic.c Now to see if VFP and Neon support can handle float ops.. never tried it so far... Hmm...

Damn... they killed my template!!!!!! by the way, USB 3.0 is out!!! here is more what my friend passed on: USB 3.0 ---------- Superspeed Personal USB interface 10 times faster than the present USB optimized for low power and improved protocol efficiency USB 3.0 ports and cabling will be designed to enable backward compatibility as well as future-proofing for optical capabilitie USB 3.0 specification is expected by the first half of 2008 Intel, HP, NEC, NXP, TI, Microsoft are the 3.0 promotors Ref: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070918comp.htm http://focus.ti.com/docs/pr/pressrelease.jhtml?prelId=sc07155