Yet another possible target for a port... (OMAP 3430 laptop)

So, Dell now has an OMAP 3430-based Mini-PCIe card that works in three models of their laptops. (Of course, their current-generation Latitudes SUCK horribly.) It works in the 12.1” E4200, the 13.3” E4300, and the 16” Z.

They intend it for one of those Linux-based instant-on environments, claiming “one day or better” battery life.

The only problem I see is that they claim it doesn’t access the hard drive for security reasons… my suspicion is more that it doesn’t access the hard drive because it physically can’t – it’s going through the Mini-PCIe interface, after all, and appears to have two custom chips that are larger than the CPU, so they probably didn’t bother to make it able to read the HDD (it’d either have to be USB or SD interfaced anyway.) So, there may not be any way to get any storage on the thing.

Still, worth looking into…

Yes, it certainly seems that possible hardware platforms for porting RISC OS to in the coming months and years will be increasing in numbers.

The great work of Jeffrey Lee porting RISC OS to TI OMAP 34xx hardware is an important first step for RISC OS. Hopefully this will lead to further porting to different hardware sets such as Tegra, Qualcomm, Samsung etc.. but I can’t help but feel that the Dell mini PCIe solution is a step beyond what can realistically be achieved right now. I’d love to be proved wrong however…

And one more. See the 30th September item in the news section:

http://www.riscos.info/index.php/RISC_OS

Anyone seen the Disgo Net Browser 3000, looks just right for running risc-os. The netbook is only £100.

There’s a Freescale seminar in the ARM offices coming up that ROOL will be attending. Hopefully, there will be useful info and contacts for us to make, similar to the OMAP seminar we attended a while ago.

The Freescale-based system looks like a much better target for a RISC OS machine than OMAP thanks to having on-board Ethernet and ATA controllers. Now all the hard work is almost done with getting the OMAP port finished (e.g. solving ARMv7 issues), doing likewise with a Freescale board should be much simpler.

Anyone seen the Disgo Net Browser 3000,

Maybe. I couldn’t find too much info about this, apart from it being for sale at play.com:

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/10823678/Disgo-Net-Browser-3000-64MB-2GB-7-Windows-CE-Netbook/Product.html

So, the processor is AK7802Q216 248MHz, which is substantially slower than e.g. the BeagleBoard offerings and other likely netbook products. It looks like this name is the UK branding, and I can see what looks like the same elsewhere

http://www.bigboxstore.com/ebook-ly-eb01-cheapest-netbook-mini-laptop.html ($125) http://technorati.com/posts/xzY7CIHTC7dj1WdoEZan8RTDqpS1hKUfgiQOE8zmLOA=

The price is right, but slightly more expensive offerings may be a better choice.

In the meantime, Eric has started this page:

http://www.riscos.info/index.php/ARM_System-on-Chips

Also, the Pandora is now available in limited numbers:

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/49775-did-you-get-this-newsletter/

The AK7802-based machines won’t be a good idea. Yes, they’re cheap, you can get them as cheap as US$66 (plus shipping and any transfer fees from Shenzen, China.) But, the chipset appears to only support Windows CE, and even if you can get documentation for a RISC OS (or Linux) port from Anyka, it would be in unintelligible Engrish.

However, back on the OMAP3 line… what about this?

http://www.igep-platform.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=55

Integrated ethernet, wifi, bluetooth… and 512 MiB RAM. I believe it’s Beagle derived, too, so it may not be too difficult to port to. Downside is, it’s more expensive (149 EUR) than the BeagleBoard ($149) or the Efika MX dev board ($199,) and the only advantage that it has over the Efika MX is that it has the OMAP3530, and therefore should be simpler to port to.