Development Custom firmware

Originally Posted by MichaelV

Hi robot can you use the digitiser to control the page on e-ink. this firmware opens the device to a new dimension.

Originally Posted by done

Robot,
What is the response time like for Android on the eInk - can you control everything via the e-Ink or is it just a rendering of what is on the LCD side?

I'm working on full use of e-ink wacom to controll android (and yes, it's possible), but there's still some problems (difference in timing and resolution+some strange artefacts that remind me a "ghosting clicks" problem which were present in EE firmware untill second update were released). So it will take time to fix.
What's much more important, is that it's possible to run and use android on e-ink side even if LCD screen will be shutdown. So we can get MUCH longer battery life.
As for e-ink update, I use several tricks wich on one hand lower the need for screen refreshing (that mean low CPU load and long battery life), and on the other hand it's fast enough to control android application.

Originally Posted by MichaelV

if one person can do this without sdk imagine what can be achieved with SDK by community/ programmers. a perfect device.

Originally Posted by done

Robot,
The work you've done looks absolutely incredible (you can be sure I will be forwarding this thread to the developers). I can't wait to see what you will be able to do once we release the source code and SDK.!

Thanks.
But as for SDK it will not help at all with this project. I write low level C code wich works almost directly with hardware, so it's like writing drivers or OS daemons. Source code probably could speed up things, but seems it's a little late, 'cos I find out almost everything I were needed.

So I suspect we may see a robot firmware from scratch which is 2.2 before the one from Edge

The lcd off function will be fantastic considering working out in the sun.
what reader do you use for books?

Robot,

I think you amaze us all!

Is there anyway we (non-programmers) can help you?

Jos.

I find the way to recalibrate screens, so now it's possible to control android using e-ink keys and wacom touchscreen with great precision. Now working on zooming and CPU optimisation.

Originally Posted by walt526

Looks cool! Have you figured out how you'll distribute it and/or how much you're going to charge for it?
But about the tweaks to the firmware... what happens when enTourage releases an update? Would an update wipe out your modifications until you tweak the update to include the added functionality?

It's tricky question. The program requires a some OS modification and is not currently compatible with the ESI-Journal software (currently I just killing this process when running EinkAndroid).
So I see only two options:
Either I'll create a completely alternative firmware which will not be use EntourageEdge's software (That mean replacing Journal, Adobe reader and Library with alternative software) . Or I will negotiate an deal with EntourageEdge and they will integrate this feature into the official firmware (so e-ink will operate at least in three modes: a Journal, E-Reader, and Android).

Originally Posted by borisb

That's because you're only working on *one* feature exclusively I'm sure the EE dev team would love that luxury!

Note that I do not *work*. I'm just having fun when there is free time. Lucky for you (and unfortunately for me) last week I had an accident (crash my motorcycle at 120km/h), so I had enough time to complete this project. And 99% of the time I spent trying to figure out how to control hardware used in EE. Guess how lines of code I write to make this work?

Robot, do you think that you will ever release a version of the firmware based on Android 2.2 (or above, when the time comes)?

It's a lot more helpful talking to you than it is talking to the support team at enTourage. They don't provide any date what-so-ever, no matter how vague it may be, other than "it's coming... eventually". That gets annoying. I understand that they are a company and are more-so obligated to keep their promises, they could at LEAST provide some sort of rough date.

If you were to develop these updates, or work with enTourage, it would be MUCH better of a situation.

offtopic: do you know that wacom's digitaizer used in EE have the same pressure control wich is present in wacom's pen tablets? Limited to 256 levels of pressure (2048 levels in pro tablets). It can bring you possibilities to make more realistics graphics (so you can control brush size or colors hue, just by pen's pressure) which is very good news for designers

Originally Posted by borisb

I didn't mean work in the sense of "employment" "Work" in English can also mean "be occupied doing" or "busy doing", or just "doing". The fact is you have the luxury of chosing what to do and when to do it, not to mention the choice of doing just one thing. The EE devs are working on multiple tasks, prioritized by management

lol. I thought you were good enough in English to understand that it was ironic. And speaking of work, I meant that in contrast to a team of developers who work at EE, I do not sit for six hours, five days a week for the next several months writing a program. I just spent a little time to fix something that did not allow me to comfortably use a computer.

P.S. I had experience as a leading developer and head of the IT department, so it's not worth talking about a large number of tasks, and other problems. It's a very lame excuse.

Originally Posted by D4N14L

Robot, do you think that you will ever release a version of the firmware based on Android 2.2 (or above, when the time comes)?

They work. But as employers they can't talk about it. And as there's no official annonsement I think it will not happen soon (and soon in official terms mean anyway from one to three month). As I allready talked, there's compititors comming. So the only way to survive is to make things faster than other.

Very Interesting,
if we have enough developer, we can start the-OpenInkpot compatible for EE.
It can make several kind of tools for e-INK.

Really nice job. That is one wish of mine AKA Kindle DX. Give me ability to do everything on the e-ink screen even if there are some limitations.

I love the eDGe and I need to find a good way to carry both it and my notebook on the road. Wish I could find a single charge to work with my HP laptop and the Edge. That would help.

So far...
Finally zooming works correctly, so you'll get android apps in full screen.
Touchsscreen calibration were rewrited to support dinamic zooming (but to make sure that it will work fine for everyone, someone post result of this shell command: #cat intstorage/.edge/.esi-system/calib_values).

Now working on keyboard (probably the best way is to fix some issues is to completely rewrite keyboard input method which will work when android displayed on e-ink or to use external keyboard) and power saving options improovement (if someone know where to find Marvell's pxa168 developer manual --let me know).

Robot,

only file in intstorage is vfat.img, trying this by using beter terminal.
could you give more instructions please.

Jos

It's ok, but if you run cat, it will show content of this file inside of vfat.img
so in shell:
# cat /fridge/.edge/.esi-system/calib_values
# cat /intstorage/.edge/.esi-system/calib_values

or if nothing found:
# find / -name "calib_values"

Originally Posted by robot

It's ok, but if you run cat, it will show content of this file inside of vfat.img
so in shell:
# cat /fridge/.edge/.esi-system/calib_values
# cat /intstorage/.edge/.esi-system/calib_values

or if nothing found:
# find / -name "calib_values"

Both give:
270 -5 -3873 54401712 3862 -14 -380352 65536\w\$

Hope this is what you need
.
Let me known if I can do anything else.

Jos

Thanks Snepscheut.

Snepscheut, please also post result of those commands:
# cat /data/property/persist.sys.sc.miny
# cat /data/property/persist.sys.sc.minx
# cat /data/property/persist.sys.sc.maxy
# cat /data/property/persist.sys.sc.maxx
# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/op