iLiad Hacking and/or development

[arivero]

Originally Posted by Antartica

- (optional) if the processor has floating point unit or not, and if it hasn't, what type of emulation is used (in-kernel fp emulation or soft-float compiled binaries)

The question of emulation, vfp versus fpa, was discussed time ago in the linuxarm-dev mailing list, but it was in the age of kernel 2.2. I expect better times are coming.

another interesting project to keep an eye on is the old one of Zaurus, around cacko.spy.org, pdaXrom.org and other sites.

[b_k]

Originally Posted by arivero

...But yep, the A51 prototype uses a GumStix too. So perhaps it is the same thing.

http://positron.org/projects/A51/sid...31-2_gates.pdf

whoa, you know what?
if that prototype was available, i would buy that instead of the iliad. ok, i would loose WLAN and the Wacom screen and some additional (but not necessary) interfaces, but for an e-book, it would be good enough to me.

[arivero]

Originally Posted by b_k

whoa, you know what?
if that prototype was available, .

It is interesting to note the last parragraph: "Special thanks to Philips Emerging Display Technologies for fabrication of the TFT array"

So while it is an e-ink prototype from Gates, the hardware has been done in coordination with the lab that also originated the irex spin-off.

[b_k]

yeah, i have seen that.
but i like Gates idea of the design more. I think one could have fitted the Iliads parts in a similar housing, not as bulky looking as the actual one does.
OT: Gates design looks more like "future" (can't say it better) and seems to be more overthought (all bulky parts on one side), while the Iliad looks like a oversized PDA, as some people already mentioned.

[arivero]

Originally Posted by b_k

OT: Gates design looks more like "future" (can't say it better) and seems to be more overthought (all bulky parts on one side), while the Iliad looks like a oversized PDA, as some people already mentioned.

Gates takes advantage of artisan resin-based prototyping (he has even written a tutorial about, I believe) and manual component fitting while the commertial machines must be taylored for massive industrial production.

On the negative part, he never tooks the effort of putting an OS in these machines, as far as I have read.

[arivero]

I am understanding that the PDF reader is actually done by APABI, a company that already had developed a pdf reader for windows. This raises a lot of doubts. Has this company being able to port its software to unix? Is it running under emulation?

And it means the set of holes and bugs will not be the standard xpdf set.

[Antartica]

Originally Posted by arivero

I am understanding that the PDF reader is actually done by APABI, a company that already had developed a pdf reader for windows. This raises a lot of doubts. Has this company being able to port its software to unix? Is it running under emulation?

And it means the set of holes and bugs will not be the standard xpdf set.

Seriously, I don't think that we will need exploiting a hole to develop for the Iliad. Not when they're intending to release an SDK (call me optimist).

What i would prefer is that they load the uhci-hcd/ehci-hcd drivers in their embedded linux, and pressing some key combination on a attached usb keyboard forced the iliad to open a terminal instead of doing the normal init O:-). THAT would be useful (ok, an open ssh would be as useful as that ;-). Ok, it's just that the zaurus had that and it was very useful (albeit having and integrated "keyboard" made things somewhat easier).