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Posts: 1,994 | Thanked: 3,342 times | Joined on Jun 2010 @ N900: Battery low. N950: torx 4 re-used once and fine; SIM port torn apart
#3195
Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
There is little thjat'S not already available since I always shared everything that's reasonably sharable without risk. What isn't public yet are the results from efforts of several layouters, which I'll move to the public git soonish

Thanks for pointing at this to remind me :-)
cheers
jOERG
Thank you! That's great news! Just make sure public git repository doesn't go down like Gitorious did...

Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
I'll eventualy take an opportunity to tell a story about what was planned / were product goals of STEP2 aka Haengsung (internal codename). Basically the main goal was to be competitive to mainstream, and 10000% open. Alas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V wasn't able to offer a plausible embedded (open!!) SoC solution yet when we talked to them, so we did what seems to be the only option nowadays: i.MX8. With detachable qwerty kbd integrated into design process from beginning, so you had the choice between standard "phablet" style like 99% of phones, or the much wanted by us freaks palmtop PC, and you could switch between the two any time simly by attaching / removing the kbd
RISC-V sounds interesting, what are the specific requirements for a plausible embedded SoC solution? GPU, MIPI (for display and camera), Video encode/decode? Just comparing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.MX#i.MX_8M_Mini against https://www.sifive.com/chip-designer#fu540 .

Originally Posted by joerg_rw View Post
Dealing with health impact is still on the todo list. The economic impact on my own situation is that of earning a maybe 20% of my regular income for the last 5 some years, so no savings or pension plan. At least so far no huge liabilities to ruin my future life.

I'm recently not aware of any other funding opportunities. Though those come unexpected and all of a sudden whenever they came so far. You never know, right. What to do with the sourced N900 is a huge concern to me, no plans yet. Obviously they "belong to the supporters" who financed them, but it's not feasible economically and by workload to send them all out. I'll ponder what to do with them and will let you all know as soon as I find something reasonable and feasible.


/j
I hope you will have no new/unexpected health problems. Good luck with funding opportunities! If not Neo900, then at least Step2 would be a nice device to see.

Regarding the sourced N900s: don't send my portion of them to me. Besides obvious part about shipping to Australia being expensive... I already have way too much hardware on my hands, and mint-condition N900s would gather dust, or perhaps even become damaged. Better send them to somebody who can put them to good use, develop for them, enjoy Linux phone as everyday device - I still use N900 as everyday mobile.

Originally Posted by chenliangchen View Post
That is very interesting. Have been working with both Moto Keyboard Mod and Pro1, my personal feeling for the detachable keyboard, the biggest problem is the weight balance. Because the phone itself is (supposed) to be heavier and thicker. Unless you make the keyboard even more heavier and thicker (which combines the phone will make a real brick ), it is very hard to solve the balance and weight issue. Hence the Pro1 because the keyboard is together with PCB and battery etc and feels much better in hand.

But that's just my own thoughts, if you might have developed a clever way of having both, I would be most curious to learn...

Wish we could have a chance to meet, I can show you in more details the things we made/tried and the thoughts come across.

And a big thank you again for your contribution to the community. Ultimately it never fail if tried one's best.
So far, I see about two ways to go about weight balance: 1) make keyboard even thicker and heavier than phone (then phone with keyboard is a brick), as pointed out above; 2) make it sort-of three-part device, where user can carry either phone+display, or phone+keyboard+display, thus redistributing the weight from display to keyboard when attaching the keyboard - mechanically tricky; some users might even want to carry phone+keyboard, without display - which means that 'phone' module includes not only CPU+RAM+wireless, but also audio card and speakers and microphone as well; whereas GPU is probably inside 'display' module - but that's all too tricky to keep from falling apart.

That's, of course, if you want to keep it a slider. There are other, less conventional configurations in the history of mobiles, as well ;-)

Thank you. Best wishes,
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Per aspera ad astra...
 

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