Re: Jornada 7xx and Flashrom?

Hello Kristoffer and all J7xx enthusiasts !

I also looked through many FlashROM board discussions after I bought my J=
720
last year. Because I wanted flash board to play with and also wanted to g=
ive
back something to Internet community, which gave me a lot, I decided to g=
ive it
try. Unfortunately, I do not have much spare time and my HW knowledge are
rusted at best, so my role here is mostly limited to be an investor.
It showed to be bigger deal then one would expect and also the clever guy=
 that
is doing the actual job is busy now with some other stuff; so the whole p=
roject
takes a little bit longer. However, I hope that the board (and also stand=
alone
USB programmer) could be ready for the prime time within few months.
The board design allows 4 options:
FlashROM 32MB or 64MB and
SDRAM 64MB or 128MB
Used chips are:
2x JS28F128P30T85 or JS28F256P30T95 (FlashROM 128Mb and 256Mb) and
2x MT48LC16M16A2P or MT48LC32M16A2P (SDRAM 256 and 512Mb)
Both memory organizations are different from the original HP Flash Board =
and
also from the original J7xx ROM boards, so some work would have to be don=
e to
make the OS happy.
To validate the HW we plan to provide 2 more-less working boot loaders. O=
ne
based on BLOB ver.2.0.5.pre2 and the second on the bootldr (not sure what=
 exact
version was the start point). Both, of course, under their original licen=
ses.
I do not know the retail price yet. Estimates that I did at summer came
slightly below $100 for the minimal variant (32MB Flash + 64MB RAM) and a=
round
$120 for the maximum (64MB Flash + 128MB RAM) The main reason for the pri=
ce
difference was SDRAM cost. Saving on Flash would be a few bucks only (Wou=
ld it
be possible to make part or whole of the Flash accessible from the OS as
another partition ?)

If you, interested folks, could drop me an email with your preferences on
memory configuration it would help me to make decisions about quantity an=
d
configuration of the first batch.

Best Regards,
Jan (Mr., just in case ;-))

--- Kristoffer Ericson <[email protected]> wrote:

> Greetings,
>=20
> This is another part of the endless flashrom discussion. I truly believ=
e that
> if we can get some new flashboards out
> there, we can easily turn this machine into a "must have" device for li=
nux
> users.
>=20
> Im still coding away to make the real-suspend thing work but all this w=
ould
> be avoided if we could
> get flashboards.
>=20
> The specs is up on handhelds site I believe and for someone with experi=
ence
> it shouldn't be that hard
> to set into motion. The price for the end board isn't that important, I=
 bet
> users would easily put up
> the money it takes to have true linux on the jornada. If needed I could=
 also
> round up interested users
> on jlime and see how many we get. The point is that the manufacturer wi=
ll not
> loose money over this.
>=20
> Also, since ebay is flooding with old rom boards. Any chance those coul=
d be
> refitted with a flashrom? They
> are selling them dead cheap so would be a bargain for any developer
> interested.
>=20
> Im sure me and cmonex could fix a nice bootloader/lilo for the flashrom=
.
>=20
> Anyhow, any updates on this matter at all?
>=20
> Oh, and on a side note. Anyone actually got one of those flashboards? A=
sking
> because support might be removed
> from the kernel unless atleast one user steps up.
>=20
> Best wishes
> Kristoffer
> _______________________________________________
> jornada mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://handhelds.org/mailman/listinfo/jornada
>=20



      ___________________________________________________________________=
_________________
Be a better pen pal.=20
Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.  http://overview.m=
ail.yahoo.com/