My Fellow Pyrians, and Developers. (cell phone Poll)

[SageX]

Here are a series of ideas and occurances of my experiences with embedded laptops

the real segment of writing that is highlighted by brackets are,

in my opinion is most important content of this post.

I'm thinking about writing some code as an interface for telecommunications applications of the Pyra. I think the Pyra would make an excellent device for telecommunications

if we harness the capabilities of the dual SIM cards and set up data modes on  one and phone calls and text on a seperate SIM or a mix of both data and text and phone blah blah blah

I'm interested if we programmers have access to the receiver to view the spectrum of signals and decode X,Y, and Z modulations on  800 Mhz (radio frequency) for a police scanner in digital modes...  etc. (I want to know how much freedom we have as programmers to develop code that uses the cellular aspect of the Pyra)

                  I remember people Using ZipIT laptops as remote terminals and setting up their zipITs for Transcodecs (the processor on the zipIT was not powerful enough to render a video so a computer on the network would be stream a video to the device over wireless LAN) this was 2012 and you couldn't really do much with the device other than use it as a dummy terminal (no cpu strength just give me a terminal). then in 2013 a buddy of mine gave me a Ben Qi NanoNote, that device had so much potential if there was a wifi dongle on there. the only problem with the NanoNote was getting internet access to the device you had to run ethernet over USB which isn't a problem on any other linux computer but, the NanoNote really struggled to keep up. The most I did with it was use it to play .flac and .ogg vorbis files to brag to my friends about the 768 kb/s bitrate on music other than that it was basicly useless for games and running other operating systems on the ben nanonote wasn't even a thought in my mind because the internet connection on the device was a bitch to deal with even when formatting the NAND (system on a chip/ram/ OS image) I had to repeat the process at least 10 times for a solid copy of a OS to the NAND. I eventually traded that device for a "fly on my face" OLPC thinking it was the bees knees, the gui was great and software ran good but, I wanted to wipe the OS and put my own flavor of linux on there... What I have to get a developer key to do this? I sent numerous replies and kept sending them and got no replies. Here again I was stuck with a dummy terminal with no control over the OS or the software. I dropped that computer off at a buddie's house and it's being used for a cutting board for all I care. All this time I watched the few pandora releases (800mhz through the 1ghz release) and thought it was perfect but for some reason expenses and life had other plans for my wallet.

                          [well last year I started getting serious about my mobile computing desires as a big desktop replacement laptop oscilating on my shoulder seemed like a turn off and especially when all my work related documents went online. I remember sitting in my car at night submitting my first properly formatted word document via  the data network on my cell phone when the internet went out at my apartment and thought,  if I could get a cellular module in my computer I would be in heaven and none of these devices out there have such an interface without having to deal with some dumb interface that is an external module or acts as a router nope!  Wow holy cow you have no idea how hard I was gawking at the spec board on christmas 2013 thinking the Pyra would come out that summer, HA HA HA. August came and went and I was thinking, "the Pyra has to come out in Febuary! or even March? ", then the boards start yeilding progress in December and January came and went with little fan fare and I was litteraly glued to the boards here, expecting a grand timeline like jury expecting a verdict it came and now we can see the battery threads as well as a informal time line of all the things that need to be resolved. Surfing through the boards recently and earlier last month I am currently expecting the device to be released when it's ready (June/July) but, it is up to the Developers to decide when the Pyra is ready for the world and how they want to formulate the first units off the production line is yet to be released to the world so I'm content knowing people are working on it  and I also know that ED runs a legitimate buisness now and is working with people who are making the production process better each day we surf the boards.]

it may come off as an insult, a complement, or ideas that no one here has posted on the board

 

[ible]

sure, at one point i wanted to make a SMS text-messaging program that used input only from the face buttons and L/R shoulders. not sure if i'll ever get around to it.

 

[Ziz]

Please add sone "don't know" options. Otherwise I can't fill the survey.


Oh and the options of the first question doesn't make much sense if it is a multiple answers question as some answers include others.

 

[SageX]

Yeah I know I had to do that to ad a 3rd option. Communications software is tricky buisness, its very hard to look at your phone the same way once you know what is involved, I really hope that we have an open source cellular phone fragment capable of standard 4g technology when the pyra is released but, I think there will be ethical cards to play. When deciding if we give users complete freedom over the communications chip. Since cellular decoding is illegal where I live, wouldn't sending and receiving a signal from a phone that is technically open source illegal or in the quasi grey area of the law, I don't know.

 

[TrashyMG]

Optional: The users should be able to freely program the radios in the Pyra for open source forms of modulation

Is that even possible with the current cell radio chip chosen? Because I suspect it's a little late to switch different chips at this phase of development,

 

[WizardStan]

Optional: The users should be able to freely program the radios in the Pyra for open source forms of modulation

Is that even possible with the current cell radio chip chosen? Because I suspect it's a little late to switch different chips at this phase of development,

Probably not. It's a pretty complete kit, does pretty much everything for you.I've never heard of any cellphone that allows for what SageX is looking for, unless I'm misunderstanding what he wants.

Care to clarify, SageX? Can you point out any device that does what you're looking for as an example?

 

[rygD]

I will reply more fully in a bit.  I also have some trouble answering the questions, so I will put placeholders until I can give better answers.  I also want to comment on some points in your post.

 

[fusion_power]

Pyra could be a decent cell phone and actualy also a very smart-phone. AND it has an replacable Battery and SD slots unlike the new Samsung phones.

I wonder if Smart-Watches would work with the Pyra...

 

[TrashyMG]

Pyra could be a decent cell phone and actualy also a very smart-phone. AND it has an replacable Battery and SD slots unlike the new Samsung phones.

I wonder if Smart-Watches would work with the Pyra...

Just wear the Pyra on your wrist.. 

 

[WizardStan]

I wonder if Smart-Watches would work with the Pyra...

They're just bluetooth connected, no theoretical reason they wouldn't, but as with everything in this community, someone needs to step up and write the bloody software to do it.

 

[rygD]

I think that the first question may benefit from thinking about the question a bit more.  Many may look at it as a mobile communication device (think smartfone), and others just want it is a portable computer of sorts (an area shared with tablets and laptops amongst others) but for others it will just be a portable gaming device with extra benefits, and still others might think of it some other way.

The question dealing with legality does need to include an "I don't know" option, because I don't know.  It doesn't matter to me if it is legal to mess with the radios unless it will impact what ED and the team must do to allow sales in my area.  If it is possible but not implemented this is good enough.  This is also important when it comes to freedom.

I will always choose the option of freedom over convenience.  With freedom comes the option of choosing to use things that limit that freedom or provide convenience.  I don't think we should be limited to either free/open source or proprietary software and OSs.  If it works on the hardware and people want to use it then that should be supported, either officially or by the community.  If it will help some people and it is feasible it needs to be considered as a possibility, and should be expected to probably occur. What it comes down to for me is that we should be able to do what we want, and the Pyra should not be delivered in such a way that it inconveniences or restricts how it can be used.


Aren't the NanoNote and Z2 similar in hardware? I did a very quick search and couldn't find a very good comparison of performance, or even a complete spec list.  If they are comparable then it is a good example of how community is important.  If one is perceived as better than the other without networking capability built in, and with a lower capacity battery, which is rather important for a portable device, why is that?  How much RAM does the NanoNote have?  Is the processor significantly better, or does that bit of extra speed matter that much?  I just had a conversation with a programmer where we discussed the importance of reading documentation, and that it is more important to know what you are doing so you don't need to rely on tools or other people to do simple things for you.  One thing I always point out is that you often don't need better hardware, but more knowledge.  You can get a lot done with a little if you know how.  The same goes for the OLPC or other "weak" computers.  Look at what people are still doing with decades old computers.

 

[WizardStan]

Some other questions that don't make sense:

"would we as users be able to program notifications as well as software that relies on the smartphone fragment"

Yes. This is a given. The cell module does not do anything except connect to a tower and send/receive data and voice. You want to send an SMS you need to give it the right codes to send an SMS, you want to be notified when something comes in you need to be listening to it for these notifications.

"Are you Comfortable with the idea that a 3rd party should write the software (closed source)"

Why would it be a 3rd party or closed source? As far as I know there currently isn't any software that will definitely work, but the software that exists that may work is open source and probably just needs tweaks to get it to communicate with the cell module. The Gemalto chips have a very comprehensive API document, you can literally just open a tty device and give them AT commands to connect, dial, answer, hangup, etc... For lack of any official software you could just use some terminal program like minicom or screen and manually do everything if you really wanted. It's not quite that simple, you need to give it commands on what towers to connect to and a bunch of other init settings and you would need to periodically monitor the connection and tell it how to handle drops, it'd be way easier to have a background application handling it but it can be done, for sure.

"The 1ghz pandora was capable of running the android OS, can't we just set up all the phone capabilities for android"

Why is this even a question? If people want to use Android they're free to use Android. If they don't want to use Android they're free to use whatever the community comes up with for phone management or write their own, or just use minicom like I suggested.

 

[Grench]

I'm still dreaming of a day when we can have multiple Android as 'network connected tablet' instances running as VMs.  In this dream, the Pandora would handle calls, IMs, network connection and network bridging to to the Android VMs.  From the Android VMs perspective, it would see a network connected tablet (no phone).

Apparently the main stumbling block to get there is in how to do 3D acceleration for Android.

Still - it's good to dream.

 

[fusion_power]

Just wear the Pyra on your wrist..

I would! Like the Pip-Boy from Fallout series.

They're just bluetooth connected, no theoretical reason they wouldn't, but as with everything in this community, someone needs to step up and write the bloody software to do it.

Or go the easy way and look what these watches already support out of the box that can also run on the Pyra. Android or so, don't know. ^^"

 

[Grench]

Just wear the Pyra on your wrist..

I would! Like the Pip-Boy from Fallout series.

I had some thoughts on this.  The thickness of the Pyra or Pandora does not work well for this use.  However, about 1/3 of the device thickness is from the battery.  For wearing it on the wrist/arm, a new lower case would need to be engineered.

Two options present themselves.  One is to make the wrist/arm mounted device very wide - about twice the normal device width with the battery riding further up the arm.  The drawback to that is that it makes the device left/right handed.  The other option would be to have a wrist-wrap with the Pyra above the arm and the battery on the opposite side of the arm.  The counter-weight would be beneficial.

Either way, all 6 people interested in doing that would likely need to create their own one-off cases.

 

[Urben]

Fore more handy use one could use an external device to use the pyra as a phone like this one:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/378232716/inkcase-plus-e-ink-screen-for-android-phone

Just a quick and probably useless input from my side...

 

[SageX]

Hello everyone I never expected so many comments in under 14 hours this is incredible, let me get some things before I write another article, preferably documentation on how the chip works I don't know if it is a plug and play chip or a chip that was added if the board to be implemented later, yes I got a little cared a way with the poll questions.


You should expect a reply a couple hours from now, Ben qi NanoNote by qihardware probaby vapor ware by now. 512mb nand and a 466mhz mips processor.

 

[WizardStan]

preferably documentation on how the chip works I don't know if it is a plug and play chip or a chip that was added if the board to be implemented

It's fully integrated with the board, soldered into place along with everything else. PLS8edit: other options are the PHS8 or the PXS8. They're all pin compatible and use the same communication method, just a difference of what mobile technology they work with.

 

[TrashyMG]

Just wear the Pyra on your wrist..

I would! Like the Pip-Boy from Fallout series.

I had some thoughts on this.  The thickness of the Pyra or Pandora does not work well for this use.  However, about 1/3 of the device thickness is from the battery.  For wearing it on the wrist/arm, a new lower case would need to be engineered.

Two options present themselves.  One is to make the wrist/arm mounted device very wide - about twice the normal device width with the battery riding further up the arm.  The drawback to that is that it makes the device left/right handed.  The other option would be to have a wrist-wrap with the Pyra above the arm and the battery on the opposite side of the arm.  The counter-weight would be beneficial.

Either way, all 6 people interested in doing that would likely need to create their own one-off cases.

Don't think too hard, 3/4 of what I say is a joke.

 

[bzar]

Hello everyone. I never expected so many comments in under 14 hours; this is incredible. let me get some things before I write another article, preferably documentation on how the chip works. I don't know if it is a plug and play chip or a chip that was added if the board to be implemented later. yes, I got a little cared a way with the poll questions.


You should expect a reply a couple hours from now. Ben qi NanoNote by qihardware probaby vapor ware by now. 512mb nand and a 466mhz mips processor.

Punctuation, please. Glory to Arstozka!


(I won't pester you about this anymore, but this kind of text is just hard to read. I also didn't get what the nanonote part was about. Was it related to the PipBoy conversation?)

Don't think too hard, 3/4 of what I say is a joke.

Does this fall into the joke category or...?