Sansa e200 v1 series development is behind us?

[coiley]

Observation: Rockbox daily builds seldom refer to Sansa e200 v1 (Portal Player PP5024) much these days. Most Sansa e200 series daily build updates refer to Sansa v2 (AMS - Austria Microsystems AS3525).

Hypotheses: (1) Sansa e200 v1 series specific (PP5025) development is mature and (mostly) retired;  Sansa e200 v1 updates are general and cosmetic. (2) Sansa e200 v2 (AMS) is in active development.

Question: Are these hypotheses accurate?

-coiley

[Chronon]

Developers are still actively learning the best ways to interact with the hardware on the AMS models.  This is quite a standard situation. 

There's nothing wrong with a mature, supported player.  My F40 is still my favorite.  Changes can happen any time that someone identifies a bug in a driver or a potential optimization.  Do you think that active changes in hardware drivers is intrinsically a desirable situation for some reason?  Rockbox is a lot more than just a collection of drivers.

[bluebrother]

Question: Are these hypotheses accurate?

And what's the point with those hypotheses? I still heavily use my Ipod Mini and really like the h100 series. Both get almost never mentioned in current svn activity, but they still work fine and still get fixes and new features.

Besides, the "daily builds" don't refer to any players at all except for naming the player the binary is built for. And what does this have to do with hardware?

[AlexP]

Most of Rockbox applies to all the players.  So when someone says "Fix x" or "Implement y" without mentioning a player, it usually applies to all players.  Older ports tend to have generally working drivers, so they don't change.  Newer ports don't have working drivers, so thay get updated.  A driver is for specific hardware, so that hardware gets mentioned.

Think your PC - when there is a general update then it doesn't mention all the possible hardware it can run on.  Firefox 3.5 didn't list that it runs on specific processors.  When the specific driver for a specific network card gets updated, it mentions what card it is for.

[coiley]

Thank you all for verifying my hypotheses:

Fact: (1a) Sansa e200 v1 (PP5024/5) series SPECIFIC development is mature and (MOSTLY) retired. Hardware support is mature and robust. (You developers are amazing!)

Fact: (1b) Sansa e200 v1 updates are now mostly general and cosmetic. The updates are not hardware specific. (Did I mention that the developers are amazing!)

The question was not in any way a criticism. It was a project status request.

Thanks again,
-- coiley

[saratoga]

If you're just asking if the drivers for the e200 are stable, then yes they're all working quite well and as far as I know there are no serious issues outstanding, except perhaps a few areas where USB could be further optimized. 

Saying its retired makes very little sense though.

[Llorean]

And changes aren't at all "cosmetic." New codecs, plugins, and significant playback features will affect most/all targets.

[soap]

And changes aren't at all "cosmetic." New codecs, plugins, and significant playback features will affect most/all targets.

Those would be the non-hardware specific "general" changes he mentioned, eh? 

[Llorean]

"general and cosmetic" means something different than "general or cosmetic"

[coiley]

"New bubbles background for 176x220 (Sansa e200)"

http://www.rockbox.org/daily/changelogs/changes-20090803.html

Sansa e200 development is indeed alive and well!

--coiley  ;-)

[Chronon]

In my opinion there have been much more important changes than that recently.  For example,

• support for Real Media files (with Cook, AAC, or AC3 streams)
  
• new clix game
• new png viewer

But perhaps you are ignoring those changes because other targets benefit as well. 

[mc2739]

The most important feature IMO is the USB support which was enabled in the 3.3 release.

Here is a list of other features added in the latest release - What's New?

As previously mentioned, all of these features improve Rockbox on the e200v1, as well as other Rockboxable players, and even future ports.

[ApK]

The most important feature IMO is the USB support which was enabled in the 3.3 release.

Speaking of that feature, can Rockbox now charge the battery as effectively as the OF?  Is there now NO reason to ever go to the OF?

I ask because the release note just says that charging is not fully implemented on 'some players' and a lot of the other docs concerning USB on the Sansa seems to be pre-3.3 information.

Thanks,

ApK

[saratoga]

Speaking of that feature, can Rockbox now charge the battery as effectively as the OF? 

Yes.  Also, charging isn't USB, and in fact was in for a while before it.

I ask because the release note just says that charging is not fully implemented on 'some players' and a lot of the other docs concerning USB on the Sansa seems to be pre-3.3 information.

Thats because charging was pre-3.3 and we didn't disable it for 3.3

See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/TargetStatus

[ApK]

Speaking of that feature, can Rockbox now charge the battery as effectively as the OF? 

Yes.  Also, charging isn't USB, and in fact was in for a while before it.

I ask because the release note just says that charging is not fully implemented on 'some players' and a lot of the other docs concerning USB on the Sansa seems to be pre-3.3 information.

Thats because charging was pre-3.3 and we didn't disable it for 3.3

See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/TargetStatus

Excellent! 
I was getting sick of waiting for that "database commit" to recharge!

The opening  "Yes."  makes me feel better. 
I see that the target status says charging is enabled, but I also stuff like this:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaCharging
with words like "too high voltage" and no words like "Charging works perfectly" to reassure me!
Previously (like about a year ago) I saw posts on various forums from you and others reporting that charging was either not turned on yet or was more reliable using the OF.  It's hard to keep up!
 
Thanks again!
ApK