Rockbox Development > New Ports
Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player
Falco98:
I love this idea. I'm growing increasingly uneasy with the seeming absence of really strong, currently-available rockbox targets, with an increase in the restrictive and DRM-loving players by apple and microsoft. When my iRiver h140 dies (hopefully a long way off), I'm afraid to death of not being able to find a suitable replacement. I think the real answer may lie in someone coming up with an open player like this, especially if it can be designed to support RockBox specifically (and presumably have an open architecture to facilitate the development of other systems from scratch).
This is thinking way ahead, perhaps, but I'd say figure out a core system that can support both hard drives and flash, and then when it comes time to actually create a form factor, just make two -- one for hard-drive players, and one for flash players. Perhaps a HDD based player could be sold as just the shell, which a person could buy their own 2.5" HDD for, and do the last step of assembly. I don't exactly require so much space yet, but the 160GB option really tempts me. For flash players, perhaps a user could load their own CF card (or, even, put both CF and SD slots, and maybe-or-maybe-not include built-in flash memory). Even the HDD model could have a SD slot, for convenience reasons (why not?).
As far as physical interface goes, there are some tough choices to be made - more buttons or fewer? ipod-like, or completely different? big and tough, or tiny and slim? I'd say go for the shape of the iRiver 140, but perhaps with a less awkward joystick. Or maybe scratch that and put controls on both sides of the screen in a layout similar to the Gameboy Advance. Then again, once you've gotten the electronics all set to go, you could just experiment and see what people like.
But yeah... sign me up for a 160GB model, i'm sure i'll need one eventually ;-)
g00ey:
At least a scroll-wheel would be nice... There surely is a huge number of them out there, here's one I found (pdf-download):
http://rocky.digikey.com/scripts/ProductInfo.dll?Site=US&V=516&M=AMRX-1500-1BWA
A
nd the AKM AK4396 DAC look good...
http://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/akm/en/product/ak4396/ak4396.html
zajacattack:
Would there be anyway to get a touch wheel?
scharkalvin:
--- Quote ---http://rocky.digikey.com/...US&V=516&M=AMRX-1500-1BWA
--- End quote ---
Nice, but they don't have any in stock, and you can't buy just one from them.
(single unit price isn't too bad though).
The scroll portion is just a quadature output encoder, easy to program. You can get direction, distance, and speed parameters from this. Combined with the 5 push buttons this gives an iPod type interface. I'd add one or two extra push buttons for power/menu (sansa E200 like interface), alternate function (gigabeat like interface) and a lock switch.
casainho:
--- Quote from: g00ey on December 18, 2007, 06:25:04 PM ---At least a scroll-wheel would be nice...
--- End quote ---
First things first! I think that have Rockbox compiling and having sound one some Free/Open hardware is the first to do.
Simple to wire, simple to program, cheap and easy to buy buttons will be very good for start ;)
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