Rockbox Development > New Ports
Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player
spark:
--- Quote from: Llorean ---Just a note: Don't think "for them to port to", think "for us to port to."
If you make your own player, you're probably going to be doing your own work for the porting, too. Ports happen by those who have the player, as we say with any hardware port.
--- End quote ---
Sorry people. it should be "for us to port to". Anyways the rule still applies. if we select an already supported architecture, it will save us a lot of porting work. ;)
--- Quote from: casainho ---AVR32 because of that dev board that is "dirty cheap", $73. An equivalent dev board with equivalent ARM should be more than $1000
--- End quote ---
good ARM boards including all the things and even more than the avr32 board are definately available for within $300. I would prefer paying $200 more rather than spending weeks breaking my head porting the RB to a new architecture. Not that i have heaps of money, but in fact time is money.
i will see if i can find a suitable board and post it soon.
--- Quote from: casainho ---Some developers said that DSP is hard to program... and I would like to have your opinion, since you used a DSP for DSPdap
--- End quote ---
yes they are right. i would prefer if my codec code is written entirely in C and all optimizations are done by the gcc compiler itself. from my practical experience a 200MIPS ARM processor has better performance than a 400MIPS 16-bit DSP considering i am using fixed point C only code and no hand/assembly optimizations. To effectively utilize the raw power of DSP you need to do a lot of hand optimizations unless the compiler is very powerful to do it on its own.
--- Quote from: Badger ---The current Rockbox code is fairly highly optimized for coldfire and ARM, and re-making all those for AVR will probably be a significant amount of work.
--- End quote ---
i strongly suggest we stick to ARM since "WE" have to do the porting work. ;)
scharkalvin:
Just a thought here. What about using an old iPac hand held as a building block.
IIRC they have a CF socket (in an adapter "jacket"), a very nice touch screen LCD, and since there IS a version of Linux that runs on this thing (with X support) there should be example code available to document some of the HW. I don't know what (if any) D/A hw these things have, but I think they DID play mp3's. And the cpu was an Intel Strong-Arm type.
yapper:
iPac? Â Did you mean iPaq? ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ
There is a bunch of info here http://www.handhelds.org/Compaq/iPAQH3600/iPAQ_H3600.html but note it is version 0.2f .... might be a bit "subject to change" :P
spark:
i've made a survey of possible ARM processor candidates.
Samsung S3C2410A
----------------
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/productInfo.do?fmly_id=229&partnum=S3C2410
ARM920T core (266MHz)
Development board $299 http://www.armkits.com/Product/sbc2410II.asp
Cirrus EP9302
------------
http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/pro/detail/P1066.html
ARM920T core (200MHz) 208LQFP $22
Dev. board $312.5 http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/manual/EDB9302A_Tech_Ref_Manual.pdf
Dev. board $180 http://www.olimex.com/dev/cs-e930x.html
(no USB device)
NXP LH79524/LH79525
-------------------
http://www.nxp.com/#/pip/pip=[pip=LH79524_LH79525_N_1]|pp=[v=d,t=pip,i=LH79524_LH79525_N_1,fi=45994,ps=0]|[5]
ARM720T core (76MHz) 176LQFP $13.66
Dev. board $389 http://www.logicpd.com/products/devkit/nxp/nxp_sdk
Atmel AT91RM9200
----------------
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=2983
ARM920T core (180MHz) 208PQFP $22
Dev. board $370 http://www.armkits.com/Product/ATEB9200.asp
please see the attached pdf file for detailed info.
casainho:
about ARM and AVR32
The AVR32 family will be lower power than an ARM solution and has multimedia-oriented instruction set which is nice. You'll get faster execution for the same clock rate on an avr32, and much faster execution for the same power consumption.
If you're people have experience with ARM, you can think of UC3 as ARM7++ and AP7 as ARM9++/ARM11. If you reckon RockBox can run on an ARM7 then it will run better and with lower power consumption on a UC3. Otherwise you'll need to jack up to the AP7 series (The AP7001 is in a TQFP for easy soldering).
Also, the AP7 has an LCD controller so you can save money on the LCD, not having to buy one with a controller in. I read somewhere upon the launch of the AP7000 processor, it could decode 192kbps mp3 with a clock rate of just 3MHz. Or maybe it was 20MHz. I think it was 3 for mp3, 20 for MP4 video. I think.
Indeed the EVK110{0,1} is more expensive than the NGW100. but is indeed far less power hungry. Also, a UC3 uC isn't any harder to design a board for than an 8-bit uC so you should be able to whack up your own design in no time at all.
If you use google to search this site (google for "foobar site:avrfreaks.net") for threads like "avr32 vs arm" and the suchlike, you'll find some good, long, in-depth discussions which might help
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=393392
I will look carefully to ARM info dev boards that Spark did post.
About seel it assembled in kits
I am posting here an private email which I think there is no problem! I am contacting various people and I would like to have advices, I am not experienced :( ''' I think there are good opportunities for this FreeOpen hardware player and RB software :)
Hello Jorge,
that sounds nice. I think I can help you.
>player for use with RockBox". Do you know what is Rockbox? --- Rockbox is an
>open source firmware replacement for a growing number of digital audio
Yes I know them. You developed also a USB Stack. I found it when I worked
on my diploma thesis
(http://www.embedded-projects.net/index.php?page_id=186).
>We are in the begining of developing our Free/Open hardware and we will need
>someone that make the pcb, assembly and sell It to us. I belive that companie
>that will do that will be able to make some profit, because Rockbox is very
>good and already famous, think at It as Linux for DAPs :-) and maybe It will
>grow more If this idea will suceed.
Actually I worked on a AVR32 based cheap starter board (about 50 EUR is
my target),
perhaps we can merge your idea and my idea.
>If you can help in make pcb, assembly and/or sell it online, It would be very
>nice to have your opinion and help.
No problem.
>If not, but If you are interested on this subject and can help in design
>hardware, software, etc... or just to know more, please visit us at:
>http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockBoxPlayer ;
>http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=6751.0
>
>About USBprog: maybe we will use AVR32 and then we wil need JTAGICE MK2, wich
>is very expensive the original... do you have any news about It clone on
>USBprog? :-)
We build an own AVR32 programmer firmware. Its not based on JTAGICE mk2
because there are already again private instructions from atmels. But we
have first results with the own solution which are used JTAG Boundary
Scan.
How can look our further work?
Whe we have got a working hardware, I can promote RockBox in Germany
(sometimes I write articles in Linux and Electronic Magazines)
I wish a nice good year for us :)
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