Rockbox Development > New Ports
Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player
casainho:
--- Quote from: 1ny0urfac3 on June 22, 2008, 07:44:04 PM ---I'd be very interested to see support for compact flash internally. that would really sway me to one of these things
--- End quote ---
I am being busy with another simple project than Rockbox Player -- I am waiting for my summer holidays to continue working on this project, I want to make my prototype working. I am getting now a lot of knowledge in my actual project, in which I am applying knowledge I learned when working on Rockbox Player :)
casainho:
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on July 20, 2008, 03:00:10 AM ---Hey guys, I was wondering if the game boy advance would be a good platform for the dyi project. Low cost arm7 with buttons and screen, the sp has backlit. The media could use a R4 or EZ flash with conjuction of the micro or mini SD cards.
--- End quote ---
I am being thinking about this project. The main problem for this project is the lack of interest from "base" developers of Rockbox on a DIY hardware.
Today is very simple to have a hardware with a MCU that have firmware which is downloaded by USB - very easy to hack firmware.
I say DIY hardware because it must be like that, the first ones should be a higher energy investment from developers, developers can't expect a hardware with perfect LCD, with perfect size, with perfect MCU, etc... - instead developers that likes hardware should be proud of having a own made raw hardware.
Looks to me that at Rockbox there is not developers of hardware, just firmware.
Recently I am working on a project with an MCU of 8 bits with USB, my first experience on USB. All is going well because I found another person that believes on the project and is working a lot in hardware, he did draw the actual schematic and is drawing now the PCB. I bought a development board, made some tests on hardware and made firmware, mainly drivers. I found another person to work on PC software. Alone I couldn't do this my actual project, is very important to have a group of people working.
For this project RockboxPlayer, I alone can't program, make working, reuse, things like USB, FAT drivers, ATA drivers, etc... because I have none experience on that. But I can make drivers for audio IC, LCD, buttons, etc, and helping testing. So, It's impossible to put a prototype working - firmware is much important on this project, but there is none Rockbox firmware developers wanting to work on this project - Free/Open hardware audio player and recorder, for use with RockBox firmware.
I didn't forgot this project, I will not. I am having experiences with others projects on things like DataFlash memory, I am reading about FAT32 firmware libraries for MCUs, USB firmware libraries, etc -- when I found people that wants to work on this project I will happy work together, however now I don't believe on people that says want to build a hardware with LCD of big size, big colors, the perfect LCD, the perfect size, the perfect MCU, etc.
casainho:
Hello :)
I am back to development, after some interruption to clean my head of this project. While then I started the Bicycle LED POV project and ended up by learning a few things that will help me on Rockbox Player, mainly on the DataFlash memory, USB, FAT32 and SD card.
Shift on development approach:
I will continue to use the Olimex development board. I will not use NAND flash. I will use instead the DataFlash to hold the Rockbox firmware and the SD card to hold audio data files. Programing of Rockbox firmware will be done using SAM-BA with USB connection, on GNU/Linux, and debug using the serial port and LEDs.
I will avoid using NAND flash and USB, I tough in using it initially. Since I can format and write on PC the SD card, I don't need USB for having this hardware working with Rockbox - I must simplify the development.
My very first task will be building the AT91 bootstrap that will initialize SDRAM, DataFlash and some others peripherals, load the Rockbox bootloader from DataFlash to SDRAM and jump to it.
Rockbox bootloader will initialize the system, the kernel, the LCD, the buttons, the SD card ATA driver, mount the FAT file system on SD card, read the Rockbox firmware from the files on FAT file system and finally jump to it.
The very first thing will be having a flash LED code, after doing drivers to have LCD working, after the buttons and finally the ATA for SD card.
casainho:
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on July 31, 2008, 03:13:06 AM ---Sparkfun has some really good info on most of the hardware. Look under breakout board example breakout >Micro SD/MMC card and go to the end of the page and there will be schematics and kronos and other sites that will be very helpful with example codes and info on fat16. I would prefer fat32.
--- End quote ---
FAT32 drivers are already in Rockbox source code. FAT32 drivers are agnostic to hardware, to SD card, NAND Flash, etc... typically, FAT32 just need to receive blocks of 512 bytes - each block is called a sector.
ATA driver, should read bytes from SD card and send them on that 512 bytes blocks (sectors) to FAT32 driver. This ATA driver must written but we can look for examples, as you suggest on that files on Sparkfun. Also Atmel give example codes.
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on July 31, 2008, 03:13:06 AM ---I think a list of hardware that will be invoked into the project and a start on driver info will be helpful. Examples: voltage regulator, crystals, headphone jacks, resistors, and capacitors wouldn't need code, but joystick, buttons, decoder chip, video, microcontrollers, and SD/MMC sockets would need code.
Starting hardware could use a uniform beginning like voltage regular would be first, then second ..... third....
--- End quote ---
Looks like you continue to not reading the messages and pages :-) -- all of that information is on TWiki page, also for the firmware, bootloader, etc. However I will update the actual page when I have even more clear ideas.
casainho:
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on August 02, 2008, 12:05:15 AM ---Yes, I've read the Twiki and its using an evaluation board to start. That's all fine, but to be a DIY there were talks about making or producing a breadboard to have a completed handheld media player. The practical product will only need parts that would be needed, where as the eval kit would have parts that won't be used. Unless this is all based upon everyone using a eval kit?
--- End quote ---
I think the way to go, is with development board, in this phase of development. I will not spend energies on hardware (thats one advantage of buying the dev. board) but just on learning how firmware should work, how can I put it working.
Later I would like to try to do a simple as possible hardware, for DIY, which will be more like a prototyping.
About "breadboard to have a completed handheld media player" I don't believe on that simple because there are very high speed signals that will fail on breadboard hardware. Plus SDRAM, MCU, etc have very fine pitch measures of pins, almost impossible to make on bread board.
Since now I believe in making a minimalist hardware, I think will be good option to design and after shop online a PCB. On that time of design, we should copy the tested, working hardware of development board.
--- Quote from: friendlyzookeeper on August 02, 2008, 12:05:15 AM ---I'm not sure what your thoughts on ata drivers are respectful on sd cards.
--- End quote ---
Don't worry - I just need to have a working way for FAT firmware on Rockbox can read sectors (512bytes each time) from SD card.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version