Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[bluebrother]

Is your intent to create a new project, or actually work on Rockbox?

NO!! We need to have our playground for development, our SVN. RB SVN can't be used by us, we can't commit to it. For example, I am a beginner on ARM and C... Soon as we have something working, like LCD drivers, maybe on that time we can post some patches to RB tracker.

I really like all tools and information at Rockbox, the forum, the IRC channel and logs, the SVN, the Wiki, etc. We really have advantages on stay together, however for now we will use our SVN, it's a kind of temporary.

I strongly suggest against creating a new repository based on Rockbox svn. If you want your work to get merged back into Rockbox eventually you need to re-sync your repository with Rockbox svn every now and then, and this will become quite a pain as Rockbox itself moves.
You could, however, use git-svn to create your own working repository based on Rockbox svn (in fact quite some developers are working this way). Due to the way git can help you merging you can do that quite often without much work.

Syncing two source trees that have ran out of sync for several weeks is a tendious task. I'm pretty sure you don't want to get into this ...

[casainho]

I strongly suggest against creating a new repository based on Rockbox svn. If you want your work to get merged back into Rockbox eventually you need to re-sync your repository with Rockbox svn every now and then, and this will become quite a pain as Rockbox itself moves.
You could, however, use git-svn to create your own working repository based on Rockbox svn (in fact quite some developers are working this way). Due to the way git can help you merging you can do that quite often without much work.

Syncing two source trees that have ran out of sync for several weeks is a tendious task. I'm pretty sure you don't want to get into this ...

For now we are working with patches against Rockbox SVN source. We are getting on our SVN the patch: http://code.google.com/p/rockboxplayer/source/browse/#svn/trunk/rockbox_patch

Thomas said that would work on a script to do that sync... I don't have knowledge to do it.

I hope to take no more than 1 month to finish the port.

[casainho]

Hey Casainho, what jtag proggrammer are you using? I think you may have said a wiggler, but you didn't have a parrellel port. I have seen usb to parrellel port adapters. What do you think about the jtag usb ocd tiny?

Hello

We are using that Olimex ARM-USB-TINY JTAG with OpenOCD, as you can read here: http://code.google.com/p/rockboxplayer/wiki/GettingStarted

Right now we have SD Card initializing and we are working on drivers for it...

[scharkalvin]

Anybody still working on a design using the Atmel AVR-32?
My next door neighbor runs a small electronic design and manufacturing firm and he accidently got stuck with an NGW100 board he didn't order due to a mixup with his supplier.  So, now it's mine.  I have only two ideas of what to do with it,
1: router/firewall/webserver or 2:hack a rockbox player.
The later sounds like more fun.  So if anybody has done any work on an AVR-32 based port let me know!

[casainho]

Anybody still working on a design using the Atmel AVR-32?
My next door neighbor runs a small electronic design and manufacturing firm and he accidently got stuck with an NGW100 board he didn't order due to a mixup with his supplier.  So, now it's mine.  I have only two ideas of what to do with it,
1: router/firewall/webserver or 2:hack a rockbox player.
The later sounds like more fun.  So if anybody has done any work on an AVR-32 based port let me know!

I must say that Atmel don't have good Open Source programmer and debug tools as ARM. I moved on and now I prefer to work with ARM7 (also from Atmel) than with AVR.

But I prefer Atmel over Microchip or others, Atmel gives good datasheets and example source codes.

Anyway, it's easier to port Rockbox to an ARM because some code was done in ARM assembly, etc.

Don't forget to see the actual work page:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayer

[scharkalvin]

I must say that Atmel don't have good Open Source programmer and debug tools as ARM. I moved on and now I prefer to work with ARM7 (also from Atmel) than with AVR.

But I prefer Atmel over Microchip or others, Atmel gives good datasheets and example source codes.

Anyway, it's easier to port Rockbox to an ARM because some code was done in ARM assembly, etc.

Well in the 8 bit arena, Atmel does have the best support for open source tools IMHO.  Their ARM32 isn't as well supported, but then it hasn't been available for as long as the ARM family(s).  If only the ARM9 development boards weren't so expensive! 

So is anybody working on a rockbox specific circuit board layout for the player?  There will be a groundswell of interest in this as soon as it's possible to purchase some hardware ready to go.

[casainho]

Edit on 2008.02.07:

I got the bootloader working ;-) -- domonoky were helping me on this days, on the SD Card read problems and now is all ok. Next tasks is to build a working firmware file. Even we must drill and assembly our own expansion board and put buttons and audio stereo codec IC working...

This image shows the bootloader right after loading the firmware file from SD Card and ready to run it :-) -- go to read more on wiki project page.

I must say that Atmel don't have good Open Source programmer and debug tools as ARM. I moved on and now I prefer to work with ARM7 (also from Atmel) than with AVR.

But I prefer Atmel over Microchip or others, Atmel gives good datasheets and example source codes.

Anyway, it's easier to port Rockbox to an ARM because some code was done in ARM assembly, etc.

Well in the 8 bit arena, Atmel does have the best support for open source tools IMHO.  Their ARM32 isn't as well supported, but then it hasn't been available for as long as the ARM family(s).  If only the ARM9 development boards weren't so expensive! 

So is anybody working on a rockbox specific circuit board layout for the player?  There will be a groundswell of interest in this as soon as it's possible to purchase some hardware ready to go.

I also work all days with AVR, and I like them and the availability of Open Source programmers, the AVR-GCC, the AVR-Lib, etc. Unfortunately there is not yet any Open Source debugger for the DebugWire devices.

No, no one is... we are using the dev. board and we just need to add buttons + DAC audio IC to it. LCD is a module from Olimex, it just plugs on dev. board. Alex already designed that expansion using KiCAD, the files are on a message of our discussion group. I didn't have time yet to look at them...

I hope that Olimex or other company wants to build and sell the hardware on their online shops and distributers. I were talking with Olimex about this and there is good perspectives... and like that, maybe we will not need to design our circuit, test it, etc.   

[froggyman]

sorry if this was already posted a while ago(i didnt look through all of the 36 threads lol) , but is there a build( i mean the actual player) of this that works fully or is it still in prototype/alpha build?

If it is availible where might i be able to by it and for how much???

again sorry if this has been posted, i would just think it would be kool to have a player that very few people would have

[casainho]

sorry if this was already posted a while ago(i didnt look through all of the 36 threads lol) , but is there a build( i mean the actual player) of this that works fully or is it still in prototype/alpha build?

If it is availible where might i be able to by it and for how much???

again sorry if this has been posted, i would just think it would be kool to have a player that very few people would have

Hello :-)

No, for now we are just working hard on a prototype... you can get all the information here (we are updating it regularly:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxPlayer

Thank you for your interest. We are aiming to make it available to buy online trough various other companies.

[froggyman]

kool, i deffinately think that after my iPod Video(5.5G) dies on me (hopefully not within the near future) that this might be made my replacement for it.

my only worry is that it isnt going to be hard drive based or support video( 2 important things i will consider before i buy a player, my next one needs to have over 30GB). So that might make me choose a Cowon player(like the O2, plus this one has SD support, upto 32GB), I guess i will just have to wait and see what the final product becomes!

[casainho]

Hello,

I'm going to work on a ARM7 (at91sam7s256) diy board. Waiting on parts right now. Using a smd adapter board for the microcontroller. Haven't figured out on an extra ram chip yet. Going with the usb tiny arm jtag.
I still need to figure out the extra 5v power source for the video. Maybe an extra voltage regulator off the input power or an inductor with an boost converter (max756). I'm going to use a mcp130t for the reset or another kind of supervisor. Still alot to think about, but going to start soon.

Fun, because I received today at home my first at91sam7s256 on Olimex dev board :-) -- I will also start working with ARM7 for my projects and I will use the usb tiny arm jtag as I bought it and I am using on Rockbox Player project.

At Rockbox Player project, bootloader is working, loads firmware correctly to SDRAM from the SD Card, and jumps to it.

Firmware is working if I run it as a stand alone application, but, if loaded by bootloader, it hangs on some interrupt vector... - so, I am now working to understand what initialization code should not run in firmware if loaded by bootloader...

[casainho]

Ok, here is the main menu image:



There is yet a lot of work to be done for a full working port.

[scharkalvin]

Just found this:
http://www.circuit-ed.com/128x64-TouchScreen-GLCD-with-RGB-Backlight-P168C8.aspx
Looks like a nice, cheap graphic lcd with a touch screen and RGB backlight.

[casainho]

Just found this:
http://www.circuit-ed.com/128x64-TouchScreen-GLCD-with-RGB-Backlight-P168C8.aspx
Looks like a nice, cheap graphic lcd with a touch screen and RGB backlight.

There is a lot of options, but now LCD is working and we can move ahead. We need to get a working "prototype" and try to get the help of any online shop that can produce and sell online to worldwide, the Rockbox Player hardware. For sure that actual prototype will change a lot!! but after we will see, it will depend more of the technology that company will want to use, etc.

[dkamin]

I have been working for some time on a portable MP3 player and came by Rockbox and your player port.  I have since switched my efforts to supporting your project instead of working on my own for now.  I am a couple of days away from sending off for a prototype based off your existing specs plus a few more for future incorporation. 

Looking at your daughterboard for the Olimex board, I cannot determine your switch needs and would like to discuss your design plans for user input so I can layout the board appropriately.

Also, since you are using the Olimex board which is based on the Atmel evaluation board, there are a few questions that I need answered based on your current port. 

Does your bootloader use external dataflash, nandflash or just the internal dataflash? 
Are you using or planning on using the EEPROM to persist settings?
Do you see a need for a serial interface or is the USB interface sufficient?
Do you see a need for an external RTC or use the processor to keep date/time?