[Arm-netbook] EOMA-68 Boots Android and plays youtube videos very well

[joem]

I am following this:
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner/a20/boot/

But nothing went to plan.

First off advise: don't plug in the micro USB lead unless you know
what you really want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2nd bit of advise, you don't need the RS232 USB converter
just yet.

3rd bit of advise,
you do need a micro HDMI cable - there are three sizes - standard,
mini HDMI and micro HDMI - you want the micro HDMI.
You do need a 4 port USB port expander.
Additionally mouse, keyboard, USB ethernet adapter.
And you need plenty of amps rated well regulated 5V supply.

I started with hardware advise
given in http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner/a20/boot/

I short circuited D1, cut D2 (not mentioned, but I recommend),
cut R2 and soldered a wire
from pin 1 to pin 11 under the ethernet socket.
These pins under the ethernet socket
are the 1st and last pins of the 11 pin ethernet socket.

There were signs of shorts on the PCMCIA edge connector
due to what looks like manual soldering.
So I ran a Bernstein 5-054 fine tipped tweezer along the ridges
of suspicious pins until no more metal particles would come out.
I didn't use any force, or that will do damage.
I had a good set of eye loops and bright lights to
check the progress of the cleaning.

Then I started following the next set of advise 
at http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner/a20/boot/ and ran into
all kinds of problems straight away.

What was happening was soon discovered when I saw
a power LED lit on my power supply (despite power supply
being off!!!!!!!!!!!)

Because there are no LEDs on the MEB or the EOMA card,
the state of the power reaching the MEB and EOMA is unknowable,
and because of that it is not possible to know how
far the EOMA has booted and what state it is in at any
one time.

Merely connecting the micro USB connector will power
up the EOMA AND THE MEB and NOW YOU ARE IN TROUBLE
because the device is booting and doing things you
did not expect (like chocking on 500mA restricted
power supply of the USB and then crashing).

So the first thing I did was disconnect the micro USB
cable and bin it before doing anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And if you are an engineer solder an LED to the MEB,
and if you are competent at soldering then solder,
an SMT LED to the EOMA-68 as well so that you can
know when its powering up and doing things you don't expect.

Now when I switch the power supply on and off, the
CPU was properly being power cycled.
And then I saw the RS232 kick into life properly.

A word of advise if you do not understand how these RS232
devices work - connect only RS232 TX, RX and GND lines 
from the device to the EOMA-68. That is JUST 3 CABLES ONLY.

DO NOT CONNECT THE POWER LINE from RS232 to EOMA!!!!!!!
The RS232 device gets its power from USB and does not need it.

You don't need to hold down key 2 to see RS232 boot logs
flying past as the EOMA boots.

After a while I realize these messages meant
the EOMA had Android on it already
and it was that that was generating all these
messages and it was trying to boot!

So naturally a monitor was connected and sure enough
after a few seconds the monitor came up.
Within a minute it would go down and never come back
up again without power cycling.

So I connected a wireless keyboard and mouse dongle
to the single USB socket on the MEB, and then when
the Android booted, I could move the mouse.
I finally figured out I had to click on the central
lock icon and drag it to the periphery and drop it
there to unlock the start screen.
And then I was booted into Android Chinese default edition. 

Here is silent video that shows how to change from default Chinese language
to English language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_LR5mFGDsw

Also go to setting and then display and set font size to small
and set how long before screen blanks out
due to inactivity to 30 minutes (max available).
If screen does go blank, there doesn't seem to be any
way of reviving it back into life other than hard boot.
The people who supplied the Android need to fix that.

The internal SDCard and MEB Ethernet does not work
from Android. Again the people who supplied the Android
need to fix that.

However adding a good quality 4 port USB port expander works.
Do not bother with low quality rubbish 4 port dongles.
Check with someone it supports high speed USB properly
otherwise the remaining experiments will not work.

I attached a mouse and keyboard dongle,
a USB ethernet dongle, and USB storage.
USB storage was readable and I could play
720p video without any jitter thanks to power
of a dual core A20 in the EOMA.
The USB ethernet also worked - I went into settings
and device, and then enabled the ethernet.

I could then use Chrome and watch youtube.

The 5V supply was 20A rated, so there were no
power issues with all these devices attached.



HEY LUKE!!
THIS BE FULLY WORKING ANDROID GADGET YOU CAN SELL!!

I mean all you you have to do is put the EOMA-68
and MEB in a box, add a USB port expander and
to that add the ethernet dongle and a wifi dongle
and leave 2 USB sockets for keyboard and mouse
one hole for the power and its a product!!!!

$$$

Profit!!