[Arm-netbook] Regarding Improv, EOMA68, Free Software and Open Hardware.

[joem]

On Sat, 2014-06-28 at 20:59 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 7:29 PM, joem <joem at martindale-electric.co.uk> wrote:
> >> o the cases we want to cover are:
> >>
> >>  * 320x240 RGB/TTL screen at very low cost (these are all RGB/TTL)
> >>  * 1024-1280 x 600-1024 screen at reasonable cost (these are all
> >>    LVDS 1x but a _few_ eDPs are becoming available)
> >>  * 1440x900 to 1920x1080 at not unreasonable cost (these are
> >>    usually Dual or Triple LVDS with some now 4-lane eDP and so on)
> >
> > hmmmp.
> >
> > Yesterday this may have been true.
> > Today the starting point is something like
> > a 7" tablet with retail price of $50 and min 800x600.
> > With tablet guts removed and a HDMI/VGA/Composite input
> > board fitted, that price shrinks to $30 retail.
> >
> > Also if tablets were a little more open,
> > load an OS that turns the tablet
> > into a USB monitor may be possible = another
> > opportunity for EOMAs to sell in their beeellions.
> 
>  exactly..  with a pass-through card any device with a screen,
> touchpanel, mouse, internal hard drive etc basically becomes an
> extension system for desktop PCs, other devices - anything.
> 
>  i did a case study where hilariously if you have 2 devices, one CPU
> Card and one pass-through card it actually doesn't matter what you
> plug in to what, you still end up with one computer with 2 screens.


There is also a need to CPU + dedicted customized OS that turns
the tablet into a graphics computer (e.g. running X window)
and taking compressed commands from the USB directly.
If it can talk, even more better.

Got the talking bit sorted with Ubuntu, gambas and espeak.
Next step is to get gambas into a crude graphics rendering
system that takes crude commands like circle(x,y,r).
The idea is that an embedded CPU with very little resources,
or a headless computer with a USB link can connect
to this device and speak out of it / turn it into a monitor
without having to have large amounts of graphics processing
software or the RAM in the embedded controller.

The ideas are similar to a graphical version of a VT100 terminal,
but with more features, open, and ultra simple embedded CPU
friendly interface. Suitable for Arduino to little PIC chip.

Dream on I guess :)