A Slight Change In Direction!..

Needs work.

Curse you, real life. You really know how to put the boot in, don't you? Anyway, enough about my problems, Happy New Year to you all.

This little Blog of mine is to going to receiving a few additions to the subject matter. As of now, it was all about Retro gaming in some form or another, but as of today, I'm going to include any projects I'm currently involved with. As well as some more general ramblings about the world of Science and Technology.

I'm particularly interested in Android/Linux. I'm keen to get cracking on a Samsung ARM board and transform a bog-standard HDTV into an Android-powered, USB imbued Smart Telly. I'm familiar with SPI and BL0, BL1 & BL2, (cheers for that, Samsung. Actually, I'm not being sarcastic. The BL0 is the first stage of the Bootloader and is signed and on an unwritable chip). Conveniently for me, this device boots U-Boot, so all I really need to do is compile my OS. Anyway, the device specifics are listed below.

The EM210 from Boardcon.


* Processor: Samsung ARM Cortex-A8 S5PV210AH @1GHz
* RAM: 512MB 
* NAND Flash: 256MB/512MB/1GB/2GB/4GB optional
* Interface: 2x USB host, 1x USB OTG, 1x RS232, 2x RJ11, HDMI, GPIO, LCD, Ethernet, Camera, 3G, 1x T-Flash card, 1x SIM card, JTAG, Keyboard, Audio 
* Operating system: Linux3.0.8, WinCE6.0, Android4.0.3
* Board size: 108mm x 141mm

I've managed to get U-Boot to load onto the device but my Serial interface isn't displaying anything. Nowt. Not a sausage! I'll sort it, it isn't a serious project, I'm just really keen on getting it up and running. It has 3G support via a SIM card and I quite like the idea of a 3G enabled TV. It supports all kinds of interesting modules too, like GPS and thermal sensors and could even be used as a 3G wireless router, all while still being able to browse the web or watch TV via on-demand services. This really is a very interesting board with a tonne of potential. 

Even more interestingly, this development board went on to become the Samsung Galaxy S. You may have heard of it. Obviously, it's not the most powerful device on earth but it decodes 1080p videos and plays FLAC audio. Also, depending on what OS I choose to build for it, a wealth of retro console emulators. This dev board will power a PS1 emulator just fine. Throw in my Bluetooth Gamepad, (Droidbox) and what a thing to be attached to my secondary television!

So yeah, there's one ongoing project. I'm not working too hard on it, it is just a hobby. I do seem to have a taste for Embedded computing though so I ordered something from China that I've been reading about for months! More on that later, in the mean time, enjoy what I consider filth!

Phwoarrr!!

EDIT: I'm unable to get the source code files from Boardcon. If anyone has any joy, leave a comment. Hopefully I won't have to RE this device too hard to find the offsets I need to flash various files to.