An interesting setup involving a Pandora


EvilDragon

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 4, 2003
Messages
29,986
Age
46
Location
Ingolstadt
Well, this is not really a "progress" report, but I think it is a fine example how useful a small computer like the Pandora or Pyra can be.

Nikolaus is too busy with finishing the hardware design, so he doesn't have time to try to get the Solomon (SSD) Rotator chip to work.
notaz offered help out a bit when he finds the time - but doesn't have the hardware.

So we created this little setup:

DSCF0030.JPG

In the back you can see the OMAP5 EVM, which has the BOE LCD connected to the Display PCB (incl. the SSD Chip). You can see the LCD in the middle of the picture.

In the front you can see a Pandora with a small webcam mounted.

The Pandora is connected via USB2Serial cable to the debug port of the EVM. It's possible to hard-reset the EVM there as well as get the direct serial output (which is useful for debugging).

The Webcam is setup to show the BOE display on the Pandora.

Both the EVM and the Pandora are connected to the internet as well.

notaz can login to either one via SSH and poke around.

Additionally, the Pandora acts as a VNC server, so he can also connect to Pandoras desktop and see the webcam live video stream.

Here's a summary:

He can connect to both the EVM and Pandora, see the serial debug of the EVM and reboot it and poke around with the display.

With the webcam he can see whether the display shows something on the screen or not.

Well, and all that with pretty low power usage :)

Once again, it shows how flexible something like the Pandora is - and the Pyra will be even more flexible.

But please don't expect results within a few days. notaz doesn't have much time, and we probably also need to send more questions to Solomon to get it to work. Things like these won't happen over night, but hopefully, we can show a working display with rotator soon!

I've attached the picture as MPO file as well - that's a 3D picture. If you got a 3D-Viewer, you can see the setup in full 3D :)

DSCF0030.MPO
 

Attachments

  • DSCF0030.MPO
    6.9 MB · Views: 440
Sweet. Any chance of seeing a video of notaz actively working with this setup. :D Even better if it is a live video stream. ^_^
 
Heh, but seriously SSH public key crypto is the same sort of thing that government intelligence agencies have been complaining about being implemented in smartphones because it makes their job too hard.


We'd be able to see him poking about on the Pandora via VNC, though I doubt he'd use that as anything more than a webcam viewer when he has a direct SSH connection. And of course we'd be able to see the dev board rebooting, but without knowing what Notaz was doing on it making it largely pointless.


Hurrah for Notaz! Not only single-handedly providing Pandora OS updates, but helping on the Pyra too! That guy is too cool!
 
Nikolaus is too busy with finishing the hardware design, so he doesn't have time to try to get the Solomon (SSD) Rotator chip to work.
Just wondering, wether this is due to:

  1. Nikolaus schedule getting in the way
  2. the Pyras development schedule getting too long
or not ?

In the display news thread, the question came up wether sharp beeing "eager" enough trying to code a display driver, may be willing to offer a landscape oriented display, which would render the "SSD" (= rotater chip, not the a lot more commonly used akronym for Solid State Drive) superfluous . Could you give an answer to that ?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nice solution: this way, you dont need lot Prototypes..

Wonder if Notaz also dit use a Pandora which is conekt via SH to this Pandora, to Debug the Screen..

Remote Desctop was already testet on a Pandora, if i remember corektly..
 
sounds awesome. Pyra is planned to have a mini-HDMI right?

have you ever thought of displayport? if that is even an option with the SoC.
 
IIRC: The SoC has a HDMI out built in, a DP would need additional circuitry.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just wondering, wether this is due to:

  • Nikolaus schedule getting in the way
  • the Pyras development schedule getting too long
or not ?
Well, we don't really have a schedule, but Nikolaus main priority is finish the hardware, so driver coding for any LCDs or chips would happen after that.


Anyone helping out upfront would just save time later.


We know the DisplayPCB is working fine (as we can send and receive test commands from the SSD) and we know that the SSD is working already with a BOE panel, so it's most likely some timing / DCS commands issue (which can be controlled via software)

In the display news thread, the question came up wether sharp beeing "eager" enough trying to code a display driver, may be willing to offer a landscape oriented display, which would render the "SSD" (= rotater chip, not the a lot more commonly used akronym for Solid State Drive) superfluous . Could you give an answer to that ?
I haven't talked with Sharp more thoroughly, as we first need to create the hardware to connect it, but it's planned.
 
I hope the Pyra development doesn't take TOO long, I'd love to have one this summer.
 
Sweet setup. Pyra: made with Open-Pandora.

(For anyone not able to view the .MPO file, you can not see it in 3D but if you rename it to .JPG you can at least view the photo in 2D.)
 
Back
Top