FC project direction

[Spacefalcon the Outlaw]

Nick <freecalypso at njw.name> wrote:

> DS, it's probably worth asking on the community at lists.openmoko.org 
> list to ask if someone wants one; there have been a few "I want to 
> donate my phone to a worthy cause" postings in the last few years.  
> I'm still using my GTA02 as a daily phone, but I expect most on that 
> list no longer are.

Yes, probably a good idea to ask indeed.  But I also thought of one
more possibility: back in February I got a couple of bare GTA02 boards
(without case or LCD etc) as scrap from that infamous FR killer /
Qualcomm salesman HNS, with the intent of sacrificing at least one of
them to destructive reverse eng when the original PCB layout files
were believed to have been lost.  But now that these PCB layout files
have been recovered, there is no more need for any destructive PCB
reverse eng. :)

DS, would you be able to hack on a GTA02 given just a bare board
instead of a complete phone?  The main difficulty with using a bare
board (at least if I had to do it) is that there is no battery holder,
and I don't really know how one could connect a battery or a lab bench
power supply to the battery contacts on a bare GTA02 board - but
perhaps for you it wouldn't be as much of a difficulty as it is for
me?  The internal antenna is also missing (and again no good way to
hook one up in the absence of a case to hold it in place), so if one
wishes to connect to a real GSM network, an external antenna needs to
be connected to the MS-147 connector (same as on C1xx and Pirelli, it
must have been used for the original production line calibration) -
but if you are connecting to USRP+OpenBTS, you use a coax connected to
that MS-147 anyway, don't you?

The display is also missing, but it isn't needed if all one wishes to
do is hack on the modem part of the device. :)  The USB connector for
programming and interfacing with the Linux AP subsystem is present,
and so is the headset jack connector to which the 2nd Calypso UART is
switched under AP control.

But if the difficulties of power connection and so on with a bare
board would be a show-stopper, please let us know and we'll keep
looking for a complete FR for you.

> It's really great to see this project develop, and to get such 
> detailed status reports and such; thanks so much Mychaela, as ever, 
> for all your work. I find your dedication and perseverance towards a 
> noble cause inspiring.

Thanks for the compliment. :-)

SF