C1xx new fw and misc updates

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hello FreeCalypso community,

I just put out an updated version of prebuilt FC Magnetite firmware
binaries for Mot C1xx phones:

ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/c1xx-fcmag-20180711.tar.bz2

All of the major issues with FC on C1xx remain the same as they were
at the time of the last release in March:

https://www.freecalypso.org/pipermail/community/2018-March/000544.html

At this point in the evolution of FreeCalypso, the primary purpose of
having C1xx hw target support and of prebuilt binary releases for
these targets is to allow interested people to play with our firmware
and see what it can do without having one of our expensive FCDEV3B
boards.  Compared to C1xx, our FCDEV3B provides two physical serial
ports, thereby enabling CSD, GPRS, sending arbitrary SMS in PDU mode
and the GSM 07.10 MUX, but the more basic feature set of voice calls
and SMS in text mode can be exercised on C1xx phones.

Over the next 2-3 months I am going to produce the first batch of
FCDEV3B V2 boards, and once those are done, the road will be clear to
work toward the FreeCalypso handset goal - but it will still probably
take a long time, probably measured in years, for two reasons:

1) Some steps in the handset design process will require significant
money.  I anticipate that the first expensive step (when we reach that
point) will be hiring someone to do the extremely dense HDI PCB layout
for the handset motherboard - it is pure desk work, nothing physical
is done at this step, but it requires someone with very highly
specialized skills and a very large number of person-hours, so I
expect that we'll need many thousands of dollars for this desk work
step.  That cost will likely translate into a time delay, as I have
decided that I want to get my sex correction surgery done and paid for
before I go back to dumping all of my money into FreeCalypso.  Thus
either someone else will need to cover that cost when we reach that
point, or it will have to wait until after my big surgery.

2) Aside from the dollar costs, there will be many design steps which
only I can do, and I can only work so fast.  I will need to create the
motherboard design at the "schematic" level (I put that word in quotes
because I use a non-graphical alternative to traditional schematics),
and I will need to create a special fork of geda-pcb or pcb-rnd (FLOSS
PCB layout tools) with the data model change I have in mind.  All this
work alone can easily take a year and a half or so.

For those who are not as interested in the expensive and DIY-looking
FreeCalypso Libre Dumbphone hardware and would prefer to see FC fw
running on some existing hw as a practically usable untethered phone,
I repeat my call for someone else in the community to take the work
I've already done with FC on the C139 target and do the remaining
high-level software work to make it practically usable.  All of the
low-level work to make the C139 operate correctly on GSM networks with
FC firmware has already been done, ditto for battery charging, LCD and
keypad drivers, all that is left is high-level UI logic, absolutely no
reverse eng or low-level driver work or even GSM knowledge needed.

Finally, if there is anyone in our community who still uses his or her
Openmoko device as their primary phone, you may be interested in
trying our new blob-free hybrid firmware, in which the original G23M
protocol stack and ACI code from TCS211-20070608 (used in moko3
through moko13, and mostly binary-only) has been replaced with the new
TCS3 version that came as full source.  This new fw has been tested
quite extensively on the FCDEV3B (not identical but very similar to
Openmoko's modem), and is now deemed mature enough to be beta-tested
by real users in real-life usage.  If anyone is interested in trying
it on their FreeRunner but does not feel like compiling from source,
please indicate your interest and I'll be happy to put out an official
build.

Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
Mychaela aka The Mother