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An Interesting and yet powerful webpad

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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 8:29 AM
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This webpad is from the korean brand TG, which long ago stopped the production of PDAs. TG itself almost went bankrupt five or six yrs ago. it has the model name of pb2008 and looks like an industrial product.

the machine has the following specs:

pxa 255 400 cpu,128m ram 87m available to th user w/ a 25m useable ROM?

CE.net 4.1 (ce.net 4.2 would make it a much much more powerful machine, i know)
)

800*600 tft screen, very good view angle. battery of about 4hrs.


I like the 128m ram and pxa 255 400 cpu, coz it is very hard to get such an HPC here, though some Taiwanese makers do make a few 128m + pxa255 400 HPC some yrs ago. T

his is the first unit with these features in the list of my 10+ HPCs. I know nbp supports these features, nbp comes w/ a powerful ce.net 4.2 too.

but, the major attrations of this HPC do not stop here (at least for me):

IT has a SAME GPU as NTT S3. the ATI W4200 or w4100. i forget the exact model name. the same as S3 anyway.


with the same testing file, 800*600 full screen,the benchmark is about 90% of S3. Considering S3 only has to drive the 800*480 screen, this machine delivers more than S3 in terms of video playback. watching Youtube in coreplayer w/ h.264 high quality mode is very smooth

coincidence or not, this machine also shares the same charge port as S3. you know, that one on S3 is kinda rare among PDAs. such a point make me wonder the relationship between the two powerful PDAs. are they made from the same maker under the same design scheme?

Edited by iamjoe 2008-11-03 8:38 AM




(hpc2.jpg)



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Attachments hpc2.jpg (86KB - 1 downloads)
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 8:34 AM
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In addition, it has an Internal GPS module. ugm-01 from Axiom. There is really one module installed after disassembling the pda. However, ozi explorer could not find the gps and i could zero information about gps in the registry.

The module seems to be faulted or simply no driver is installed on the system? i turn 2 google for help.

But how fast time flies! According to my google digging, Axiom could be major supplier of gps modules six yrs ago. but now, it (probably) went bankrupt and disappeared from the Internet.

the company's website is gone, i could not find some useful info about this module. web.archive.org offered no help either.

Anyone know how 2 deal w/ this problem? anyone familiar with Axiom modules? i know CF gps card needs no driver on hPC. how about this kind of internal module?


Edited by iamjoe 2008-11-03 8:40 AM
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mr-mac Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 8:43 AM
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Have you seen albatron Tee-PC? It has 7" screen, Win CE 6, etc.. etc.. Just if you were looking for a modern version.

GPS module will likely be a seriel port number. You could look in registry or even just install some GPS software that has a config of which port to use (think tomtom 6 will work in CE 4.1 and allows you to select NEMA compatible and a port number).

Just install tomtom, run it then, in cofig select nema compatible (probs 4800 baud if it asks for speed) then go through port numbers till it finds it. You may need to use execheck and some extra dll's to make it run but I had it running on sig3 so shouldn't be too difficult.

Hope this helps

John
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mr-mac Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 8:45 AM
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I have a CF gps for smartbook G138 and route66 software automatically detects the CF GPS so you may find some software will do the job for you.

Double check if there is a config utility in control panel or similar as there may be somthing to let you power the module on and off.

John
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CAuser Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 9:53 AM
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As far as I know, Axiom is still around. Actually, it bought RF design software from my company. It has a facility in Los Angeles area.
http://www.axiom-micro.com/content/view/89/113/
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 10:23 AM
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John, thanks for your help.

Ozi explorer has a function of checking every possible com port and baud rate and finding the gps seetings. still, no go. I also used sirftech, an all-round PPC gps utility. (I know the internal module is old. it could be sirf2 at most, or even not from the sirf family)

it still can not find the gps.

in the registry, there is no info or settings for com3 to com9. even no info for com1. only com2 says serial xxxx. i forgot the exact wording. but the com2 is not the gps port as the two appz could not scan any setting from com1 to com9.

yes, as for the gps control appz. i had already checked about the entire system before writing this thread. not a single trace of any gps control appz. no in the windows folder, no in program files, no in the registry.

as this could be an old industrial product several yrs ago, one of the possible reason is that the driver is not implemented at all, or the gps unit is faulted as i bought this web pad under the term of As is. the seller did not know about the gps module.

at the time of purchase, i did not have high hope for a working gps module coz there is little thing to play about gps under ce.net 4.1. 4.2 would be much different. in addition, the old module is sirf2 or the same level at most. kinda outdated compared 2 the current sirf3. most important of all, the price is good, even for a standard ce.net web pad w/o gps module.
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 10:33 AM
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CAuser, thanks for your info. but i doubt this Axiom is the same company as the gps module maker Axiom. the latter bears the name of Axiom Navigation,Inc. and was based in Costa Mesa, CA. its website was www.axiomnav.com but it was now gone.

Your Axiom is founded only in 2002. i think gps Axiom was in operation before 2002 and was one of the major gps module suppliers then. the current Axiom does not maky any gps-related products. the company logo is different, too.

Would it be that the gps Axiom somehow stopped all its gps biz and turned 2 the rf biz in 2002? i dont know. the company profile of your axiom does not say anything about gps product or just archive gps products
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mr-mac Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 11:24 AM
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After a little digging it looks like axiom provided modules to OEM's for fleet tracking and other such activities. Also it looks like their modules facilitated message delivery etc. so I wonder if this is not a bespoke module that needs a driver file or was sold with a specific software package.

Now the gps data stream may still be nema compatible but like my cf card the gps module doesn't seem to be powered up until the driver for the SD card part of it is installed. The SD part of it isn't supposed to be required for the GPS serial port but CE doesn't seem to power up the port until it has the driver it wanted.

Looks like there is also a BNC connector sticking out of the end of the unit. Is this for an antenna connection? If yes it may lead further evidence that it is a larger industrial antenna that picked up the messages as well as GPS.

Have you been inside the unit? Have you seen the module? What sort of port is it plugged into? A lot of devices like this are plugged into a CF style port in the device or it may be some sort of ZIF socket (maybe serial based) that is specifically for the module. (like the smartbooks GPRS module which is on a dual serial, think it is 40 or 54 or somthing, contact connector).

John
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 12:00 PM
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the antenna port pic and the internal pic.







(port1.jpg)



(port3.jpg)



(port2.jpg)



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Attachments port1.jpg (92KB - 0 downloads)
Attachments port3.jpg (99KB - 0 downloads)
Attachments port2.jpg (85KB - 0 downloads)
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CAuser Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 12:24 PM
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Axiom does make GPS related products: AX502 GSM/GPRS.

Um, it looks like a 10-trace interface to the GPS chip. I guess it's an interface to DB9 serial. One more specific DC power trace is required to power the chip as standard serial interface does not provide the required voltage (3.3V or 5V).

I investigated the possibility of replacing the modem with Pharos GPS-500 receiver, but the receiver is too thick due to its antenna part. Maybe, the receiver without the antenna part is equivalent to the Axiom chip, at least in functionality.

If the interface is a serial one indeed, then you do not need any driver.

Edited by CAuser 2008-11-03 12:41 PM
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CE Geek Page Icon Posted 2008-11-03 2:19 PM
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Welcome back, iamjoe.

According to the Web site, Axiom is currently located in Irvine, which is right next to Costa Mesa. So if it's the same company, it didn't move far.
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-05 6:23 AM
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CE Geek, i do not know about all the cities in the states.

Btw, the webpad has an ATI driver of 030919, older than that on S3 of 0310xx. I can see the ver no in the old TCPMP.

It has only CF Card. Interestingly, S3's SDIO update containing the ati driver update can be installed on this webpad without any error message. The new driver really works. I suppose the ATI driver is independent to the SD or CF framework.

The S3 driver is about 5% faster than the old driver. though the gain is not that much, it is good to be faster anyway. ^.^
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mr-mac Page Icon Posted 2008-11-05 8:14 AM
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Did you also use TCPMP and then pick Ati Decoder in the drop down list???

This option should appear and allow imageon accelerated decoding.

Just checking as sometimes this is missed and makes a huge diffrence (TCPMP needs ati imageon plugin popped in the TCPMP directory which comes with download on here for the media player in the developers section).

John
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iamjoe Page Icon Posted 2008-11-05 8:25 AM
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mr-mac - 2008-11-05 8:14 PM

Did you also use TCPMP and then pick Ati Decoder in the drop down list???

This option should appear and allow imageon accelerated decoding.

Just checking as sometimes this is missed and makes a huge diffrence (TCPMP needs ati imageon plugin popped in the TCPMP directory which comes with download on here for the media player in the developers section).

John


yes, i am sure ati imageon is used or i can not get a 90%-of-s3-level benchmark with mere pxa255 soft decoding.

it is interesting to know that the s3 driver can be installed on this webpad
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mr-mac Page Icon Posted 2008-11-05 8:34 AM
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If it works great... I know from ati the sig3 driver had some custom settings so it may not have worked but belive the S3 update enabled some acceleration that was enabled on original.

Have you also looked at the text file in the windows director ati[somthing].txt as it holds config settings. The std S3 one only allowed 4 of the 8mb or VRAM to be used. I guess with the bigger screen as well the 8mb would be handy.

There is details on this site of the mod or I can give you details once I get home.

John
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