Crazy idea: CE 4.2 on a Jornada 728?

The community should support this project. I'm getting the feeling that there's a lot of talk and not a lot of commitment with the exception of a few members.

Information, block diagrams, part list and schematics related to the Jornada ROM/RAM boards (including specs on a potential 256 MB chip) can all be found in the following. This information originally intended for creating Linux boot Flashboards.

Tech Specs
Flashboard general info

I hope this fuels the fire.

EDIT: The Excel parts list has at least one error that I found. The 140 pin male connector is Molex part# 55299-1408 (now discontinued and replaced by 55299-1478: lead free) and not 55299-140.

I asked a distributor for a quote for 50 of them incase we want to make boards from scratch. Waiting on a reply. . .

Edited by oflash 2006-07-03 12:59 PM

I still think making a flash board from scratch is the wrong approach. You're left with a machine that can be easily rendered unbootable, and it would cost far more to make the board than just buying a pair of ROM chips to solder in place of the existing one.

But regardless of how it's done, a Jornada capable version of CE 4.2 needs to be created, and for that I need help.

Jax184, did you do all that TFGBD suggested to find help and experts?

I've looked a lot of places, and so far found no help.

Alright people, last chance.

I can offer a fully functional Jornada 728 along with whatever ROM board replacement is eventually created AND some money to whoever knows enough about the Jornada hardware and windows CE to compile a version of CE4.2 that will run on the Jornada hardware.
I will even include however many other improvements I manage by then, bluetooth, improved battery, improved screen, etc.

Is No One interested in helping? I'm astonished and disappointed. This forum is pretty well the biggest resource for the Jornada, and it's given only a smattering of interest and no actual support to a project to revive the 72x.

If I don't find some people interested in getting PAID to TAKE an upgraded Jornada in exchange for what they're good at doing soon, I'm going to have to abandon the Jornada project.
Anyone got a cheap Sigmarion III to sell me?

Jax184, the only thing you didn't take into account is that very few experts exist who could actually take up this task, and maybe none of them saw your thread. also we're lacking information about the hardware i think, we'd need someoe from HP who can help with this.
if you just post a thread on a site it won't do any good to find the experts. you need to get more active.
i actually know someone who knows a little more about all this driver developing and CE 5 and what not. i could ask him but not sure he'd be interested.

Jax,
I'm right there with you concerning your frustration. And I was right about to give up but then I saw your post saying the same thing. But we can't give up in just a few weeks. I think that the help of an expert will be costly or very half baked. They would not only have to be an embedded systems wiz with CE experience, they would also have to know the hardware. In the corporate world, we'd be talking about maybe a half dozen departments working on just the development of a product.

No, what we need is a brilliant, dedicated tinkerer. The Linux guys are going to be the best place to start, but are likely not going to be as motivated 'cause, well, they're Linux guys. CE is just the OS that they bootload in.

Once again, I hate to burst your bubble, but I've gone looking everywhere I can think for flashable 90 pin SOP ROM to replace the OEM system board stuff. But the ROM ICs are a custom job. They were produced for HP and no two ways about it (I can't find a matching nomenclature/pin count match at the manufacturer anywhere: www.mxic.com.tw/). Bottom line is that new flashboards are going to have to be made. ALL the needed schematics and files to submit to expresspcb.com are in an earlier post.

The place to start, it seems, is with someone who has all of the proper software (all of which I don't get, really) and can put together an emulation of the Jornada Arm system on their desktop. We know all of the major hardware and ICs involved.

After the system build is good to go, flash it to the board and see what happens.

i can try and help with using platform builder, but i'm no good at programming drivers (never done anything like that!) so we can just hope PB already knows all the hardware of the jornada (which just sounds too easy, doesn't it )

Edited by cmonex 2006-07-08 2:29 PM

Platform builder doesnt know Any of the Jornada's hardware. I've checked.

http://www.fulcrum.ru/Read/CDROMs/MACRONIX/memPdf/maskrom/23l6430.pdf - That's the spec sheet for the current ROM chips.

I doubt we need someone from HP when the linux people have managed to get nearly everything working, and we have the existing CE 3 drivers to use as reference.

where do we have the CE3 drivers?

Well we have a complete dump of the existing Jornada's ROM at least.

thats not exactly source code.

We also have the linux distros, which have managed to work with most of the Jornada's hardware.

Most of the development for the hardware was done ages ago. The vast majority of developers who understand how it worked have vanished from the internet. Not to mention how difficult it can be to port Linux code to Windows CE 4.x.

I think a lot of hpcfactor would like to have this, but it would be very difficult to create, since most of the code would need to be created from scratch really.

Good luck anyway

Edited by chazco 2006-07-09 3:39 AM

Is the code for the Linux bootloaders and the kernel commented? We still have Gernoth, he seems to be the last one who really understands this stuff, and is continuing to improve upon it.

EDIT:


Ey!

You have a knack for getting lambasted.

Anyways, you are looking from the wrong point of view. See, if we could swap the chips with ones that have a custom bootloader, we could do whatever we want. Boot to Linux, CE, or teleport to the entrance of styx...we could do any of that.

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2006-07-09 4:29 AM