[sf-lug] IRC channel and Juicebox hacking

[jim stockford]

    I don't think there's anyone in particular in
charge of the group. There's a need for some
help with web pages, which I'm doing solo at
present (my HTML skills are mainly 1.0). You
wanna help set up IRC, RSS, etc?
    everybody's welcome to help out, of course.

    I'm bringing cash tomorrow just in case you
have extra Jbs. Let's focus on Jbs only briefly
tomorrow, as Bill Kendrick's coming up from
the peninsula to demo TuxPaint for us.


On Sep 1, 2006, at 9:49 PM, Marc Juul wrote:

> First: SF-LUG does not seem to have an IRC channel. I've set my IRC
> client to autojoin ##sflug on freenode (yes, there are two ##).
> Anyone join up if they want. the double # is used to denote an 'about'
> channel on freenode. #sflug would be the official channel, but that
> would have to be created by or with the consent of whoever is in
> charge of this group.
>
> A quick update on the Juiceboxes:
>
> I have received the juiceboxes I ordered. The LCDs are pretty low
> quality. But what can you expect for that price eh?
>
> Overstock stopped selling them, but they can still be gotten on ebay
> for about $8 + shipping.
>
> Unfortunately I have not yet received everything needed to run a 
> custom uClinux.
> In order to boot a custom Linux one needs a bit of NAND memory (SD and
> xD cards are both NAND) with a linux boot loader installed at the
> beginning of its address space, and a way of interfacing it to the
> Juicebox. This is not as straight forward as it sounds: Since flash
> memory wears out after a given number of writes, almost every
> reader/writer distributes data over the entirety of the device in
> order to prevent the beginning of the memory to wear out prematurely
> from overuse.
>
> The Juicebox itself provides raw access to NAND memory, so it is
> possible, with a modified Juicebox MP3 adapter (sold seperately), and
> a special program (not yet released, but open source and it should be
> here any day now) to write the boot loader code to the SD/xD card in
> raw mode.
>
> An easier way is to buy one of the few SD/xD card reader/writers (usb)
> that do provide raw mode access. They're about $16 on ebay including
> shipping, but I have already ordered one, so anyone wishing to save
> that money can simply bring their own SD/xD card to one of the
> upcoming sf-lug meetings and I'll be happy to loan you mine.
>
> One could solder the xD/SD card to the Juicebox, but then it would be
> a write once kinda deal, unless you want to desolder re-solder every
> time you want to change the data. I guess you could use a serial
> interface to transfer data once you got it booted. Another way is to
> use the SD/xD card solely for the first few bytes of boot code and
> then have the kernel and root partition on a modified Juicebox MP3
> adapter card. The easiest solution is probably to purchase an SMC to
> xD adapter and a standard Juicebox cartridge and then combine the two
> into a Juicebox cartridge to xD adapter as described here ->
> http://www.elinux.org/wiki/JuiceWareXdSocket
>
> To sum up what is needed for the solution I amd going for:
> xD memory card.
> SMC to xD adapter.
> Original Juicebox cartridge (any will do, not included with Juicebox).
> xD card reader/writer with raw mode support (you can use mine).
>
> This is all in theory, since I only have what the wiki and forums tell
> me until I actually receive these things and try it out.
>
> Cya tomorrow.
>
> Marc Juul
> marcjc at gmail.com
>
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