Topic: USB Connecter

I have a great idea!
Add a mini USB port to the chumby.
it should allow you to transfer programs and updates,and what not to the cumby!there should be software
that allows you to Transport the tiny Chumby Screen to a window in Windows XP Or Mac OS X.
I Think A Bigger Screen would be better anyways.it makes it almost unusable

Re: USB Connecter

The chumby already has a full-size USB connector on the back, and two internally (the wifi uses one of them).

We have included USB mass storage drivers, so you can mount your dongle.

Re: USB Connecter

Does the USB port work both ways, can I plug Chumby in as a slave device to my computer? That is very useful for software updates, configuring the wireless, debugging, etc.

Re: USB Connecter

jonsmirl wrote:

Does the USB port work both ways, can I plug Chumby in as a slave device to my computer? That is very useful for software updates, configuring the wireless, debugging, etc.

Probably, but it would probably require a driver be written to support the device (unless you somehow configured Linux on the machine to present the Flash device and make the Chumby expose itself as a Flash drive, and even in that case you're likely not to be able to get away with it without a driver).

Besides, it's got WiFi built in, you could configure the WiFi from the device. I guess it could be useful if you didn't have a WAP or a wifi-enabled machine, but then buying a Chumby seems kinda silly, as the WiFi is definitely a killer feature.

From the sounds of it, there's a lot of software work still to go with the Chumby, and a "Chumby portal" (like iTunes->iPod, PalmSync->Treo, etc) is probably yet to be developed. But, with the device as open as this, it won't be very difficult to code, and it'll definitely be supported on all platforms which is a serious plus.

Re: USB Connecter

Can the chumby accept say a bluetooth dongle on the spare USB port?
It would be cool to have a remote controller for Chumby's options/features.

Re: USB Connecter

awalton wrote:

Probably, but it would probably require a driver be written to support the device (unless you somehow configured Linux on the machine to present the Flash device and make the Chumby expose itself as a

Linux 2.6 has USB gadget support, ie the code to be on the receiving end of a USB connection. I don't know if it has been back ported to 2.4.

NSLU2 is using the 2.6 kernel on similar hardware. I wonder why Chumby can't go 2.6?

Re: USB Connecter

We haven't included any drivers for bluetooth, but they would be easy to hack in assuming you can get them compiled for ARM.

Given that we have limited storage in the device, we built a kernel with drivers for the hardware we included.  We expect people will add kernel modules as they add hardware, but there was no way we could include drivers for everything like many desktop Linux distros do.

Re: USB Connecter

jonsmirl wrote:

NSLU2 is using the 2.6 kernel on similar hardware. I wonder why Chumby can't go 2.6?

We're planning on moving to the 2.6 kernel.

I need to repeat that what we have now is a prototype.  This is not a final configuration.

Re: USB Connecter

brilliant! this'll make hacking it much easier as well.

Re: USB Connecter

awalton wrote:

Probably, but it would probably require a driver be written to support the device (unless you somehow configured Linux on the machine to present the Flash device and make the Chumby expose itself as a Flash drive, and even in that case you're likely not to be able to get away with it without a driver).

I'm not a software guy, but I if I remember correctly USB HID usually don't require any drivers on the PC side. I don't think it would be too hard to make chumby appear as a flash drive to the computer, specially with such a strong processor inside.

Re: USB Connecter

to make Chumby appear as a usb drive, the usb drivers have to support usb host mode. ive seen a similar thing done for mobile phones, so it could be done. but is it worth the effort? just run a tiny ftp server on chumby and ftp stuff in via wi-fi. hell even a samba share would work. or telnet/ssh.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: USB Connecter

File Transfers Via Bluetooth?Anyone,Anyone?

Re: USB Connecter

The idea is to make the product as simple as possible to "common users". I know I could probaly telnet chumby and transfer data, but could you imagine If I tell my mom/girlfriend to please telnet something?!?!?!
Or.... you could just use it as a normal plug'nplay memmory.
That bluetooth file transfer is actually a good idea. + this would allow me to also build a bluetooth remote controll to use certain features of chumby from a distance. Something like:
-Chumby: "You've got mail"
-Me: I get my remote and press the "Action" button.
-Chumby then reads my e-mail while I'm still sitting on my bench. I didn't even had to look at chumby to hear my e-mail!!!
Nice uhh smile

Re: USB Connecter

chedabob wrote:

to make Chumby appear as a usb drive, the usb drivers have to support usb host mode. ive seen a similar thing done for mobile phones, so it could be done. but is it worth the effort? just run a tiny ftp server on chumby and ftp stuff in via wi-fi. hell even a samba share would work. or telnet/ssh.

Upgrading the wifi software over wifi is asking for trouble. If anything goes wrong you have a brick.

The USB cable is also an alternate power source if you don't want to use a wall adapter. Depending on how much power Chumby eats you may be able to run it off your laptop.

15 (edited by awalton 2006-08-28 06:34:49)

Re: USB Connecter

I'm not sure how I feel about updating over WiFi (but then again I did it to my wrt and it worked fine), but as for powering it off USB, that's a long shot, as the thing draws 300mA at peak (okay, now that the server is back, I should note that USB theoretically can support up to 500mA to a single device, but I've had no luck with it in the past with my current system, and about 210mA is where USB starts to get flaky with any of the hardware I own). Once I get the schematics and start playing around with a battery and charger for it, you may be able to charge it over USB, but I'm not making any promises until I get a better look at the whole package.

Re: USB Connecter

you could just transfer the data in small blocks, and reassemble chumby-side. then run an md5 hash to check its fine. run all the updates on chumby, but do the downloads over wi-fi. not like when you upgrade your router, where it upgrades as you upload. wait for it to finish, check it, then update.

besides, if you are only doing software, you wouldnt brick your chumby.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: USB Connecter

its a big pda, with small specs. tongue

id much rather have it as a bedside alarm clock/email reader/mp3 player.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: USB Connecter

Just as a note, we do have a facility for software updates both through a USB dongle and through wifi. For wifi, we plan on using bittorrent for the bulk of the data that is open-sourced or ours, but we must use an alternate method (http or ftp get) for the Flash player binary since it has a license agreement that restricts distribution methods. Bittorrent does the Right Thing with respect to chunking, hashing, and restarting. The only trick is that many ISPs block bittorent ports--hence the USB dongle firmware update option.

7BAA 2E53 01C1 DCFF 497B  E7F0 9699 A303 78F0 D9B9

Re: USB Connecter

Does GNU gnash do enough that you can get rid of the binary module?

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

Re: USB Connecter

jonsmirl wrote:

Does GNU gnash do enough that you can get rid of the binary module?

Not yet  - perhaps some day.  Gnash still only runs a very limited subset of Flash movies.

Re: USB Connecter

cant you run the official flash binary? or is it not happy with running on ARM?

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: USB Connecter

chedabob wrote:

cant you run the official flash binary? or is it not happy with running on ARM?

We are - we licensed FlashLite 2.0 from Adobe/Macromedia.

That's the version of Flash that's explicitly designed for embedded devices such as this one.

Re: USB Connecter

no, but i mean the proper linux version. or does it have trouble with ARM processors?

in theory, couldnt you write some server code that turns flash videos into mp4 in realtime then streams it to chumby? you could run it on your own pc, or on a server.

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby

Re: USB Connecter

chedabob wrote:

no, but i mean the proper linux version. or does it have trouble with ARM processors?

I'm not aware of an ARM Linux release of the Flash Player.  The ARM is a completely different processor from the x86.  More importantly, Flash Lite is designed specifically for this sort of use, while the normal desktop Flash players make some assumptions that don't apply here - like a window manager, audio subsystem, disk storage, etc etc.

Even if such a player existed we would still need a license from Adobe/Macromedia to include it in our product.

Re: USB Connecter

oh right. ok then. flashlite seems a little bit of a sub-standard product. couldnt you write the widgets in a non-flash format? or would that mean having a proper window manager and everything?

need upload space for the forums or a chumby blog? right here then
http://www.nophus.com/useru
username is chumby
password is chumby