Fwd: Re: A couple of ideas regarding future NanoNotes

Ron K. Jeffries rjeffries at gmail.com
Thu Aug 19 13:01:58 EDT 2010


Speaking of the Ingenic 4760, there was a mention some time ago
that Adam was working with 4760 a development board.

Any progress that can be shared?

---
Ron K. Jeffries
http://ronkjeffries.posterous.com








On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 07:35, Wolfgang Spraul <wolfgang at sharism.cc> wrote:

> Mark,
>
> > And if the spec increases a little bit over what it already is, then
> > it won't be much more useful than it is now. It'll still be a
> > hacker's toy, but will just be a little easier to play with.
>
> Devices in the Ben NanoNote form factor and similar hardware specs
> are selling in tens of millions of units each year, so I don't see
> what other than better software and content would stop the Ben
> NanoNote sales from going above the ca. 900 we sold so far. It's
> not the hardware specs that limit sales.
>
> > Anyway, these're just thoughts. I don't expect any of them to
> > actually happen.
>
> Oh no, I hope we get there. Please keep your feedback coming, as a
> customer and contributor I think your mails are carefully read on this
> list.
> Let me explain a bit how I think about priorities: Pretty much all
> of the things you are talking about can simply be bought. There is not
> much brain needed to make it happen, just money. But spending money means
> committing to higher, and most importantly faster sales. When we started
> this project we decided against taking outside financing because it
> would cut into the most important thing we need: time.
> We would hear things like "you can sell more with Wi-Fi". Wi-Fi is not
> free?
> "Come one, everybody else sells it for years. Add it and sell more."
> The same is true for many other features coming out of proprietary ICs.
> Even spending money on things like mechanical will force us into the
> 'more sales faster' trap.
>
> This is the direction many other projects are taking, around
> Beagleboard/OMAP, SheevaPlug/Marvell, etc. I am certain these projects
> will fail to create anything interesting on the freedom side. We try a
> different approach.
> The people that started this project took all the time and money they had,
> and threw it at the most complex and powerful piece of hardware they
> could imagine successfully opening up. It was important for us to not
> do this with a plain PCB, but with a complete little computer, with
> professional mechanical design, CE and FCC certification, screen and
> keyboard. Born was the Ben NanoNote.
>
> Until today, the free software we managed to come up with does not, even
> nearly, max out what the Ben can do.
> On the hardware side, there are extremely interesting projects going on
> (gps, ben-wpan, 3D scans, idbg, counterweight, 4760-work, SIE, earlier
> avt2 with USB host and 64 MB SDRAM).
> All this stuff needs more time to mature, both software and hardware. I
> don't care whether it takes another 3 months, 3 years or longer to get
> the software on Ben NanoNote to be really great. We get there.
>
> In the meantime we spend our limited resources very selectively, on
> projects such as the Milkymist One RC1 run (about 5,000 USD), the next
> Milkymist One RC2 run (maybe 10,000 USD), Xué runs, SIE runs, NanoNote
> hacking, etc.
>
> We don't enter into deals that take away time. We need more time.
>
> I hope this clarifies our priorities. Stuff like the suggestions from
> you and others in this thread are very welcome, but realistically they
> will be pushed quite low on the long priority list. The way we work
> is more Wernerian - start somewhere, really open up the process,
> knowledge, tools, etc.
>
> Still - THANKS for your feedback, and please keep the Ben NanoNote
> contributions coming...
> Wolfgang
>
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