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Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

adafruit.com

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Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#31

Post by philwelch »

NickPollard wrote: post #12
Semiapies wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, mindless, out-of-context quotes. What next, the Ghandi line about laughing/winning/etc.? This is a kit for microcontroller enthusiasts. It is not meant as some sort of alternative to anything Apple or Android or Palm or Nokia, except jokingly and in the minds of people not actually reading that page closely.

Until someone does something really interesting with it, sparks an idea, and then starts developing it as a retail product.

I'm reminded of this silly little microcomputer from the 70's, where all you could do was flip switches and watch lights blink. There was a company that wrote a BASIC for it. Then, five years later, IBM came out with a much more capable microcomputer and that company made their real fortune by selling the OS for it.

The punchline being, of course, that sometimes a toy is just a toy, no matter what you end up doing with it.

Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#33

Post by limmeau »

msarnoff wrote: post #22

It's a great demonstration of what can be done with an 8-bit RISC microcontroller. The biggest downside is that AVRs can only execute code from flash ROM. You can't just throw apps on an SD card and run them; the list of apps (which seem to be instances of C++ classes) is hardcoded, and adding a new app requires reprogramming the whole chip. An intelligent bootloader that could burn executable files from the SD card…

There is also EEPROM for code storage, as used in NanoVM [1].

1. http://www.harbaum.org/till/nanovm/index.shtml

Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#34

Post by NickPollard »

Semiapies wrote: post #13
NickPollard wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until someone does something really interesting with it, sparks an idea, and then starts developing it as a retail product.

Seriously, RTFA. Look at the specs. This isn't some basic version of a cutting-edge technology, it's just an 8-bit microcontroller with some geegaws. If someone wants to make yet another low-end handheld game and make some money selling it in discount stores, more power to them...but you aren't going to compete with many far more advanced platforms in the same arena. If you want to pretend otherwise, by all means dro…

People aren't saying they're going to build an iPhone-killer out of this.

They're saying it's a good platform for messing around and prototyping wacky ideas, ideas which might end up with potentially for being turned into real products (with 'real' production values, technology, supply chains, etc.)

Of course people aren't going to write a couple of programs and then sell an 8-bit microcontroller off the shelf, but as a platform for experimentation - that's what it's good for.

Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#35

Post by hexley »

pedanticfreak wrote: post #6

Nexus S? Nexus One? Nokia N900? OpenMoko FreeRunner? OpenPandora? There are more than a few more powerful alternatives to an iPhone that are open source and ready to hack. Most of them can even make phone calls.

And yet this 8 bit microcontroller seems to have more fluid, smooth scrolling than all of them...

Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#36

Post by torpor »

msarnoff wrote: post #22

It's a great demonstration of what can be done with an 8-bit RISC microcontroller. The biggest downside is that AVRs can only execute code from flash ROM. You can't just throw apps on an SD card and run them; the list of apps (which seem to be instances of C++ classes) is hardcoded, and adding a new app requires reprogramming the whole chip. An intelligent bootloader that could burn executable files from the SD card…

Why not just wang Lua into it and be done with the problem?! :)

Re: Tired of Apple's rules? Build your own touchscreen handheld

#37

Post by stcredzero »

msbarnett wrote: post #29
stcredzero wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you are intimating I am a liar or you have poor reading comprehension. My grievance as stated is that people who do not have enough information to go on jump to the worst conclusion . So which is it, am I lying, did you not understand my previous comment, or is the notion of multiple interpretations too intellectually advanced for you, or is it something else? Note that I ask, and do not jump to conclusions. htt…

I'll take door #3: You're over-reacting in a wildly hyperbolic manner to the fact that the single most obvious meaning of a post consisting entirely of "WiFi?" in response to an article about a gadget is an inquiry as to whether it offers such a feature. If you find that people are mis-interpreting your posts on a regular basis, consider looking in a mirror. And please, take the trollish aspersions to some other site…

My friend, "door #3" in the context of the post above is "the notion of multiple interpretations too intellectually advanced for you." This is an example of door #2, which is "poor reading comprehension."

And please, take the trollish aspersions to some other site.

This is incredible, since you are the only one in this whole exchange who every cast an aspersion, and you opened with it!

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