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Nokia N900 Necromancy

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Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#81

Post by tetris11 »

Retr0id wrote: post #25
seba_dos1 wrote: post #6

Why go through that device-breaking battery dance when you can still get a BL-5J battery pretty much everywhere? Booting from an SD card, while possible, is rather impractical on N900 because it gets disconnected whenever you open the back cover. The N900 that lays next to me right now still works as a phone. I have to replace its screen though, as recently it took some damage in my pocket and got a small crack in it…

> it gets disconnected whenever you open the back cover Does it? I don't recall mine doing so.

Yep, I remember there being a magnet hack placed on the kickstand so that it would be detected properly

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#82

Post by jsmailes »

picture wrote: post #39
andai wrote: post #36

Can someone explain the use of super capacitors here? Do they function as a battery?

It's because the phone design needs the battery to help stabilize the voltage under load. As we know, digital devices can nearly instantaneously change the amount of current they consume and thus require layers of energy storage to accommodate the transient currents quickly. However, the changing current consumption doesn't just happen briefly. It sometimes continues to ramp for more than milliseconds (a glacial time…

Fascinating, thanks for explaining! I had assumed it was just that capacitors were easier to get hold of than batteries, and that the author was just putting up with a reduced "battery" life as a result. It makes sense to replace with capacitors if they're just using it for always-powered static applications -- probably with much lower fire risk to boot.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#84

Post by gspr »

mrmlz wrote: post #70
imp0cat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the Jolla preorder? It was on hn a few days ago. That is the spiritual successor of the N9XX line. https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

I loved my N9. But i'm somewhat hesitant on preordering that one. I need wireless charging.. And i still dont really get if Android-apps actually work or not, i.e. swedish Bank-Id/Swish etc.

I'd actually prefer one running a normal Linux. It's a travesty that certain things in daily life require Android or iOS, and that's a fight I'll keep fighting, but the idea of a tiny Linux laptop in my pocket is just so tempting.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#85

Post by gspr »

imp0cat wrote: post #63
gspr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I don't get: why can't we have a modern one? It doesn't need to blow flagship smartphones out of the water. It doesn't even need to have a GSM baseband – I'd rather just connect through my "normal" smartphone than deal with all the complications of having a whole extra computer in there. Surely this is getting close to realizable by hobbyists or a niche company?

Have you seen the Jolla preorder? It was on hn a few days ago. That is the spiritual successor of the N9XX line. https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

Promising! Thanks!

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#87

Post by secult »

j16sdiz wrote: post #11
seba_dos1 wrote: post #6

Why go through that device-breaking battery dance when you can still get a BL-5J battery pretty much everywhere? Booting from an SD card, while possible, is rather impractical on N900 because it gets disconnected whenever you open the back cover. The N900 that lays next to me right now still works as a phone. I have to replace its screen though, as recently it took some damage in my pocket and got a small crack in it…

> The N900 that lays next to me right now still works as a phone. It soon won't be. 3G and 2G network are being depreciated quickly around the world

In Europe we keep 2G as a failsafe, deprecating only 3G.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#88

Post by ACCount37 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #68
isopede wrote: post #64

I have such fond memories of the Nokia N810. I did my master’s thesis on that device. I had a custom hypervisor running a guest kernel, virtualized networking, and a buildroot userspace. I could SSH into the host N810, then SSH into the guest. I even virtualized the framebuffer at some point and got the “dancing baby” animation playing from the guest. It only ran at a couple frames per second, but it was _amazing_.

The only weird thing about it was that you couldn't charge a fully empty N810 with the micro(?) usb charger. It'd charge just enough to boot and then crash again, because it couldn't wake up far enough to negotiate a higher current with the charger. Had to use a barrel plug to charge it. Spent a very nervous and sweaty day figuring that out when I bought one used with no warranty or returns and it didn't boot properl…

It sure is a weird thing, but yes, the first mobile devices that shipped with USB didn't really know how to charge off it.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#89

Post by Nextgrid »

gspr wrote: post #62
girvo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I loved my Nokia N9. Such an amazing little phone, and it's depressing a little that I can't use them anymore where I live

Here's what I don't get: why can't we have a modern one? It doesn't need to blow flagship smartphones out of the water. It doesn't even need to have a GSM baseband – I'd rather just connect through my "normal" smartphone than deal with all the complications of having a whole extra computer in there. Surely this is getting close to realizable by hobbyists or a niche company?

This is absolutely doable by a niche company. The problem is that you need to run this as a business. What plagues every free/open/libre project is that they're not run as a business; so they get distracted in all different directions trying to cater to ideals about free/libre licensing and so on, and end up missing the big picture.

You need to operate this as a business first, with the freedom part being a nice bonus. Nobody cares how free your thing is if it's dead on arrival and gets beaten by an entry-level smartphone.

Make a competitive product. Nowadays that could very well just mean Android with manufacturer-sanctioned root access and preinstalled terminal & X/wayland server for those who want to run desktop apps.

The Jolla phone someone linked below actually looks like a decent product. The Android app support means it's actually usable in the modern world, and the specs look competitive.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#90

Post by henearkr »

imp0cat wrote: post #63
gspr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I don't get: why can't we have a modern one? It doesn't need to blow flagship smartphones out of the water. It doesn't even need to have a GSM baseband – I'd rather just connect through my "normal" smartphone than deal with all the complications of having a whole extra computer in there. Surely this is getting close to realizable by hobbyists or a niche company?

Have you seen the Jolla preorder? It was on hn a few days ago. That is the spiritual successor of the N9XX line. https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

I don't see any keyboard or stylus in that Jolla.

For me that is not even in the same league than the N900.

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