Realizing a New Device?!

Sounds like 100$ laptop (OLPC) thing, China is indeed right choice for production and testing to some extent. The City of Shenzhen bordering Hong Kong is full of small to medium size production facilities, and Guang Zhou can be another choice as well. But, I've doubts for sufficient assistance in design phase. Either you have to pay good money for prototype or you need to sign a contract in advance for production of certain quantity.

ali

Thank you Ali.

My new device is not a general purpose computer. It is more like a gadget. I just mentioned Linux because I thought that would make it easier to program (specially, if the designer chose an ARM processor).

Yes, I'm aware about factories in Shenzhen, but my problem is which one to choose and how to choose?! Also, who have the capability to handle a complete project from idea to final product. I'll outsource the technical part to them and I'm faraway from China. So, a reliable partner is crucial.

Why do you need an OS? There are plenty of graphics libraries around that don't need an OS. I have customers using graphics, file systems, TCP/IP etc all on an ARM7 with no OS......

Unless you need something heavyweight why use something like Linux? It takes up a lot of room and resources. There are many smaller OS about.

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Why not see if you can get your software working on a hacked up portable of some comparable if greater specfications, perhaps in a new enclosure made with stereolithography. Demo that to your venture capital, and then hire a globetrotting manufacturing engineer with experience interfacing with factories?

As the matter of fact! I'm hundered percent with Chris. Yes, the OS is not the only solution for every problem unless you have a vague user playing with really loose apps;-) Code written with certain specification for certain requirements is far more efficent than OS*.

ali

• To me OS is an entity that is responsible to take care of scheduler (clock) at first hand followed by memory and I/O operations.

Sure, if there is an alternative to Linux and can be more reliable, then I'm 100% with it :) But, will it be easy to find developers to write applications for such a thing? Will the hardware needed to run these applications be at lower cost than that needed for Linux+SDL for example?

What about having off-the-shelf mini-PC, add LCD, and put the mix in a plastic enclosure? Will this reduce cost?

Thank you, MA

I agree. Windows has gone from an OS to and OS plus vast amounts of junk many never need. Linux too for that matter. The OS I can supply are basic and you add on file systems, tcp/ip and usb etc. They don't have lots of things built in as standard that are difficult to remove.

I have seen applications that struggle on an ARM9 running Linux (in this case) positively flying on an RM7 with a small scheduler.

So look at the app. see if you can do it 1 without an OS or 2 a small OS. Linux, WINCE/XP, Unix etc will probably want to take far more recourse than your app.

Look at freeRTOS, that is small and free for non commercial use. There are others about.

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Many, I know of about a dozen

Most will be as or more reliable and a dammed sight smaller..

Almost any embedded engineer.

Yes. Always.

That is a possibility in which case Linux would probably be a good bet. Certainly better than windows.

However good ARM7 boards and LCD's are getting hard to beat.

In fact the ARM7 eval boards I have are smaller than a 6 inch LCD and about 2 CM deep. You won't get a mini-PC that size. And of course you don't need a hard disk, cooling fans etc So the whole thing can mount on the back of the LCD and need less than 4 cm front to back and only need a 5V rail. .

It does of course depend on what the application does.

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\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
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Have you taken a look at

Their shop is in Taipei and the beta version of their device is shipping now. Apparently you get schematics and documentation along with your SDK. So it's perfect for prototyping your idea on and then steal the design. Better yet, since they already do the manufacturing, ask them to build custom devices for you once you've done the prototyping.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll read about freeRTOS and see how I can make use of it.

It is an interested project indeed. But my device will have a larger screen and less controls. In addition, I don't want to get involved with technical issues. A designer will choose the prober components and mix them together better than me!

Thank you :) MA