Tag: gadgets

Funny gadget from LinuxTag 2008

During LinuxTag 2008 I got one funny gadget during visit on Sun microsystems stand. Nothing too fancy — just time, date, seconds like in watches from 80’s.

The whole fun is in power — any liquid. Instruction suggests beer, soft drinks, salt water, tea, coffee — standard liquids found anywhere. It can even use clean water but this will end very fast (I tried that first due to lack of other liquids). Currently it is powered with salted water which is electrolytic enough for few days (instruction suggests changing fuel once per week).

This is nothing new — back cover has “(c) 2004′ but that does not change situation that it is funny enough to take space on my monitor stand for some time.

Feel the power of USB with Nokia tablet

Over year ago I wrote post about USB — connected most of my devices/gadgets into desktop USB ports and checked how system reacts to it. As Kees Jongenburger gave me USB AF/AF adapter during this year LinuxTag I decided to do the same with N810 tablet.

Required software

In theory nothing is needed as N8x0 tablets are equipped in USB On-The-Go port and proper support is enabled in kernel. To make things easier users can install USBControl (available in normal Maemo repositories).

But there is one problem — default kernel is compiled with OTG whitelist enabled. As a result some classes of devices are rejected — for example all my USB Hubs. After disabling of CONFIG_USB_OTG_WHITELIST (and recompilation of kernel) they got supported.

Attached hardware

I decided to not connect everything USB I have but most of it. Resulting list (names in brackets are added by hand):

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 (Nokia N810 internal USB Host)
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 058f:9254 Alcor Micro Corp. Hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 058f:6362 Alcor Micro Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0c76:0007 JMTek, LLC. 
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 020: ID 1457:5122 (OpenMoko GTA01 phone)
Bus 001 Device 021: ID 046d:0b02 Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 023: ID 046d:c70e Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 024: ID 046d:c70a Logitech, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 026: ID 0409:005a NEC Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 027: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd 8-bit FIFO
Bus 001 Device 028: ID 0fce:d016 Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB 
Bus 001 Device 029: ID 05e3:0606 Genesys Logic, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 030: ID 0a81:0205 Chesen Electronics Corp. PS/2 Keyboard+Mouse Adapter
Bus 001 Device 031: ID 1130:0202 Tenx Technology, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 033: ID 0a46:9601 Davicom Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 034: ID 13fe:1d00 (2GB pendrive from GUADEC 2007)

In other words:

  • 3 hubs (2 of them were powered, one had 7 ports)
  • Ethernet card (dm9601 based)
  • serial port
  • PS/2 -> USB adapter for keyboard and mouse
  • 2 pendrives
  • Bluetooth adapter (those 3 Logitech entries)
  • panic button
  • Openmoko GTA01 pda/phone
  • my cellphone
  • multi slot card reader

Obligatory screen shot

Screenshot must be — especially when it shows that GUI was not ready for this amount of devices. But thats expected — in normal situations no one connects more then one device (especially when USB hubs are not supported).

Conclusion

USB Host ports are handy in devices like N810 tablet. Would be nice if there would be possibility to update firmware from thumb drive like it is one few other devices.