Re: [Ipodlinux-devel] Linux Firmware and MP3 Playing

[Bernard L. <le...@bo...>]

Unfortunately there is still no dual boot.  I was trying to get a tool
that could start the retail firmware from Linux but gave up in the
attempt.  A simple boot loader would probably be better anyhow... does
anyone know of a simple boot loader suitable for porting?

The current Linux port really isn't up to running full time as a MP3
player.  It has a couple of problems not the least of which is that
there is no application with a UI for playing stuff.  The fact that the
MP3 decoding is not full speed could also be seen as a show stopper :)

The decoding speed could be improved, its just a matter of getting in
there and finding out what to fix.  Unfortunately the iPod (at least the
2nd gen retail version) is a real pain to debug with so its quite slow
going.  Patches welcomed...

Hmmm as for turning it into a Newton, sounds like fun.. not! :)  The
Portalplayer chip actually has an IDE controller on board as well as
support for various removable media (see
http://www.portalplayer.com/products/products_01.htm).

cheers,
bern.

On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 20:13, Jim Witte wrote:
>    Doesn't the iPod have a hardware MP3 decoder (/encoder?) chip in it?  
> Can it be accessed yet from Linux?
> 
>    By "isn't very useful" - what exactly does this mean?  Are we talking 
> realtime decoding of full 320bps, 16-bit, 44KhZ, stereo MP3s.  Because 
> I've got an MP3 player on the Newton (169 KHz StrongARM or whatever the 
> clock speed is) that runs pretty decently with MP3s of 80bps, mono, 
> 8bit.  I'm told it'll go up to 128 and not choke much.  The main 
> bottleneck is probably the Newton's low-level memory system (it doesn't 
> seem to like to deal with big VBOs on the stores).  But the iPod's got 
> TWO ARMs (hmm, interesting pun..), so could MP3 decoding just be 
> shunted to the "back" processor" while everything else goes on on the 
> front one?  Do we know how to access both processors and get some kind 
> of MP working?
> 
>    I guess for the really daring, an interesting experiment would be to 
> try to plug a CF reader or whatever directly into the PCMCIA CardBus 
> that the hard drive is on.
> 
>    (The just hook  it up with two open slots, rearrange the electronics 
> to fit in a sligtly bigger case, but a bigger grayscale screen on it 
> with a touchpad, figure out how the MMU works, port the damn Newton ROM 
> (already in ARM code, that should help a little ;), rewrite the 
> TScreenDriver, TVoyagerPlatformImpl. TResistiveTablet, 
> PCirrusSoundDriver, and probably several other classes, and we're done. 
>   Voila!  New Newton, courtesy of Apple and a lot of hard work..)
> 
> Jim
> 
> > I would be interested in a compact flash card reader solution for the 
> > ipod.
> > However I was under the impression that the available linux firmware 
> > isn't
> > very useful as an mp3 player. Is it possible to dual boot the ipod? I 
> > wouldn't
> 
> 
> 
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