Allan Mwenda <[email protected]> wrote: > Dual SIM is not a must but is it an awesome feature to have on a dumbphone.
Dunno about "awesome", I never personally had any need for it. > What package would the game have > to be in to install? If i'm lucky it probably already exists. Which would > then bring up how wqould one go about installing on a dumbphone? I do have to admit that adding functionality to a Free Dumb Phone will never be as simple as sudo apt-get install. There is no operating system in the conventional sense, and the entire firmware is one single monolithic whole. However, when the source for this single monolithic whole is freely published and any user can recompile it and reflash the resulting binary image into the phone using only free software tools that run under GNU/Linux and other free Unix-based or Unix-like OSes, then if you would like to add your game to the user interface code, there is nothing to stop you from going into that part of the gsm-fw codebase and working your addition in. Expert C programming skills will be required, and because all code on a dumbphone runs in an OSless environment that is very different from the more familiar environments such as Unix/Linux or Windows, those who aspire to add their own features to dumbphone UI will have to learn how to work in this very different environment first. In fact, even my own understanding in this area is currently quite vague and incomplete. I have not yet reached the point in my project where I will start working on the UI code - my plan is to build a solid-working free GSM modem first, without any UI, only AT commands for control, and only afterward start adding the UI, both hardware and software. It also needs to be noted that TI's reference firmwares (both Leonardo and LoCosto versions which are my starting points) already include some UI code (they call it by the sexist term "MMI" for "man-machine interface"), but I have no idea what this UI looks like, as once again I have not yet reached the point in my project of being ready to start looking into this stuff. Who knows, maybe they already got some games included in there - once again, I will start looking into it when I reach that point, not now. > I think you should consider some of the ideas, Considering them is easy, actually implementing them is much harder. > that way your dumbphone would > at least impress others. I expect that for many people having a dumbphone with Totally Free Firmware would be impressive enough. I'm sorry that what I'm building is not good enough for YOU. > For instance,will it have a flashlight? There won't be anything to stop you from using the LCD and keypad backlights as a flashlight, but I most certainly do NOT plan on adding an entirely separate LED driver circuit for the flashlight function, just to please YOU specifically. Please understand that designing and building hardware is a very risky and expensive business. I already plan on spending tens of thousands of USD of my own personal money on this purely personal project of mine, without any expectations of ever getting any return on this "investment". Why? Because I need the end product very badly for my own personal use. But I also have the natural right to minimize my risks. Any extra circuitry in the hardware is adding extra risk to the project, i.e., the risk that I will spend some 5-10 kUSD on a prototype that will turn out to be a brick because of some pesky hardware issue. Adding a whole extra circuit just to please YOU is not an acceptable risk for me. Oh, and the risks are much higher for me because I am not a professional EE (electrical/electronics engineer), just a mostly-sw/fw hacker who knows enough about hw to be dangerous, and I do not have the budget to hire a professional EE to do the work for me. Adding an extra LED driver circuit just for the heck of it (this flashlight feature you keep demanding) may be a very small risk for a professional EE, but is totally unacceptable for someone in my position. And finally, my hardware design will be just as freely published as the firmware. Thus if you want your flashlight feature badly enough, you can add it yourself or hire an EE of your choice to do it for you: take my design and make a derivative product of your own with your preferred changes and additions. > A dumbphone ain't a dumbphone without a flashlight. I disagree. My current Pirelli DP-L10 does not have one, the Mot V66 I used for a long time previously didn't have one, and I don't recall any of the Nokias and whatnot which I used before that having it either. I never felt a need for such a feature, and when I first saw it on some of the recent "race to the bottom" Chinese models, I always thought "what a weird feature". SF _______________________________________________ Replicant mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/replicant
