OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
dear olpc devel people, i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks to being in 40nm, the speed of the (SoC / embedded) ARM9 core is so fast that it's perfectly

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
even this could be implemented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.22 _especially_ 802.22 which is a perfect candidate for SDR because of the need to cooperate, and not interfere with the existing TV transmissions. anything - absolutely, absolutely anything. with SDR, you get _proper_ freedom

offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread david
this does not directly involve OLPC, but since I know folks here have had to deal with the problem I'm asking for help here. I'm setting up wireless for a confrence in the near future (~1000 people for 3 days in a hotel), I know the RF side of things well and will be doing my best to avoid

quick Forth question

2010-01-25 Thread Daniel Drake
Can anyone help me with a tiny Forth script? Can never quite get my head around the language. I'm trying to set up an if-else based on whether a mfg tag exists (or whether writing a mfg tag succeeded or not) I'm trying: add-tag ak 0 catch if 2drop . Laptop already activated cr then But, if

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread rihowa...@gmail.com
Luke, Looks like you have the incorrect link for the Openbts.org. The correct link is now http://openbts.sourceforge.net/ /Robert H. rihowa...@gmail.com linux - the best things in life are free On Jan 25, 2010, at 7:42 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: dear olpc devel people,

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread NoiseEHC
i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks to being in 40nm, the speed of vs i repeat. all those can be replaced with _one_ i repeat _one_ single

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks to being in 40nm, the speed of the (SoC / embedded) ARM9

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, NoiseEHC wrote: i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks to being in 40nm, the speed of vs i repeat. all those can be replaced

Re: quick Forth question

2010-01-25 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:59, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: Can anyone help me with a tiny Forth script? Can never quite get my head around the language. I once wrote pen plotter programs in FORTH for fractals, to test the plotter mechanism. Hypnotic. I'm trying to set up an if-else

Re: quick Forth question

2010-01-25 Thread Paul Fox
daniel wrote: Can anyone help me with a tiny Forth script? Can never quite get my head around the language. I'm trying to set up an if-else based on whether a mfg tag exists (or whether writing a mfg tag succeeded or not) I'm trying: add-tag ak 0 catch if 2drop . Laptop

Re: quick Forth question

2010-01-25 Thread Richard A. Smith
On 01/25/2010 12:05 PM, Paul Fox wrote: maybe something like: ak find-tag if 2drop . Laptop already activated cr then i'm pretty much a neophyte too, but i believe the commands that one types at the ok prompt that feel like command, with trailing args, should be avoided when

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:24 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton l...@lkcl.net wrote: the key questions to be asking are: in light of the massive volumes involved with OLPC XOs, is SDR worth pursuing, given all the development costs, but given all the benefits especially where SDR can be

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:25 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, NoiseEHC wrote: i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that it will only cost about $2, mass-produced. also thanks to being in 40nm, the

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:24 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: i've been doing some research and found a couple of companies with SDR R.F. front-end ICs. one is 40nm and is so tiny that

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton l...@lkcl.net wrote: the key questions to be asking are: in light of the massive volumes involved with OLPC XOs, is SDR worth pursuing, given all the development costs,

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:24 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: imagine (and would you really want a device that could be wifi, OR GPS OR but not more than one at a time?) http://www.limemicro.com/products.php you can see, from the evaluation board, that there are _fourteen_ separate R.F. coax

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:24 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: imagine (and would you really want a device that could be wifi, OR GPS OR but not more than one at a time?) http://www.limemicro.com/products.php you can see, from the

Re: offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread Daniel Drake
2010/1/25 da...@lang.hm: but my question is if there is a limit (other than the effective limit of the RF channel) on the number of systems that can assocciate with a single access point? Yes - APs often have a limit. The limit is not defined by any kind of specification. It depends on the

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:52 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: http://www.limemicro.com/products.php you can see, from the evaluation board, that there are _fourteen_ separate R.F. coax connectors, and that the product description says listen for GSM stuff as well as transmit. also it's 375mhz to

Re: offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread Chris Ball
Hi, Yes - APs often have a limit. The limit is not defined by any kind of specification. It depends on the AP. I think I recall that brief testing with a bunch of consumer access points at OLPC showed that this number was usually above 15 clients and below 30 clients, per AP, at 54Mbps.

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:35 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: [...] projects. I'll bet that these chips can operate in that band, but not throughout the band without changing external components. certainly mirics 80mhz-5ghz receiver chip has multiple RF inputs and has i think it looks like it has 3

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:33 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: the key questions to be asking are: in light of the massive volumes involved with OLPC XOs, is SDR worth pursuing, given all the development costs, but given all the benefits especially where SDR can be re-programmed to do whatever in

Re: quick Forth question

2010-01-25 Thread Daniel Drake
2010/1/25 Richard A. Smith rich...@laptop.org: I worked it out. : check-ak add-tag ak 0 eval ; ok ' check-ak catch if . Laptop already activated cr then Thanks muchly! It works well. Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org

Lots of broken chargers in Nicaragua

2010-01-25 Thread Daniel Drake
Hi, What seems to be a lesser-common problem in the other deployments I have seen seems to be quite common here: chargers are breaking due to damage to the cable and the point where the cable enters the big green plug that goes into the power socket. Although these problems seem to be due to

Re: offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread John Watlington
Chris and Daniel are right. Doing this with SOHO APs is going to be difficult - it would require over 25 APs. You have moved into a area where you are probably better off using high-priced (i.e. multiple antenna) APs, and a centralized controller. wad On Jan 25, 2010, at 11:57 PM,

Re: Touchpad accel, spirals and xset

2010-01-25 Thread James Zaki
Sorry for the delayed response, I think I need to play around and compile a kernel module and then use it on the xo-1. But to answer a few of the questions... The init of the psmouse module triggers a calibration. that's certainly true, but i think it happens pretty early -- the kernel is

Re: Touchpad accel, spirals and xset

2010-01-25 Thread Paul Fox
james wrote: Sorry for the delayed response, I think I need to play around and compile a kernel module and then use it on the xo-1. But to answer a few of the questions... The init of the psmouse module triggers a calibration. that's certainly true, but i think it happens

Re: Lots of broken chargers in Nicaragua

2010-01-25 Thread Richard A. Smith
On 01/25/2010 04:31 PM, Daniel Drake wrote: Hi, What seems to be a lesser-common problem in the other deployments I have seen seems to be quite common here: chargers are breaking due to damage to the cable and the point where the cable enters the big green plug that goes into the power

Re: Lots of broken chargers in Nicaragua

2010-01-25 Thread James Cameron
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 03:31:24PM -0600, Daniel Drake wrote: chargers are breaking due to damage to the cable and (sic) the point where the cable enters the big green plug that goes into the power socket. I agree with Richard, something has to fail, and the cable should be the thing to fail

Re: Lots of broken chargers in Nicaragua

2010-01-25 Thread Richard A. Smith
On 01/25/2010 09:27 PM, James Cameron wrote: But my original reading of what you said suggests the failures are at the AC end of the cable ... the power supply housing is a big green plug and it goes into the wall power socket. Which is it? I'll add that we have one other report from Nepal

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: ok - i'm asking the wrong question :) let's assume that somewhere in 2010 an SDR modem exists (from someone, doesn't matter who made it). let's assume that software is available (COTS) and is (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently)

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread John Watlington
On Jan 26, 2010, at 2:07 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton l...@lkcl.net wrote: the key questions to be asking are: in light of the massive volumes involved with OLPC XOs, is SDR worth pursuing, given all the development

Re: offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread david
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010, Chris Ball wrote: Hi, Yes - APs often have a limit. The limit is not defined by any kind of specification. It depends on the AP. I think I recall that brief testing with a bunch of consumer access points at OLPC showed that this number was usually above 15

Re: OLPC hardware: what if there was an SDR modem / chipset?

2010-01-25 Thread John Watlington
On Jan 26, 2010, at 4:58 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 6:33 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: the key questions to be asking are: in light of the massive volumes involved with OLPC XOs, is SDR worth pursuing, given all the development costs, but given all the

Re: offtopic question about high density wifi

2010-01-25 Thread C. Scott Ananian
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:31 PM, da...@lang.hm wrote: I've read through these, and they have a lot of useful info. I do have good RF experiance (and even some halfway decent tools for looking at things), but I didn't know what, if any limits there were on the number of clients other than

Re: [Server-devel] [Olpc-open] [IAEP] Sharing EToys projects

2010-01-25 Thread Bert Freudenberg
On 07.12.2009, at 12:54, Dave Bauer dave.ba...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 7:22 PM, Gerald Ardito gerald.ard...@gmail.com wrote: Tomeu, There is no mime type that I can see. The Journal entry simply says File filename.pr from url for file. This is no different, by the way,