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DIY PDA

post #1 of 10
10/16/09 at 3:11pm
Thread Starter 
I am designing a home-brew audiophile PDA, which will run off of a bare-bones Linux interface. It will have just enough processing to read an external hard drive and run a simple media player.

So, I need some suggestions for a few pieces of audio software and hardware:

- Sound card

- Simple media player

- Hard drive

- Connectors

- Misc components
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post #2 of 10
10/16/09 at 4:12pm
What are you using for a processor? Are you buying a board or designing your own?

No offense, but from reading your other posts, I don't think you have the skill/experience level for this. It's a very large project.
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post #3 of 10
10/16/09 at 5:16pm
get an old fujitsu stylistic lt (c-500ish) they are ~100, pop a pcmcia card of your choice and you're good for audio and a touchscreen

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fujitsu-Stylisti...item4149c0e1f5
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post #4 of 10
10/16/09 at 5:27pm
As an academic exercise it sounds interesting, but I'd rather just use rockbox on a gigabeat myself.
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post #5 of 10
10/16/09 at 11:16pm
Thread Starter 
Basically what I am doing is gutting an XBox Classic and turning it into a very tiny, single-purpose computer. I am going to load it up with a bare-bones linux OS, put a low power hard drive in it, fix it up with a new sound card, and run it off of a laptop battery. That still leaves me room for an inboard DAC and amp.

Since most of the hardware is either installed already or simple to add on, I will wind up having a portable media center the size of an attache case.

This is, of course, all still in the prototype stage.
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post #6 of 10
10/17/09 at 2:55am
Why not just buy a netbook at walmart for 289$? I mean, really, this thing is going to be a monster.

A more serious answer to your question would be more like a via nano board with a compact flash adapter or even a cheap SSD.
VIA Eden-N Processor - VIA Technologies, Inc.

Maybe even a gumstix single board computer.
gumstix - dream, design, deliver

I understand that the original xbox stuff is cheap but man your asking for it if you try to go this route. You say you want to use a laptop battery. That smells like disaster to me. You do understand that Lithium Ion/polymer batteries have strict charge and discharge requirements. Not meeting these requirements will at the least ruin the battery in short order and at the worst burn your house down.
Also, be aware that the power requirements for the xbox internals are much more complicated than just providing one DC voltage. You will need to provide +12v,-12v,+5v,-5v,+3.3v,-3.3v. Just like any standard PC. I'm not sure about the exact internals of the original xbox but it is basically an intel celeron with some specialty chipset developed by Nvidia.

I wish you good luck in your endeavor.
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post #7 of 10
10/17/09 at 2:41pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all the information, that is what I was looking for (thanks for the honesty too). But I'm not all that worried about failure, either I wind up loosing an old xbox or get a sweet payout from my fire insurance.
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post #8 of 10
10/18/09 at 5:34am
Thread Starter 
I was able to run a version of damn small linux on my xbox classic mother board.

HDMI audio here I come...
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post #9 of 10
10/18/09 at 6:00am
Uh, you do realize a PDA should be able to fit into a normal human's pocket?

I've given up on convergence devices. They all fight for the same battery and everything ends up being mediocre. Jack of all trades, master of nothing.

For me PDA Phone = Sprint Touch Pro 2. DAP = HifiMan HM-801. Pretty much done there for awhile.

And yes, it would be possible to carry them in my pockets, but I'd have massively stuffed pockets and little room for anything else. I prefer to carry an EDC man bag of my gadget goodness.

-Ed
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post #10 of 10
10/18/09 at 10:48am
netgear routers can run linux and there's a lot of software that's been ported over.

the routers are in the $50 range, are fanless and are a good cpu to start with.
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