The Syncing Apple

I’ve complied OpenEinstein 2007-07 build 48. Current as of today. You can download it below. It’s about 1.8 megs, bzipped. It will expand into a 16 meg file.

Feel free to download the binary here. You’ll need this file also: Einstein.rex. The last thing you need of course is a real Newton ROM, so please have that handy. Directions are in the manual– it’s worth the read if you are going to try and run this.

I’m still trying to figure the best way to make this run on the 770. I like killing the maemo_af_desktop, so that the OpenE isn’t locked into it, but sometimes OpenE won’t start. If someone has it going full screen on the 770, please add a comment for your exact startup line. I still haven’t gotten it to go the full 800×480 on the 770.

The first ever non-apple application has been allegedly run on the iPhone. The people over at the iPhone DevWiki report. Watch out Nokia 770, soon the iPhone will be as hackable as you are!

At least, some day it will. This user, Nightwatch is using his own arm toolchain, so this isn’t like we have a nice Scratchbox available to install onto debian. But as time moves on, our own apps on the iPhone draw closer and closer.

Nokia must be responding internally to the iPhone mania. The question is, will it be a more advanced smartphone, or a phone enabled internet tablet? Scoble asked around and only got some smiles. Can Nokia really continue to push the Internet Tablet line, sans phone, now that the iPhone has set the bar so high? Nokia has some cool devices, good technology, mature development infrastructure and a lot of community based support and coding efforts. But relying only on wi-fi will not enable a truly mobile communications device. They have something ready to replace the N800. Will they strap a phone onto it? Will they dump Opera for Mozilla or build-out their Webkit browser? That would certainly be in the arena for an iPhone competitor.

For all the committed Nokia users out there, hating the iPhone buzz– if you haven’t seen this page yet, give it a look. Why? ’cause someone thinks that The iPhone is a piece of shit, and so is your face. Perhaps Nokia’s answer to the iPhone is already here, it’s just losing marketing game.

Apple iPhone: ARM CPU @ 667mhz [Samsung], 128Mb ram, 8GB Flash
Nokia N800: ARM CPU @ 320mhz [TI], 128Mb ram, 256Mb Flash

N800 has dual SD cards for more Flash, iPhone has no way to extend the 8Gb. N800 has a bigger screen, higher DPI but doesn’t have the light-touch touch-screen like the iPhone. I’d still consider getting a N800 to replace my 770 if the price drops. I’d like to use ITOS2007 and have Flash 9 available for browsing– especially now since Mozilla has just been released for ITOS2007. We’ll probally never see Flash in the iPhone, but who knows. I just don’t think Apple will do it.

Here are some more detailed instructions on getting Open Einstein built on MacOSX Intel, using the JAM complier and targeting the Nokia 770. I also built it for MacOSX, to run locally on my macbook.

The published directions are here, and you should read them first and familiarize yourself with them.

Install MacPorts

* MacPorts-1.5.0-10.4.dmg

Open a terminal and then use macports to install the following packages:

$ sudo port install gettext
$ sudo port installlibffi
$ sudo port install jam
$ sudo port install arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc

Then you must add

/opt/local/bin

to your $PATH on the Mac (edit .bash_login in your home directory), then restart your terminal or read in the new bash_profile.

Pull down Klibs and Build

K is located at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/KLibs/)

$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@klibs.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/klibs login
[Enter] for password

$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@klibs.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/klibs co -P K

$ cd $PATH_TO_KLibs/_Build_/Jam

$ jam -starget=nokia2006

Klibs should build with out problems. If you want to build for the Mac, just leave off the -starget parameter.

Pull down Open Einstein and Build

$ svn checkout http://einstein.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ einstein

$ cd einstein/Einstein/_Build_/Jam

$ jam -sK=$PATH_TO_KLibs -starget=nokia2006 -sjittarget=GENERIC

Now there is a new folder in the /_Build_/Jam directory called build.ARM-LINUX-Nokia2006. This folder will contain the einstein binary for the Nokia 770.

Move files over to 770

You need three files:

[You should set up sshd on 770, change password of 'user' to something you know, change the ip address below to match your 770 local ip. Use ifconfig -a to check the local 770 ip.]

Now copy the files:

$ scp $PATH_TO_EINSTEIN/_Build_/Jam/build.ARM-LINUX-Nokia2006/einstein user@192.168.155.155:
$ scp $PATH_TO_EINSTEIN/_Data_/Einstein.rex user@192.168.155.155:
$ scp $NEWTON_ROM user@192.168.155.155:

Once they are copied over, you can start Open Einstein like this:

/home/user # ./einstein -l log2 -m 737041 .
Welcome to Einstein console.
This is Einstein Platform 2007.
Creating image...
Max units count = 986
Max units count = 1026
Booting...
Type help for help on available commands.
einstein> power

And you should see the Newton Start up on your device. Below is a screen shot of the Newton running on my MacBook, in Xwindows:

After some trial and error, and some help from Paul G, I managed to build Open Einstein for both my Intel Mac and for my Nokia 770, using just my Macbook. I followed the directions to build at the Google Code site. I’ll have more explicit directions soon, but the code does build and run on the 770. And you don’t need scratchbox to build it! Excellent work Paul.

Here are some screen shots (click for bigger versions):

After Einstein was built, the directions for starting it are the same as before. The easiest way to control einstein is via SSH into the 770, so that you can shutdown all the Hildon interfaces.

Full directions to build this will be up soon.

Update: There is a new Einstein Platform 2007.7 User Manual at Paul’s Einstein Page.

Update 06/17/07: Here is the link to the original post over at atmaspheric. The blog is worth reading.

I found a cool video over at umpcportal.com, filmed by Jonathan Greene. He puts an iPhone, Nokia 800 and the N95 thru their paces while browsing the web. The video is nicely done and well narrated. It shows a lot more than my pictorial essay from a few days back. Worth a look at only 22 min long. You’ll certainly get a sense of the various levels of ease-of-use for these devices when browsing the web.

Some points that stuck me as I watched it:

At the 2007 Worldwide Newton Conference in Tokyo on July 8th, Paul Guyot announced that his most excellent Newton Emulator for ARM, Einstein, was now open source and available immediately on Google Code. His announcement to the NewtonTalk mailing list is worth the read. One improvement that sounds enticing:

“the heavy work done these past weeks allowed me to design a new experimental module where NewtonOS instructions are executed natively on ARM PDAs. “

There have been other improvements to Einstein since last year- the biggest (to me) is the ability to cross-compile and build Einstein on your Mac while targeting the Nokia 770. No more waiting for binaries to be released. The 800 was tested and the binary didn’t run– ITOS2007 has some different libraries (from ITOS 2005 and 2006), which probably caused issues. I’m attempting to roll a build for my 770 this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

Here are my screen shots of my 770 from the release of Einstein last year.

Also announced was the release of Driver Labo, the wifi drivers for Newton by Hiroshi Noguchi. AFAIK, these are the only available drivers in the world that support WEP on the Newton. I had purchased licenses back when they were available, but since 2005 Hiroshi hadn’t ever responded to requests and pleas to accept payment for new licenses. As a result many Newtons can’t participate in locked-down Wifi networks. The release of these drivers as Open Source is a welcome event.

There is an overview of the WWNC ‘07 with some pictures of course.

I took some pictures showing the size difference between the 770 and iPhone. iPhone is really is smaller than you’d first think. Unfortunately, it also has a lower resolution screen than the 770. The zoom feature makes up for that somewhat (see the last picture in this post for an example of a zoom). It is nice that Safari always renders the whole page, so there is not any horizontal scrolling (unless you pinch-zoom). On the 770, boing-boing was wider than the screen and so it used a horizontal scroll. You can see that Safari didn’t render the flash banner add on the top of boing-boing. You can also notice in the first picture that Safari does a better job of using larger fonts- the smaller screen is more readable than on the 770.

The touch-screen on iPhone is remarkably different than what is on the 770- it only requires the lightest touch of a finger, not physical pressure. Using a stylus on iPhone doesn’t work- the screen is using the conductivity of your flesh to make contact, more like a touch pad on a laptop than a traditional touch-screen.

You can click on each of these to load a larger version in a new window.

The iPhone and the 770 both rendering boingboing.

Size comparison- stacked up.

The iPhone’s tabs - multiple windows open. You slide the windows left and right to go to each one.

Safari zoomed for the main column of text on boing-boing.

Posts that contain IPhone per day for the last 30 days:

Posts that contain N800 per day for the last 30 days:

How about posts that contain Nokia per day for the last 30 days:

Amazing. I wonder how much Apple spent on the marketing for iPhone launch?

Speaking of the iPhone, I’ve been happily using mine since release and I’ve been able to do what I wanted to for the past few years: use a PDA sized device to browse my favorite websites and have them render on the device in an acceptable time frame. Using the iPhone for browsing is a delight and is many times faster than my n770. The cpu in the iPhone is a screamer. I can listen to music via the iPod functions and browse (with multiple ‘tabs’) with ease- as long as I’m in wifi range. Edge is pokey, but the majority of my browsing is a work and at home, where there is plentiful wifi. Nothing else near this size can render pages this fast- it’s faster than some older laptops I’ve used.

And having a real working phone to boot is just one less thing I have to carry around. I’m sure there is a place for the Internet Tablets, but the 770 was never so useful as this iPhone has been in just a few days of using it. My 770 is fun to hack around with for a few hours at a time, but I’ve never been able to use it like i can the iPhone. And just imagine what is going to spill out once Apple gets a SDK out. Ebook readers alone will be a killer app. A lot of possibilities.

Of course I wasted all that time yesterday snapping photos of the new ITOS’06 Beta when the classic Load Applet and Screenshot taker was ported and sitting over in the Maemo Garage. It works fine In 2006. After I took a few shots I realized there was no easy way to get them to my Mac, without having SSH or Xterm handy on the 770. So I ended up loading Opera, got on Gmail, and then attached them to an email to my self. That worked fine.

Screen Shot of the amazing FBreader, which is also already ported and ready to go.

Screen shot of me attaching my screenshots in a Gmail to myself.

Here is my Gmail, attachment laden and ready to send.

It’s all in there this time. Control Panel, Memory, Virtual Tab.

Sweet. Extend away.

Have you used the thumb-board (T-Board) yet? It’s tricky. The idea is that you use the pressure of your thumb or finger, say, in the chat screen and the T-board will pop up. You put in your line of text, then return to the chat screen.

Here is the T-board:

You control the pressure to activate it in the Text Input Settings Control Panel:

You have to mash the screen pretty hard, with the default settings, but it works. Now it makes more sense…

So the new IM client on ITOS’06 is really nice. Of course it does Google, and through that Google Talk- but it also seems to be a full featured Jabber client.

At my company, we’ve installed our own Jabber server for internal IM. I was able to easily add a new “account” and connect to that Jabber server- and the Nokia IM client pulled in all those contacts as well and aggregates them together with the Gmail contacts. Nice work. Some screen shots below show the story.

The Account Control Panel (this is after I added in my work Jabber account)

Adding a new account, specify your own Jabber server (or account at jabber.com)

Now status shows both accounts (Google is the talk icon, Jabber is the lightbulb)

And my contacts for both accounts are all in there.

This looks to be a great release. I was worried that we wouldn’t see this till later summer. Its amazing that Nokia has this much in the beta already.

Lots of talk on the net about this- and they are all correct- this beta is amazing. It’s very fast and the the UI enhancements are nice. I’ve taken some screen shots (12) the old fashion way, and I’ll let them do the talking.

First, the flasher on OSX worked like a charm:

blinky:~ dillera$ sudo ./flasher.macosx -F BETA.SU-18_2006SE_0.2006.22-21_PR_F5_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R
Password:
Found image kernel (length 1266304)
Found image initfs (length 1880192)
Found image rootfs (length 67633152)
Found image secondary (length 86784)
Found image xloader (length 13824)
USB device found found at bus 003, device address 002-0421-0105-02-00
Found board Nokia 770 (F5)
NOLO version 0.9.0
Sending X-Loader image (13 kB)…
100% (13 of 13 kB, avg. 613 kB/s)
Sending secondary image (84 kB)…
100% (84 of 84 kB, avg. 718 kB/s)
Flashing X-Loader… done.
Sending kernel image (1236 kB)…
100% (1236 of 1236 kB, avg. 733 kB/s)
Flashing kernel… done.
Sending initfs image (1836 kB)…
100% (1836 of 1836 kB, avg. 728 kB/s)
Flashing initfs… done.
Sending and flashing rootfs image (66048 kB)…
100% (66048 of 66048 kB, avg. 625 kB/s)
Finishing flashing… done

When it was done, I had my 2006 770 ready to go!

Here is the new Desktop. That Google bar is a search bar- type something in and it will pop open the browser with the search results.

Continue reading on for my 12 other screen shots……

Continue Reading »

Paul Guyot released this email to the NewtonTalk (a Newton list). He had a special showing of his latest build of Einstein Platform 2006 at the Apple store in Ginza. Here is a picture of the participants, Newtons in hand. The 770 build is going to be released shortly– if you have a Zaurus, you can grab it now and try it out. I’ll post more when he releases the 770 build.

Here is Paul’s Message:

Hi all,

I’m pleased to announce the release of Einstein Platform 2006.6 for
MacOS X (PowerPC and Intel) and for arm-linux.

What is Einstein Platform?

Einstein Platform is a way to transform a computer in a Newton
device. It’s NewtonOS taking over existing architectures.

Einstein Platform 2006.6 was revealed yesterday night at the Einstein
Night at AppleStore Ginza. It features full screen support (with
rotation) as well as Relativity.

What is Relativity?

Relativity is Einstein Platform latest technology. It allows the
merge of host and newton technologies inside Einstein Packages. It is
easy to use and developers can take advantage of anything on the
host, from OpenGL on the Mac to Japanese Handwriting Recognition on
the Zaurus.

URL

Einstein Platform, with the documentation and two relativity sample
codes, can be downloaded from my website:
http://www.kallisys.com/newton/einstein/

You can also download the Einstein Night slides as well as the
previous slides.

A Nokia 770 version will be available soon.

What’s new?

- Initial release of Relativity for Einstein.
- Accelerated some transfers between Einstein and Host.
- Einstein Platform now runs full screen on MacOS X.
- Included several keyboard mappings.
- Update of PortAudio (from CVS).
- Included a new set of icons by Michael Vacík. The toolbar icons
reflect the state of Einstein.
- The state is now shown on the screen (instead of just: screen is off).
- Improved the Cocoa preferences panel.
- Included AppleScript support to evaluate newton script code and to
install packages.
- Fixed an endianess problem with the Cocoa screen manager on Intel
machines.
- Fixed a bad bug in the memory emulation that caused crashes,
especially with the JIT page cache.
- Fixed a bug yielding to an abort when the platform was quitted.
- Fixed a bug with CoreAudio sound on Intel machine.
- PortAudio sound driver now reverts samples an little endian targets.
- The tablet region was incorrectly limited to 1023×1023. It’s now
set to NewtonOS size (2047×2047).

update: the Nokia 770 version should be out this weekend (june 10/11)

Update on ebook reading with the 770: Adam Wolf kindly alerted me to his page where you can clearly see what I am talking about in terms of the haptics involved with reading on the 770. Thanks Adam for taking those shots. This is where the size of the 770 clearly comes into play. Any thing larger and it would be too uncomfortable to hold like this. I’ll say again too that the sharpness of the screen helps tremendously. One of the nice things about using the 770 is reading in low light situations. The bad thing is that you can’t read outside.

It’s been difficult for me to track down how you make a FBreader formatted book, but I have recently had some success in doing that. I’m working a post that explains the procedure. Unfortunately, it seems to require MS Word at this point, so if you don’t have that application, and a PC to run it on, AFAIK, you are out of luck making them. More later.

Is the new Nokia Internet Tablet device is coming out next Tuesday?

More news about the Google Talk & Nokia collaboration:

• SeattlePI

• CNN Money
• Daily Tech

Not any real new info- just that a new Tablet is coming out, with Google Talk as the VOIP software. The announcement is Tuesday- who knows if the device will be released at that point.

Speaking of good news- look at the stock price for Nokia over the last 6 months:

So I was fighting with FBreader for a long time, and not understanding why it was so great- until I realized a few basic things, which I’ll pass along– in case you haven’t been using it for all your reading lately.

• Rotate the screen 90 deg
• Go full-screen
• Use the rocker button, which is now on the right-hand side to move a page at a time
• The Library and place keeper (remembers where you were between sessions) only seem to work with FBreader files
• Get the latest version, it fixes some bugs.

Once I had these things going, I’ve been reading almost non-stop on this thing. I had a week vacation and had all my reading on it- and the screen is so sharp you can read on it all day and not strain your eyes. I did bump up the font size one pixel.

And I’m not reading just the classics, i.e. Gutenberg. How can you read the good stuff? I’ll talk about that in my next entry, which I’m working on: The Dark Underbelly of IRC and eBooks. Lets just say that “they are out there.” Hint.