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Hackers Get Android Running on Real Hardware
nerdyH writes "Google's Android stack for Linux phones has been successfully hacked onto several actual hardware devices, including Linux-based Sharp Zaurus PDAs and a high-end development board. Google's preview release of Android last fall included a software emulator based on Qemu, but you can't beat real target hardware when writing applications for devices, because emulators may not accurately reflect real-world performance. Plus, it appears that Android's modern UI could really breathe some new life into lots of Linux-friendly hardware with ARMv5TE or better cores."
Now I love the idea of stackable androids, but what are we really talking about here?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But does it have an emotions chip?
Kilroy was here.
Every time I see some cool new announcement for Android I think we've got a cool new robotics development and then I realize it's just a cell phone. I bet they're going to come out with a new product called Flying Car and it'll just be an mp3 player.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Yeah, that's what killed the iPhone - totally failed because it doesn't run at VGA resolution.
At least the Android simulator can be configured to launch in VGA mode (or any resolution), as well as the default QVGA and HVGA modes. I hope the iPhone dev-kit is as forward-thinking.
I hope that it will be able to replace windows mobile on my HTC device soon (the O2 XDA, not sure exactly what model that would be). I am sure that the actual hardware of the phone is not too bad but things are just so slow.
Like TFS says, it is great to have something to run on older hardware, especially with the way the phone market works these days trying to get you to do upgrades as often as possible, most of the time unnecessarily. How many don't just want a phone to use as a phone? I know my grandfather wouldn't mind having a special stripped down version of Android with only basic functions and if I can pick up an old used phone that most people think is outdated to run it on that would be perfect.
As a fan of SciFi, I always love the "mad hacker" who takes a bunch of old parts and kludges together something interesting. We are a long way from that... We have always had PCs. You buy them with an MS OS and you can re-purpose them into Linux devices of various types.
But I love the idea of taking older form factor cell phones, which are really abandoned tech, and wiping out the older operating environment and replacing it with Android. It's not quite the way the built R2D2 in star wars but it's a step in that direction.
- liberating commodity hardware
- installing commodity software
- creating something interesting and useful.
http://www.hawknest.com/
Do you have any idea about the rarity and expense of small VGA resolution LCDs? There's a reason most mobile phones don't have a lot of pixels.
Where's my flying robot that follows me around everywhere. They promised us a Moon Base, Flying Cars, Flying PDA's, And Android chicks...since the 60's. And all I have to show is this POS iPhone. Blah!!!!
That is so true.
I'm writing this on a nokia N95 (seriously, one of our tubes sprung a leak and we only have wifi) and /. really sucks at this resolution. The only thing worse than the eye strain and constant scrolling is typing on the keypad because I am too cheap to buy a bluetooth keyboard.
Predictive text helps a bit but sometimes it gets things so ducking wrong that I am sure the people who program it are a deliberately unhelpful bunch of ducking aunts.
I don't therefore I'm not.
The article's link shows the Armadillo-500 board running Android full-screen on a desktop LCD, and at least one of the Zaurus models mentioned has a 640x480 display.
Apparently, even when shoe-horned into untested hardware, Android has no trouble adapting the UI to the dimensions of the screen that Linux reports. So why are people whining about screen size, and why is it being mod'ed up?
While you use the Java language to program Android, it doesn't actually use a JVM to run the code. Instead, Android uses it's own VM called dalvik that uses a different byte code than the JVM. Java class files are converted to Dalvik bytecode on the desktop.
Maybe the Dalvik VM would be an easier port.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.