The goal of the project is to be able to create a simple linux based ‘web companion’ that is open source in both hardware [I am considering migrating to sbc's provided by beagleboard.org in the future for this.] and software aspects. When I say a web companion, I mean a device that helps you browse the web, use interactive web applications, experience online media, connect friends and family across countries using existing and new IM/VOIP technologies.

The key advantage of using toobo would be it’s simplicity in terms of UI, quick startup times, and it’s portability. Essentially, even people with minimum or no computer knowledge should be able to use the device.

Ideally, at some point, I would like to see a community of enthusiasts work on toobo and help write apps and improve the overall design.

Currently the board that I am using is from embeddedarm.com [TS7250] and it has 32MB of RAM. I haven’t really looked into the memory requirement of the kernel itself. But the zimage is roughly 1.4Megs and top tells me I am using around 4Megs of Ram which includes memory used by apache, sshd etc that I am running. As far as the drivers go, I only have a graphics lcd module inserted and it is roughly 20k in size…

Also, with the SBC I have, I didn’t have all the pins brought out to the jumpers. I wanted to use I2S for audio xfer but those pins were left ‘NC’ in the SBC. So, it was difficult for me to interface directly to a DAC. But with the STA in between the SBC and the DAC, I can achieve that quite easily.

I still have a long ways to go as far as the VGA LCD module goes. I did get a cool TFT LCD display from sparkfun a few months back. It is still sitting in the box due to lack of extreme soldering skills

I will put a link back to your blog/website on mine so people will find it useful.

Thanks for the comment.
-Vijay

I’ve been working on my own mp3player for a while (not much recently, but I’ll be getting to it soon he he he). I started off with the STA013 but could never get it to work with the long configuration patch that you have to send it. I’ve recently switched to the STA015 and will be designing a board for it soon. I find that with something like this it is very difficult to get working on the breadboard so I’m just going to build the PCB myself and hope for the best.

I’m also interested in your SBC project. I’ve used a couple SBCs in the past and even worked on some driver stuff on a couple SBCs that I were developed at the company I inten for, but it is a very ambitious project to build your own from scratch. I will follow yours closely and maybe one day design my own.

I was curious though, why did you decide to use the STA015 decoder for decoding MP3s when you’re building an SBC? Wouldnt it be really easy (almost trivial) to decode MP3s using freely available software that runs on your board and send it directly to some PCM sound chip? With the STA015 you will need to write your own custom driver to send it the MP3 data which then sends it to the DAC. If you just interfaced the DAC directly and wrote a generic sound driver (or even used a DAC that has one already written) you could also play other sound with ALSA or whatever else.

Also, any plans on a VGA LCD module instead of just a graphic? It would be a good plan to be able to extend your board to include that. You could try and design your board so that you can plug in several types of LCDs and just populate the one you’re going to use at the time.

Anyways, Good luck!
Maybe we can cross-post on eachothers website’s or something sometime.