[Replicant] GTA04 boards and complete devices ready for ordering

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 28.11.2015 um 23:46 schrieb Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo at no-log.org>:

> On Sat, 28 Nov 2015 19:38:31 +0100
> "H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at goldelico.com> wrote:
> 
>> It is a "moving deadline". Each time someone else orders one it will
>> come closer.
>> 
>> In other words we can't fix it on any time scale. We will build them
>> in the next weeks and depending on the production yield and
>> repairability of potentially faulty boards we will have some stock
>> until it is sold.
> The decision is hard to make on my side:
> 
> Given how unstable is my current situation, the price is very high.
> (Price are always subjective)

We would be happy to offer it cheaper but have not found a way to do
it. The best one would be to have higher quantities, but that needs someone
who can fund a new GTA0x project upfront. Here we are simply limited
by the number of plastic cases and uses GTA02 devices that are not yet
scrapped.

> 
> I've a GTA04 A3 (Unfortunately I broke the external GPS antenna
> connector, long story),

well, that can be repaired.

> so if I wish to work on it, I technically can.
> However the A3 is rather the "demo" version for me, since I can't power
> off the modem on the A3. This was of course fixed on later versions.
> 
> Beside potential privacy issues, this is an issue for battery life (in
> years, not in hours) because at some point the battery will discharge
> enough not to be able to power the phone anymore, if I use it for
> something else than development. That would then prevent me from
> developing for it.

We still have some replacement batteries or a Nokia BL-6C works.

> 
> Right now I'm not in a state where I can commit to work on the GTA04
> support either. And I'm not even sure that I would be the right person
> to do such work since Paul (Kocialkowski) is more skilled with
> userspace than me.
> 
> The last work I did with this phone is trying to make sure that it is
> supported by Parabola (a 100% free software GNU/Linux distribution).
> 
> So I could wait for the neo900.

Regarding batteries there is not much difference - Nokia is no longer
producing them. But there might be replacements around for a longer
time.

> While I really think keyboards are important, then I've a dilemma again:
> I personally don't like how the GPS is handled on the neo900:
> 
> As I understand it the neo900 GPS is part of the modem, with hardware
> ways(under control of the main CPU) to find if it was misused.
> The hardware detection can also be used with the 3G modem in general.
> So if that modem is sometimes misused (by the network for instance),
> then it makes sense to warn the user and act upon that.
> Instead, if it is always misused (can it be at large scale?), then a
> separate GPS makes sense, like in the case of the GTA04.
> I get that GPS used to consume a lot of power because they had to
> calculate the fix based on the GPS satellite signals, but I guess there
> are some shortcuts to that, with the assistance of the network.
> 
> Note that the way I remember the neo900 hardware might be inaccurate,
> so correct me if I'm wrong.

The latest Neo900 schematics includes a switch which disables the GPS
antenna under CPU control. So you can be sure that no GPS signals
go in.

BR,
Nikolaus