[Ned Scott]

Ah, a Smallart UHOST. Looks awesome, and very cool to hear that there might be some nice OvalElephant customizations for it.

Allwinner_A10#Smallart_UHOST (wiki)

And I gave the OE version its own sub-heading so that we can list any specific info on it.

[khui]

Ned Scott, those are some rather good edits you made to that page. large amount of accurate detail added across the page

edit: linkified my words and removed emoticon. and to Ned Scott from post #48: OK!

[Ned Scott]

Feel free to add any more info you come across! :D

[robi200]

any idea when can we see xbmc running on Allwinner A10 ??

[Ned Scott]

any idea when can we see xbmc running on Allwinner A10 ??

No ETA. Even when it is running on Allwinner A10 systems, that in itself doesn't necessarily mean it will be at a point in development where it is running smoothly. That in itself could take up to a year. It could take longer, it could be shorter, much shorter, but we wont really know until it's all said and done.

This is all assuming some major roadblock doesn't come up that prevents the port from really happening at all, but that's doubtful.

In other words, don't be making major purchasing decisions based on XBMC being able to run on this stuff just yet. If you buy an A10 system then you might just have to pass the time for a while with Android and Ubuntu.

[khui]

on top of that short list of nice extra features of the OE which i mentioned above, what could be added?

well the feature that gets asked about a lot, about such devices, is whether there is an equivalent of the GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi [RPi]. well your OE is quite unique in being in a state of active, and seemingly rapid, development, with you the developer being in direct touch with your target base. those questions above were asked about completed boards, whereas you're in a position to act on this great demand

on a slight tangent, please see how eagerly the Gooseberry [Gb] board was received by the exact same customer base as can be expected for the OE: link 1, link 2, link 3. (there's a single enquiry for 1k units among other large ones in there)

personally, i only want(ed) RPis to keep in touch with cool projects and developments in that new community, since these A10 devices are way, way(, way) better. if you add a directly compatible version of RPi's GPIO pins, you'd satisfy the desires/requirements of a lot (a LOT) of people and would create very healthy competition and choice in the form of a superb alternative

well that is the business side of my pitch, what about the tech feasibility? here's a ton of info. i dearly hope some suitably able people can help make this happen, and that it is achievable at all

for the sake of form factor, the goal could be achieved by having a very compact area on your board with the actual RPi-like interface away from the board; i'm sure you can design this nicely

since this is the XBMC forum, let's say that i hope A10 XBMC development gets all the attention a lot of us believe it deserves (actually i think it is already getting this - disclaimers about expectation are surely just disclaimers). anything the respected devs might require, please let relevant people know so they can fulfill

another RPi compatibility feature could be a display connector. as low down as this might be in priority, it might as well get a mention

[OvalElephant]

Thank you for all the comments regarding OE.
@khui. We have 4 pins on the board as seen here:



I will verify from the factory if these pins will be left open for connection and development. They aren't necessarily GPIO (as seen in your posted link) but I'll confirm by tomorrow afternoon and post a reply. We are hoping the pins will remain open as this will help with further developmental communities. We'd like to keep this project open for development. I'll also see if multi GPIO pins can be added. The only issue is we aren't certain how much space this would add to the PCBA. It would be nice to have this as an expansion to the PCBA. That could help with space as you have indicated above.
These are all great recommendations.

[j1nx]

I was really hoping those pins are UART (RX/TX/GND/3.3V) as I was advertising the device to come with populated UART pins Letś hope and see what the manufacturer says.

[robi200]

No ETA. Even when it is running on Allwinner A10 systems, that in itself doesn't necessarily mean it will be at a point in development where it is running smoothly. That in itself could take up to a year. It could take longer, it could be shorter, much shorter, but we wont really know until it's all said and done.

This is all assuming some major roadblock doesn't come up that prevents the port from really happening at all, but that's doubtful.

In other words, don't be making major purchasing decisions based on XBMC being able to run on this stuff just yet. If you buy an A10 system then you might just have to pass the time for a while with Android and Ubuntu.

thanks Ned Scott!

I will try and pass the time with plex on MK802, Since Plex is based on XBMC and run on Android as client.

[OvalElephant]

We have very good success with Plex running on the MK802 and the Oval Elephant. It is properly ported for Android and has good interface. It's what we've been telling people to use while XBMC is trying to be ported.

[Ned Scott]

I will try and pass the time with plex on MK802, Since Plex is based on XBMC and run on Android as client.

Well, only the desktop clients are based on XBMC. The Android clients and Plex Media Server aren't. Still, I must be honest, Plex is not a bad set up by any means, and the server/client set up is very slick.

[rogerthis]

Could these devices have the XBMC logo on the case?
Is the logo copyright protected?
Would you need to pay royalties to use it?

I would love to get one with a XBMC logo. I would be all in favour of paying a extra few dollars, if there was money going back to xbmc.org

[OvalElephant]

Ok, spoke with the factory and the 4 pins are not UART. There is a flymouse that is an optional add-on. The receiver for the fly mouse uses these pins for the connection. Images shown below. The factory will not allow this system to be completely open for development. Now, if/once XBMC or Linaro becomes ported, then we can have it put directly on the system (again, provided XBMC would allow this). So we can have software/OS directly on the NAND Flash but has to be done by the factory.

@Rogerthis: We had contemplated this but first would need agreement with XBMC for such adventure. Secondly the cost is quite high. In order for casing changes to be made a minimum order of 1,000 is required. That's quite a large demand. Now, if we had an agreement with XBMC and we had 1,000 pre-order requests, then we could make it happen. There would be several weeks lead time for the production, but it's possible. The price would also go up a tad for the customization. So maybe from $68pc (for 1,000) to $72pc. If we got enough interest on this thread/other threads we'd look at setting up a special portal on our site to take this request.

Great idea!

[Ned Scott]

That looks like some kind of internal USB connector. If so, it would be easy to hack on a little USB extension cable out of the casing to have another USB port.

[j1nx]

It might take some more effort, but by changing the evb.bin file, those 4 pins will most likely become the UART As soon as we have our hand on it we will extract the evb.bin file, decode it to see if we can redirect the UART to those pins. I think it is possible