[Toybox] Article about toybox in h-online.

[Rob Landley]

On 03/07/2012 06:34 AM, David Seikel wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:49:58 -0600 Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> wrote:
> 
>> http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Inside-the-ToyBox-An-interview-with-Rob-Landley-1447494.html
> 
> I've been poking around a bit looking for these docking stations for
> smart phones and tablets you keep mentioning.  Mostly what I find are
> glorified speaker and charging units.  The one you mention in that
> interview seems to be for Windows laptops.  Part of the reason for
> toybox is that these sorts of pocket computers with docking stations
> will take over from PCs, at least according to theory.  

The hardware is there.  The software mostly isn't.

In theory you can just use a powered USB hub and plug usb mouse,
keyboard, video and audio adapters into it, configure the drivers for
each separately.

In practice, the crowd of people who tend to _do_ this have a hard time
replacing the kernel on phones, and the preinstalls on all the current
batch lock them down hard because they're sold as heavily subsidized
physical interface to a service contract.

I see a big opportunity here, but you're right current exploitation of
it sucks.  People are instead using things like pandaboard and qemu for
native arm development.  (Ubuntu and Fedora installed rackmounted arm
systems for their build farm.)

> I see a lot of laptop/netbook filling that niche and growing to be
> mainstream,

Laptop sales surpassed desktop sales in dollars in 2004, and in unit
volume in 2005.  That transition's over and done with, I think:

http://news.cnet.com/PC-milestone--notebooks-outsell-desktops/2100-1047_3-5731417.html

> but not much sign of smart phones and similar pocket sized
> devices heading in that direction.  At least nothing in the "dock it up
> to become your desktop" variety.  I see some smart phone and tablet
> devices that have their own docking station, but not much luck finding
> universal docking stations.

Motorola's got one they call the "Atrix Lapdock":

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20031251-1.html

But mostly there's lots of "there oughtta be a" articles:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/the-smartphone-docking-station-the-time-is-right/41491

As I said, it's software.  There's nothing windows-specific about the
dynadock except drivers, and Google isn't interested in new niches.
(The downside of altix is you can't take the phone with you and plug it
into a reasonably standardized interface at your destination.  The point
of carrying around a USB stick is you can plug it into any computer.  If
you had to take the reader with you, what's the point?)

It'll happen, the numbers make it fairly inevitable.  Unit volumes are
all in favor of phones and against conventional PC hardware, and it's
only going to get more intense.  As with the 64-bit transition circa
2004, the question is who and when will lay down the "retroactively
obvious" path all the water follows and makes a deep immovable river out of.

Apple is trying to build a bridge up from their phones to their PCs with
ipads.  (The interesting thing is when does it become self-hosting so
the gazillions of phones in the hands of indian teenagers can start
participating in software development. You _can_ do it with the
interface in the thing now, it just hasn't got a shell prompt, text
editor, and compiler installable from the app market yet...)

> I've never liked laptops/netbooks, coz their keyboards and pointing
> devices are second rate things I would not sully my fingers on.
> Pocket computers with on screen keyboards and touch screens are OK
> though, they are not pretending to be real keyboards and mice.  Being
> able to plug a real keyboard, mouse, and monitor (as well as ethernet)
> into a pocket workstation would be the best of both worlds.

You can do this with separate USB devices in a powered hub.  The
advantage of something like the dynadock is the set of devices is
standardized, thus the driver pack you need (and the probe script) is
the same for each one.

Most likely this will be made to work, then be made standard.

> (Personally I'd also want a touch screen I can use my finger nails as
> the precision pointing implements they are and not be forced to use fat
> fingertips.  But that's just me.  lol)
> 
> Can you point to some examples of the pocket workstations and docking
> stations that you talk about?  Preferably something us Linux hackers
> can hack on freely without jail breaking and other warranty voiding
> nonsense?

For keyboard and mouse, yes.  Those are standardized.  Network and
external storage, reasonably standard too.

Video and audio, I'm not the guy to ask. :)

> Yes, I'm crazy enough to want to carry a pocket workstation, Happy
> Hacking keyboard, full sized mouse, power supply, and docking station
> to tie it all together with around INSTEAD of a laptop.  Coz if it was
> a laptop, I'd be chiselling off the pretend keyboard and pointing
> device, and still carry around the rest as well.  lol

Alas, the motorola thing is tied to their brand of phone...

If you find stuff, let me know? :)

Rob