most of the links in the post about open source hardware here go to mahalo which isn’t really helpful, for example why link to chumby, but send people to mahalo and not the open source information on chumby on their site?

a commenter here asked for a list of projects and my post was never published (maybe it had too many links).

i think most would agree that it’s probably good for the health of the web and specifically this example to have the open source hardware links and resources go to the proper places, but if there is some type of requirement on the authors to only link to mahalo since hack-a-day is part of mahalo, if that’s true it’s fine but a little disclosure would be nice (my disclosure, i founded hackaday, i’m senior editor at make and we are also going to do an advertising campaign with hackaday soon). i’d like to see the site be the best possible resource and support it.

Wii is now the most open of the consoles, homebrew SDK’s have full hardware access, unlike xna or the PS3’s alternate OS.

When I clicked their link, the Mahalo site had a “Mahalo Top 7″. The official site is 1 (with links also pointing to the magazine, the projects, CRAFT, and subscription info).

I don’t understand your issue.

I don’t know about SMS, it seems to have been abused into a means of creating a generation of socially inept, obsessive compulsive, near autistic young people. Argue it any way you like, but I think it is a feature that should go away. It is becoming the only means of communication for millions of young people. (sure I agree it is up to parents to regulate this, but they don’t seem to be able to.) As far as sms/chat goes I think that cellphones and “mobile” PDA’s need to get a standard “communication” module and then we don’t pay $500 over and over again for less functionality than a 4 year old laptop.

@Peter, the Openpandora is not “open hardware”, this is true. But the developer (Micheal Weston, a Canadian), is active in the user forums and has stated his desire to document all connections and has brought out as many of the unused BGA connections on traces as he can.

As for “open” hardware, I think that is pretty much all you can hope for, it is mostly just a Ti OMAP, power/buffering circuitry, and a Wifi/BT chip anyway, not much to document.

They even have it designed to boot off of SD cards if the flash fails (anybody else doing that in their handhelds?)

@Chumby, your control scheme is weird, you cost too much (honestly people, buy a beagleboard and any HDMI/DVI/S-video/Composite screen, it can decode 720p for crying out loud, and has USB for interfacing with controls/sensors/video capture devices/etc.).

I guess it might be interesting to hack, but I can’t stand the way it looks, if it is for hackers all they need is a bare PCB, they don’t pay for fabric and glue wrapped around their hardware.

I may be confusing hardware hacking with the software hacking that chumbo here is designed for, but who cares, it isn’t really a great platform anyway.

g

As for Chumby — I see nothing that this does that a Nokia “internet tablet” doesn’t do twice as well, and cheaper. Wake me up when it’s 40 bucks at Sears.

Umm, are you expecting a word processor or “Metal Gear Solid: Chumby Fights Back”? :)

Chumby is excellent for getting dynamic information to the user. Monitor a webcam, weather, server up time (with reboot ability!), “Now Playing” type info in a commercial music setting, eBay auctions, flight times, etc.

What are you thinking that you’d like to see on it? There are plenty of Flash folks out there that could write it (if practical for the platform). Or, learn Flash – that’s what I did for a couple of corporate applications.