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Jonathan McDowell

Hardware hacking on a budget; the Amstrad E3

The Amstrad E3 is a consumer videophone, based on a TI OMAP dual core ARM/DSP. It runs Linux by default, albeit a rather old version (2.4.18) and at £30 from many high street stores is an attractive entry point into embedded Linux development. Minimal extra hardware is required to start working on the device - just an appropriate cable to connect to its serial port.

This talk will discuss the initial process of getting software access to the E3 both from the point of view of disassembling the hardware to gain knowledge about what parts are used, and examining the currently running software; the difficulties of obtaining full source from Amstrad and the progress that has been made in getting modern 2.6 kernels and useful software (OPIE/GPE) supported on the device. It will also go into the benefits that group involvement can bring to such a project in terms of speeding up progress and bringing together suitable combinations of skills to solve the problems encountered.

It is hoped that the talk will show that it is easy for even those with limited hardware experience to get involved in embedded Linux development, and give some ideas about how to go about it.