:zaurus info - gilbert verdian [gverdian at neoresearch.org]

:intro:
This page has some info and experiences ive had with the new Sharp SL-C3000 pda, which is really a mini computer!

I originally had a sharp SL-5000 purchased in 2001. But after years of use it was time to upgrade and found the brilliant new C3000. Being in Australia, things are not as widely available as elsewhere in the world... after some digging around found PriceJapan.com. These guys are great! I transferred the funds via internet banking to a local account in sydney (they also do paypal), the zaurus was shipped on a tuesday and it was on my desk on thursday morning of the same week.

:z - the beginning:

:z and accessories:

:z and the mac:

:z and 802.11b:

:sony ericsson t630 and the mac:

:se t630 and optus:

:z and bluetooth:

:z - the beginning:
being a japan only product, the Z was in japanese and japanese only! Unless you know the language the following manual hacking method from conics.net proved very useful. As I use my powerbook for everything, i didn't want to , if you're in a similar sitchuation, a normal pcmcia->cf adapter and a cf card are very handy to be able to do the following. you basically need to transfer the terminal application from the cd to the z so you can change its default language.

Once you've got terminal installed follow the instructions from the following 2 pages

http://downloads.conics.net/pda/zaurus-sl-c700/eng-inst/

http://downloads.conics.net/pda/zaurus-sl-c700/eng-inst/index2.html

I also installed mcconvert http://downloads.conics.net/pda/zaurus-sl-c700/eng-inst/mcconvert/mcconvert_0.1a_arm.ipk which changes the user inputs to the keyboard and english characters (which are just linux lib files).

now you're rocking with an english Z!

:z and accessories:
first thing i needed was a case for the z... searched around the forums over at http://www.oesf.org/forums. Basically came down to the extreme-limit and PDAir one.

http://www.extreme-limit.co.jp/english/mobilepc/sl_c7c8.htm

http://shop.brando.com.hk/pdairzaurusc3000case.php

After much thought, decided to go with the PDAir case because it is slightly smaller.. so put an order in with the guys at Brando in Hong Kong. This case is perfect for the Z, fits perfectly, is slim, good quality and had pockets to put in compact flash, SD cards etc... recommend this one!

At the same time, while I was at it decided to get the Ultra Clear screen protector and the Pentopia Sylus. The sylus is very nice to use and is a good accessory to the z, the back extends to become the length of a normal pen, giving you comfortable use... highly recommend it. But the screen protector! i just couldn't get rid of the air bubbles, no matter how hard I tried.... once on it made the zaurus screen look very cheap and ugly... so decided to ditch that. The Brando guys are ok to deal with but expected a bit more.... after a week of silence since my order, I enquired if they had shipped it yet, they responded that the PDAir case is out of stock and they will get them in the following week! Why wasn't I told?!??!? Anyway after some email exchange they were very sorry for not doing so and said that they would ship the screen protector and stylus now and ship the case later on when it arrived... I asked them not to worry about it and ship them all at the same time.

:z and the mac:
For the Z to talk to the mac via usb, you need the following driver. Once that is installed you should see a new interface in your network settings, i've renamed mine from en2 to zaurus. pick an ip of 192.168.129.200 and you should be able to ping the zaurus 192.168.129.201 by default. I've had some problems with the driver causing kernel dumps, but in general is it ok to use.

To sync the Z to you ical and address book you need Zmacsync (The Zmacsync package already contains the above driver, so there's no need to install it twice! - Thanks Nikolaus 22/04/05). This works over ssh, logging into the z and converting the database to xml. To get it going the first time you need to run:

dtm2xml reset database

It does take a little while initially, but with patience all is well. My next challenge is to get lotus notes synced with the Z.....

USB Capabilities

Got the following cable from HT in North Ryde - Comsol

Make sure you use mini-type A and the normal female connector. I was able to mount an external 120gb 3.5" usb drive. Just plug it in and if you run dmesg you'll see it has detected the drive ok. In the settings leave the PCLink setting to the IP setting...Put the following in /etc/fstab under the /dev/mmcda1 line...

/dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstorage auto noauto,owner 0 0

and mount the disk....

# mount /dev/sda1

# cd /mnt/usbstorage

and you're set... it even comes up automatically in the Files tab in Qtopia...

:z and 802.11b:
Having a wireless network at home needed to be connected to wireless access points, after reading all the praise on the forums for the socket wifi cf card, decided to find it in australia.... after much searching found 1 place who were selling it for around $300AUD, but the average being around $200!! Also all the online US retailers were not shipping overseas.... So went to the local Harris Technology store and got the D-Link 660W card. Which I must say is quite a good card aswell, I think I got over 5+ hours of wireless surfing from it... The card installed perfectly without changing any configs anywhere...

kismet: before a factory reset had kismet working... will post up the details when I get time next to do the install again.

.

:sony ericsson t630 and the mac:
After having a panasonic gd-51 for about a year, it was due for an upgrade too... It is the smallest phone ive every used and it did what i originally wanted it to do... be small and make phone calls... no fancy shmancy camera, bluetooth etc etc features needed.... but as a heavy business user, after a whle it just didn't cut it, for one thing talking outside on the phone was almost impossible in loud areas and it has a bug when charging the phone is complete, you (most of the time) need to turn it off and on to log onto the gsm network... if you don't all your calls goto voicemail and you miss important calls... not good!

So had a look around for a small phone that has bluetooth... the plan was to have the z on the net at all times when needed. Finally decided on the sony ericsson t630 after reading rave reviews about it and the fact that it syncs so well with the mac... Had a look at all the local phone stores around the area and found they were around $500-$600 without a plan... so hit ebay and found the cheapest price of $252 from a guy over in WA who gets them shipped from Hong Kong. Again I transferred to a local bank account in Australia and the phone arrived a week later from HK... and what a fantastic phone it is!!

I can't get over how much bluetooth integration the mac has with this phone.... It puts all my contacts and ical entries on the phone, alarms work perfectly... the bluetooth apps found on versiontracker integrate so well... have a look at Jon's Phone Tool, BluePhoneElite, Salling Clicker (you can control the mouse with your phone!) and Romeo. The only downside is that bluetooth does drain the battery, but the convenience of it is fantastic.

Highly recommend this phone if you use a mac!

:se t630 and optus:
being connected to optus, i wanted to get gprs working with the provider, fiddling around a while did not manage to get it to work with outdated information on the net... the optus site didnt have that much info aswell! so rang the helpdesk and the techie on the other end sent me 3 configs which set up the phone automatically.

They are called Optus GPRS ISP, yesinfo WAPand MMS. To use the phone to browse sites using Wap, just need to goto Connectivity -> WAP Options -> WAP Profiles -> yesinfo WAP.

If I want to use the the phone for bluetooth connectivity to GRPS, then need to change to Optus GPRS ISP. The configs for the 2 profiles are below:

For WAP.

APN: wap.optus.net.au

For GPRS

APN: internet

I've successfully connected the mac to the internet over bluetooth to Optus GPRS... the connection is like a dial up... but for terminal access and pine and text based commands its is sufficient to use.... web pages are a bit slow, but acceptible... To set up a sony ericsson t630 to connect via bluetooth, get the following files from http://www.taniwha.org.uk/files/SonyEricsson3G-2005-01.sit. Extract them in to /Library/Modem Scripts. Then load up:

:z and bluetooth: (z and the t630)
The final step was to have connectivity to the phone to connect out to the net. After trying to have irda connectivity between the z and the phone and discovering that the z doesnt like the t630's irda protocol, the next option was to use bluetooth.So..

Decided on the BlueMonkey CF card from expansys.

1) downloaded--> bluez_zaurus_2.12_2.4.20_alpha4_arm.ipk

- just a hint from my experience... remove any irda connections when you install the above package. A funny thing kept occuring, upon installing the stack, it dropped into console and rebooted the machine. It hung on the CG Silicon screen, I had to reset the Z manually... it seemed to install ok once rebooted and the Z recognised the card as the BTM010.

2) downloaded suspend-resume-architecture

3) downloaded sudo

4) Install qtopia-pannetworkapplet 1.0.1, qtopia-bluetoothnetworkapplet 1.0.1, java_slc3000.

# modprobe hci_uart

# hciattach /dev/ttyS3 bcsp

# sdptool browse - should find your bluetooth devices

4) edit /etc/bluetooth/pin and put your own pin in there

5) edit /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf and put in your phone's bdaddr (something like 00:0A:1F:XX:XX:0A;)

- you can get this info if you do # hcitool browse

- save the info and go into network settings

6) Set up a new bluetooth connection. Name is anything

- phone number is "*99***3#"

-username/password are blank

- Modem is /dev/rfcomm0

- init string: ATZ

- Speed: 115200

:next challenges:

- more usb connectivity

- cross compiling

- arm-gcc on linux

- arm-gcc on mac

- bluetooth hacking tools to be compiled for the z...

- full screen divx and multimedia stuff

Hope some of this information is helpful, This is in no way complete, will be updating the info as time goes on. Please feel free to contact me to discuss any of the experiences. 28/04/05.