New Irex Reader 1000

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Coming out of suspend or hibernate mode is much faster.

I believe zooming is still supported.

Coming out of suspend or hibernate mode will be much faster... if they get it working later. I'm glad to see that they acknowledge that people want suspend and hibernate (they seemed surprised people wanted those features for the iLiad), but it took them quite a while to figure out they couldn't do it with the iLiad due to hardware design. I'm afraid I won't believe they can do it with the DR1000 until they demonstrate it working.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

The 505 does. The 500 used the iRex alpha controller, which is what most of the other devices still use (kindle, cybook, etc). I think Epson is also making a 9.7" screen controller. I'm not sure if that's what most companies will use for their new devices or if iRex is working on one as well.

Nope. The 505 uses Metronome aka "8-track" controller developed by E-Ink and implemented using an FPGA chip. Epson's S1D13521 was not even announced when the 505 came out.
According to Astak people, the latest planned date of availability for the Epson chip is late November.
For completeness' sake, all(?) other 6" readers (Kindle, Cybook/Netronix, lBook/Hanlin) use the Apollo controller, which AFAIK was originally developed by Philips and is being produced by PVI.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I do too, but it's probably a lot harder than it sounds. The new device is running a different generation of the linux kernel and it's also got a significantly faster processor and more memory. As a software developer myself, I don't find it that hard to believe that the new and improved software just won't run on the older iLiad, or else be so resource intensive on the older hardware that it's unusable.

Blaming the hardware difference to not be able to port software is IMHO also 99% likely a blant lie. I mean 2.6 kernel and 2.4 kernel are from user application perspective almost identically. I mean what do we have standards like Posix for?

Personally I feell a bit "fucked" by iRex when they stated they will not make any software improvements to the iLiad anymore, but simple bugfixes, but even keep selling this device! (a.k.a. lets hope some idiots buy our rest of stock empty)

I mean we are the 1% of people in the product lifecycle that are willing to buy overpriced products that are not fully developed, The early adopters.. That even try to convince all their friends how cool this new technologies are, and they need also some. At least as much I understand from marketing this is the costumer group you need to care for most. Also some say "opinion leaders" to them. That are the people who bought the iLiad. However it seems like you are leaving them pretty much in the stake now. We'll see how this works out, I mean what do I care? its not my company.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Coming out of suspend or hibernate mode will be much faster... if they get it working later.

True. If the lack of suspend/hibernate is a show stopper for you, then don't buy it until they get it working.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Nope. The 505 uses Metronome aka "8-track" controller developed by E-Ink and implemented using an FPGA chip. Epson's S1D13521 was not even announced when the 505 came out.
According to Astak people, the latest planned date of availability for the Epson chip is late November.

I'm sure you're right, but the point is that the 505 is using a non-iRex controller (whoever else it comes from), and the other current devices are using iRex controllers. The specifics of exactly which controller the 505 uses isn't important (at least in relation to what we were talking about).

For completeness' sake, all(?) other 6" readers (Kindle, Cybook/Netronix, lBook/Hanlin) use the Apollo controller, which AFAIK was originally developed by Philips and is being produced by PVI.

Yes, then the people at Philips that originally developed it became "iRex". They also developed the Delta controller, which is what the iLiad and DR1000 use.

[-Thomas-]

Originally Posted by axel77

Blaming the hardware difference to not be able to port software is IMHO also 99% likely a blant lie. I mean 2.6 kernel and 2.4 kernel are from user application perspective almost identically. I mean what do we have standards like Posix for?

IIRC the problem was that the drivers for the Delta and Wifi chips were only available for 2.4. They only had a development driver for the Delta chip for 2.6, but not for the Wifi chip.

[nekokami]

Hm. So are they going to use the same Wifi chip in the DR1000SW? If so, that means someone's working on a 2.6 driver, because that's what the DR1000 series uses. Might be possible to upgrade the iLiad after that.

Unless they're going with a different WiFi chip specifically because they couldn't get a driver for the one in the iLiad....

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by -Thomas-

IIRC the problem was that the drivers for the Delta and Wifi chips were only available for 2.4. They only had a development driver for the Delta chip for 2.6, but not for the Wifi chip.

There was also a problem with the USB chip in the iLiad, wasn't there?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Unless they're going with a different WiFi chip specifically because they couldn't get a driver for the one in the iLiad....

I would assume it's a different WiFi chip.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by -Thomas-

IIRC the problem was that the drivers for the Delta and Wifi chips were only available for 2.4. They only had a development driver for the Delta chip for 2.6, but not for the Wifi chip.

That should make any of the pdf viewer, content listener, mobireader and such software incompatible? This is all user level, and I know enough of computer science to not buy any Wifi or USB chip driver story for this part of the software.

[-Thomas-]

Originally Posted by axel77

That should make any of the pdf viewer, content listener, mobireader and such software incompatible? This is all user level, and I know enough of computer science to not buy any Wifi or USB chip driver story for this part of the software.

Well, at least the content lister has some direct hardware dependency (Wacom tablet, hardware buttons etc.). But in fact I think that at least some software can be ported back to the iLiad. iRex is well-advised to release as much source code as possible, so we can see what will run on the iLiad.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by axel77

That should make any of the pdf viewer, content listener, mobireader and such software incompatible? This is all user level, and I know enough of computer science to not buy any Wifi or USB chip driver story for this part of the software.

Originally Posted by -Thomas-

Well, at least the content lister has some direct hardware dependency (Wacom tablet, hardware buttons etc.). But in fact I think that at least some software can be ported back to the iLiad. iRex is well-advised to release as much source code as possible, so we can see what will run on the iLiad.

I'd hope that some of it is portable too, which is what I was saying. However, it's easy to see why all of it may not be. It's a lot more complicated than just saying it's "user level", because much of it has direct ties/dependencies to the kernel/driver level. The UI is not all just user level.

Then you get into the whole realm of CPU/memory and usable performance. Even if it's technically possible to port some pieces of the UI, it could easily be the case that if you did it would run so poorly that the end user wouldn't want it.

I know it's not the answer you want to hear, and it's not the answer I wanted to hear either. But I can understand how it may be true.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by -Thomas-

iRex is well-advised to release as much source code as possible, so we can see what will run on the iLiad.

That's an interesting thought. If they really are abandoning feature enhancements to the Iliad, would they be willing to release all of the code? Including things like the content lister and how it interacts with the hardware that has previously been closed. That would give third party developers the information they need to design a new UI themselves.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's an interesting thought. If they really are abandoning feature enhancements to the Iliad, would they be willing to release all of the code? Including things like the content lister and how it interacts with the hardware that has previously been closed. That would give third party developers the information they need to design a new UI themselves.

That could take a lot of the sting out of the situation. We might be able to sponsor some developers to work on enhancements, even beyond what people will do on their own.

[Over]

Originally Posted by tribble

That has been the main reason to become a reseller. To get the new gadgets a bit early. And see whats happening on that market.

I'm looking forward for your video, tribble!

No pressure.