asked 2013-12-26 08:42:14 +0300
I would like to extend my Jolla with desktop dock otherHalf
Connectivity:
What kind of use cases you might have for desktop dock?
answered 2014-02-14 23:33:46 +0300
I'd prefer it if i had desktop functionality without an OH.
Just be able to connect to a monitor with an HDMI or whatever cable and launch a full desktop from an icon on the screen.
As for mouse and keyboard you can use BT or have the screen as a trackpad and use the built in VKB when you need to type.
Be part of the PC everywhere era and not the post pc BS. :)
answered 2014-01-16 13:43:52 +0300
A display requires quite a high data rate to be usable. The I2C pins on TOH only allows a data rate of 400kHz which is not enough to send a video stream. Could be done over WiFi though (NFC is also too slow), but that requires a fair bit of electronics on TOH
answered 2014-02-14 18:59:09 +0300
The dock would indeed be nice, but the current Jolla HW simply does not make it possible.There are only two real data buses available: an USB slave and an I2C master (on TOH contact pins).
The 400 kHz mentioned is I2C maximum clock frequency; even if each and every clock pulse could be used to transfer one bit of data (which isn't the case, there are always control bits in the flow), the bandwidth would fall sorely short of anything needed to transfer modern resolutions to external displays at anything over a single image every few minutes (think about playing a game and getting a full frame every ten minutes, line by line). NFC is even more useless for data transfer; it is intended for transferring data in tiny bursts, less than 100 bytes at a time, and running transfer continuously would exceed the intended design tolerances.
The USB is a less hopeless case: the Jolla does not have a hardware USB host, but it may, just may, be possible to do most of the host functions in software, but even then the CPU would choke trying to run the data flow byte by byte in a crippled mock-up of a real USB with direct memory access and the system would still be useless. Additionally, the getting any device to handshake properly with the Frankenstein-USB-host would be very challenging. So no USB-onnected peripheral devices like mice, keyboards, printers or graphics chips.
MHL requires special hardware on the device side; there has to be a chip that compresses and reformats the graphics output data onto a single differential pair of wires used in normal USB and even the signaling schemes are different from normal USB, so it cannot be done in software either. Jolla does not have such a chip built-in, so MHL is simply impossible.
Let's hope the next iteration includes MHL/micro-HDMI and USB OTG so that we can start building or simply using docks... Ubuntu project already has demonstrated a concept around this idea, Sailfish would surely work just as well on the desktop ;)
answered 2014-02-14 22:44:25 +0300
Maybe this goes to 2nd gen phone, but something like 60GHz WiGig link, wireless PCI bridge. Dell uses this with wireless docking, realised by Wilocity http://wilocity.com/products/products
answered 2013-12-29 01:41:01 +0300
External display is impossible, the used technology is only usable on a 400 KHz frequency.
mouse/keyboard and charger should be possible though.
Could you please clarify, why it's not possible? What is "400khz" frequency? I think that you mean NFC, but it's not explicit in yoyr answer.
I have included into idea also a possibility to use usb-vga and mhl.. Both of those technologies use usb, not i2c and other OtherHalf connections (like NFC).
So, I have to say that I disagree with your argument.
LaruX ( 2013-12-29 13:32:50 +0300 )editAsked: 2013-12-26 08:42:14 +0300
Seen: 4,750 times
Last updated: Feb 14 '14
I guess it goes without saying but the dock should charge the phone as well
JaviMerino ( 2013-12-26 09:42:30 +0300 )editYes, I added this to my question
LaruX ( 2013-12-26 09:53:04 +0300 )editI get it, and can nearly agree. But, I wonder, even with the obvious performance gains by having a hard connection - can one expect the specs of the Jolla to support this? If a beefer processor, maybe so. Maybe.
arjwright ( 2013-12-29 04:25:34 +0300 )editHow about they make the next Jolla phone somehow compatible with a vidock? http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock Would that satisfy you? I'd like to see that and as soon as it detects vidock connection it boots into steam OS. Then you have a dual Steambox Jolla phone.
aironeousb ( 2014-01-16 18:29:51 +0300 )editVidock looks C00l, however, it's _too much_ :-)
LaruX ( 2014-01-16 22:12:49 +0300 )edit