Chumby/Chumby-like/Terminal Equivalent?
John A. Zoidberg
Posts: 514
Hey there,
When I was younger, my father used to have the Casio Digital Diary back in '94 when he brought it back from USA. I was amazed at that thing, despite it being 32kb storage, and he could stow endless amounts of phone numbers, names, notes, whatever and even alarm clock. Also, I've seen a hi-fi set console with a mini-TV on it (I'm not kidding here!), and imagined that if I could fuse these "digital diary" and the "mini-TV". On times, I would draw a "digital diary" equivalent with radio, music player and the stuff. That was in '94 and I was 8, so the miniaturization technology was still too new at that time.
Now, I came back to think of it, but I read about the Chumby thing. Too bad they don't have it in SE Asia, so I'm brewing some ideas of a cheap home made Chumby using a Propeller.
I believe that the Propeller could handle video signals, and all I need is a simple screen to display messages and today's news on it.
On top of that, it shows the clock, weather, playing some MP3/WAV/Midi off the SD-Card with some decent volume, and a FM radio.
Could it be done? Would like to hear some opinions.
When I was younger, my father used to have the Casio Digital Diary back in '94 when he brought it back from USA. I was amazed at that thing, despite it being 32kb storage, and he could stow endless amounts of phone numbers, names, notes, whatever and even alarm clock. Also, I've seen a hi-fi set console with a mini-TV on it (I'm not kidding here!), and imagined that if I could fuse these "digital diary" and the "mini-TV". On times, I would draw a "digital diary" equivalent with radio, music player and the stuff. That was in '94 and I was 8, so the miniaturization technology was still too new at that time.
Now, I came back to think of it, but I read about the Chumby thing. Too bad they don't have it in SE Asia, so I'm brewing some ideas of a cheap home made Chumby using a Propeller.
I believe that the Propeller could handle video signals, and all I need is a simple screen to display messages and today's news on it.
On top of that, it shows the clock, weather, playing some MP3/WAV/Midi off the SD-Card with some decent volume, and a FM radio.
Could it be done? Would like to hear some opinions.
Comments
Best Buy was selling these for $40-$50 around last Christmas and is currently selling them for $70. I bought one and it works great. It has a built in 802.11g wireless and does a great job streaming Pandora. Note the SD card is internal to the device and is used to hold the Chumby OS.
I think it would be difficult to run Chumby apps on a Propeller based deviced. Chumby apps are written in Flash with a resolution of 320 x 240, 16 bit color, 12 fps along with streaming video/audio.
Yes - I agree that it's difficult to run Chumby apps into it because these are flash based.
What I am aiming is actually a non-flash, simple and quick Chumby-like/small terminal in the bedroom. Terminal that shows today's weather, or what to eat nearby. It doesn't have to be a Flash or playing videos at all - just simple and modular programs written inside will do.
I'm still cooking up an idea about the implementation. It looks a bit funny to me, but I hope it is feasible.
Found it: RobotShop has some chumby stuff.
Oh that's something like that! Thanks for the inspiration!