getting into android
Table of Contents
I am a late comer to the Android craze. I got to play with one recently at the Linux Symposium in Montreal, and I decided I have to get one. I ended up picking up a pair from ebay – one to hack on, and one to carry in my pocket.
I’d like to work on the core platform and not so much the apps.
Anyway, my storey is boring so far.
Below are the interesting links I found so far while researching the platform.
Names. #
Note that the device I am talking about here is the T-Mobile G1, known to some as the Android Dev Phone 1, to others as the HTC Dream, or just as Google Phone.
I’ll just call it the G1… because it’s short.
Hardware. #
First let’s start with the guts. It was amazingly hard to find the hardware block diagram for the G1.
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Specification
- HTC Dream product specs - Platform info from the horse’s mouth.
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Architecture
- phoneWreck’s T-Mobile G1 – Review and Teardown - This is where the block diagram came from. They also ripped the phone apart to show all the components.
- techonline’s Under the Hood: Android dreams, GooglePhone delivers - Similar article, briefly covers the major hardware components.
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CPU/chipset
The heart of the G1 is an ARM11 based RISC processor from Qualcomm – wrapped into a MSM7201A chipset. Note that the ARM family is ARM11, but the architecture version is ARMv6 (see wikipedia).
I have yet to be able to find any low level information on the MSM7201A. The official page on the MSM7201A Chipset Solution from Qualcomm is rather shallow.
Dave Sparks was seen saying:
Chipset vendors consider that information a trade secret and only release it to high-volume customers that have signed non-disclosure agreements.
Anyway, here is what I found:
- PDAdb.net’s MSM7201A Chipset simplified technical specifications
- htc-linux’s Kernel for MSM7xxxA based devices
- ARM’s instruction set page
- ARM’s ARMv6 architecture document
- ARM1136J(F)-S technical reference manual
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Emulator
- official Android emulator page
- T-Mobile G1 Emulator powered by Modea presentation
- Google Android Emulator Tutorial
- Sensor Simulator
How To’s #
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Building
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Setting up
- How to Setup T-Mobile G1 on EDGE on Rogers/Fido - for Canadians
- Rogers HTC Dream review - 3g with radio tunes to rogers network, and other features.
- wikipedia’s Mobile Network Code could be useful if you need the MCC/MNC codes for your region.
- How to Setup T-Mobile G1 on EDGE on Rogers/Fido - for Canadians
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Other weird stuff
Resources #
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Web sites
- Android developers site
- Android open source project and documentation pages
- Wikipedia’s android, HTC dream, ARM pages
- xda-developers’ HTC Dream Wiki page - The basics ont eh pone, links to android SDKs, links to other websites.
- Android Spin - tracks unofficial firmware releases
- How to Unlock T-mobile G1 - so that it can be used on a non-Tmobile network; NOTE that there are lots of other sites that provide this service.
- Droidproof
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More for Canadians that will use the Tmobile phone on Rogers network:
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for Rogers branded Dream phones
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Software
- AndroidIRC - apparently the only irc client worth getting
- ConnectBot - ssh client for android
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IRC
#htc-linuxonirc.freenode.org(archive) - deals with running Linux on HTC devices.#androidonirc.freenode.org- deals with writing apps for the Android platform#android-devonirc.freenode.org- deals with developing the Android platform
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