HP IPAQ 310 Hacking

[JoeBuck]

I just picked up an HP IPAQ 310 GPS device based on Windows CE 5.0. As far as standalone GPS devices go this one is very highly spec'ed:

http://www.amazon.com/310-Bluetooth-4-3-Inch-Widescreen-Navigator/dp/B000VRYLU2

600Mhz DualCore Centrality Titan Platform with on-chip GPS
300Mhz DSP
128MB RAM
2GB Flash
4.3" 800x480 LCD display
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
USB 2.0
Windows.CE 5.0

It currently runs a variant of IGO 2008 navigation program and has some onboard games from PDAMill.

This is my first Window.CE project. Does anyone know where I can get the appopriate BSPs etc.. to allow me to build a bootable/working CE Image from Platform Builder 5 or 6 with full driver support?

My dream is to put a Microsoft Automotive software stack on this see how close I can get to a converged device like the Microsoft/Ford Sync. It will also be a learning experience.

In particular my end goal is to enable the following scenarios:


Voice recognition
Bluetooth DUN/PAN
Bluetooth Handsfree and voice dialing
Information Services (via web services interface to online services from Google & Microsoft). Think of movie times/locations, traffic, gas prices,address/phone/poi lookup etc..
Full fidelity video/audio player
Launch native and emulated games
Plug-in framework to extend the features
Navigation

[bchau]

The spec of the HP 310 Travel Companion is very impressive and I like the idea of it being a multi-purpose device. The 4.3 inch display is large enough for use as a GPS as well as watching videos. Seriously I wouldn't need GPS function every day so it is great be able to use it for other purposes. I wish one day it would be able to receive free digital TV signal like those from DVB-T or DVB-H. That would make it a truly Travel Companion.

[levenum]

Wow you really are dreaming if you think you can get a BSP for this device.
Or for any device for that matter.

These are never released and I never even heard of one being leaked! Just like any other proprietary code BSPs are highly guarded.

What you are trying to do is pretty ambitious, but if you want to rebuild OS for something by your self you better get a Linux device.

Sorry.

[JoeBuck]

Wow you really are dreaming if you think you can get a BSP for this device.
Or for any device for that matter.

These are never released and I never even heard of one being leaked! Just like any other proprietary code BSPs are highly guarded.

What you are trying to do is pretty ambitious, but if you want to rebuild OS for something by your self you better get a Linux device.

Sorry.
Okay. Does anyone know much about the Microsoft Sync / Microsoft Automative software stack for Windows CE?

[TFGBD]

Regarding Windows Automotive:

You must be dreaming if you think you can source an Windows Automotive (or is it Microsoft Auto now?) OEM Adaptation Kit to do this!

As I understand, you need to be a huge OEM/ODM or car manufacturer like Ford and sign an NDA to even get any kind of access to it.

Considering its difficult enough to even source a Windows Mobile kit, I'd imagine its even harder to get Windows Automotive considering the circumstances...


However, there may be another way to source the Windows Automotive OS components besides obtaining an official kit...

Perhaps if there are some firmware updates for one of the Windows Automotive devices from Fiat, Ford, Clarion, etc. you can dump the ROM image and extract the files. Now, even if you do that you might still need to fix the relocations of every dll file...but it still might work on your HP after all that. I'd imagine you would also need to manually figure out the skin format of the Windows Automotive apps since you don't have the actual desktop tools to generate them... ;)

I doubt you would really even need to source a BSP and build an image once you get this far. Chances are the apps you extract will run just fine from an SD card or the internal flash disk of your device if configured properly.

[yodafone]

Off topic...

I managed to brick one of these today within the first hour. Just testing out Flux Challenge when it threw up a Please Wait screen. Soft-reset and now it sticks at the HP splash screen; had to get it sent back. Thank goodness I was only testing it.

Given this plus its molasses-slow performance, I think I'd choose something else if I really wanted to do any sort of modding... :D

[modellbobby]

Hi i have a 314 UK Version and wants to flash it with the german version.

Has anybody tried it ?

[cr2]

Hi i have a 314 UK Version and wants to flash it with the german version.


Where did you get the ROM ? :)

[lbendlin]

some sort of firmware update is on the HP FTP server (also includes newer maps)

Use the engineering mode to dump and restore the ROM.

[klingklang01]

have an Ipaq 310 running igo8 and finean4, like to get garmin but seems to have a resolution problem, anyboby can help plz"

[8/23/08 21:36:29 67512KB 4.20.50wp]
GFX_buf_alloc: Invalid area (-20048 480)
[8/23/08 21:36:29 67508KB 4.20.50wp]
Failure 87 allocating bitmap of size (-20048,480) 16 bpp (0)
[8/23/08 21:36:29 67448KB 4.20.50wp]
Read Access violation at data address 0xFFFFFFFC.
Program address 0x00058080 in background thread NULL (CSubAppThread::Run Garmin Mobile XT)
[8/23/08 21:36:30 67440KB 4.20.50wp]
CALL STACK:
0x18156EC0
0x182B7104
0x029FC9C4
0x02A03D24
0x93C0A090
0x93C33EA8
0x93C0DEB4
0x93C09FA8
0x18058080
0x18059900
0x180D18B8
0x180D1CEC
0x182B71E0
0x182B7010
0x182B6C54
0x029DDF04

[menghaur]

have an Ipaq 310 running igo8 and finean4, like to get garmin but seems to have a resolution problem, anyboby can help plz"

[8/23/08 21:36:29 67512KB 4.20.50wp]
GFX_buf_alloc: Invalid area (-20048 480)
[8/23/08 21:36:29 67508KB 4.20.50wp]
Failure 87 allocating bitmap of size (-20048,480) 16 bpp (0)
[8/23/08 21:36:29 67448KB 4.20.50wp]
Read Access violation at data address 0xFFFFFFFC.
Program address 0x00058080 in background thread NULL (CSubAppThread::Run Garmin Mobile XT)
[8/23/08 21:36:30 67440KB 4.20.50wp]
CALL STACK:
0x18156EC0
0x182B7104
0x029FC9C4
0x02A03D24
0x93C0A090
0x93C33EA8
0x93C0DEB4
0x93C09FA8
0x18058080
0x18059900
0x180D18B8
0x180D1CEC
0x182B71E0
0x182B7010
0x182B6C54
0x029DDF04

Is seem to be the resolution problem of our GPS... I'm having the same issue also. We need to find some doc to change the resolution... I'm still searching for the solution, any1 know how to cange it???

Regards,
Jeff

[MikeInHouston]

This is an old post but I thought I'd confirm a couple things for the record, should anybody be looking into this kind of info in future although the device is technically EOL.

As far as I know, this iPAQ is the only device to have ever even used the (exact) processor it's using.

Yes this is the only iPAQ with a dual core processor for that matter.

And funny? Funny is that when it's on a charger (any external power at all) it runs at half speed (300 MHz) but when completely on battery it runs at 600 MHz.

The original USB 2.0 spec called for no more than 500ma to be pumped through the USB line. Around the time WM5 was being rolled out, HP had to wrestle with the USB klan to convince them that wasn't enough to run a device and charge it. HP was making better use of the standard by doing more with it than the authorities thought was needed. They eventually backed off and HP up through the time I'm writing this ships an AC adapter with each device that has a mini or micro USB connector; obviouisly needed since the 22-pin connector died with the 6900 (Moose) device. The adapters provide up to 1000ma of juice.

Now consider this: Prior to dropping the 22-pin connector HP shipped 2amp chargers which provided enough juice to run the device and charge the battery at the same time. The 22-pin standard came out with the h3800 Series which ran a 400MHz ARM single core and didn't have fancy stuff like WiFi built in, and only had a standard QVGA (320x240) screen.

So how could a device with a GPS, such a larger screen, and a dual core 600MHz CPU be expected to even operate with a 1amp charger, let alone charge the battery?

Playing with the OS - Differences between WinCE platforms

For those who would like to play with the OS, understand this device runs Windows Mobile 5 for devices and NOT the Pocket PC OS. Pocket PC was a platform, just like SmartPhone was a platform. Although Microsoft changes the names to confuse the innocent, we're still talking about a few significant differences.

Consider Pocket PC (or WinMo or WinMo classic depending on the wind and Microsoft's mood), a superset of WinCE that adds a few other things to the core WinCE 5 platform. Search the web for posts by people who have managed to get PocketPC apps to run on their Handheld PC (HPC) such as the MobilePro 900c. The same kind of things would apply to the iPAQ 300. The differences are not all that significant if you know which DLLs need to be added.

In short, the iPAQ 300 Series is closer to a HPC than PocketPC OS-wise. The good news is, this version of Platform Builder can be purchased, whereas the one for WinMo is strictly guarded by Microsoft and released only to OEMs like HP and Dell.

The hardest thing you'll run across is that the digitizer drivers were not optimized for fine work, just for finger use. When you bypass the NavNGo "OS" to run the underlying WinCE OS and try to use a soft keyboard, for example, you'll see the jitter I'm talking about.

The iPAQ 300 Series could have been more but it was designed to compete with other GPS devices and that's really all. The hardware was really pretty great, but the device shipped with significant bugs that were addressed post-release.

If you want a PocketPC that also has GPS, the h5900 Series was a better choice. Not dual core CPU though :)

[bobzero]

Anyone still running this fine device?

I've got mine running Igo8.3, works pretty good.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone is running Primo on it.

Also, anyone know where to get a TMC antenna for this unit?

Cheers

[Madaz2]

i still have a working one

unfortunately i think it have gone into battery shutdown to little charge in the battery for an extended period of time,

it will however come to life if i plug it into the car

i was thinking tonight it would be cool to hack droid onto it