From: TP Diffenbach <tp_at_diffenbach.org>
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 18:48:19 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se [mailto:owner-rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se]On
Behalf Of Uwe Freese
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 2:36 PM
To: Fred
Subject: Re[2]: Do you have an FM Recorder? Help me with measurement
values for charging code!


I also suggest to charge only with the Archos firmware until we
know more.

Bye, Uwe.
-----End Original Message-----

Praise and elation: a somewhat disjointed assessment of the Rockbox FM
build.

Ahem. We might want to emphasize that "charge only with the firmware" bit,
as I've installed the new Rockbox FM recorder OS, and have been charging
with it for the last hour. Frankly, my Archos /is/ a bit hot.

As Mr. Freese suggests, the new FM OS isn't quite ready for prime time. When
I first installed it, it booted Rockbox and immediately turned itself off.
When I plugged in the charger, it booted successfully.

I'd never had the chance to actually use Rockbox before. At first the
contrast was /way too/ high. With just a bit of trouble, I found the
settings and adjusted the contrast. Some more fumbling ensued until I
realized that the Rockbox UI is far more intuitive and natural that the
Archos UI. Once I tried doing thing the obvious way rather than the Archos
way, I had no trouble.

And is Rockbox ever a beauty!!

Let me take the time to compliment the Rockbox designers: the UI is
intuitive, and the amount of user customization is excellent -- even
ignoring WPSs and such, being able to change the battery and volume
indicators, set the contrast, and /actually see the time/ is wonderful.
(Contrary to the Archos manual, I'd never even gotten a time display on my
Archos before.)

Let me also compliment the programmers: perhaps it's subjective, but
directory navigation appears to be much faster (and perhaps because it
appears it's doing fewer disk accesses?). Of course, the real test us that
the music plays; it does seem the highest volume level is a bit
higher/rougher?

No, it's not subjective, I just had another go at it: directory access is
much faster. A quibble: down arrow doesn't seem to turn on the backlight,
the other three navigation keys do.

The Fonts. Oh yeah. Baby. Oh baby. Why Archos doesn't just hire the Rockbox
team I just don't know. Archos is definitely missing the mark on this one.

The demos /work/ while the Archos is /playing/? That's exceeding my
expectations. (still I guess much of the decoding is on the DAT chip, but
still.) The Snow demo doesn't seem to do anything however. And the Tetris
game is rotated 90 degrees to the left. :)

The recording level changes with the noise level as expected; I wasn't able
to save a recording, but that's probably because I need to RTFM.

It's probably my imagination, but the drive seems to spin down awfully
quickly when the "off" button is pressed.

So, that's my subjective impression. If I can be of any help to anyone as
far as testing the new FM OS, please let me know.

Oh, and when do I get my FM Radio? :) No, seriously, if the power level bit
can be ironed out, this looks sweet.

My great thanks to all the contributors.
Received on 2003-01-27