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-   -   Broken screen - need measurements (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=25746)

Benji 2008-12-22 18:18

Broken screen - need measurements
 
Last night, my N810 landed flat on the hardwood floor, and the display cracked. The unit still seems to work fine - I get the expected start-up sound a short while after turning on power, I can connect it to my laptop as a USB storage device, and the touchscreen and keys make the expected clicking noises on the speakers - but the display is utterly garbled.

I'm still debating exactly what course of action to take, but in the meantime I'd like to get my data out of the internal memory. The only real barrier to this is getting the unit to connect to my home network (without being able to see the display), after which I can use SSH/SFTP to clean things up.

What I'm hoping is that someone could provide me with the offset (in, say, millimeters) from the edge of the touchscreen to the center of each of the 3 rightmost icons (I can't remember exactly which position the icon for network connectivity was taking, but I know it was on the far right side). After that, the vertical offset for the "connect" item in the menu (or, better yet, a series of keypresses to select and activate this item). Once I have the connection dialog open, the home network should come up as the default - can someone confirm for me that I could connect by pressing either "enter" or the "center" button in the middle of the "arrows"?

Alternatively, if anybody knows of a way to establish this network connection using only keypresses, this would be even better, since I can't be sure that the touchscreen is working properly.

Of course, if anyone has any alternative suggestions for accessing /home/user on my unit, I'd be open to those as well.

Much thanks in advance!

|)
|)enji

jmjanzen 2008-12-22 19:33

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
how about using the power button to turn off the wifi antenna (second item down), then turn it on again? mine automatically connects to my home network when i do that.

(i'm also a little confused. i thought the tablet did periodic searches for nearby routers and automatically connects to previously saved connections. you might find that the tablet connects all by itself if you wait long enough.)

tso 2008-12-22 19:46

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jmjanzen (Post 251806)
(i'm also a little confused. i thought the tablet did periodic searches for nearby routers and automatically connects to previously saved connections. you might find that the tablet connects all by itself if you wait long enough.)

at least coming out of offline mode, that feature is broken...

Benson 2008-12-22 20:42

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
It should connect automatically if you open a bookmark in the browser. From power on, you could try:
  • Left side, top corner (I think that's the default location for the bookmark menu...)
  • 1" from left, slightly above center: first bookmark.
  • If you're in online mode, it should just connect.
    • If you're in offline mode, you'll shortly hear a notification beep; this signals the "Exit offline mode?"
    • D-pad center: selects OK
    • Wait ~10 seconds, while "Select connection" comes up and scans. Don't wait too long, though, or you may catch it in the middle of a rescan.
    • D-pad center: selects top entry, which will be a memorized connection if one is found.
  • And you're done; should be accessible via SSH now.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Benji (Post 251778)
Of course, if anyone has any alternative suggestions for accessing /home/user on my unit, I'd be open to those as well.

Well, booting off an SD could work, if you used an image (e.g. Debian) preconfigured to automatically connect to your wifi, or to use a USB-serial adapter or similar...

The serial-console route is, in a way, perhaps the easiest to implement; it requires no screen input at all. You use flasher-3.0 to set the serial-console rd-flag over USB, and use a hacked-up USB-RS232 (w/o level conversion) cable. But that does involve soldering, and maybe jury-rigging a connector.

tso 2008-12-22 21:01

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
hmm, it would be interesting to have a cable like that, is there some info somewhere?

Benson 2008-12-22 21:11

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by tso (Post 251828)
hmm, it would be interesting to have a cable like that, is there some info somewhere?

http://wiki.maemo.org/Compiling_the_kernel has some info, and I think I've seen info from people who've made cables posted on itT a couple times.

However, on still more thought, I believe qwerty12 has posted an initfs that used either a USB-RS232 cable and USB host mode, or made the N8x0 appear as a USB-RS232 in USB device mode (I don't recall which) for serial console use at bootup; reflashing the initfs with such an image would be as easy and use only COTS hardware...

Benji 2008-12-22 21:26

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by jmjanzen (Post 251806)
(i'm also a little confused. i thought the tablet did periodic searches for nearby routers and automatically connects to previously saved connections. you might find that the tablet connects all by itself if you wait long enough.)

Sorry for the confusion. I'd forgotten that auto-connection was the default behavior, or I would have mentioned that I'd disabled it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benson (Post 251822)
It should connect automatically if you open a bookmark in the browser. From power on, you could try:
  • Left side, top corner (I think that's the default location for the bookmark menu...)
  • 1" from left, slightly above center: first bookmark.
  • If you're in online mode, it should just connect.
    • If you're in offline mode, you'll shortly hear a notification beep; this signals the "Exit offline mode?"
    • D-pad center: selects OK
    • Wait ~10 seconds, while "Select connection" comes up and scans. Don't wait too long, though, or you may catch it in the middle of a rescan.
    • D-pad center: selects top entry, which will be a memorized connection if one is found.
  • And you're done; should be accessible via SSH now.

That's done it! Thanks a million! :)

bongo 2008-12-22 23:29

Re: Broken screen - need measurements
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Benji (Post 251778)

I'm still debating exactly what course of action to take, but

Yeah, a new display costs around 100€ (140$)
That's enough to buy a Nokia 770 :D


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