If everything is stored on a single card, it might make for some interesting things. Keep in mind that I am not a programmer or an expert, so the following may not be completely accurate. I'm assuming that Humanware partitioned the card with the standard Android partitions. There's probably one for data for apps, the internal SD card which takes up the bulk of the user storage, the system partition that holds all default software and special braille configuration, and probably some cache partitions. I'm assuming performing a factory restore clears everything except the system partition. Humanware must solely control that area of the disk when performing updates. I guess it should be possible to create a full image with the appropriate software and make it bootable on other devices. It's not something I would try, but it does make me wonder. This is assuming that absolutely everything runs off this card. This might not be as bad as I thought. From all this, I'm assuming it would be trivial for Humanware to send you a new card with the system firmware on it.
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2024 Note on Registrations
Braille Note Touch (Page 5 of 5)
AudioGames.net Forum → Off-topic room → Braille Note Touch
Posts: 101 to 125 of 125
#102 2016-09-28 02:35:27
#103 2016-09-28 04:19:38 (edited by jack 2016-09-28 04:33:06)
I think Humanware must assume that the general population of its users are using windows, hence the sd card warning. Let's carefully look at the wording here and break this down. Do not tamper with the internal sd card, well yeah, that's obvious. Or use it in a *pc* as this may cause irreparable damage to your Touch. While it is true that the Touch absolutely does not start at all, or even so much as vibrate, when there is no sd card inside, let's take note that they did say, pc. Nowhere in there did they mention Linux or Mac! So as Finn Turner said, the sd card is ext4, which obviously is not recognized by Windows. But any Linux system would work, even a live cd for that matter? And Fuse for the mac should give us read access to the card. Meh, I should probably just use the whole card in Linux, but then again it depends on what I wanna do with the card. I e, do I perform just a regular system backup, or do I copy files to it? Answer the os question that way.
#104 2016-09-28 04:50:00
So am I reading correctly that I will not be able to put anything on my SD card through a computer? Or just the internal flash disk?
#105 2016-09-28 06:13:28 (edited by jack 2016-09-28 23:43:52)
There is no *internal flash disk.* That flash disk is, the sd card. And if you have a pc, the short answer is no. Actually there is an ext4 driver you can install for windows, though I can't speak to that since I haven't tried that on the windows side. Would suggest staying away from that for now. ON the mac side however, I can confirm that the sd card does indeed mount successfully, and I do have full read-write access to the card, thanks to Paragon's ext4 driver which I may decide to buy, who knows. Don't have the linux install handy all the time, so the driver may become useful. So, if you have a mac, get paragon ext4. I'd say get fuse but based on the comments on that thing it seems like that's had more bugs. From the guys who gave you ntfs for mac, I'd go with their ext4 driver even though it's paid.
#106 2016-09-28 12:52:41
I usually don't chime in on Humanware products, as i don't own any but, i bet performence is questionable with the OS running off of an Sd card. Come on Humanware, use a nand flash sollution or something. It's unfortunate, just use the cheapest hardware, and ramp up the prices.
#107 2016-09-28 13:05:55
How, then, am I to get anything onto my SD Card? This seems really impractical. I have lots of books I want on my card when I get the machine and if that's not possible...
#108 2016-09-28 13:07:46
You know, now that I think about it, that seems a bit fishy to me. I don't think that any company would not allow you to transfer data onto your unit from a different source. I'll write an email to a support specialist and ask if that's what they meant.
#109 2016-09-28 14:11:39
What they meant is you can't put the internal operating system sd card into your pc and use it with like Microsoft Word and such. I e, you can't use it as just any old sd card. If you insert the internal card, you get 4 partitions, those are the partitions used by the system. So what they mean is that no, you can't just pop it in your computer. But if you have mac or linux, you can. You can, however, use any external sd card. They say only up to 32gb, but my 64 gb works just fine, and i'm sure a 128gb would too. And the operating system performance is actually pretty good. Keep in mind some tablets used the removable sd card as well and worked just fine.
#110 2016-09-28 23:47:04 (edited by jack 2016-09-28 23:47:39)
Finnturner, could you upload keyterm? Also, another slight problem. Apparently the Touch doesn't seem to like files that I copy over to the card. I tried replacing the LowBattery.ogg sound in the media directory, didn't use the sound. Then again, maybe the sound is just a bit too long. And this is on the mac side, shouldn't matter anyway but maybe actual Linux may produce better results.
#111 2016-09-29 03:32:52
What partitions are available on the SD card? What is this key term program? Is it for entering terminal commands for the Android OS?
#112 2016-09-29 23:30:43
Yes, it is. It's like the terminal emulato rapp that comes with some custom rom.s Also, you have the system patrition, data, cache, and a recovery partition. Four partitions. This is on with it on the mac. The stuff inside data looks like it's hidden but that's probably finder just being finder. It shouldn't be hidden. But the system apps are visible, so you can see all the apps. Even mainmenu is an app, because remember, Android is modular, so everything's an app. Keysoft being a modified Talkback package at the heart isn't necessarily a bad thing. For the record, Touchbraille goes way beyond the accessibility api, so does first letter navigation in lists. The thing with an already existing screen reader that is pretty solid on Android itself, is that it can be built on pretty easily, and even more so when you have Google collaborating.
#113 2016-10-01 13:02:21
allrighty! *whew* this has become quite the dev thread, hasn't it! thing the first: keyterm, get int here: http://onj.me/keyterm. Next, replacing and modifying files in system partition. jack, put the following into a file called testsdcard (no extention) and place it in system/bin:
<<<<<code starts below here>>>>>
#!/bin/bash
echo this is a test to see whether the BrailleNote touch accepts custom files in /system.
echo there may be other partitions, use
echo cat /etc/fstab
echo to view them.
echo done here
<<<<<stop cutting>>>>>
if I can find an OMAP4 compiled version of su, I'll have you drop that in system/bin as well. The BNTouch, based on the fact it doesn't even vibrate without a card, I suspect even the base bootloader is stored on the SD card. the OMAP4 board bit bangs the SD as a generic block device until it's loaded enough code to access the SDCard as...well...an SDCard. Also who thinks I should do KeyRec, voice recording app, in the spirit of, start recording using internal microphone?
#114 2016-10-01 14:27:17
The cool thing would be to see if you can get the shutter button to Keyrec. Although, that may be an actual custom button. Doesn't work with Knfb yet which is what I think they'll fix in a firmware update that includes Knfb for free.
#115 2016-10-01 23:46:14
no the shutter button is just ANR_KEY_CAMERASHUTTER_SINGLESTAGE
#116 2016-10-02 10:21:16
alright, I may be insane, but here goes. I am going to create a port of the media center from KeySoft 8 as an Android app. so media player, record a memo, playback memos, and setup options.
#117 2016-10-02 16:17:39
And, of course, we can have things like holding down the shutter button to play/pause, holding volume up/down for next/previous track, and, maybe, support for those commands on bluetooth headphones?
#118 2016-10-02 16:56:02
ok, i have a question, i am asking it out of a windows perspective, just interpret it from a linux point of view, since i am not linux savi.
why cant you simply.
1.. connect sd card to linux live cd,since linux can reed ext 4 natively,
2. clone the sd card to a larger one. and 3.
take that larger sd card, that has faster reed /rite speeds, and put it in the device, to see if it can boot?
this way your original is safe?
i am super curious to see if it wil work. if so? boom, faster performance rite out of the bat.
see, that is exactly what i did with my lenovo x260 laptop.
its original slow hardrive may not be tuched, since its the warranty of the laptop. so, i simply cloaned it on to a larger SSD. took hardrive out of laptop.
put ssd, in laptop. and boom. faster performance, put hardrive in a safe. and my warranty is safe.
makes me itchy to know if running a larger S D card on that note taker will healed better results?
can any one confirm if this is a sound idea?
#119 2016-10-02 17:32:36
Just a question, though, if this version of Android has a MIDI implementation, could you get the soundfont out of it?
#120 2016-10-02 20:05:49
Even if you could, ANdroid's midi implementation is pretty primitive at best, which is why there are more music creation apps on ios than there are on Android. Flyby Chow, regarding the sd card, what you describe is doable, but is certainly not as easy as, dd the contents of the card into an image, format new sd card under ext4, copy disk onto new card. You could probably get better read/write speed right off the bat, especially if using a sandisk xtreme, however, getting more space will require a little more work. No matter how big the card is, the filesystem is only as big as the partitions. So by dd-ing the card and then putting that cloned disk onto a new card, you're essentially still giving yourself a 16gb set of 9 partitions, just like your older card. So you'll have to do a bit more resizing and make some changes to the partition table to actually get more speed. What I do know is that this a standard off-the-shelf sandisk classic sdhc card they're using, and with a Sandisk Xtreme, the read/write speed would be doubled at the very least.
#121 2016-10-02 23:18:38
you could certianly dd it, but that would dd the partition record as well
#122 2016-10-03 10:03:00
hi jack, yes, it certonly will modify the partition records. agreed, though, that is exactly what we want, again my example with in windows is that. after cloanings done.
all we do is then resize those partitions acordingly.
example. 128 gig SD card, wil have its existing partitions. weather it being 1 2 3 or 4, all we thus do is, 1, increase user storage space. so, if it was 16 gig, we now extend it to, say,
50 gig, or how ever big you wish to do so.
and in theory, this should give a nice bang to the tablets performance.
and with out even tuching the original virgin card.
makes me wish i had a little tablet like that to play with, nice nice!
#123 2016-10-03 15:16:07
Only unfortunate thing is that the performance speed will no doubt be increased with more space, but I believe the card reader itself has a set file read/write speed, unfortunately. But the fact that you can copy files in the background makes up for that.
#124 2016-10-08 06:54:36
have come a step closer to porting KeySoft to AOSP. resolved the duplicate perm issue.
#125 2016-10-08 07:09:44
decided to move BNTouch OS development. Go here: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.p … 34#p281834
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