Upgrading my Chumby 8 kernel part 5: graphics(downtowndougbrown.com)
downtowndougbrown.com
Upgrading my Chumby 8 kernel part 5: graphics
https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2023/06/upgrading-my-chumby-8-kernel-part-5-graphics/
5 comments
Chumby was 10 years too early. The Amazon Echo Show and equivalent devices for other platforms fulfill that use case today, but with a lot less charm.
They Pies are so ubiquitous. A bit like with smartphones or the internet, with each passing year, it's harder and harder to remember a time they didn't exist... Even though I was paying much attention to the scene before the Pies (Gumstix, Leopardboard, BeagleBoard, Chumby, etc), it sometimes feel like they've been here for longer than they were.
Totally agree.
And it didn't even have to complete in the Show/Portal/HomePod space. There are dozens of half-baked projects where people glue LCDs to RPIs to make a simple Linux-enabled display and Chumby had all of this in a nice package, ready to go.
There's a total need for this type of device again but nobody takes these kinds of risks anymore. My Chumby was a Best Buy Insignia model and I'm amazed BB even greenlit this thing. It was on clearance like six months after it launched.
And it didn't even have to complete in the Show/Portal/HomePod space. There are dozens of half-baked projects where people glue LCDs to RPIs to make a simple Linux-enabled display and Chumby had all of this in a nice package, ready to go.
There's a total need for this type of device again but nobody takes these kinds of risks anymore. My Chumby was a Best Buy Insignia model and I'm amazed BB even greenlit this thing. It was on clearance like six months after it launched.
And with a lot less privacy.
Disclaimer: I was an employee at chumby
I agree that chumby eventually didn't really have much reason to exist, but it's important to look at the timeline.
chumby devices first started rolling out in 2007. Raspberry Pis didn't exist until 2012 and from what I understand projects like the chumby hacker board (2010) played a big part in influencing the creation of the Raspberry Pi and other similar "maker"-centric SoC boards. Prior to the chumby hacker board similar devices were generally only sold as super expensive devkit devices not really meant for semi-mass-market maker use.
But it's really the introduction of the iPhone that kind of doomed the device within its intended market, IMO. The iPhone came out the same year as the chumby started rolling out so in a way it was doomed from the start, but while the chumby was in development it was very unclear that rapid mass adoption of capacitive screen mobile devices would be such a sure thing. I mean it seems super obvious now, but even post iPhone release there was a ton of skepticism. And while the chumby and iPhone (and subsequent Android phones) weren't exactly apple to apple devices, mobile devices did the subset of things that chumby did better than the chumby itself did for the most part, why bother having a separate device acting as an Internet-connected radio and alarm clock when your mobile device can do that (plus a lot of other stuff) while its sitting on your desk charging.
I agree that chumby eventually didn't really have much reason to exist, but it's important to look at the timeline.
chumby devices first started rolling out in 2007. Raspberry Pis didn't exist until 2012 and from what I understand projects like the chumby hacker board (2010) played a big part in influencing the creation of the Raspberry Pi and other similar "maker"-centric SoC boards. Prior to the chumby hacker board similar devices were generally only sold as super expensive devkit devices not really meant for semi-mass-market maker use.
But it's really the introduction of the iPhone that kind of doomed the device within its intended market, IMO. The iPhone came out the same year as the chumby started rolling out so in a way it was doomed from the start, but while the chumby was in development it was very unclear that rapid mass adoption of capacitive screen mobile devices would be such a sure thing. I mean it seems super obvious now, but even post iPhone release there was a ton of skepticism. And while the chumby and iPhone (and subsequent Android phones) weren't exactly apple to apple devices, mobile devices did the subset of things that chumby did better than the chumby itself did for the most part, why bother having a separate device acting as an Internet-connected radio and alarm clock when your mobile device can do that (plus a lot of other stuff) while its sitting on your desk charging.
I meant to mention this, thanks. Yes, the Chumby sale early on was a networked, pre IOT thing on your desk/nightstand whatever before everyone had high quality computers with them at all times.
Wow. With the discipline and tenacity that Doug puts into getting retro hardware+software working, I wonder what he could accomplish at hacking away on modern systems!
i don’t really understand whether this level of hobby (obsession?) to invest huge amounts of time/resources into getting hipster hardware to “work” is… healthy?
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I have an old Chumby, it was never useful, not even when the company existed.
It's in a box somewhere. It was just too slow to do anything useful.
It's in a box somewhere. It was just too slow to do anything useful.
Me too - think I used it for a day or too - even though it wasn't very useful I have a soft spot because it was such a cute design and I could tell it was a good idea too early for it's time
Mine served well as internet radio.
oh that was great idea
I wrote a few AS3 apps for it and concluded there were enough hardware limitations that it wasn't worth bothering with.
But for a few years after I tried to tinker with it to turn it into something more useful but some physical component broke before I got too far and I didn't care enough to pursue. Glad someone is outlining this in detail.
What always struck me about the Chumby is it seemed doomed from the start. There was no real use case, no niche spot for it to exist in. If you can procure a Raspberry Pi and $80 you can build the Chumby1000 and have it do some interesting things, but nothing a bunch of commodity hardware already in your house doesn't do much better.