Getting Android running on a Sprint HTC Touch

Oh what a fun adventure this has been! I was intrigued by Google Android OS after I got Google's SDK running in Eclipse so I could have a good cell/smart phone emulator to test the mobile site I was writing for Binny's.

 

This is the video I made using the Android SDK in Eclipse to emulate a smart phone running Android. Very cool that the plug-in integrates so nicely into Eclipse! I have been playing with Eclipse for years. Adobe finally came out with their own version of an IDE for ColdFusion called Adobe ColdFusion Builder based solely on Eclipse! Pretty sweet!

So back to my Android adventures on my Sprint HTC Touch. I started out at a site MyHTCPhone.com with a single cab file that had Android 1.1 on it. After I got that going, and seeing it was only Android 1.1, I found this website, code.google.com. Of course it would be a wiki on the Google code pages!

After extracting the contents of package(SuperHero081609.zip) I went with to the root of the SD card per all the instructions I found, I started fussing around with the config file, "default.txt", I figured out that for my phone I had to set a parameter "board-htcvogue.panel_type" to 3. After that, all was wonderful! Here is a video of me booting to Android;

 

The only thing that doesn't work as of yet is the camera/video. I can view all the old images and videos that I have on the phone, I just can't record at the moment. Another thing I have yet to test is the GPS functionality. But that was already spotty on my phone as it was. Some times I would connect/find satellites, most of the time not.

So to sum it up;

1. Go to http://code.google.com/p/vogue-android/downloads/list and download one of the bundles; SuperHero081609.zip , PureBlack081609.zip, zen-hero-090809.zip, android-1.5-2009-08-08.zip, herolite.zip
2. Extract all files some place locally on your PC.
3. Edit the "default.txt" file and change/add "board-htcvogue.panel_type=3" (Mine worked with a setting of 3, if you get a flashing white screen, try changing this setting to 1 or 2, but 3 worked for me. Here is a copy of my default.txt;

   set RAMSIZE 0x08000000
   set MTYPE 1667
   set KERNEL zImage
   set initrd initrd.gz
   ## The following kernel parameters are useful
   # ppp.username               - The username used to connect to the network when dialing #777
   # ppp.password               - The password used to connect to the network when dialing #777
   # ppp.nostart         - Set ppp.nostart=1 to disable starting the ppp connection on boot
   # msm_sdcc.msmsdcc_fmax      - The maximum frequency (in Hz) used by the SD controller
   # pm.sleep_mode              - The mode used when the phone is off 
   #                              0=Power Collapse Suspend, 1=Power Collapse, 2=Apps Sleep, 
   #                              3=Slow Clock and Wait for Interrupt 4=Wait for Interrupt
   #                              Default is 3, use 0 for best power savings
   # board-htcvogue.panel_type  - Panel type used to power the panel off and on
   #                              1=Hitachi 2=Topoly 3=Samsung
   # clock-7x00.mddi            - MDDI clock (try 0xa51 or 0xe2c)
   # clock-7x00.ahb_div         - Advanced Host Bus divider, default is 4 
   #                              2 is faster but uses more power
   # clock-7x00.a11             - ARM11 clock speed in MHz, best to leave this alone
   # lcd.density                - Defaults to 160, 128 shows more on screen
   # vogue-ts.XMIN              - xmin value for the touchscreen calibration. Also YMIN, XMAX, YMAX, PMIN, PMAX.
   ## Probably the only one of these you will need to change is the panel type, NZ Vogues seem to all have type 1
   # US Sprint vogues usually have type 2 or 3 I think.
   # Make sure you add these between the quotes on the following line and that your editor hasn't split the line up.
   set cmdline "ppp.username= ppp.password= mddi.width=320 mddi.height=480 msm_sdcc.msmsdcc_fmax=32000000 pm.sleep_mode=0 board-htcvogue.panel_type=3 no_console_suspend"
   boot

   
   



4. Copy them all to the root of your SD/Memory Card in your phone. If you have to ask "where is the root", you shouldn't be attempting this. Go out and buy a Google Phone!



5. On the phone, go to "File Explorer" and then to the root of your SD/Memory card. Click on "haret.exe" You should have a new window open and click "Run".



6. You should now see the Linux Penguin(Tux) and a bunch of text scrolling on the screen. It's gonna look like it hangs but let it go. If you look closely, the text is REAL small, you will see what it's doing. Give it a little bit and it will start loading Android.

That's it kids! You should now be running Android, or some flavor of, on your Sprint HTC Touch. In my opinion, the "Hero" builds are slower than the plain android build. Even though the graphics, widgets, etc.. are MUCH slicker in Hero, the straight up android flies!