Repurposing an Old Tablet: A Time Hole of SDKs, Bootloops, and Stubborn Curiosity

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What started as a small idea — turning an old Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 (SM-T230NU) into a dedicated FluidNC pendant — turned into a full dive into Android development, debugging, firmware archaeology, and system recovery.

Here’s the real takeaway from today.

Coming Up With a Simple Goal

The original goal wasn’t complicated:

  • Old tablet
  • FluidNC web interface
  • Fullscreen
  • Landscape
  • Launch on boot

A normal person would’ve added the webpage to the home screen in Chrome and been done with it - and I might regret not stopping there - but it all came from curiosty.

Learning the SDK Environment

I spent time in Android Studio learning:

  • How project structure is laid out
  • Where manifests, layouts, Kotlin files, and themes actually live
  • How Gradle build files fit together
  • How SDK versions impact compatibility

I went from not knowing where things were to being able to navigate the project tree quickly and edit the right files without guessing.

I built a working APK — even if the target browser engine didn’t support what FluidNC needed, the app did exactly what I wrote it to do.

Using ADB and PowerShell

I pushed deeper into device-level interaction:

  • Installed platform-tools
  • Added ADB to system PATH
  • Queried the device
  • Verified connection in developer mode
  • Used ADB to sideload, inspect, and test

Following the Rabbit Hole Further

Once it became obvious that Android 4.4 was the real limitation, not the app, I kept going.

That led me into:

  • Hunting down discontinued libraries (Crosswalk, old .aar packages)
  • Trying different browser runtimes
  • Experimenting with launching Chrome in kiosk-like modes
  • Testing fullscreen flags and orientation locks
  • Dealing with missing APIs and deprecated functions

It stopped being about FluidNC at that point.
It became about a carefree environment for testing Android development that sparked from a simple project.

Stepping Into Firmware Territory

When software limits hit a wall, I decided to try upgrading the tablet entirely — aiming for LineageOS or anything newer than KitKat.

That started a different rabbit hole:

  • Searching for factory firmware for a device long out of support
  • Sorting through mismatched builds and dead download links
  • Learning how PIT files map partitions
  • Understanding (or trying to) why Odin fails during writes
  • Flashing TWRP
  • Watching the tablet "soft-brick" into recovery loops
  • Figuring out how Samsung’s download mode actually behaves
  • Attempting to restore system partitions manually

A lot of it was trial and error.
A lot of it was frustrating.
None of it was wasted.

It was about chasing a small idea until it forced me to learn:

  • Android app fundamentals
  • Legacy WebView limitations
  • How Chrome vs system web engines differ
  • ADB usage
  • Firmware flashing and partition mapping
  • Bootloader interactions
  • How older hardware complicates everything

And honestly — it was interesting the whole way through.

Even if the tablet fought back at every step, I walked away knowing a lot more than when I started.


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