Pelican - thanks a lot for the PM with roms: the 1.7M one worked, and I've got dumps now. Could you post a link here in case others are interested?
clift50d - it's likely going to take a good few months if I'm the only one working on the 50D port
So you've got time to learn if you want to! 50D specific stuff: I think getting something that can compile ARM executables would be a great start. If you want to learn programming, Python isn't a bad choice - get a good book for beginners.
I'll post updates here as I get stuff working. I should spend some time on it later today.