[Arm-netbook] NLNet Proposal Draft

2023-12-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
Luke,

Here is what I've hammered out.  It looks like the proposal process
must have changed.  They seem to want a lot more detail!

Richard
Thematic call:NGI Zero Core
Contact information === 
Your name (max. 100 characters)   Richard Wilbur
Email address richard.wil...@gmail.com
Phone number  1-406-589-4228
Organisation (max. 100 characters)  ???
Country United States of America
General project information ===
Project name (max. 100 characters)  ???  Deliver EOMA68
Website / wiki(I guess I should make a page on the rhombus-tech.com wiki 
for this proposal?)

Please be short and to the point in your answers; focus primarily on the what 
and how, not so much on the why. Add longer descriptions as attachments (see 
below). If English isn't your first language, don't worry - our reviewers don't 
care about spelling errors, only about great ideas. We apologise for the 
inconvenience of having to submit in English. On the up side, you can be as 
technical as you need to be (but you don't have to). Do stay concrete. Use 
plain text in your reply only, if you need any HTML to make your point please 
include this as attachment.

Abstract: Can you explain the whole project and its expected outcome(s).  (you 
have 1200 characters)

The "Deliver EOMA68" project aims to deliver on the goals of the EOMA68 project 
(reducing E-waste, respecting computer users’ freedom, and reducing energy 
requirements for fulfilling users’ computing tasks) by delivering the hardware 
to the customers.  Specifically, this project aims to develop:
1.  A test software load for already assembled CPU cards that will qualify them 
for delivery to first 100 customers.
2.  A hardware-software test bench to fully exercise the capabilities of the 
CPU cards in order to provide feedback to manufacturing (~1000 CPU cards) and 
facilitate repairs.
3.  A hardware-software test bench to fully exercise the capabilities of the 
Micro-Desktop cases in order to provide feedback to manufacturing (~600 
Micro-Desktop cases) and facilitate repairs.
4.  A new revision (v1.8) of the Micro-Desktop to solve observed issues in 
power supply stability and standards compliance.
5.  A new revision of the CPU card with run-time configurable interfaces made 
possible by incorporating an FPGA.


Have you been involved with projects or organisations relevant to this project 
before? And if so, can you tell us a bit about your contributions?

I have been active in the EOMA68 mailing list and I guided the redesign of the 
micro-HDMI signal path and connector layout for the current production version 
(v2.7.5) of the EOMA68 CPU card.  I proposed new circuits for the next version 
(v1.8) of the EOMA68 Micro-Desktop.

At other times in my career I have worked on the design of circuit board layout 
for high frequency signals, programmable logic design, boot-time and run-time 
test software, board and processor bring up/first boot, and debug and repair of 
analog and digital circuit problems.  I have taken an idea through solder-less 
breadboard prototype, PCB prototype, an initial production of commercial 
product, revised to greatly reduce production costs, increase functionality.

Requested support
Requested Amount     5   (5000 to 5 in Euro)
Explain what the requested budget will be used for? 
Does the project have other funding sources, both past and present?
(If you want, you can in addition attach a budget at the bottom of the form)

Support Richard Wilbur's development efforts
Fabricate and assemble CPU Card and Micro-Desktop case test benches.
Purchase test equipment:  oscilloscope, signal analyzer, bench supply, function 
generator
Fabricate and assemble prototypes of revised CPU Card and Micro-Desktop case


Explain costs for hardware, human labor (including rates used), travel cost to 
technical meetings, etc.

(This starts to sound like we need full estimates and not just IDEAS!)


Compare your own pro

Re: [Arm-netbook] What's new at the end of 2023?

2023-11-28 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 12:53 PM Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, November 21, 2023, Richard Wilbur 
> wrote:
> > I would need some hand holding with the application process.
>
> i have *10* applications online now, you can see how obvious
> they are.  the tasks (milestones) come later. first thing
> is "notes on why you want to do this", and seriously if
> you take longer than 30 minutes something is wrong.

Where are those 10 applications?  I am interested in taking a look at them.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] What's new at the end of 2023?

2023-11-21 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 1:24 AM Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
>
> folks if you would like to get paid for sorting this out
> NLnet is very keen to have people put in grant applications
> of EUR 50,000.  a BRIEF summary of an IDEA is all that is
> needed, spending more than 40 minutes on writing the application
> is more than needed.

For developing the tests for the current cards?

> funding the next revision EOMA68 Card would be fantastic,
> i suggest one with an FPGA, using the popular ECP5, based
> on the ulx3s.
>
> also fixing mcrodesktop 1.7
>
> richard?

I am definitely interested in this effort.  Having some grant money to
help with design, prototyping, and testing would be especially useful.

> deadline for next application dec 1st.

I would need some hand holding with the application process.  By the
way, are the mentioned NLnet funds available to U.S. citizens like me?
 Can I apply for the grant?

Sincerely,
Richard

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Re: [Arm-netbook] What's new at the end of 2023?

2023-11-09 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 1:30 PM Pablo Rath  wrote:
> As we have discussed in January (2023) on this list I have a working
> boot-image fullfilling the minimal requierements (U-Boot, Linux Kernel,
> Debian root image on UART console) somewhere on my hard drives.
> Andreas Grapentin and I have broken hardware. I don't know if Andreas
> made any progress at repairing his hardware.

Sorry about your busted hardware.

> So my question is: "Can anyone with working hardware test and varify my
> boot-image before we send it to Crowdsupply?"
> This is the crucial step right now. We can ice the cake later once 100
> cards get released into the world.
>
> Richard, am I correct that you have a working computer card and a
> microdesktop in you possession. Are you willing to set it all up and
> test my boot-image?

I have an untested computer card (v1.7.4) and microdesktop (v1.?, I've
got to lay eyes on it to verify the version).  I am interested in
setting it up and would be happy to test your boot-image.

(I'm also interested in being able to generate a boot image from
source.  Do you have notes on how you built it?)

I'm a few days away from being able to set things up, I believe.  Then
I can try things out, verify that my computer card works and try out
your boot image.
After that we can send the boot image to CrowdSupply.

When I can lay my hands on an oscilloscope, I intend to
carefully/gingerly test my microdesktop board.  I get the impression
from what others have written, there's a pathology with either the pcb
layout or the assembly around one of the regulator chips.  So I'd like
to observe it misbehaving without burning anything up.

Richard

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Re: [Arm-netbook] What's new at the end of 2023?

2023-11-08 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Wed, Nov 8, 2023 at 3:12 AM Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> if someone, even one person, gets them a test image, 100 people
> can get their cards.

Have we distilled the requirements for a test image down into a
document anywhere?
Namely, lists of what is required and what would be good or nice to
have under explicit headings?

If not I'll be happy to start a wiki page.  Looks like we need a build
of uboot and the kernel + test software to exercise the interfaces we
want to test.  Possibly with automated gathering and interpreting of
results to speed the logging and repair of problems.

Sincerely,
Richard

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Re: [Arm-netbook] next step is a boot image

2023-01-12 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Jan 12, 2023, at 05:55, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> yes this one is a cross-compile.  there are extra prefix ENV vars to
> define to get it to work.

Is there a page describing/documenting how to set up the cross-compile tools 
and environment (or at least which target architecture to use)?

Is there a page discussing which kernel source (+patches) supports this board.  
Sounds like we might want a page covering the status of support for different 
hardware/CPU features (if it doesn’t already exist).
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Status update

2022-11-24 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Nov 23, 2022, at 21:34, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> https://www.theverge.com/22599932/bitcoin-raid-keene-new-hampshire-ian-freeman-libertarian-prosecution

Thanks for the link.

Looks like a messy situation but I didn’t see any indication that Mr. Waid was 
arrested or prosecuted.  I get that bad things happened to some of his friends 
but how does that affect his ability to test EOMA processor cards or 
communicate via E-mail or telephone?
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[Arm-netbook] Green (literally photosynthetic!) technology to team with EOMA-68

2022-05-14 Thread Richard Wilbur
EOMA-68 seems uniquely positioned to benefit from this type of technology!  
Low-power, long-endurance designs could make some pretty cool applications.

“Algae-powered energy cell can keep a microprocessor running around the clock 
anywhere with sunlight”

https://www.zmescience.com/science/algae-powered-energy-cell-can-keep-a-microprocessor-running-around-the-clock-anywhere-with-sunlight/
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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68-A20, MD 1.7 severe Power Problems

2021-02-03 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 2:31 PM Pablo Rath  wrote:
>
> >On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 10:54:27AM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> >> On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 10:33 AM Pablo Rath  wrote:
> > >
> > > I am very sorry to inform everyone on this list that I had a severe power 
> > > problem with my Micro Desktop 1.7.
> > > I applied power to the DC Jack and the area right to the jack burned
> > > out. (see attached picture).
> >
> > thank you for sending this to the list, as i asked, after you sent it
> > initially privately.  i had this happen to a 1.5 MD board 3 years ago,
> > but no others, despite them running for prolonged periods of time.
> >
> > what i noticed about that board was that the inductor was not properly
> > soldered down.  this would be insufficient contact, introduce
> > resistance, and at that point the RT8288 would go unstable.
>
> Ok. As you have probably deduced from my questions I am not really into
> hardware. Thank you for all your explanations and clarifications.
> I still try to wrap my head around what should work straight away, what
> could work with the right modifications and what can never work...
>
> [...]
>
> > > As I said I am very sorry that I screwed up.
> > > Luke, do you have any ideas what went wrong?
> >
> > not in the slightest.  or - maybe: have a look at the contact points
> > where the inductor sits on the PCB.  there should be quite a lot of
> > solder, there.
>
> Sorry for the dumb question but where can I find the inductor?

Without the assembly drawing at my fingertips this would be my
educated guess.  It’s the closest component to the offending regulator
IC that looks the part of an inductor.
[see attached picture]

I am going to check my mini desktop PCB for good solder on the
inductor.  I will also look at possible modifications/improvements to
that feedback circuit layout given the present PCB layout.  (I have
some experience with specifying rework/changes to remedy deficits in
already-fabricated PCB’s.)

Best wishes,
Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Pluton: M$ firmware and TPM to be built into your processor...

2020-12-13 Thread Richard Wilbur
M$‘s move certainly seems monopolistic in nature.  I’m a little surprised they 
were able to twist so many arms (AMD and Intel?) so hard!  And I’m surprised 
that anyone in the SoC market would seriously dedicate their processor to 
running a M$ OS.

Thanks for the link to the Open Titan site.  It looks like a step in the right 
direction.  I wonder if libre-soc could liberate the 4 remaining blocks still 
marked “proprietary” (Foundry IP, Analog IP, Physical Design Kit, Chip 
Fabrication) and create a “libre-titan”?  I guess an underlying question is, 
“Do we have a need to lock everything down that tight in a libre-soc system, 
since we are designing it from the ground up to avoid many of the exploits 
inherent in the AMD and Intel architectures?”

Richard


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Any progress?

2020-09-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Sep 18, 2020, at 07:09, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> […]

> i got up and running on an FPGA a couple weeks ago
> (Versa ECP5)
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72QmWro9BSE

Congratulations on the success of booting the libre SoC on FPGA.  Which 
processor instruction set architecture are you folks using?

Looks like the toolchain for that FPGA has a free/libré license?[*]  Did I 
misread the Lattice Semiconductor announcement?

If it’s really free/libré I might have to save my pennies for one of those 
boards!

Sincerely,
Richard

Reference:
[*]  
http://www.latticesemi.com/en/Products/DevelopmentBoardsAndKits/ECP5VersaDevelopmentKit.aspx
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Re: [Arm-netbook] OpenPOWER virtual coffee continues every Tuesday UTC 22:00

2020-09-21 Thread Richard Wilbur
Sounds like a neat group.  What should I study up on to get the most out of the 
discussion?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Free ASIC fab. for open designs

2020-08-25 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Aug 25, 2020, at 14:57, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday, August 25, 2020, Philip Hands  wrote:
>> 
>> It seems that is a 130nm fab, based in the USA somewhere.
> 
> yes.
> 
> it is around 25 sq mm and an 80 pin QFP fixed package.

Very nice!  That sounds really cool from the perspective of someone who got a 
big kick out of VLSI Design class but never had the budget to run a personal 
design through to packaged dies.

80 pins and 25 sq mm at 0.13μm with free digital and analog cell designs.

Now, I wonder how quickly the free toolchain will solidify?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Current status

2020-07-23 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Jul 21, 2020, at 13:29, David Niklas  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 04:31:43 +0100
> Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
[…]
>> if you want to know more then do join one if rhe virtual coffee calls
>> 
>> https://openpowerfoundation.org/openpower-virtual-coffee-calls/
> 
> :cry:
> Another Zoom conference. Proprietary executable. Known spying company.
> Why luke, why do people always have to choose the worst of proprietary
> stuff?
> 
> https://nypost.com/2020/04/10/chinese-spies-are-trying-to-snoop-on-zoom-chats-experts-say/
> https://medium.com/swlh/zoom-are-you-spying-me-7c07feebf85
> 
> We have linphone, ekiga, not to mention the myriad of stuff on shareware
> sites ( Here's a good one I know from my windowz days
> https://www.freewarefiles.com/ ), if it must be proprietary.
> We have IRC, Jabber, Argh! So much good stuff!
> Conferencing stuff (not all FLOSS, but still a lot there):
> https://www.ubuntupit.com/top-20-best-linux-video-conferencing-software/

What about Jitsi Meet?
https://jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/

Free Software
Encrypted
Anonymous
Free Service


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Fixing the fex file once and for all

2019-07-19 Thread Richard Wilbur
Thanks, Luke.  Looking forward to following your instructions next week
after I'm back home.  On holiday in a different timezone right now.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Fixing the fex file once and for all

2019-07-18 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thursday, July 18, 2019, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
wrote:
>
>
>  honestly, just other people helping out - *actually* helping out with
> u-boot, linux kernel etc. - would be a huge relief.
>

I've been itching to get involved since I picked up my prototype in England
but waiting (too patiently?  Should I have bothered/reminded you about it
earlier?) for the video how-to you promised to make on how to
non-destructively plug the unenclosed CPU card (without the guides) into
the micro-desktop case.

Would the cable-only setup be a valid way to get started?  Should I expect
the micro HDMI plug to be alive?

I guess the earliest debug output (u-boot?) will likely be on the serial
console available through the EOMA68 connector.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: 500 Micro Desktop PCB Assemblies

2019-03-27 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Mar 27, 2019, at 11:59, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> the existing plastic comes as-is.  making *any* changes would require
> a minimum of around USD $20k in design and injection-molding costs.

Yes, that's prohibitive when you are on the wrong side of out of money!

>>> as a result we considered very thin metal sheet (thick foil in
>>> effect) that could be stamped (or laser cut) and was effectively a
>>> "metal sticker" that could go over the end and be bent round.
>>> probably even by hand.
>> 
>> Did you try the foil?  How well did it work?
> 
> no - just a design idea.  shelved for the first Cards as there's
> insufficient funds.  can always send them out later.

Any idea how much it would cost to test the idea?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: 500 Micro Desktop PCB Assemblies

2019-03-27 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Mar 27, 2019, at 06:21, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 11:52 PM David Niklas  wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, 23 Mar 2019 16:56:25 +
>> Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> not a snowball in hell's chance.  resin is too brittle, 3D printing
>>> is far too inaccurate, and the plastic is extremely thin.  5 years ago
>>> the ones we had stamped out for prototypes (laser-cutting i believe)
>>> broke almost immediately.
>>> 
>> 
>> What material did you laser cut? I would have thought that laser cut
>> aluminum would be perfect.
> 
> ten prototypes of the mass-produced PCMCIA plastic surround from
> Litkconn had holes laser-cut to make space for the micro-sd,
> micro-hdmi and USB-OTG ports.
> 
> the result was plastic under 1mm deep that had only around 0.5mm
> height below e.g. the micro-sd card and it of course snapped
> immediately.

Sounds like a more flexible plastic is needed but that clearly impacts the 
manufacturing processes available and thus the cost.

> as a result we considered very thin metal sheet (thick foil in
> effect) that could be stamped (or laser cut) and was effectively a
> "metal sticker" that could go over the end and be bent round.
> probably even by hand.

Did you try the foil?  How well did it work?
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[Arm-netbook] Free the (Intel) FSP?

2018-12-14 Thread Richard Wilbur
This looked interesting--like Intel is starting to feel pressure from
RISC-V, et cetera.  Regardless, I'm still very interested in security,
efficiency, configurability, and other aspects of libre design of RISC-V.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Open-Source-FSP-Likely
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-09-25 Thread Richard Wilbur
Here's the circuit diagram-scribbled on a piece of paper with pencil.
Photo shot with phone camera and cropped and scaled down in GIMP.  If it
needs to be larger to be readable, I still have the original so can rescale
as needed.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Logos

2018-09-21 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sep 21, 2018, at 20:02, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> […]

Interesting economic scenario.  I think it works best when the arbiter of the 
exchange rate for goods is impartial.  Otherwise the exchange rate would be 
influenced by biases.

>  if I've got my math right (sorry, I'm severely math-challenged -- to the 
> level of
> having some sort of otherwise-unnamed "math fluency disorder" that I was
> labeled with in grade school... the gist is that I understand the
> *concepts* on actually something of a slightly advanced level, but I can't
> manage the actual *exercises*, real-world or textbook, without a
> half-decent calculator).

In this case, the arithmetic associated with your example seems to work out 
fine.  Maybe you've outgrown the "math fluency disorder"?  In my recollection 
it seems boys' brains mature later and I know there can be significant 
individual variation in the timing.

> Alternatively, in a less-regulated society, we'd haggle for a while and
> figure out for ourselves what eggs and cheese should be worth -- although
> that somewhat sidesteps the need for standardized units altogether.

This avoids the bias of a government official--exchanging that for the biases 
of each potential customer.

> Of course, that one guy who only has stuff that absolutely nobody wants, kinda
> gets into a bit of trouble in a barter economy... the conceptual system is
> not without its flaws. But, hey, that's true of everything out there, so...
> I dunno. /shrug

That guy goes bankrupt if he doesn't adapt to the market demand in capitalism.

Sincerely,
Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI Player Stick as DRM-free Merch Alternative

2018-07-24 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jul 22, 2018, at 15:11, Jean Flamelle  wrote:
> 
> Encourage copying, modifying, as well as redistributing the content.

By this do you mean an unencrypted output over HDMI (without HDCP in other 
words)?

> However build a culture of the 'Unpause-able Player Stick':

How do we "encourage copying, modifying, as well as redistributing the content" 
from an 'Unpause-able Player Stick' that has "air-gap" security?

Who can copy, modify, or redistribute the content?

What is the utility of making it 'Unpause-able'?  That was always one of the 
advantages I saw to having user control:  you can adapt the viewing experience 
to the realities of your life.

It seems to me that a lot more variety of materials will be required to make 
one of these sticks than an optical disc which is mostly one type of plastic.  
That would seem to make the stick more difficult to recycle than the disc.  If 
the stick can't be loaded with new content, then its use cycle will be closer 
to a non-rewritable optical disc.

What if we created an open video format that allowed sections of a work to be 
attributed to the original author/creator?  Sort of a digital credits meta-data 
list.  Could also be useful for still images, audio, and possibly other media.  
A method to identify some portion of the whole work and record attribution 
information.

Editing tools would be very useful in managing this data.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI Player Stick as DRM-free Merch Alternative

2018-07-24 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Jul 22, 2018, at 16:48, Jean Flamelle  wrote:
> 
> The device being airgapped so that the only input is power, should
> socially suggest that one can't be tampered with or forged (i.e. by
> extracting a signing key).

One fly in the ointment is that, at least according to my understanding, power 
on the HDMI is part of VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) DDC 
(Display Data Channel) support.  As such the power is supplied by the video 
signal source which is the I2C bus master on the DDC bus.  This applies to all 
of the incarnations of VESA DDC on VGA, DVI, and HDMI.

Thus, in order for us to be able to use the HDMI power pin as an input, we need 
to be connecting that pin to some other HDMI signal source (computer, DVD 
player, Blu-ray  player, et cetera).  Hence our smallest form factor for 
HDMI-only connections would be an HDMI(male)-HDMI(female) adapter to plug in 
between an HDMI source (as above, for power) and an HDMI sink (monitor, 
television, projector, et cetera).  For convenience, I recommend connecting 
between the HDMI source and the HDMI cable going to the HDMI sink.

Another option would be to use a USB connection for power.  Not as elegant as 
the HDMI stick but USB power is relatively ubiquitous for charging mobile 
devices.  And it doesn't require a separate HDMI source just for power.  In 
fact, a lot of televisions with HDMI ports also sport USB ports so a USB cable 
would be sufficient.

Furthermore, if power is truly our only input we'll have a hard time sending 
out a signal which is compatible with a wide range of displays unless we choose 
the lowest common resolution/color depth.  We could adapt to the best display 
mode that the display offers, and that our board can generate, if we connected 
to the bi-directional VESA DDC bus and read the display's capabilities.

Richard


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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI Player Stick as DRM-free Merch Alternative

2018-07-23 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Jul 22, 2018, at 15:11, Jean Flamelle  wrote:
> 
> A monofunction PCB that when power is supplied from the HDMI,
> generates a private key signature, displays it as a QR code for a few
> moments, then plays whatever video is stored on nand.
> 
> The QR code confirms the legitimacy or official-ness of the copy.

This sounds similar, in concept at least, to something like a GPG signature 
over the presentation content.  The processing to calculate the signature over 
a feature-length high-definition video (Blueray movie ~15-25GB[max single 
layer])[1] to verify authenticity is significant.  I would recommend 
implementing the algorithm in FPGA (eventually ASIC?) to speed the calculation. 
 I don't know what calculation time would be acceptable.  We can probably buy 
some user patience with a real, honest, linear-response progress bar and 
possibly a countdown timer.  Let's say we have NAND read rates that allow us to 
pull 1GB/s into the signature processor and we can process data as fast as it 
arrives.  That would give us 1s of calculation time for every 1GB of content or 
15-25 seconds to calculate the QR code.

Samsung has a 32GB chip with a high-speed serial interface capable of 880MB/s 
in sequential reads.[2]  That's ~88% of the speed we talked about above.  (25GB 
transfer in 28.4s)  And it is in mass production!

The size sounds good, too:  11.5x13x1.2mm

(I had some time to burn while riding around with my family to different 
appointments and waiting while the girls were in lessons.)

Richard

References:
[1]  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray
[2]  https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/estorage/eufs/
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI Player Stick as DRM-free Merch Alternative

2018-07-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
Sounds interesting.  This sounds like a bit of 'how'.  The 'why' is alluded to 
in the title but not so much in the body.

I can understand DRM-free to allow more freedom to user.  What I'm missing is 
more of what advantages the user reaps from using this device.  Does the user 
purchase, rent, or borrow the stick?  Who can load content onto it?

What problem(s) does it solve?

What do you mean by "Merch Alternative"?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Campaign Schedule and Future Sales/Products

2018-07-18 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Jul 18, 2018, at 07:15, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
>> On Monday, July 16, 2018, Richard Wilbur  wrote:
[…]
>> I was wondering
>> where we were in regard to ordering parts, fabricating circuit boards, etc.
>> for the microdesktop as I saw issues which could be addressed by creating a
>> v1.8 schematic, BOM, and layout.
> 
> 
> I know. It should have been 8 to 10 months ago. Cant delay now. Do after.
> Just how it is. Document, plan carefully. Nextv batch 1.8

Sounds great!  I'll document things on the wiki and look forward to the 
shipping date for v1.7!
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 7:43 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
wrote:
>
> Richard can you please edit community_ideas micrideksoo oage rhuombustech
> maintain all of this there revisioons to revisions of email knoen to be
not
> a sustainable way to track detailed important information

Luke,

That's a great idea.  I was just noticing how the updates weren't fitting
into the original so well and thinking I didn't know which wiki page on
which to write stuff.

Thank you for answering my question before I had a chance to ask it!

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
Here are links to the files:
ftp://lists.phcomp.co.uk/files/arm-netbook/EOMA_I2C_VESA_calc.pdf

ftp://lists.phcomp.co.uk/files/arm-netbook/EOMA_I2C_circuit_small.png

These are evidently by default good till 18 August 2018.  If they are still
cogent to the discussion I will try to keep them around longer.

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 7:04 PM, Pičugins Arsenijs 
wrote:
>
> > 2. Implement circuit in attached
> > diagram[EOMA_I2C_circuit_sketch_small.png] ...
>
> Did not get your attachments. I'm thinking they were scrubbed
> by the ML software? Maybe post a link - imgur/other sharing
> service?

It is likely the PDF was scrubbed.  The PNG got into moderation because it
was too large.  So I sent them both to the E-mail address at the bottom of
the mailing list signature, below:

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jul 17, 2018, at 19:04, Pičugins Arsenijs  wrote:

>> 2. Implement circuit in attached
>> diagram[EOMA_I2C_circuit_sketch_small.png] ...
> 
> Did not get your attachments. I'm thinking they were scrubbed
> by the ML software? Maybe post a link - imgur/other sharing
> service?
> 
> Arsenijs
> 
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
Addendum

Why?
1.  Make VESA DDC lines conform to VESA DDC spec. (VDD=5.0V, I2C
signalling)[1]
2.  Respect VREFTTL in the range of 3.3-5.0V on EOMA side of VESA DDC lines.
3.  Respect EOMA requirement that all lines except EOMA I2C be tri-stated
at power on.

How?
1.  Connect pull-up resistors for VESA_SDA(R8) and VESA_SCL(R12) to
VESA_PWR (+5.0V) instead of VREFTTL.  Maximum current requirement on
VESA_PWR is ~670uA.
2.  Implement circuit in attached
diagram[EOMA_I2C_circuit_sketch_small.png] on each of SDA and SCL.  I have
attached a spreadsheet[EOMA_I2C_VESA_calc.pdf] showing how this
accommodates the I2C signalling for VDD=3.3V=VREFTTL and VDD=5.0V.[2]  It
also accommodates the EOMA68 VREFTTL input levels by not allowing the EOMA
side of the signal to exceed one Schottky diode drop(0.3V) above VDD=3.3V.
3.  Enable the current limiting regulator (SY6280) for VESA_PWR (+5.0V on
VGA pin 9) with latch of LCDDE when it first goes active (line coming from
EOMA68 connector).

References:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
[2] http://www.nxp.com/documents/user_manual/UM10204.pdf
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 7:02 AM, Pičugins Arsenijs 
wrote:
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> > 3. Add another SY6280 current limiter for +5V and connect to VGA pin
> > 9 (VESA power). Seems to be some difference of opinion on current
> > requirements: 50mA[2], 300mA-1000mA[1]. If we were to limit at
> > 300mA, it should easily supply the needs of I2C serial EEPROM and
> > probably not over-tax our power supply.
>
> I've also seen the VGA/HDMI +5V used to power various converters
> (most often, HDMI->VGA, but I imagine the inverse is sometimes used
> as well).

I agree.  I designed a converter that was powered by VGA DDC pin 9 power
or, in the absence of that, the VESA DDC SDA and SCL pull-up, or the VGA
horizontal and vertical synchronization signals.  I don't remember exactly
how much power it used but it was relatively efficient as I used low-power
CMOS PAL (Programmable Array Logic, precursor to FPGA's).  Basically its
largest-current operating mode was driving to TTL loads across the video
cable.

> > For VESA_SDA and VESA_SCL, add diode limiters connected to ground
> > similar to ESD117-ESD123 on the SD bus lines provided the
> > diode-limiting voltage is greater than VREFTTL nominal range.
> > Otherwise use BAT54S connected between ground and VREFTTL.
>
> Is it not possible that VESA_SDA and VESA_SCL are 5V? If so, they could
> require level shifting from 5V, am I wrong here?

It turns out VESA DDC uses I2C signalling.[1]  I2C signalling is
bi-directional open drain or open collector so the high state is due to a
pull-up resistor.  The I2C bus voltage can be +5 V or +3.3 V, although
other voltages are permitted.[2]  All the devices on the bus have to
tolerate the bus voltage.

In my experience, the VESA DDC reference design used a pull-up supply of +5
V.  The EOMA68 card doesn't have to drive it that high, simply go hi-Z and
the pull-up resistor in the microdesktop will pull it that high.  But the
EOMA68 card will have to tolerate +5 V on those two lines (VESA_SDA,
VESA_SCL) or we jump into the tricky area of logic-level translation for
bi-directional open-drain signals.

Good observations.  Thanks Arsenijs!

References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%C2%B2C
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-16 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jul 3, 2018, at 03:19, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 1:57 AM, Richard Wilbur  
>> wrote:
>>
>> By the way, what is the status of the microdesktop
>> design v1.7?  Have you already invested in parts (specifically
>> the 2x10 header) and/or circuit boards?
>
> yep all good.  the funds that were transferred to mike 18+ months ago
> ($60k) are down to around $45k now and he's got most of that left with
> which to order components for the 1.7 md and 2.7.5 card.

I was asking with regard to the possibility of releasing a
microdesktop v1.8 with a few refinements (presumably
electrical/electronic changes that fit within the same form factor, id
est, no change to the case).

Why?
1.  Open up more possibilities for experimentation by tripling the
number of GPIO lines available at expansion connector(2 → 6).
2.  Add soft-start to the power regulator for 3.3V supply.
3.  Support VESA DDC Plug and Play monitor detection regardless of
power-up order between monitor and computer.[1]
4.  Improve signal quality (and reduce radiated/coupled EMI) for VGA interface.
5.  Improve Electro-Static Discharge protection (page 1 of the
schematic says: “TODO: ESD protection”).

How?
1.  Bring the remaining 4 GPIO lines from the EOMA68 connector (J14
pins 20,54,21,55) to the expansion header(J5).  Dropping VESA_SCL and
VESA_SDA lines from J5 (available and used on VGA connector J4) gets
us two pins for free.  Then we either get a larger connector (2x11
instead of 2x10), find two other signals to drop from the expansion
header (EOMA68-I2C_SCL, EOMA68-I2C_SDA which are connected to the
serial EEPROM for chassis identification?), or decide we are happy to
have doubled the GPIO presence (2 → 4) and stop.
2.  Add a 10K Ohm resistor between +5V and Enable(pin 1) on U9.
3.  Add another SY6280 current limiter for +5V and connect to VGA pin
9 (VESA power).  Seems to be some difference of opinion on current
requirements:  50mA[2], 300mA-1000mA[1].  If we were to limit at
300mA, it should easily supply the needs of I2C serial EEPROM and
probably not over-tax our power supply.
4.  Route signals as high-speed/frequency pairs.[1]
  A.  Change the name of VGA pins(J4):
pin  Name
 5  HSYNC_RTN
 6  RED_RTN
 7  GREEN_RTN
 8  BLUE_RTN
 9  PWR
10  VSYNC_DDC_RTN
  B.  Make sure the following pairs are routed as microstrip pairs
from connector pins to signal driver:
VGA_ROUT/VGA_R(1), RED_RTN(6)
VGA_GOUT/VGA_G(2), GREEN_RTN(7)
VGA_BOUT/VGA_B(3), BLUE_RTN(8)
VGAHSYNC/VGA_HSYNC(13), HSYNC_RTN(5)
VGAVSYNC/VGA_VSYNC(14), VSYNC_DDC_RTN(10)

Return lines should connect to ground pins of signal driver and/or
ground side of power supply decoupling capacitor at signal driver.
The first three pairs (video lines) should be over unbroken ground
plane as they are the highest-frequency lines (12.6MHz-388MHz
depending on video mode).

Add VREFTTL decoupling capacitor next to R12 and R8 (pull-ups for
VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA) then route the following pairs from VGA
connector to pull-ups/decoupling capacitor ground:
VESA_SDA/SDA(12), VSYNC_DDC_RTN(10)
VESA_SCL/SCL(15), VSYNC_DDC_RTN(10)

5.  Filter VGA cable shield connection to ground with ferrite beads
(J4 pins 16,17).  Likewise USB2 ports (J11, J3) pins M0 and M1.  Also
EOMA68 connector (J14) pins “0”, “0/2”, if those are connector shield
connections?  What are J14 pins 73 and 74?  (They are labelled “GND”
but left unconnected?)

We don't have a metal chassis here to connect the shields directly to.
If we did, I'd suggest connecting shields to chassis ground and then
ferrite bead to separate chassis ground from power/signal ground.

For VESA_SDA and VESA_SCL, add diode limiters connected to ground
similar to ESD117-ESD123 on the SD bus lines provided the
diode-limiting voltage is greater than VREFTTL nominal range.
Otherwise use BAT54S connected between ground and VREFTTL.

Add BAT54S connected between ground and USB2VBUS across USB2 data
lines EOMA68-DM0, EOMA68-DP0, DM2, DP2.

Just some thoughts. ;>)

Richard

References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Campaign Schedule and Future Sales/Products

2018-07-16 Thread Richard Wilbur

>> On Jul 15, 2018, at 20:38, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  
>> wrote:
> […]
> Yes. Mike is being extra cautious, hes ordered the full set of components
> now for 1000 cards and 500 mds.

By "mds" I guess you mean "microdesktops"?  This was the gist of my earlier 
question regarding the status of microdesktops.  I was wondering where we were 
in regard to ordering parts, fabricating circuit boards, etc. for the 
microdesktop as I saw issues which could be addressed by creating a v1.8 
schematic, BOM, and layout.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] riscv-basics.com

2018-07-10 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Jul 10, 2018, at 13:37, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
>  interestingly the bullet-points 3 and 5 are *actuallly
> legitimate concerns*.  the RISC-V Foundation is over-controlled by UCB
> Berkeley,[0] via a structure that is similar to the failed Google Project
> Ara ("it's open as long as you sign our secret agreement and don't
> publish information we don't want you to").

Are you referring to "Design Assurance"(as 3) and "Security"(as 5)?

Seems like an advertisement specifically against risc-v by and for ARM.

I'm sorry to hear about those terms on a project with any pretensions of being 
"open".

Notes:
[0]  UCB stands for "University of California at Berkeley" so the intermediate 
form is normally "UC Berkeley".
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[Arm-netbook] Microdesktop v1.7

2018-07-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
By the way, what is the status of the microdesktop design v1.7?  Have you 
already invested in parts (specifically the 2x10 header) and/or circuit boards?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68-A20 Prototype Status

2018-07-02 Thread Richard Wilbur

> On Jun 3, 2018, at 14:17, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> […]
[prototypes]
> arrived yesterday, testing them now, RAM's fine, checking HDMI.
> dealing with RISC-V and recovering from four weeks of travelling to
> six different places in four different countries.

Good to hear they booted and the RAM works!  Have you had a chance to recover 
from your whirlwind tour?  Any signs of life from the uHDMI?

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
Luke, thanks for the links and the instructions.  I'll study them further when 
I get home this evening (bigger screen and keyboard!).

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-16 Thread Richard Wilbur
On May 16, 2018, at 11:39, Richard Wilbur  wrote:
> Is there a 

place I can download the install image (boot image) you are presently using on 
the DS113 A20 cards?

(Accidentally hit send before I finished the sentence.  A less than satisfying 
user experience on this phone, but at least I can interact in my present 
physical context.)

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-16 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  
wrote:
>  ok - hum i need to send you that card, don't i.  you'll be able to
> try this out.

Sure, the card would be lovely.  Then I could work on some other stuff, too.  
Like DDC over I2C over GPIO for VESA monitor detection on the VGA port.

Even before you have a chance to send the card I'd be able to make some 
progress given a place I could download a copy of the current script.bin you 
are using (I'd be willing to try and download the sunxi-tools bin2fex and 
fex2bin and run them on this x86_64 machine) or script.fex (which is reportedly 
human-readable text).

Is there a 
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-15 Thread Richard Wilbur
On May 14, 2018, at 12:24, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> Look up sunxi-tools fex2bin bin2fex and wiki sunxi fex.

I did look up and read some about those topics--and I will read more!

What I'm wondering is what does the script.bin configure presently at
boot?  Then I can figure out whether we need to change it in order to
be able to test the GPIO pins.  With sunxi 3.4 kernel it looks like
whatever we have configured in script.bin is what we have to work with
on that load of the gpio-sunxi kernel module so I'm interested in
making sure the GPIO pins we want to test are configured into the
/sys/class/gpio namespace, and at what names they appear.

I read in the sunxi GPIO wiki page[1] that script.bin can specify the
mapping between the GPIO number NNN and PORT:BIT that determines the
sysfs name /sys/class/gpio/gpioNNN_PORTBIT brought about by
sudo echo NNN >/sys/class/gpio/export
# A request to export control over gpio mapping NNN (as defined in
script.bin) from kernel space to user space.

So, to track down the pins we want, we need to know the mapping that
is currently in script.bin (or specify it ourselves).

There is a scheme outlined in the sunxi GPIO wiki page[1] for
associating the numbers NNN with PORT:BIT that is followed on the
A20/PIO page[2] and seems useful as it is consistent and reversible.
So if we haven't already created a version of script.bin (for the
sunxi-gpio module) that maps the A20's Programmable Input/Output pins
for the DS113 card, I'd recommend we follow that scheme.

NNN := (PORT - 'A') * 32 + BIT

PORT:BIT  NNN  sysfs
PI11  267  gpio267_pi11
PI10  266  gpio266_pi10
PI13  269  gpio269_pi13
PI12  268  gpio268_pi12
PI3  259  gpio259_pi3
PB4   36  gpio36_pb4
PH0  224  gpio224_ph0
PB3   35  gpio35_pb3

References:

[1]  https://linux-sunxi.org/GPIO
[2]  https://linux-sunxi.org/A20/PIO

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-14 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 5:27 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
wrote:
> Hi richard on phone brief. Yes 3.4, different, uses module config, works
> fine.
Thanks for the response.  What I'm wondering is what the boot
image/partition has for 'script.bin' because under kernel 3.4 that defines
the set of GPIO pins that will be enabled at boot and their initial state.
(Looks like it determines the initial state of all the pin multiplexors.)
Probably more easily interpreted in the FEX form (human-readable text),
albeit larger.

> Talk to phil about ikiwiki itsvon his server
Thanks for the referral.  Took it up with him separately.
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[Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-05-11 Thread Richard Wilbur
First, in adding the link to the sunxi wiki page documenting GPIO access on
Allwinner chips[1] to the rhombus-tech.net "Testing" wiki page[2], I again
triggered the "An error occurred while writing CGI reply" page delivered at
URL:  http://rhombus-tech.net/cgi-bin/rhombus/ikiwiki.cgi

I clicked the "Save" button after editting the ikiwiki code and just waited
for it to return.

Second, the linux-sunxi wiki page refers to the interaction with the GPIO
driver differently depending on whether using linux-mainline or sunxi-3.4
kernel.  If memory serves it seems you mentioned we plan to ship the cards
with sunxi-3.4 until we get several drivers into linux-mainline, is that so?

Sincerely,
Richard

References:

[1]  https://linux-sunxi.org/GPIO
[2]  http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/testing/
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Re: [Arm-netbook] devicetree and testing

2018-04-18 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Apr 17, 2018, at 16:17, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
wrote:

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 11:12 PM, Richard Wilbur
 wrote:

In my estimation the tasks that can be completed relatively quickly are 1
and 3 as they don't require convincing anyone else of the importance of the
goal or merit of the implementation.


it is slightly more complex (3 that is) because a library and
associated linux kernel device-driver has to also be written that
reads from the I2C EEPROM (to be added to both u-boot and the linux
kernel), in order to use the devicetree fragment merging... overlay!
that's what it's called.

it is *not* going to be okay to just blop in one devicetree file for
eoma68-a20-with-microdesktop, one devicetree file for
eoma68-rk3288-with-microdesktop, one devicetree file for
eoma68-a20-with-laptop-housing, one devicetree file for
eoma68-rk3288-with-laptop-housing etc. etc.

preventing that kind of insane O(N * M) devicetree proliferation and
reducing it down to O(N + M)  *IS* the entire point of the EOMA68

I agree wholeheartedly with the modular mix and match overlay fragment
design but saw the software support for it in what I had labelled as
priority 4.  Whereas I understood priority 3 to entail creating the
devicetree fragments for the EOMA hardware that already exists.


1.  Hack together some tests under 3.4.104 that we can run on the extant

drivers.

2.  Work on getting extant A20 drivers mainlined in the linux kernel.

3.  Create devicetree [fragments] for DS113 v2.7.4 and v2.7.5, … (all
extant versions

of DS113 and microdesktop case).

4.  Work on getting devicetree with [fragment] add/remove overlay support
mainlined in

the linux kernel (and u-boot?).


Let me restate without relying only on numbers to identify the tasks:
We can create the tests to run on 3.4.104 kernel (priority 1) and the
devicetree overlays or fragments for each version of the processor card and
microdesktop case (priority 3) without buy in from anyone else.

Getting the A20 drivers mainlined in the linux kernel (priority 2) and
devicetree fragment overlay add/remove support in the linux kernel and
u-boot (priority 4) will require continued collaboration with those who
maintain the linux kernel and u-boot.  Others have already been working on
this effort for several years.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] devicetree and testing

2018-04-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Apr 17, 2018, at 15:47, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 9:54 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
> […]
>> 1.  Hack together some tests under 3.4.104 that we can run on the extant
>> drivers.
>> 2.  Work on getting extant A20 drivers mainlined in the linux kernel.
> 
> people have been working on that for many many years.
> 
>> 3.  Create devicetree for DS113 v2.7.4 and v2.7.5, … (all extant versions
>> of DS113 and microdesktop case).
>> 4.  Work on getting devicetree with add/remove overlay support mainlined in
>> the linux kernel (and u-boot?).
> 
> yes.

I understand that people have been working on steps 2 and 4 for years and I had 
no diminution of their efforts in mind.

In my estimation the tasks that can be completed relatively quickly are 1 and 3 
as they don't require convincing anyone else of the importance of the goal or 
merit of the implementation.
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[Arm-netbook] devicetree and testing

2018-04-17 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Apr 16, 2018, at 22:04, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 4:53 AM, Richard Wilbur 
wrote:
I am working on the devicetree for the microdesktop v1.7 and the DS113
v2.7.5 as it sounds like that is the natural prerequisite to
auto-configuration and more-automated testing.

awesome.  remember though that testing will be done with 3.4.104+ as it's
where 100% of the functionality is present.

If I'm understanding you correctly the 3.4.104 kernel is the most recent
kernel to have free support for all the promised functionality of the
DS-113, but lacks devicetree support to make that functionality
autoconfigurable?  That is a beastly spot to be in!  In that case I'll make
the manual tables from which we can initially code up some tests by using
the gpio driver and later write up the devicetree.

So, sorry for being a bit thick headed, it just dawned on me what our
priorities have to be and why:

1.  Hack together some tests under 3.4.104 that we can run on the extant
drivers.
2.  Work on getting extant A20 drivers mainlined in the linux kernel.
3.  Create devicetree for DS113 v2.7.4 and v2.7.5, … (all extant versions
of DS113 and microdesktop case).
4.  Work on getting devicetree with add/remove overlay support mainlined in
the linux kernel (and u-boot?).

--Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-03 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:11 AM, Richard Wilbur
 wrote:
> Has anyone created a VESA DDC driver that will get the EDID from any 
> connected monitor given when given access to an I2C device (as exposed by our 
> bit-banging I2C driver).
>
> VESA DDC is a standard that specifies a protocol on top of I2C for obtaining 
> monitor information (supported resolutions and timings, color gamma, etc.).

Looks like ddcutil[*] provides (reasonably up-to-date) VESA DDC functionality.

Reference:

[*] http://www.ddcutil.com/

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 2, 2018, at 15:43, Jonathan Neuschäfer  wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 02, 2018 at 03:26:32PM -0700, Richard Wilbur wrote:

[…]
> I'm not actively working on any of this, but I'm interested in the
> devicetree side of things.

To what does your interest in devicetree extend?  Are you interested in helping 
create the devicetree mappings for EOMA68 hardware, or following developments, 
etc.  How would you like to be involved?  Thank you for imparting your 
knowledge below.

>> From what I'm hearing, once the device tree is ready we could work on
>> "automagically" configuring the VESA DDC driver to bit-bang the
>> correct GPIO pins. Does the bit-banging VESA DDC driver exist already?
>> (I wrote a bit-banging I2C driver in VxWorks at a previous position so
>> the topic is not foreign.)
> 
> Mainline Linux has a driver[1] for I2C-over-GPIO. It's been there since
> 2.6.22, albeit initially without devicetree support, which came in 3.4.
> 
> There's also a generic devicetree binding[2] for I2C-over-GPIO in
> Linux's Documentation/devicetree/bindings directory.

That's wonderful news!  So with the devicetree for the micro-desktop we should 
be able to setup the I2C driver.  Next question:  has anyone created a VESA DDC 
driver that will get the EDID from any connected monitor given when given 
access to an I2C device (as exposed by our bit-banging I2C driver).

VESA DDC is a standard that specifies a protocol on top of I2C for obtaining 
monitor information (supported resolutions and timings, color gamma, etc.).

>> If none of this is underway I'll continue mapping things out so we can
>> create the device tree for the micro-desktop.  If I remember correctly
>> we also should create a device tree for the DS-113 v2.7.4 and v2.7.5?
> 
> What is DS-113?

EOMA68-A20 the CPU card.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 2, 2018, at 03:07, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> btw i'm tempted to suggest treating the SPI pins as straight GPIO.  if
> they can do 0 and 1 (input and output) then they're not
> short-circuited and/or disconnected and that's... good enough.

So test them as GPIO for now?

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 1, 2018, at 20:40, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 10:42 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
> 
>> Luke, have you tested the D/A circuit on the micro-desktop board?
> 
> yep it works great up to 1024x768.  i haven't yet been able to get it
> to sync at anything greater than that, because you have to manually
> convert the signals into A20 timings... and of course if you can't
> read the EDID data you don't know *exactly* what the settings are in
> the first place for any given monitor.
> 
> 1024x768, being a common VESA standard, has worked consistently on
> every monitor i've tried.

So if we could read the EDID the driver would figure out the A20 timings?  Does 
the A20 already have a graphics driver capable of that?  (In which case the 
bit-banging VESA DDC driver becomes very important.)  How much of this 
infrastructure already exists?  I'm bringing my tools, where do we start 
building?

I have a collection of VGA monitors with different aspect ratios and sizes (3 
CRT and 3 LCD).  I'd be happy to test resolutions above and below 1024x768.

>> Only thing I would worry about is the hold time on the data lines.  If
>> the A20 sets up the data quickly (relative to the pixel time) and
>> holds it until the next setup, we should be in good shape.
> 
> sigh yeah i thought about that... using buffer ICs with a "hold", and
> linking up the clock line to it never got round to it.  i'd prefer
> to just skip the entire circuit and use a TFP410 (or maybe it's a
> TFP401a), or a Chrontel RGB/TTL to VGA converter IC.  CH7036 i think
> it is.

Are you thinking of octal D flip-flops?  I'll have to look up those datasheets. 
 What do those chips offer over the flip-flops?  How do the prices compare?

[…]
> yyup.  exactly.  remember, you can't do more than one interface on
> any given set of pins, so i had to pick one (RGB/TTL or LVDS or MIPI
> or eDP), that then means you have to have a conversion IC in-place on
> the Card if a particular SoC doesn't *have* that interface... and many
> of the lower-cost SoCs don't because they're not part of the MIPI or
> DisplayPort cartel(s)

Yes, that's the awful thing about so many industry standards:  you can't get 
the text without signing documents and paying a handsome price, you can't use 
them without paying royalties to the patent owners.

> ... and even if you had LVDS, the cost on the other side (Housing
> side) of having an LVDS-to-RGB/TTL converter is so high relative to
> the cost of the LCD itself that companies would rebel and not bother
> with the standard at all.
> 
> so, bizarrely, RGB/TTL, by being both "free" and also unencumbered by
> patents *and* by being lowest-common-denominator, wins out on all
> fronts.  except for the fact that you need a 125mhz clock-rate for
> 1920x1080@60fps, which is a bit... high.  but hey.

Will the A20 clock the RGBTTL interface that high?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 1, 2018, at 20:31, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 10:02 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> If we did decide to roll a v1.8 micro-desktop board, it would afford
>> us the opportunity to bring two of the presently unconnected GPIO18-21
>> lines to the expansion header in place of VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA (which
>> are after all available on pins 15 and 12 of the VGA connector).  If
>> VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA are more useful on the expansion header then, by
>> all means, forget this suggestion.
> 
> the reason i brought those out is just in case someone decided they
> wanted to use them as plain GPIO.

Having the most available GPIO pins sounds like a great goal for the 
micro-desktop.  But at the expense of a fully operational VGA interface when we 
have four more GPIO pins that we could choose from--seems like maybe we could 
take a better tradeoff?

>> The other option to accommodate all our GPIO goodness would be to
>> replace J5 (2x10 header) with a 2x11 or 2x12 header
> 
> yep.

I would vote for a 2x11 header with the four other GPIO's connected and the 
VESA DDC lines not connected to the expansion header.  That only requires the 
expansion to extend in length by 10%.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 1, 2018, at 20:30, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:


Sent from my iPhone
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 9:46 PM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> It looks to me like the fastest way to test the GPIO lines connected
>> on the micro-desktop board to VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA would simply be to
>> connect a VGA monitor to the micro-desktop and make sure it is
>> properly detected and a test image looks right on it.
> 
> yep, pretty much... with one slight fly in the ointment: the SCL and
> SDA lines are straight GPIO and will need a bit-banging I2C linux
> kernel driver.  once that's configured, doing i2cdetect _should_ be
> enough to test the circuit, although scanning the data and running
> read-edid on it would be awesome and amazing: it would mean being able
> to *really* do proper VESA detection.

Is someone already working on that?  Sounds like we need the device tree for 
the micro-desktop to be populated.  If we did it for micro-desktop v1.7 it 
would be something to build off for micro-desktop v1.8 and also a good place to 
begin for the laptop.

From what I'm hearing, once the device tree is ready we could work on 
"automagically" configuring the VESA DDC driver to bit-bang the correct GPIO 
pins. Does the bit-banging VESA DDC driver exist already?  (I wrote a 
bit-banging I2C driver in VxWorks at a previous position so the topic is not 
foreign.)

If none of this is underway I'll continue mapping things out so we can create 
the device tree for the micro-desktop.  If I remember correctly we also should 
create a device tree for the DS-113 v2.7.4 and v2.7.5?

I'd be happy to work on that if you think that is the highest priority right 
now.  It sounds like it will help both testing and deployment.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-02 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Mar 1, 2018, at 17:23, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> 
> Be careful... it was the replacing of the two ports on that old VGN-S360
> that killed it... VAIOs are well known in repair circles for dying of
> heatstroke from even the slightest rework (and I was duly warned)... if
> it's a modular jack (on a cable, so no soldering), you'll be fine. If you
> need an iron... buy a board, not a port. Trust me.

I'll have to open the case and take a look to see what the particulars of the 
situation are.  Thank you for sounding the voice of experience.  I consider 
myself forewarned.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 5:10 PM, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> Posting from my phone while making dinner, so forgive that it's a top-post
> plz.
>
> Testing via the micro desktop works as long as you've got a known good
> micro desktop and your ports haven't won through. I think the 4051 idea
> might be a little better - I've worn out USB ports before, just from using
> them - ask me sometime about my mother's old VAIO laptop and how it
> ultimately died... the only thing in my test rig to wear out is the card
> cage...
>
> But, I'm not in charge, so I'll defer.

You make very good points about connector fatigue.  I was planning to
leave everything connected and only install/remove the EOMA68 card
from the micro-desktop case.  That works as long as we don't need to
test hot-plugging anything.  To my knowledge we figured the hot-plug
capability would likely be conferred by the applicable standard and
thus were designing a basic functionality test.

(Incidentally I have a dead VAIO laptop in which the power jack center
pin broke.  I really need to get that ordered and replaced.;>)

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 4:12 PM, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> I /designed/ that circuitry in the micro-desktop. I still have the paper
> copy somewhere...

Very nice!

> You can also do it with a dedicated DAC chip, which is the
> easy-but-expensive way I hinted at.
>
> But we aren't testing /that/ part -- the micro-desktop -- are we? If we're
> testing the /card/, the card does not output anything remotely like VGA,
> and, therefore, some kind of conversion is necessary in order to attach it
> to a VGA cable as was being proposed in the email I replied to about that.

We aren't planning to test the micro-desktop.  The planning is for
tests of the card mounted in a micro-desktop case to use as a test
fixture.  We are planning to use your good work on the micro-desktop
case to our advantage and connect the VGA cable to the micro-desktop
VGA connector in order to see that the EOMA68 RGBTTL (with EDID) works
as advertised!

> All you really need for this is a laptop PCMCIA or CardBus card cage, an
> IDE cable or two, a couple 4051s and toggle switches on a slice of
> perfboard, a 9v battery with connector and switch, and a cheap USB logic
> analyzer attached to a laptop. You use the 4051s, switched manually, and
> powered by the 9v battery, to act as input expanders for the logic
> analyzer. Each 4015 turns one channel into eight and requires three "on-on"
> switches -- with one "on" wired to +9v, one to ground, and the common to
> the chip. You use the IDE cable for the wires ;) If you hook it up so that
> you have one 4051 mux per logic analyzer channel, that'll give you 128 (!)
> channels to switch with -- most USB logic analyzers, even the super cheap
> ones, are 16-channel...
>
> Heck, if you wanted to make the circuit "complicated" -- I could draw up
> something that automatically iterated through the channels for you at the
> press of a single button, switching at variable speed with a pot, a 555, a
> resistor and cap, and a couple 4017s and 4051s. You'd only need /one/
> channel for that -- so you could even use an o-scope there. Heck, I could
> do it with that circuit and my old, old Tektronix 422...
>
> I'm honestly surprised that this sort of idea hasn't been mentioned yet.

That is a cool way to set up a very wide logic analyzer.  We were
planning to use a little specialized hardware and less elbow grease to
make our test fixture:
*  USB devices connected to the micro-desktop case USB ports,
*  SD peripheral connected to the micro SD slot,
*  VGA monitor connected to the VGA connector,
*  serial terminal connected to the UART pins in expansion header

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 3:05 PM, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> ...BTW, those SCL and SDA lines on a VGA connector are for a nifty signal
> coming from your monitor. It's called EDID and it's basically how every
> modern OS magically knows what to do with the monitor it wants to display
> on, regardless of the specs or origin of said monitor.
>
> If you've ever had a cheap VGA cable where all the pins are present on the
> connectors but those two lines are disconnected internally, you have
> experience with what happens when you eff with those wires. Best to leave
> them alone!

Christopher, you are quite correct about the usefullness of
untarnished VESA EDID.  Turns out I've worked with it before and
respect its utility with respect to VGA/DVI/HDMI monitors.

We are simply talking about how to test the DS-113 EOMA68-A20
processor cards when they come to the end of the assembly line.  In
that regard, our discussion is mainly about how to create a test
jig/fixture that has the most complete coverage of the signals
available on the EOMA68 interface and some of the possible use
scenarios.  We also have an interest in time efficiency as a matter of
economy.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 2:54 PM, Christopher Havel  wrote:
> Oh LOL.
>
> VGA is analog, and has six wires for color (red signal, red ground, ditto
> each for blue and green). It's not /exactly/ serial (serial as I understand
> it is inherently digital, which VGA is *ahem* very much not) but the
> paradigm sort of fits. RGBTTL is parallel. You have one wire per bit of
> color. So that's 18 wires. Plus your sync lines... which may or may not
> match VGA signal standards, I'm not sure.
>
> If you actually manage to figure out how to get that hooked up correclty,
> let me know ;)
>
> (Hint, it's doable, but you need additional components. There's a cheap
> way, and there's an easy way, and they are two *very* different ways...)

Looking at the micro-desktop schematic it seems Luke has this issue
well in hand.  Christopher have you seen the micro-desktop schematic?
The VGA conversion is on page 3.

Luke, have you tested the D/A circuit on the micro-desktop board?
Only thing I would worry about is the hold time on the data lines.  If
the A20 sets up the data quickly (relative to the pixel time) and
holds it until the next setup, we should be in good shape.

> Much easier suggestion: get a small LCD. *ANY* small LCD. Like a five or
> seven inch display at the largest. Raw panel, no driver board. Get the
> datasheet and a compatible connector. (If you source from eBay this is very
> easy; those are almost all commodity displays with available datasheets.)
> If it's a SMALL DISPLAY it *will* be RGBTTL, 90%+ of the time (I've seen
> one exception to this ever and it was in an off-brand portable DVD player).
> Wire it up. Wire it to the card connector. Add power. If you get a screen
> that works, you've done it right.

I think this is why Luke put the display signals on the EOMA68
standard in the RGBTTL format--to simplify the job of connecting to
LCD's.  (I'm thinking of the laptop, tablet, gaming console, phone,
etc.)

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
If we did decide to roll a v1.8 micro-desktop board, it would afford
us the opportunity to bring two of the presently unconnected GPIO18-21
lines to the expansion header in place of VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA (which
are after all available on pins 15 and 12 of the VGA connector).  If
VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA are more useful on the expansion header then, by
all means, forget this suggestion.

The other option to accommodate all our GPIO goodness would be to
replace J5 (2x10 header) with a 2x11 or 2x12 header allowing us to
bring all the GPIO pins to the expansion header (the only difference
being whether we would prefer to retain VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA in the
header).

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
It looks to me like the fastest way to test the GPIO lines connected
on the micro-desktop board to VESA_SCL and VESA_SDA would simply be to
connect a VGA monitor to the micro-desktop and make sure it is
properly detected and a test image looks right on it.  This would
leave 6 GPIO lines to test.  So we get better test coverage for the
EOMA interface and shorter GPIO test at the same time!

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 1:50 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 8:33 PM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> We could obviously create a v1.8 schematic for the microdesktop and
>> connect these EOMA nets to a header, if desired.
>
>  yes.  damn.  i think it's probably that i didn't update the
> micro-desktop schematic when i changed the EOMA68 spec from 24-pin to
> 18-pin RGB/TTL.

Maybe you didn't update the micro-desktop schematic as much as you
intended to when you changed the EOMA68 spec from 24-pin to 18-pin
RGB/TTL but in v1.7 you did at least connect only the 6 high bits of
each color to the D/A convertors.  The new pins are all connected to
useful sub-circuits on the micro-desktop board:  SPI (expansion
header), SD0 (SD slot), and PWRON (power switch).

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-03-01 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 2:41 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 9:09 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> After realizing that you mentioned all 8 GPIO lines were on the 20-pin
>> expansion header J5 in the microdesktop case, I consulted the
>> microdesktop schematic for clues.
>>
>> I suspect the UART and EOMA I2C pins should be left to those functions.
>
>  yehyeh.   UART implicitly tested "if console works it's probably
> good" and I2C with a bus scan, i2c-utils, if 0x51 EEPROM shows up,
> it's good.
>
>> I have added tables to the "Testing"[*] page under the "GPIO" section
>> with my nominations for which pins to test and their mapping back to
>> A20 register bits.
>
>  awesome.  it'll have to be done manually for now,

Are you suggesting that the testing "will have to be done manually"?
What is the time frame of "for now"?

I'm trying to figure out which pins of the expansion header we want to
test, which pins of the processor those correspond to, and thus which
registers and bits of those registers we need to manipulate.  That
determines how I need to interact with the GPIO driver.

>> Luke, does this match your understanding of the GPIO pins to test?
>
>  yep - GPIO_19,20,21 missing.

In the following table (created while I was trying to figure out which
GPIO were connected in the EOMA standard) you will see that EOMA nets
GPIO(18)/EINT3, GPIO(19), GPIO(20), and GPIO(21) are not connected on
the microdesktop schematic v1.7 from J14.  Thus they are at J14 but
not available anywhere else in the microdesktop v1.7.

1342 Fri 23 Feb 2018:
EOMA  A20   DS113  microdesktop
Net Name  ball register CON15 pin  J14 pin
PWMB19   PI3  43 22  GPIO(10)
EINT0  A6PH0  63 32  GPIO(11)
EINT1  B6PH1  17  9  GPIO(16)
EINT2  B2PH14 44 56  PWFBOUT GPIO(17)
EINT3  C2PH18 39 20  NC GPIO(18)
GPIO(19)   A1PH15 40 54  NC
GPIO(20)   C1PH17 41 21  NC
GPIO(21)   B1PH16 42 55  NC

We could obviously create a v1.8 schematic for the microdesktop and
connect these EOMA nets to a header, if desired.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-02-28 Thread Richard Wilbur
After realizing that you mentioned all 8 GPIO lines were on the 20-pin
expansion header J5 in the microdesktop case, I consulted the
microdesktop schematic for clues.

I suspect the UART and EOMA I2C pins should be left to those functions.

I have added tables to the "Testing"[*] page under the "GPIO" section
with my nominations for which pins to test and their mapping back to
A20 register bits.

Luke, does this match your understanding of the GPIO pins to test?

Reference:
[*]  http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/testing

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[Arm-netbook] Error trying to edit rhombus-tech wiki

2018-02-19 Thread Richard Wilbur
Trying to edit wiki page to add my name to list interested in
pre-production board, et cetera.  Is that page privileged?

Sincerely,

Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Fwd: Your FOSDEM 2018 talk titled 'Crowdsupply EOMA68 Progress Report'

2018-02-08 Thread Richard Wilbur
I just tried the link again and the status is 'Transcoding' so it
sounds like maybe the review is complete and processing is underway?

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Re: [Arm-netbook] updates from eoma68-a20

2018-01-29 Thread Richard Wilbur


Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 29, 2018, at 20:35, Richard Wilbur  wrote:
> Are there enough 2.7.4 cards and microdesktop housings that I could buy one 
> of each to use for test development and software integration/porting?

So I'd be interested in:
Libre Tea Card (v2.7.4), $65 on CrowdSupply (prototypes typically more 
expensive, please let me know how much)
Microdesktop Housing, $55 on CrowdSupply
PCMCIA/EOMA68 Breakout Board, $20 on CrowdSupply

USB + HDMI Cable Set for Standalone Operation, $15 on CrowdSupply


Should I (pre-?)order them on CrowdSupply?  What arrangements will work 
(shipping, et cetera)?  I realize some of these may not be currently available.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] updates from eoma68-a20

2018-01-29 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 28, 2018, at 12:22, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> folks, gotta do another update, i'm leaving for brussels in 16 hours
> time.  i have about *six* different things / meetings to do from the
> 2nd-4th, i'm then going to the UK from the 7th to the 20th and back
> again to Taiwan.

Best wishes with all the travel and meetings.

> i'm hand-couriering the remaining 2.7.4 Cards and
> the Microdesktop Housings there, and will leave them there and get
> them sent on.  adam i'm thinking of you particularly.

Are there enough 2.7.4 cards and microdesktop housings that I could buy one of 
each to use for test development and software integration/porting?

I know we reworked the HDMI layout and changed the connector.  You also changed 
a lot of the power supply decoupling capacitors.  What other differences were 
there between 2.7.4 and 2.7.5?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-26 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 12:43 PM, Richard Wilbur
 wrote:
[...]
> I added some more details and selected "Save" and after awhile my
> browser came back with a page that says only:
> "An error occurred while writing CGI reply"

I don't know whether this is a cause of the error but I had forgotten
to type anything in the comment section.  If that causes problems,
sounds like it would be a fine candidate for input data validation.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-26 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 3:43 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
[...]
>  if it happens again please take a screenshot, it's important as it
> means there's a bug in ikiwiki that is essential to report and get
> fixed.

I added some more details and selected "Save" and after awhile my
browser came back with a page that says only:
"An error occurred while writing CGI reply"

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-23 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 23, 2018, at 03:43, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> if it happens again please take a screenshot, it's important as it
> means there's a bug in ikiwiki that is essential to report and get
> fixed.

I will do so.  Thank you for helping sort this out.

By the way, do you happen to know in what language ikiwiki is written?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-23 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 23, 2018, at 02:08, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 7:40 AM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
[…]
> git log compared to "Recent Changes" showed that there were 4
> revisions that hadn't been applied.

That may explain why the displayed version of the page didn't change but the 
preview did change and when I logged out and back in all of my previous edits 
showed back up in the page source.

> did you get at any point a failure of the "page updated" thing or at
> any point interrupt the cgi script whilst it was rebuilding the page?
> ikiwiki works by generating static HTML using cgi-bin perl scripts
> that pull markdown (etc.) out of the git repository.  it can be... a
> little fragile.

I got an error message that said there had been a failure of the CGI script--I 
don't remember the exact wording.  If I did interrupt something I'm not sure 
how I accomplished that as I was trying to be patient and wait till it was done 
before initiating anything new.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sat, Jan 20, 2018 at 12:01 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> anyway it's meant that i've had to ignore the pin numbers in the
> schematic and go by pin positions.  [...]  so i left it for 3 years until i
> had worked out / learned a technique to avoid that happening.

I'm sorry to hear it has been such a thorn in the side!

I went and read the EOMA68 specification since, as you mentioned, it
is normative.  I then tried to update the testing wiki page and it
didn't seem to want to save my changes.  I saved them off locally here
so I can try to figure out the problem and then reapply the changes.

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[Arm-netbook] EOMA Standard

2018-01-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
As I was reading the EOMA standard[*] in the section entitled "Interoperability 
Restrictions imposed by height limits", I came across a statement 

Type III 8.0mm cards must be actively prevented from slotting into Type I 
(5.0mm) Housings by ensuring that there is a physical slot in the casework that 
is no more than 5.5mm in height.

which I think would probably reflect your meaning better if rewritten as 
follows:

Type III 8.0mm cards must be actively prevented from slotting into Type II 
(5.0mm) Housings by ensuring that there is a physical slot in the casework that 
is no more than 5.5mm in height.

Because the previous paragraph dealt with restrictions on Type I Housings 
(which accept 3.3mm high cards) and this mentions 5.0mm cards (which correspond 
to Type II).

Reference:
[*]  
https://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA68/Hardware#Pinouts_.28version_1.0.29


Sent from my iPhone
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Libre RISC-V SoC

2018-01-19 Thread Richard Wilbur
That's awesome news on so many fronts!  (libre LPDDR3 PHY, working
relationship with MOSIS, possibility of funding, VHDL glue logic for
interfaces, multiplexer GPIO bank, performance tuning a libre GPU,
video coprocessors with DMA)
Sounds like lots of fun!

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-19 Thread Richard Wilbur
Having taken a closer look I did find an equivalence mapping:

DS113  microdesktop
CON15  Net  J14
 pin   name  pin

1 SPI_MISO 1
2 SPI_MOSI 35
3 LCD0-D2 2 (LCDD2)
4 LCD0-D3 36 (LCDD3)
5 LCD0-D4 3 (LCDD4)
6 LCD0-D5 37 (LCDD5)
7 LCD0-D6 4 (LCDD6)
8 LCD0-D7 38 (LCDD7)
9 SPI_CLK 5 (SPI_SCK)
10 SPI_CE 39 (SPI_CS)
11 LCD0-D10 6 (LCDD10)
12 LCD0-D11 40 (LCDD11)
13 LCD0-D12 7 (LCDD12)
14 LCD0-D13 41 (LCDD13)
15 LCD0-D14 8 (LCDD14)
16 LCD0-D15 42 (LCDD15)
17 EINT1 9 (SC0-DETN)
18 POWER 43 (POWERON)
19 LCD0-D18 10 (LCDD18)
20 LCD0-D19 44 (LCDD19)
21 LCD0-D20 11 (LCDD20)
22 LCD0-D21 45 (LCDD21)
23 LCD0-D22 12 (LCDD22)
24 LCD0-D23 46 (LCDD23)
25 LCD0-CLK 13 (LCDCLK)
26 LCD0-VSYNC 47 (LCDVSYNC)
27 LCD0-HSYNC 14 (LCDHSYNC)
28 LCD0-DE 48 (LCDDE)
29 TWI1-SCK 15 (EOMA68-I2C-SCL)
30 TWI1-SDA 49 (EOMA68-I2C-SDA)
31 SD0-D3 16
32 SD0-D2 50
33 IR-RX 17 (VESA_SDA)
34 IR-TX 51 (GPIO_3)
35 SD0-CMD 18
36 SD0-CLK 52
37 SD0-D0 19
38 SD0-D1 53
39 NC 20 ()
40 NC 54 ()
41 NC 21 ()
42 NC 55 ()
43 PWM 22 (VESA_SCL)
44 PWFBOUT 56 (ETH_TAP)
45 UART0-TX 23 (EOMA68-UART_TX)
46 UART0-RX 57 (EOMA68-UART_RX)
47 ACIN-5V 24 (EOMA68-VCC-5V0)
48 ACIN-5V 58 (EOMA68-VCC-5V0)
49 NC 25 ()
50 NC 59 ()
51 EMAC-RDP 26 ()
52 EMAC-RDN 60 ()
53 EMAC-TDP 27 ()
54 EMAC-TDN 61 ()
55 NC 28 ()
56 NC 62 ()
57 ACIN-5V 29 (EOMA68-VCC-5V0)
58 ACIN-5V 63 (EOMA68-VCC-5V0)
59 DP1 30 (EOMA68-DP0)
60 DM1 64 (EOMA68-DM0)
61 GND 31
62 GND 65
63 EINT0 32
64 TTLREFOUT=VCC-3V3 66 (VREFTTL)
65 GND 33
66 GND 67
67 DP2 34
68 DM2 68
   0 (GND)
   0/2 (GND)
   71 (GND)
   72 (GND)
   73 ()
   74 ()

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[Arm-netbook] Testing: GPIO

2018-01-18 Thread Richard Wilbur
After looking at the schematics for the DS113 v2.7 2017-02-17 and the
microdesktop v1.7 I feel the need to ask whether there are more
up-to-date schematics available?

Results of my sleuthing thus far attached.
GPIO (General Purpose Input / Output)

DS113 Schematic v2.7 2017-02-17 page 3, lists PA(18) with PA7-PA16 used as GPIO.
PA7 ETXD0
PA8 ERXCK
PA9 ERXERR
PA10ERXDV
PA11EMDC
PA12EMDIO
PA13ETXEN
PA14ETXCK
PA15ECRS
PA16ECOL

Datasheet page 13, lists these all as Type = I/O, Reset State = Z, Default Pull 
Up/Down = NO PULL, Buffer Strength (mA) = 20
Ball #
PA7 ETXD0   E8
PA8 ERXCK   D9
PA9 ERXERR  E9
PA10ERXDV   D10
PA11EMDCE10
PA12EMDIO   D11
PA13ETXEN   E11
PA14ETXCK   D12
PA15ECRSE12
PA16ECOLD13

DS113 Schematic page 6, shows the U1-C pins for PA7-PA16 connected to the 
signals ethernet signals listed above.

But DS113 Schematic page 13, which shows the 68-pin connector CON15, doesn’t 
mention any of these signals and has at least 8 pins named “NC”?

The microdesktop housing board schematic v1.7 page 1 shows the 68-pin connector 
as J14 with pins labelled as

PIN#NameConnected Net
16  GPIO_0  SD0-D3
50  GPIO_1  SD0-D2
17  GPIO_2  VESA_SDA
51  GPIO_3  GPIO_3
18  GPIO_4  SD0-CMD
52  GPIO_5  SD0-CLK
19  GPIO_6  SD0-D0
53  GPIO_7  SD0-D1
20  GPIO_8
54  GPIO_9
21  GPIO_10
55  GPIO_11
22  GPIO_12 VESA_SCL

I haven’t yet found an equivalence mapping between the pinouts of the two 
68-pin connectors of the two schematics.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations

2018-01-16 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Sep 20, 2017, at 13:27, Richard Wilbur  wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 1:57 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>  wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 11:26 PM, Richard Wilbur
>>  wrote:
>>> I'm interested in
>>> tracking down the power supply pins for the differential HDMI signals
>>> as that is where our return path for common-mode signal has to go.
>>
>> there's no specific power pin for HDMI.  the GND pins are grouped in
>> with a whole stack of other GND pins, there's absolutely no way it's
>> practical to get a special GND plane to it: the board is extremely
>> full already.
>
> I'm not looking to provide any special connection to the power or
> ground pins.  I just want to make sure we don't obstruct the return
> current path any more than necessary on its way from bottom reference
> ground plane (layer 5) to top reference ground plane (layer 2) to the
> power supply pins of the differential drivers:
> 1.  ground plane (layer 2) via to SoC ground pin land (layer 1)
> 2.  ground plane (layer 2) via to power supply decoupling capacitor
> ground land (layer 1), through decoupling capacitor to land on power
> supply trace (layer 1), through trace to SoC power supply pin land
> (layer 1).
>
> The goal is to avoid unnecessarily impeding this return current path.
> I'm trying to avoid making the path >~200mil and putting any major
> obstruction (like a huge layer void) in the way.

While browsing the A20 datasheet, I found that the HDMI section does
have a power pin but not labelled the way I was asking you about.
Page 18 mentions that VCC-HDMI is a power pin on ball #T13.  On the
schematic it is connected to net HVP which has power decoupling
capacitor C108 which looks like "104" => 0.1uF.

Looks like the path from the copper on layer 2 below the HDMI pins
(balls #TUVW 22,23) on the SoC (processor) to the VCC-HDMI power pin
(#T13) is ~300mil.  It doesn't look overly impeded.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-13 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 13, 2018, at 15:11, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 10:05 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> I was just wondering whether there were more GPIO lines we could test (by 
>> hook or by crook).  My goal is the best test coverage.
>
> i also have to think how to minimise testing time, as it will be
> chargeable by the minute.  either that or i do it... get *everything*
> shipped to my apartment  i always wanted an ultra-low-power
> beowulf cluste... o :)

From what I've seen, I think we can automate a lot of this so it takes
a second or two per card.  I expect our tall tentpole (the thing
that's holding everything up) will be booting the card.  Do you know
how long it takes the bootloader to come up from power on?  How long
does it take GNU/Linux to get to user login after that?

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-13 Thread Richard Wilbur
I am sorry if any of my comments came across with any flavour of criticism.  I 
meant none towards anyone but myself.

Thank you for the pointer to the Allwinner A20 documentation.  I didn't know 
how easily available it was.

I was just wondering whether there were more GPIO lines we could test (by hook 
or by crook).  My goal is the best test coverage.

No complaints about the EOMA specification or your design decisions on the 
microdesktop case.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-12 Thread Richard Wilbur
Last time I asked these questions I succeeded in hiding them in the middle of a 
bunch of other text.

On Jan 9, 2018, at 06:26, Richard Wilbur  wrote:
> What kind of logic are these GPIO pins?  (CMOS, TTL, etc.)

The type of logic determines the input and output voltage and current source 
and sink characteristics (both capabilities and expectations).  Do you have the 
Allwinner documentation for the A20--specifically for the GPIO pins?

> So there are 4 pairs or 8 GPIO lines to test? (I thought we had more lines 
> dedicated to GPIO and two more that were going to be used as I2C for VGA?  
> Are only 8 easy to test?)

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-09 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 8, 2018, at 08:47, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 3:32 PM, Neil Jansen  wrote:
>> Does the current housing design break EVERYTHING out?
> 
> the microdesktop 1.7 brings everything out.  as it's only 68 pins, 24
> of which are RGB/TTL, 4 are power, 8 are unused USB3, 7 are for
> micro-sd and 4 are for USB2, there's actually not a lot left.

68 - (24 + 4 + 8 + 7 + 4) = 68 - 47 = 21
What are the remaining 21 pins?

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-09 Thread Richard Wilbur
> On Jan 8, 2018, at 17:23, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 11:24 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
> 
>> It all sounds like fun!  What can I help with first?
> 
> well... perhaps... something simple like.. a simple program that tests
> GPIO, assuming that say 4 hard-wires are connected between 8 GPIOs in
> pairs, turning one into an input and the other an output, then setting
> 0 and 1 and seeing if it's read correctly... then inverting each pair
> (out becomes in, in becomes out) and re-running the test.

I'd recommend resistors instead of wires.  Something like 10KΩ because then if 
they are accidentally misconnected, Vcc(5V?) to ground would only amount to 
0.5mA which is unlikely to stress anything unduly.  What kind of logic are 
these GPIO pins?  (CMOS, TTL, etc.)

> something in either c or python that uses the sunxi-3.4 gpio driver:
>   
> https://github.com/linux-sunxi/linux-sunxi/blob/stage/sunxi-3.4/drivers/gpio/gpio-sunxi.c
> 
> that _should_ be exposed as /dev/gpio which should in turn appear in
> either /sys or /proc... it should be a standard interface, with a
> standard way to set which banks are activated... you might have to do
> some digging.

So there are 4 pairs or 8 GPIO lines to test? (I thought we had 14 lines 
dedicated to GPIO and two more that were going to be used as I2C for VGA?  Are 
only 8 easy to test?)  I'll assume I either get the connected pairs via an 
environment variable, the command line, or a file (filename passed on command 
line).
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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-08 Thread Richard Wilbur
It all sounds like fun!  What can I help with first?


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Re: [Arm-netbook] Crowsupply update

2018-01-08 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 8, 2018, at 07:57, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 2:28 PM, Neil Jansen  wrote:
>> I do completely agree with his
>> decision to get a few boards produced and tested before doing a complete
>> run.  Even with all the review, there are still plenty of possibilities for
>> show-stoppers.
> 
> the 2.7.4 board is the fallback.  it'll be... without an HDMI
> interface.  that's just the way it'll be.

One downside of the 2.7.4 board at this point is the changes in capacitor 
pricing that have been ameliorated only on version 2.7.5.  Here's hoping the 
2.7.5 board works!

[…]
> software-wise i need something that does nothing more complex than
> mount stuff on a micro-sd card, show boot messages on both screens,
> and maybe has 2 keyboards plugged in (one into each USB socket) so
> that they can bash some keys and see that crud comes up on-screen for
> each.
> 
> going beyond that... testing I2C, UART and the GPIO *sigh*...
> that involves writing some software.

I'd be happy to write some test software for I2C, UART, GPIO, etc.  I've worked 
on drivers for those interfaces on embedded machines in the past.  I also have 
experience creating and implementing software and hardware test designs.  One 
example, I modified my employer's PCI VGA BIOS to test the card at boot which 
significantly streamlined testing of our cards.  Another example, in order to 
test a design I created I2C driver and test code to demonstrate feasibility on 
a prototype and then incorporated it into production code in the BIOS and 
driver.

Happy to collaborate on board bring up as well.  I've worked on bringing up 
in-house boards for two employers:  PCI graphics cards (for which we used 
oscilloscope and completed someone else's programmable logic design), embedded 
computers in different modules of high-speed wireless communications links 
(tools used:  spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, logic analyzer, PCI bus 
analyzer, MPEG protocol analysis software, processor In-Circuit Emulator, 
serial terminal).

If you've got that covered, I'm happy playing the role of the ally you can 
describe the problem to and who, through listening to your description, helps 
you see the solution!

Sincerely,
Richard
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-06 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 23:49, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 6:35 AM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> So the trick is how to choose a faster chip and integrate successfully into 
>> a system running at lower speed than it is specified for?
> 
> yyup.  have to use the 1800mhz 1.5v x8 DDR3 IC, which fortunately
> happens to be down-compatible with 667mhz.  the 1.35v DDR3L variant of
> the same chip is *not*.

I was doing a little reading about DDR3 and noticed the 1.35V DDR3L memory 
chips are happy talking/running with 1.5V DDR3 systems.[1]  So are you saying 
the 1800mhz 1.35v x8 DDR3L IC is not happy running at 667MHz?  (Clock rate 
incompatibility versus voltage incompatibility?)

References:
[1]  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 23:49, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 6:35 AM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> So the trick is how to choose a faster chip and integrate successfully into 
>> a system running at lower speed than it is specified for?
> 
> yyup.  have to use the 1800mhz 1.5v x8 DDR3 IC, which fortunately
> happens to be down-compatible with 667mhz.  the 1.35v DDR3L variant of
> the same chip is *not*.

Your changes to the power supply capacitors and vias should help accommodate 
faster edges, etc. from the faster chips.

> still, i cannot risk just relying on one possible DDR3 IC, so i will
> have to source 1600mhz as well... and also last resort a 2gigabit IC
> which will total, qty 4, only 1GBYTE of RAM.
> 
> the budget's fixed... it's just the way it's going to have to be.
> make adjustments that fit within the budget, end of story.

Here's hoping the faster ones fit the budget and the circuit as I'm a big fan 
of providing as much RAM as possible!
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 22:37, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> ok gerbers sent.  waiting for confirmation from mike.

Cheers!

> with DDR3
> prices being insane i'm not going to push hard for the PCB to be made,
> nor the assembly done in a hurry.

Not having a rush on PCB fabrication or assembly may help control costs.  Do 
you see DDR3 prices relaxing after Chinese New Year?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 23:27, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 6:24 AM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> I am happy with the HDMI but I was going to ask about silkscreen on pads--I 
>> saw several instances of silkscreen on areas you'll want covered in solder.  
>> Sorry I didn't bring it up earlier.  Not a problem if you aren't having the 
>> silkscreen printed.  Your board fab may also do the right thing and move the 
>> offending notations.
> 
> they do.  they exclude silkscreen from solder mask areas.

Wonderful!  One less problem to worry about.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 21:50, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 4:02 PM, Richard Wilbur  
>> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 4:05 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>>  wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 8:27 AM, Richard Wilbur  
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 1:00 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>>>>  wrote:
> 
> it's not.  basically the trick has been, due to cramped space, to put
> at least 2 VIAs around power decoupling capacitors (not done by me),
> and they're just on the edge.  space is pretty crowded and all
> previous boards worked fine (and there's been a *lot* of
> pre-production boards now).

In that case, no problem.

>> But I would definitely check out C3 on layer 1 as there seems to be a
>> via in the middle of one of the pads.  (Marked with red arrow in
>> attached picture.)
> 
> yehyeh good call that one was me, i had to reorganise the nearby
> (East) power capacitors, and shuffle (West) the components next door,
> in order to fit two (horizontal) 0603 4.7uF where there was previously
> one (vertical) 0805 10uF.
> 
> shuffled that VIA up as there's plenty of space.
> 
>  think we're good.

Well I'm glad I looked and you had chance to fix it!

> now the only concern is, blasted frickin apple, has sucked world-wide
> demand not just for the entire supply of 0.1 10 and 100uF capacitors
> but f*g DDR3 and eMMC *as well*.
> 
> i now have to be extremely careful on selecting the right DDR3 RAM
> ICs... *sigh*.

So the situation is the chips at the speed you designed for are much more 
expensive while faster ones are cheaper?  So the trick is how to choose a 
faster chip and integrate successfully into a system running at lower speed 
than it is specified for?
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 5, 2018, at 21:28, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> still doing these tiny little changes, it's just the way it goes:
> every time you look at the board in close zoom, it's like... "hmmm,
> yeah that could be improved" and this latest one, it's the (now pair
> of) capacitors for the main DDR3 power stabilisation.
> 
> previously this was a single 0805 capacitor lined up vertically.
> there was plenty of connecting VIAs down to layer 4 DDR3 1.5v power
> plane but because there were a MASSIVE array of tracks underneath
> the GND pads there were no GND vias.  whoops.  and when replacing with
> two 0603 4.7uF capacitors, i maintained that mistake.
> 
> i decided to turn both 0603 capacitors horizontal and then to beef up
> the number of GND vias.  this has the unintended side-effect of
> drilling quite a lot of holes into the layer 4 DDR3 1.5v power plane
> however as the GND vias are at the edge of the plane i consider this
> acceptable.  i have however made sure that the plane is free of holes
> for getting the actual 1.5v power *in* to the plane, if that makes any
> sense.

Good stuff.  Should make the power supply more stable for the DDR3 RAM chips!

> anyway a few more things like this... richardt if you're happy with the
> beginning of the HDMI area i'll send the gerbers off straight away.

I am happy with the HDMI but I was going to ask about silkscreen on pads--I saw 
several instances of silkscreen on areas you'll want covered in solder.  Sorry 
I didn't bring it up earlier.  Not a problem if you aren't having the 
silkscreen printed.  Your board fab may also do the right thing and move the 
offending notations.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 4:05 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 8:27 AM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 1:00 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>>  wrote:
>>>  rectangular all-layers keepout, showing 1 and 3 here... damn layers 2
>>> and 5 have a weird shape (not enough clearance auto-generated) let me
>>> make it an oval all-layers keepout instead...
>>
>> Those do look very nice, indeed!
>
>  did the trick.  pain doing them by hand, had to do the flood-fill,
> then adjust the keepout, then write down by hand the distances that
> the keepout fitted cleanly to the edges, _then_ throw that file away,
> _then_ go back and put the rectangle left-right... bletch :)
>
>  anyway i moved the PWM via up a bit, left the 3V3 VIAs where they
> were - sorted.

The results are great!  Thanks for all the hard work to make it happen.

So I'm happy with the layout of the HDMI!

I checked for vias in component pads (manufacturability issue) and
since the gerber viewer I'm using complains about all the tools in the
drill file when I load it, I can't see the via holes.  So there may be
several false alarms in this list.  Could even be mostly false alarms.
But I would definitely check out C3 on layer 1 as there seems to be a
via in the middle of one of the pads.  (Marked with red arrow in
attached picture.)
Component Pads Encroach Vias?

Layer 1

C59, C60, C71
*C3

Layer 6

C139
C341
C340
C345
C332
C343
C335
C43
C69
C70
C99
C86
C106
C107
C57
C45
C50
C105
C108
C85
C96
C54
C38
C55
C85
C40, C41, C44

C305, C307, C308


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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 1:00 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 7:44 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>  wrote:
>
>>  there's a few more like that back at the source diff-pair vias, i'll
>> think about whether to drop a plain square keepout in place (to
>> preserve 15mil) or a straight manual track.  track would cut clearance
>> to around 12mil.  thoughts?
>
>  rectangular all-layers keepout, showing 1 and 3 here... damn layers 2
> and 5 have a weird shape (not enough clearance auto-generated) let me
> make it an oval all-layers keepout instead...

Those do look very nice, indeed!

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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-05 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 12:44 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 7:32 AM, Richard Wilbur  
> wrote:
>> Any
>> chance we could use another trace to even up the little dimples that
>> are left in the edge facing the differential pairs?
>
>  always best to screenshot / arrow-mark it, richard.  round-trip
> delays getting critical here, we're up to 5th january already.

I have attached a screenshot with red arrows.  It is taken from the
long straight differential microstrip transmission lines on layer 6.
These are otherwise so clean and straight.

> attached green arrows, i am guessing you mean, i remember you said
> that causes... something-or-other... capacitance-related?

The ones you marked weren't the ones I was looking at.  I think they
are probably fine as they aren't too sharp, they mind the 15mil
clearance, and we are turning 90 degrees out of some signal vias onto
the top of the board.  (If they were pointing at a straight side I'd
be more worried.)

>  there's a few more like that back at the source diff-pair vias, i'll
> think about whether to drop a plain square keepout in place (to
> preserve 15mil) or a straight manual track.  track would cut clearance
> to around 12mil.  thoughts?

It is kind of tumultuous with the pairs coming from close quarters on
layer 1 and still to be sorted through the intra-pair
skew-compensating wiggles.  What you've done at that end looks much
better.

>> I glanced at parts of the rest of the board but it would be much more
>> straightforward with the schematics.
>
>  not so concerned about the rest of the board, it's mainly the HDMI.
> PDF version of schematics should be here
> http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/DS113-V2.7-2017-02-17.pdf

I'll concentrate on the HDMI, then.

>> Do you have a way to compare
>> changes with previous versions of the board to see if PADS did
>> anything surprising behind your back?
>
>  the only way would be visual pdf diffs, and i've made several minor
> changes as well that would show up and need to be reviewed, one by
> one, and eliminated.  i've found it's easier just to go over the board
> making minor tweaks, because each time i do so i find one more "little
> thing" such as a place where there's a capacitor that doesn't have a
> nearby GND via and so on.

Sounds good.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-04 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 10:20 PM, Richard Wilbur
 wrote:
> I notice that north of the long east-west transmission line, at the
> northern keepout boundary on layer 6, there are a couple of vias that
> have almost complete ground shield between the vias and the HDMI TX2
> pair.
>
> Question:  What is the fill polygon width for ground fill on layer 6?
>
> I can see two fairly simple solutions to complete the ground shield
> around these vias:
> 1.  Add traces to complete the ground shield between vias and HDMI
> differential pair.
> 2.  Adjust trace/fill polygon width for ground fill on layer 6 till
> the ground shield is complete.
>
> I'll sleep on it and take another look tomorrow morning.

Looks like you already addressed this in the latest gerbers!  Any
chance we could use another trace to even up the little dimples that
are left in the edge facing the differential pairs?

I glanced at parts of the rest of the board but it would be much more
straightforward with the schematics.  Do you have a way to compare
changes with previous versions of the board to see if PADS did
anything surprising behind your back?

Sincerely,
Richard

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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-03 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 9:53 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
 wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 12:22 AM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>
>> My initial feedback is it looks pretty nice.  I sat down, read the 
>> documentation
>> for the gerber viewer that comes with KiCAD and started getting my feet wet.
>
>  good god.  you read documentation?? :)

I scanned it fairly quickly to get a good idea of how to interact with
the program.  That way I had some idea what the icons meant and what
functions were available in the user interface.  (Okay, I've written
documentation before so I figured since it was available I'd look it
over.  It gave me a pretty quick idea of how the user interactions are
structured.)

>> One recommendation for now as I have to leave for choir rehearsal--do
>>  the same thing with additional ground traces north and south of the ESD
>> pads on layer 6 as you did on layer 1 to bring the distance between pad
>> and ground down from 15mil to around the same as the pad-to-pad spacing
>> of the ESD component pads.
>
>  yep sorted.  will send you new gerber set, for anyone else to see
> (and also make it easier for you, richard) attached screenshot.

Beautiful!

I think that was the most important change I noticed.  I am mainly
looking at the HDMI which we have been laboring over the last few
months.

My next suggestion has an associated question:

I notice that north of the long east-west transmission line, at the
northern keepout boundary on layer 6, there are a couple of vias that
have almost complete ground shield between the vias and the HDMI TX2
pair.

Question:  What is the fill polygon width for ground fill on layer 6?

I can see two fairly simple solutions to complete the ground shield
around these vias:
1.  Add traces to complete the ground shield between vias and HDMI
differential pair.
2.  Adjust trace/fill polygon width for ground fill on layer 6 till
the ground shield is complete.

I'll sleep on it and take another look tomorrow morning.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2018-01-03 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Jan 3, 2018, at 05:03, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> ok i'm done with the 0805 10uF capacitors, and mostly-done messing
> about looking at the gerber files for areas where ground tracks are
> missing.  currently i've added a keepout area around the DDR3 lines
> because that's what i've seen done in other designs.
> 
> gotta get moving on this, richard - it'll be another 5-6 weeks if we
> miss the window of opportunity before chinese new year.

My initial feedback is it looks pretty nice.  I sat down, read the 
documentation for the gerber viewer that comes with KiCAD and started getting 
my feet wet.

One recommendation for now as I have to leave for choir rehearsal--do the same 
thing with additional ground traces north and south of the ESD pads on layer 6 
as you did on layer 1 to bring the distance between pad and ground down from 
15mil to around the same as the pad-to-pad spacing of the ESD component pads.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2017-12-27 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Dec 25, 2017, at 05:52, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 10:29 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> Concerning the keepouts under the connector:
>> 1.  At the north boundary I would pull the edge up a little further north 
>> away from the northwestern differential pair.
> 
> oh!  ha, i just made it the opposite direction :)  reason: HHPD acts
> (kinda) as a GND for that top (HTX2P) and when i did the flood-fill it
> looked really weird.  i'm switching to a couple of different viewing
> styles (one of them is actually the gerbers, there's an "X-Ray"
> option.

Looks like a good resolution of the issue.

> the top 2 VIAs right next to HTX2P are too far away, and the
> 15mil-to-GND-keepout condition makes things unbalanced.  see proposed
> GREEN new via placements and YELLOW track to correct that.

I see how it is unbalanced with respect to the two differential pairs--the 
outside conductors had close to 15mil clearance to ground but the inside 
conductors had only the distance to the next pad (which was considerably less, 
~7mil?).  So I applaud the change to make it more symmetric.

> when i show X-ray-mode gerbers layers 1 & 2 i mark in yellow at top a
> proposed modification, look good?  you can see to pin 4 there is that
> GND via, the shape of the hole gets really weird / sharp edges there.

I'm not seeing the weird / sharp edges so you must have fixed them?

> also i'm aware that the layer 2 and 5 bottom-most
> curved-shaped-keepout-holes are about 1 mil too far to the left, see
> yellow (SE corner) where i'll move them both over.

Again, I'm not seeing a problem so you must have fixed it.

>> 2.  At the west boundary I see your point regarding layers 4 and 5.
>> Looks like you have made a good solution.
>> I suppose you could add 5mil additional overlap.
>> How much overlap does it currently have?
> 
> currently arouuund 9mil roughly.
> 
>> How much opening from the edge of the keepout
>> on layer 4 to the edge of the closest connector pads?
> 
> around 4mil.  tracks are 5mil so can use that as a scale.

In that case I think you have done enough.  The overlap looks good.

>> Some of the adjustments on layer 6 might be taken care of by
>> modifying the net groups to create an "HDMI High-Frequency"
>> group which contains only the differential pairs {HTX2P, HTX2N, HTX1P,
>> HTX1N, HTX0P, HTX0N, HTXCP, HTXCN}, apply the 15mil conditional
>> clearance rule to that group.
> 
> that's what's already done :)
> 
> oh, except to VIAs i kept it at 5mil, now i remember.   15 mil to
> landing pads, 15 mil to tracks, 5mil to VIAs i think this was because
> i didn't want the holes made by VIAs to be too large.  what you think?
> make them 15mil too?

I'm not as worried about the holes left by the vias on the east (connector) end 
as the west (processor) end of the differential pairs if we expanded clearance 
to 15mil.  I'm guessing we have more current flowing through layers 2,4,5 over 
there.  I guess the question boils down to, "Where are the power sources and 
sinks (including decoupling capacitors) relative to the HDMI high-frequency 
signal vias?"  If the vias make holes on a line connecting power sources to 
sinks, then we need to either make sure there is plenty of copper providing a 
path around the holes or minimize the size of the holes.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2017-12-24 Thread Richard Wilbur
Thanks again for the pictures and the video.

Concerning the keepouts under the connector:
1.  At the north boundary I would pull the edge up a little further north away 
from the northwestern differential pair.

2.  At the west boundary I see your point regarding layers 4 and 5.  Looks like 
you have made a good solution.  I suppose you could add 5mil additional 
overlap.  How much overlap does it currently have?  How much opening from the 
edge of the keepout on layer 4 to the edge of the closest connector pads?

I would vote to keep the layer 5 holes under the layer 6 ESD pads for the same 
reason we added them to layer 2 for the ESD pads on layer 1.

Some of the adjustments on layer 6 might be taken care of by modifying the net 
groups to create an "HDMI High-Frequency" group which contains only the 
differential pairs {HTX2P, HTX2N, HTX1P, HTX1N, HTX0P, HTX0N, HTXCP, HTXCN}, 
apply the 15mil conditional clearance rule to that group.  Then see what issues 
remain.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2017-12-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Dec 22, 2017, at 20:38, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 10:32 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> Here's another view of the connector end with some slight revisions of
>> the ground fill and keepout boundaries between the ESD and connector
>> components.
>> 
>> Summary:
>> 
>> 1.  I moved the East extent of the layer 3 ground fill east to the
>> edge of the connector pads.
> 
> ok remember that ground flood-fill is the entire layer 3, i'm not
> creating a *specific* area for ground "fill", it's done by default
> according to the (specified) design rules.  with the new "conditional"
> rule added, layer 3 now looks like this:
> http://hands.com/~lkcl/eoma/a20/275_hdmi/layer3.jpg
> 
> so there's a few things i need to sort out, which i'll get to: main
> reason for showing that image is: the clearance to the VIAs has also
> extended to 15mil now.  i believe it's not so much the vias though as
> the tracks connected *to* the vias.  if there has to be a 5 mil
> clearance to those i can... maybe sort something out :)

15mil clearance to HDMI nets and vias won't hurt anybody's feelings!  Looks 
good (minus the keepout under the connector).

[…]

>> 3.  The layer 2,3,4 ground keepout West edge moved with the East edge
>> of the layer 3 ground fill to the edge of the connector pads.
> 
> oh wait... i haven't put in a keepout *at all* on layers 3 and 4.
> you think it would be best to punch the hole *right* down so that it's
> only layer 5 providing a GND plane for both sides?  it makes sense, i
> just want to confirm.

Yes, that is what I was asking for under the high-frequency differential 
signals at the connector.  If you have reservations about it, let me know.  I'm 
happy to get feedback from another perspective.


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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2017-12-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Dec 22, 2017, at 20:22, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 9:37 PM, Richard Wilbur
>  wrote:
>> 
>> The reason for dropping the ground plane under the connector pins
>> (layer 1) from layer 2 to layer 5 is that the pins are so close to each 
>> other.
> 
> yyeahhh but so are the pins on the bottom layer ESD... which are
> covered by the layer 5 GND keepout hole... it was under the connector
> i was concerned about, with the VIAs on pins 4 10 and 16 (right-hand
> row of 9) being guard VIAs that are within 5mil of HTX1P/N and
> THXCP/N...

Those ground vias I'm not so worried about as they don't look so much different 
to the proximity of neighbouring connector pins.
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Re: [Arm-netbook] HDMI High-Frequency Layout: Recommendations--Taper

2017-12-22 Thread Richard Wilbur
On Dec 22, 2017, at 07:51, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 8:54 AM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
>  wrote:
[…]
>> this is a pain!  i might see if i can set a clearance to GND on
>> individual tracks / connections as opposed to NETs.
> 
> ok that worked.  just uploading a video here:
> 
> https://youtu.be/LfQc89CS4m0
> 
> turns out that there's a feature i'd not used before, called
> "conditional rules".  you can specify that *if* GND meets HDMI Group,
> clearance rules shall be different.  ordinarily you have to forcibly
> set the *entire* GND plane to specific clearances (to ALL objects), or
> the *entire* HDMI group to specific clearances (to ALL objects)...
> this "conditional" rule does the trick.

Nice work!  That certainly simplifies things!

> richard i go over it in the video but i believe the layer... 5
> keepout needs to also be extended under the layer 6 (blue, bottom)
> tracks leading to the VIAs that jump up to the DC3 connector pads.
> also i believe that i should be adding some tracks (pink) which,
> particularly if there is to be a hole in layer 5 underneath, should be
> around a 5 mil clearance, to match the fact that it's swapping
> vertical distance for horizontal distance, what do you think?

I believe that the right thing is to not extend the layer 5 ground keepout 
under the differential nets on their way out to the connector because it is the 
ground plane for layer 6.  The reason for dropping the ground plane under the 
connector pins (layer 1) from layer 2 to layer 5 is that the pins are so close 
to each other.  But we are still interested in the shielding effect of ground 
plane below the high-frequency signals (on the differential pairs) on layer 1 
and between the signals on layer 1 and those sneaking under on layer 6.  That's 
my reason for keeping layer 5 ground fill everywhere except under the layer 6 
high-frequency pads of the ESD (where he drop to ground on layer 4).
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