Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
What kind of OS are you developing? Er, not. The idea was to put peripherals on that were useful for people who *were* developing an OS, as opposed to the standard offerings which target embedded use (motor control, appliances, etc). After all, today's embedded MCUs are more powerful than yesterday's PCs, why not design a PC that uses an MCU instead of an x86? Maybe I'll put a DOS clone on it and reminisce about the slow old days... ;-) So, instead of RS232 and LCD, it's got PS/2 and DVI. Instead of a tiny internal RAM and flash, it's got a huge external RAM and microSD. USB-A instead of USB-B. Etc. At the moment, my board is running FreeRTOS when it runs an OS at all. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
On 11/8/10 4:16 PM, DJ Delorie wrote: The idea was to put peripherals on that were useful for people who *were* developing an OS, as opposed to the standard offerings which target embedded use (motor control, appliances, etc). After all, today's embedded MCUs are more powerful than yesterday's PCs, why not design a PC that uses an MCU instead of an x86? Maybe I'll put a DOS clone on it and reminisce about the slow old days... ;-) So, instead of RS232 and LCD, it's got PS/2 and DVI. Instead of a tiny internal RAM and flash, it's got a huge external RAM and microSD. USB-A instead of USB-B. Etc. At the moment, my board is running FreeRTOS when it runs an OS at all. Oooh. WANT! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
At the moment, my board is running FreeRTOS when it runs an OS at all. Oooh. WANT! Want FreeRTOS? Or one of these boards? (also see http://www.renesasrulz.com/community/rx-contest - although that board is 3x bigger and has no sdram, dvi, or ps/2) I have three more blanks, but they run about $135 in parts and stuff plus $50 for the pcb (my cost). I've been trying to finish the initial round of hardware testing before making any more, hence the verilog questions - I don't know if I *can* successfully drive a DVI monitor yet, for example. I haven't tested the PS/2 interfaces yet. Everything else seems to work fine. The FPGA test program, for example, is a FreeRTOS app that has a console command line (FT232R) that downloads the fpga file from my web server into the sdram, then programs the fpga. The backup app reads the fpga file off the microsd (FAT filesystem) for when I screw up and hoze the memory bus. Other minor peripherals: Consumer IR (tv remote) receiver, ambient light sensor, temperature sensor, stereo audio out, wall power voltage monitor (was going to monitor current also, but the design is flawed), second serial port (ttl header). The board has three switching power supplies and runs of USB power *or* 8-16 VDC wall power (although not everything gets power from usb, like the PS/2 connectors, due to the limited current available). Actually, the FT232R remains running if either power is there, so you can power cycle the board without losing the usb connection. It can be reprogrammed using the FT232R (gRX mode) or firmware can be downloaded over the native USB port. When I'm developing, I usually have two USB cables connected to it - one for the console (includes remote reset and mode control) and a second for the USB firmware download path. For my second RX project, I was thinking of a board with an ethernet switch chip (the RX has MII) and a USB hub chip, plus microsd and sdram. That gives you a home firewall/appliance/server box with 2Gb of disk space and 64 Mb of RAM. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
On 11/8/10 5:05 PM, DJ Delorie wrote: At the moment, my board is running FreeRTOS when it runs an OS at all. Oooh. WANT! Want FreeRTOS? Or one of these boards? One of those boards. I run lots of FreeRTOS. (ARM7, Philips LPC2xxx) I have three more blanks, but they run about $135 in parts and stuff plus $50 for the pcb (my cost). I've been trying to finish the initial round of hardware testing before making any more, hence the verilog questions - I don't know if I *can* successfully drive a DVI monitor yet, for example. I haven't tested the PS/2 interfaces yet. Everything else seems to work fine. The FPGA test program, for example, is a FreeRTOS app that has a console command line (FT232R) that downloads the fpga file from my web server into the sdram, then programs the fpga. The backup app reads the fpga file off the microsd (FAT filesystem) for when I screw up and hoze the memory bus. That sounds like a really nice setup. I'm sure you'll have no problem driving the DVI interface. Other minor peripherals: Consumer IR (tv remote) receiver, Eh...lots of stuff has IR but nothing ever seems to use it. ;) ambient light sensor, temperature sensor, stereo audio out, wall power voltage monitor (was going to monitor current also, but the design is flawed), second serial port (ttl header). That's pretty cool stuff. The board has three switching power supplies and runs of USB power *or* 8-16 VDC wall power (although not everything gets power from usb, like the PS/2 connectors, due to the limited current available). Actually, the FT232R remains running if either power is there, so you can power cycle the board without losing the usb connection. It can be reprogrammed using the FT232R (gRX mode) or firmware can be downloaded over the native USB port. When I'm developing, I usually have two USB cables connected to it - one for the console (includes remote reset and mode control) and a second for the USB firmware download path. For my second RX project, I was thinking of a board with an ethernet switch chip (the RX has MII) and a USB hub chip, plus microsd and sdram. That gives you a home firewall/appliance/server box with 2Gb of disk space and 64 Mb of RAM. This all sounds like lots of fun to me. Maybe a hair more SDRAM might be nice though. I especially like the ability to power-cycle the board without re-enumerating on the USB. That's good thinking. Has anyone done up a nice Forth system for that processor architecture? I might attempt it if I can get a cheap development board. (it'd have to be SUPER cheap the way things are going down here lately, though) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
On Mon, Nov 08, 2010 at 05:05:37PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote: For my second RX project, I was thinking of a board with an ethernet switch chip (the RX has MII) Broadcom makes some really nice, fully integrated switch chips which would be perfect for this application. You can (optionally) hang off the slow speed admin port and divert packets there for fancy stuff. The switch itself is almost fully automated, including configuring phys and implementing all kinds of policies (like VLAN) with only SPI config. Unfortunately I doubt a one-man shop can get the time of day from BCM and they keep their docs locked up like a virgin princess. -- Ben Jackson AD7GD b...@ben.com http://www.ben.com/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
Want FreeRTOS? Or one of these boards? One of those boards. I run lots of FreeRTOS. (ARM7, Philips LPC2xxx) I'll keep that in mind. Other minor peripherals: Consumer IR (tv remote) receiver, Eh...lots of stuff has IR but nothing ever seems to use it. ;) I had a few pins left over, had to think of *something* to put on them, and a friend of mine had just asked for help debugging an IR repeater module... Hence the ambient light sensor, thermistor, and IR. For my second RX project, I was thinking of a board with an ethernet switch chip (the RX has MII) and a USB hub chip, plus microsd and sdram. That gives you a home firewall/appliance/server box with 2Gb of disk space and 64 Mb of RAM. This all sounds like lots of fun to me. Maybe a hair more SDRAM might be nice though. The chip supports up to 128 Mbyte directly. The board accepts up to a 64 Mbyte chip (32Mx16bit); You'd need to pair two 64Mx8 chips to fill the available address space. The SDRAM (SDR, not DDR) is one of the most expensive parts of the board; I put only 32Mb on the first one because it was $25 cheaper than the 64Mb chip. The sdram controller on the RX is naive, though. It does a full ras/cas cycle to read each word, so it takes 5 cycles per read (no burst). Combine that with a half-speed external bus (50 MHz) and you're talking a 10 mhz read rate (20 mbyte/sec max throughput, 40 for the 32-bit bus on the BGA version). The RX chip allows you to overclock the external bus but I don't know how reliable that would be with the sdram chip on the same bus as the fpga. I especially like the ability to power-cycle the board without re-enumerating on the USB. That's good thinking. Only the FT232R does that. The native USB still resets. Has anyone done up a nice Forth system for that processor architecture? I might attempt it if I can get a cheap development board. (it'd have to be SUPER cheap the way things are going down here lately, though) If you want to try for the contest, they'll give you an RX-RDK board free. No sdram on it though. Costs $99 otherwise. How much stuff do you *need* on a super cheap development board ? All you really need to develop RX code is the chip ($18) and an FT232R ($4.50 plus $1 for the connector). Maybe a 3.3v regulator ($0.50). Adding SDRAM only costs as much as the sdram chip itself. I can hook you up with a simulator and development tools if you want to play with it... ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: gRX OS board
Broadcom makes some really nice, fully integrated switch chips Micrel has a full line of similar chips - five ports, one MII and the rest PHY, plus SPI. Digikey stocks them. Unfortunately I doubt a one-man shop can get the time of day from BCM and they keep their docs locked up like a virgin princess. Yup. I suspect Micrel would be more useful in that sense :-) ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
