From: Jon M. <or...@ma...> - 2004-03-25 17:21:29
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It seems to me that everyone has lots of great ideas. It also seems to me that a lot of people focus on what I/O pins are not exposed or what peripherals are not attached. First lets nip this in the bud: Every exposed pin is going to either increase the cost of the board, increase the size of the board or both. Every chip added is going to dramatically increase size and cost. I am going to assume we are all here for gumstix because of it's cost. It's really a good deal compared to other dev kits. And many of you are attracted to gumstix because of it's small size. Given that assumption, I don't think we can expect all these great I/Os to be exposed. And I'm not going to wait around for BlueTooth just so gumstix can have a bunch of the older boards sit around in a bin waiting to be sold and end up marking up the BT boards to cover the loss. So I propose that someone, anyone. Put together a list of what we know for certain a gumstix can be used for, and place them into two categories. The first is if you are a software guy and have only a limited ability in electronics. The second if you are a hardware hacker and want to slip in every possible peripheral over rs232 and I2C. We are all still trying to figure out the limits of this product, so of course it's premature expect a list right now. But we all should keep this in mind. Come up with a neat idea and do a proof of concept right away. With enough cool projects going on it (get a camera and take pictures of what you are doing!) it should inspire people to be creative with gumstix. Personally I haven't come up with an idea yet, I know it's got to be good for something. perhaps with some I2C DACs and things it can replace the BasicStamp in my robot. And have some pretty impressive mapping functionality. perhaps with some audio-output I can just grab a public domain speech synthesizer and have it talk to me (festival or rsynth). a rs232 to ethernet adapter and an old DEC or Wyse terminal and it can become a cool console workstation. If you add 1 or two pieces of hardware the possibilities are endless. I hope now you understand my comment about "hardware hacker". Now what can we do about the software hackers who will be a great help in getting kernels, drivers, libraries and applications. Anyways you all should think about getting a website or project up and documented somewhere. Even if you've only just started on it. Put some notes on what you've gotten done so far. And once we get a few people with projects, either a listing of user websites on gumstix.org or gumstix.com would be great. Or possibly just a gumstix webring. If anyone wants to coordinate this (or if you want to convince me to coordinate it) then speak up now! ps- From the postings I've seen, I think there is a small (but noisy!) few who may have been happier to have a bare PXA on some kind of prototyping board (it's probably has too high of a pin count to put it on a SurfBoard). Some might have been happy to just have a big huge PXA for cheap and hook up all the peripherals themselves. I think the rest of us just want a PXA with the ideal combination of I/Os to do most, if not everything we want. pps- if you really want more I/Os for building a small robot. you might want to consider an ARM7tdmi such as Philips LPC2106. You can get one on a 40-pin DIP shaped PCB from olimex for about $50. http://www.olimex.com/dev/lpc-h40.html ... of course it's only 60MHz and only has 64kB of RAM (yes. 1/1024th the RAM as gumstix but only half the price). but the build-in I/Os on it would be more equivalent to BasicStamp. Unfortunately the LPC series cannot address external memories and you have to suffer with 128k/64k flash/ram. (So no running Linux on it, gotta roll your own kernel) |
From: Arthur M. <ar...@ar...> - 2004-03-25 18:23:47
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I like your ideas Jon. I like the GumStix for being small and cheap. I'm interested in trying a bit of hardware hacking with it, but like you, haven't come up with The Idea(tm) yet. It seems that with the exposed I2C a lot of things are possible. From a hardware point of view, there's a lot of beef in the GumStix (the last hardware I worked on was a PIC with a handful of bytes!). The full Linux environment to develop in is an absolute bonus. I'd like to see a library of daughter boards build up. I guess a useful starting point would be a 'bare' daughter board PCB, including only the connector and board outline. I've previously used a package called EAGLE (www.cadsoft.de) for laying out PCB's, mainly because it's affordable. It's also available for Windows and Linux. I've no link to the company, I just like their product. Judging by a couple of Gordon's illustrations I'd guess that's what he uses too(?). Then we can start building up a selection of useful circuit modules. I2C stepper motor controller, I2C DAC/ADC, etc, etc. Okay, I feel inspired now...just need that idea... Arthur |
From: Gordon K. <go...@gu...> - 2004-03-25 18:39:24
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Re: Eagle-- confirmed. I use it for the same reasons. Re: Library of daughtercards-- agreed-- especially the base version. I am looking for a standard that can work end-to-end. The problem with gEDA is the lack of support/stagnation of gPCB. I've looked at pdb123 but it is tied to the pcb vendor. I chose Eagle because it's inexpensive, sipported, and works well. I would like to post a bare Eagle Project that can be added to. Any other ideas? Gordon > -----Original Message----- > From: gum...@li... > [mailto:gum...@li...] On Behalf > Of Arthur Magill > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 10:23 AM > To: gum...@li... > Subject: Re: [Gumstix-users] What can and cannot be done with gumstix. > > > I like your ideas Jon. I like the GumStix for being small and > cheap. I'm > interested in trying a bit of hardware hacking with it, but like you, > haven't come up with The Idea(tm) yet. It seems that with the exposed > I2C a lot of things are possible. From a hardware point of > view, there's > a lot of beef in the GumStix (the last hardware I worked on > was a PIC > with a handful of bytes!). The full Linux environment to > develop in is > an absolute bonus. > > I'd like to see a library of daughter boards build up. I > guess a useful > starting point would be a 'bare' daughter board PCB, > including only the > connector and board outline. I've previously used a package > called EAGLE > (www.cadsoft.de) for laying out PCB's, mainly because it's > affordable. > It's also available for Windows and Linux. I've no link to > the company, > I just like their product. Judging by a couple of Gordon's > illustrations > I'd guess that's what he uses too(?). > > Then we can start building up a selection of useful circuit > modules. I2C > stepper motor controller, I2C DAC/ADC, etc, etc. > > Okay, I feel inspired now...just need that idea... > > Arthur > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials > Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President > and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from > fundamentals to system > administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click > _______________________________________________ > gumstix-users mailing list > gum...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gumstix-users > |
From: Jay <jay...@ma...> - 2004-03-25 19:09:48
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I know everyone has different uses and projects, but I wonder if we shouldn't work together on one, that would eliminate the need for having a variety of daughter cards. The idea I've been kicking around is a getting a simple micro-controller, maybe Cyrix or Atmel, and putting it on a daughter-board with a USB host chip. So a daughter-card that connects to the gumstix USB Client, has a micro-controller with some custom software, and USB Host interfaces. This way we could add USB host to the Gumstix. The PXA would run a USB gadget driver designed to channel linux's USB Host support thru the daughtercard's processor. So, with this board, to non-hardware guys, it would be a gumstix with USB Host, like any other Linux USB Host. Its a bit of kludge, but I think it would be worth it-- USB gets us everything. From Audio IO to WiFi adapters to things I'd never want to use--- but that someone else might! Maybe the micro-controller on the daughter-card is running linux, maybe it isn't. All it needs to know is how to unencapsulate the data, and send it out the host port that's connected to the micro-controller. The gumstix gadget driver just wraps up this data, sends it out the client port to the daughter card, which unwraps it and sends it out its host ports. (And vice-versa). I may be misunderstanding the way the drivers are set up, but at some low level there has to be a driver for host ports under Linux, and if at that point, we insert a USB gadget like driver to encapsulate the info and send it out the client port, it should work transparently to any driver above it. So, all the pre-existing linux USB drivers should just work-- for all kinds of devices. Wouldn't this be a better idea than one person working on a motor controller, another working on a audio daughter card, another working on a WiFi daughter card, etc? This one daughter card, with some clever code, would open the stix up to all the USB devices out there that have open source linux USB drivers.... Jay |
From: Arthur M. <ar...@ar...> - 2004-03-25 19:27:34
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Bare daughter board - cheers Gordon. For anyone that hasn't done it before, there are services like pcb-pool here in the uk (www.pcb-pool.com) that will make up boards (in runs of 1 and up) directly from EAGLE files. I think in the US there are plenty of board houses offering a similar service. Of course, once the bare board arrives, mounting those SMT chips is entertaining ;-) Arthur |
From: Gordon K. <go...@gu...> - 2004-03-25 19:30:51
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There are a few here in America as well. My favorite discovery has been the "reflow toaster-oven" Gordon > -----Original Message----- > From: gum...@li... > [mailto:gum...@li...] On Behalf > Of Arthur Magill > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 11:27 AM > To: gum...@li... > Subject: Re: [Gumstix-users] What can and cannot be done with gumstix. > > > Bare daughter board - cheers Gordon. > > For anyone that hasn't done it before, there are services > like pcb-pool > here in the uk (www.pcb-pool.com) that will make up boards > (in runs of 1 > and up) directly from EAGLE files. I think in the US there > are plenty of > board houses offering a similar service. Of course, once the > bare board > arrives, mounting those SMT chips is entertaining ;-) > > Arthur > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials > Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President > and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from > fundamentals to system > administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click > _______________________________________________ > gumstix-users mailing list > gum...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gumstix-users > |
From: Arthur M. <ar...@ar...> - 2004-03-25 20:40:20
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I saw the web page but I've never tried it. Does it actually work? Arthur Gordon Kruberg wrote: > There are a few here in America as well. > My favorite discovery has been the "reflow toaster-oven" > > Gordon > |
From: Gordon K. <go...@gu...> - 2004-03-25 21:30:07
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Yup. Although with fine hands and a few test runs you can do pretty tight work, paying the extra for a stencil is worth it. Gordon > -----Original Message----- > From: gum...@li... > [mailto:gum...@li...] On Behalf > Of Arthur Magill > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 12:40 PM > To: gum...@li... > Subject: Re: [Gumstix-users] What can and cannot be done with gumstix. > > > I saw the web page but I've never tried it. Does it actually work? > > Arthur > > Gordon Kruberg wrote: > > There are a few here in America as well. > > My favorite discovery has been the "reflow toaster-oven" > > > > Gordon > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials > Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President > and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from > fundamentals to system > administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click > _______________________________________________ > gumstix-users mailing list > gum...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gumstix-users > |
From: Jon M. <or...@ma...> - 2004-03-26 01:15:17
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I guess I live in the stone age I mostly use chipmunk for design: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/chipmunk/ Xcircuit which is really nothing more than something like xfig or Visio with a huge library of schematics. So it's only useful for hand-made schematics into netlist and postscript/pdf/gif files. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/chipmunk/document/log/xcircuit/xcircuit.html Of course you can use SPICE to run run simulations of your analog components too. http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/Classes/IcBook/SPICE/ and http://qt.tn.tudelft.nl/research/set/spice/ .. assuming you bother to put analog components up to your gumstix. (dual h-bridge motor driver? synthisized FM receiever? etc) Most of what makes up chipmunk involves editing text files. so it's not terrible modern. But many companies and universities used the old HP gerbil/chipmunk/bobcat systems to do products in the 80s and 90s. So it isn't entirely impossible to do some simple peripherals for your gumstix with these tools. btw- if anyone has ideas on a way to get an NTSC/PAL video out without doubling the cost of the system please share. trying to move one of my own ideas off the "cannot" list back onto the "can" list. (now you have a clue for my interest in hauling out SPICE) Gordon Kruberg wrote: >Re: Eagle-- confirmed. I use it for the same reasons. >Re: Library of daughtercards-- agreed-- especially the base version. > >I am looking for a standard that can work end-to-end. > The problem with gEDA is the lack of support/stagnation of gPCB. > I've looked at pdb123 but it is tied to the pcb vendor. > I chose Eagle because it's inexpensive, sipported, and works well. > >I would like to post a bare Eagle Project that can be added to. > >Any other ideas? > >Gordon > > > > >>-----Original Message----- >>From: gum...@li... >>[mailto:gum...@li...] On Behalf >>Of Arthur Magill >>Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 10:23 AM >>To: gum...@li... >>Subject: Re: [Gumstix-users] What can and cannot be done with gumstix. >> >> >>I like your ideas Jon. I like the GumStix for being small and >>cheap. I'm >>interested in trying a bit of hardware hacking with it, but like you, >>haven't come up with The Idea(tm) yet. It seems that with the exposed >>I2C a lot of things are possible. From a hardware point of >>view, there's >> a lot of beef in the GumStix (the last hardware I worked on >>was a PIC >>with a handful of bytes!). The full Linux environment to >>develop in is >>an absolute bonus. >> >>I'd like to see a library of daughter boards build up. I >>guess a useful >>starting point would be a 'bare' daughter board PCB, >>including only the >>connector and board outline. I've previously used a package >>called EAGLE >>(www.cadsoft.de) for laying out PCB's, mainly because it's >>affordable. >>It's also available for Windows and Linux. I've no link to >>the company, >>I just like their product. Judging by a couple of Gordon's >>illustrations >>I'd guess that's what he uses too(?). >> >>Then we can start building up a selection of useful circuit >>modules. I2C >>stepper motor controller, I2C DAC/ADC, etc, etc. >> >>Okay, I feel inspired now...just need that idea... >> >>Arthur >> >> >>------------------------------------------------------- >>This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials >>Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President >>and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from >>fundamentals to system >>administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click >>_______________________________________________ >>gumstix-users mailing list >>gum...@li... >>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gumstix-users >> >> >> > > > >------------------------------------------------------- >This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials >Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of >GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system >administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click >_______________________________________________ >gumstix-users mailing list >gum...@li... >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gumstix-users > > > |
From: Zach W. <zw...@su...> - 2004-03-26 03:12:07
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Gordon Kruberg wrote: [snip] > I would like to post a bare Eagle Project that can be added to. > > Any other ideas? How about immediately posting the files for the daughterboard, including the gerbers? I've gotten two (physical) headaches from trying to figure out where the traces go on the board while trying to figure out how the schematic maps onto it, so I personally would love to see these files. This would be incredibly useful for those of us wanting to really hack on our Waysmalls, and they also happen to be something that Gumstix, Inc. should be able to provide for the community without any delay. As it is, I've thought about putting something usable together using some high-res photos, compositing the two sides of the daughterboard using some transparency effects. I just can't figure out how to make that take practically no effort yet still produce something usable. If the community had the Waysmall board design as a starting point, Gumstix, Inc. would be able to incorporate any innovations or improvements that we made back into the production design. This would effectively allow them to focus their R&D dollars on the stik itself. With this idea in mind, can they afford to *not* release their daughterboard design? ;) Finally, I would expect such designs to be released under a BSD-esque license; this allows for new derivative designs to be created without being forced to open the changes. While other might consider this a trivial matter, it becomes of critical importance for those of us considering the development of marketable designs. Releasing the files under a license that does not provide such an option would effectively render them useless for anyone wanting to take a design to market. In fact, those designs would become a liability for such makers, because they would then need to be able to show that any similar design was "cleanly" engineered (i.e. was not produced as a derivative work). While I'm all in favor of the freedoms enforced by the GPL, capitalist economics make the use of an "adamantly open" design all but impossible to use in a startup venture, as you will effectively lose your momentum before you even get going. I believe that the GPL would be only be the "right" choice for community based hardware designs if the inventing individual or business wants to proactively short-circuit any possible opportunities for present or future competition to achieve economic gains from a closed derivative design. (Note: putting a design out under the GPL does not provent an design from being re-licensed under different terms, provided its creator(s) are willing to make such available.) The only catch is that they must first have secured their own customer base or risk falling behind before even leaving the starting blocks. This view makes the GPL look like a veritable non-sequiter for any new hardware designs upon which a company intends to base a revenue stream; however, such is certainly possible with "incidental" designs such as the present daughterboards (as they are useless without buying a stik). At present, I don't see any good reasons to use the GPL license with the Waysmall daughterboards, yet these last points are also precisely why I won't be harping on Gumstix, Inc. to release the schematics for the mainboard anytime soon. I recognize that they still need to get ahead in the race into which they've entered before such a move would result in anything other than their eventual "startup suicide." I hope others will cut them the same slack on this topic for the same reason. Cheers, Zach |
From: Zach W. <zw...@su...> - 2004-03-26 02:17:28
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Jon Mayo wrote: > It seems to me that everyone has lots of great ideas. It also seems > to me that a lot of people focus on what I/O pins are not exposed or > what peripherals are not attached. Ummm, perhaps because people keep trying cram "mad" designs down its tiny little throat? :) > Every exposed pin is going to either increase the cost of the board, > increase the size of the board or both. > > Every chip added is going to dramatically increase size and cost. > > I am going to assume we are all here for gumstix because of it's > cost. It's really a good deal compared to other dev kits. And many of > you are attracted to gumstix because of it's small size. These assumptions are not strictly true, and who says that by breaking out a few more signals won't double their sales volume by allowing more projects to be done without horribly ugly hardware hacks? Wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the lack of such "extra" board costs might actually be hurting their sales, because of what is "almost" possible? In other words, I'd gladly pay $50 more per unit if it meant getting twice as many people using the platform. So again, I do not agree with your assertions that such modifications are unreasonable requests, even with their added costs. These are often called "trade-offs", and the finding right combination usually takes several tries before finding the sweet spot. I've just been trying to suggest other possible trade-offs. After all, the speculation raised about additional I/O directly resulted from the simple fact that the Gumstix can not readily accomplish what we might desire today without resorting to gross hacks. Sound, video, and really high speed buses are not ideal project ideas for the stix, because you will be duplicating lots of transistors that are already on-board the PXA and, thus, adding undue and unreasonable costs to your own projects. Moreover, I believe the cost of exposing the I/O off the board will be *drastically* less than what I imagine will be the case for many of said hardware hacks in the first place. If you end up spending twice the time developing a shoe-horned solution, you obviously started with a flawed foundation for your system architecture. In other words, Gumstix, Inc. will be saving themselves money at the expense of their customers development budgets if such projects are undertaken without reasonable foresight. And I think the continued consideration of such "mad" solutions completely deserves this (seemingly pedantic) assessment of the situation. But hey, this lack of foresight just mean more profits for folks like myself who offer professional services to bail out folks who find themselves up such creeks. So go forth and make your messes, and call me when it doesn't work. My time equals money, and I might stand to become rich man from such "creative" ideas alone.... > Given that assumption, I don't think we can expect all these great > I/Os to be exposed. And I'm not going to wait around for BlueTooth > just so gumstix can have a bunch of the older boards sit around in a > bin waiting to be sold and end up marking up the BT boards to cover > the loss. I agree that there is no reason to wait for new boards, even BT. Further, I have tried to be expressly clear in my own posts that such changes will be all but impossible to see realized until well after the BT model has arrived; however, I again assert that some of the projects that have been proposed to date will never be economically feasible until more I/O is available. While the stix have great potential today, I also pragmatic about the costs in this business -- and I'm not only talking about the tough decisions that Gumstix, Inc. itself must consider regarding this topic. > So I propose that someone, anyone. Put together a list of what we > know for certain a gumstix can be used for, and place them into two > categories. The first is if you are a software guy and have only a > limited ability in electronics. The second if you are a hardware > hacker and want to slip in every possible peripheral over rs232 and > I2C. That seems rather silly. I would rather a single list of projects upon which hardware and software folks can actually agree. Instead, you propose a method that will lead to two "extremist views" of what is possible, without leaving room for an actually tractable middle ground. In effect, you are proposing the same kind of "unbalanced design" that I was ranting about in my post about "mad engineering" last week. I'll pass on that notion, thanks. Instead, I would rather see the community focus on producing a list of URL for specifications to chips that *will* seamlessly interface with the I/O available on the current Gumstik. Without this list, I feel we are effectively trying to plant a forest without due consideration of the species of trees that are best suited for the targeted climate. Once a sufficient library has been built, the Great Ideas should readily manifest themselves through a strong collaborative effort between the interested hardware and software folk, and the resulting forest of ideas will be more immediately approachable. Or so it seems to me. > Personally I haven't come up with an idea yet, I know it's got to be > good for something. perhaps with some I2C DACs and things it can > replace the BasicStamp in my robot. And have some pretty impressive > mapping functionality. perhaps with some audio-output I can just grab > a public domain speech synthesizer and have it talk to me (festival > or rsynth). a rs232 to ethernet adapter and an old DEC or Wyse > terminal and it can become a cool console workstation. If you add 1 > or two pieces of hardware the possibilities are endless. I hope now > you understand my comment about "hardware hacker". Now what can we do > about the software hackers who will be a great help in getting > kernels, drivers, libraries and applications. Okay, let me stop you right there. If you were to bring me a board with an "rs232 to ethernet adapter", I would quadruple the price for the time I'd spend trying to make it work, as I know enough from past experience on these matters to know what an utter nightmare you've just proposed. Sure, today you claim you just want to hook it up to a terminal, but the second it gets put on a congested network, that design will go up in a nice virtual cloud of smoke. I personally recommend you steer clear. That is *exactly* the kind of impractical design idea that makes an experienced (and sane) software engineer run screaming for the hills -- without ever looking back. Of course, there is always a good mix of nuts in every professional field, so you can probably find opposing opinions on this. In fact, I'm sure you can -- I've met said nuts. > Anyways you all should think about getting a website or project up > and documented somewhere. Even if you've only just started on it. Put > some notes on what you've gotten done so far. And once we get a few > people with projects, either a listing of user websites on > gumstix.org or gumstix.com would be great. Or possibly just a gumstix > webring. If anyone wants to coordinate this (or if you want to > convince me to coordinate it) then speak up now! I think the webring is a great idea; please consider this my effort to convince you to start one for the community. I also completely second the suggestion that everyone begin putting together their own sites, as such will likely increase the community momentum behind the platform. This would also allow Gumstix, Inc. to simply reference the ring and reduce the support burden of updating their list of community links every time a new site comes on-line. I can't see any downsides. > ps- From the postings I've seen, I think there is a small (but > noisy!) few who may have been happier to have a bare PXA on some kind > of prototyping board (it's probably has too high of a pin count to > put it on a SurfBoard). Some might have been happy to just have a big > huge PXA for cheap and hook up all the peripherals themselves. I > think the rest of us just want a PXA with the ideal combination of > I/Os to do most, if not everything we want. First, I really hope you meant to use the word "vocal" rather than "noisy." The later has some rather negative connotations that I don't particularly think you intended to convey to individuals like myself. And if you did, I can gladly demonstrate the difference. :) Second, there is no "ideal combination of I/O" short of exposing the pins for every functional module of the processor or giving complete control (e.g. in an FPGA) over which lines are brought out. Otherwise, *someone* (me?) will always complain that some other choice should have been made. Even with all pins exposed, they will still be able to find reasonable ways of finding faults in the system. Such is life. There are *always* improvements that can be made to any system, and those that claim otherwise simply lack sufficient imagination to invent the next generation of ideas. And I've heard some of the "best" claim that these types of hardware and software systems *can* be finished, which did nothing to bolster my opinion of their innovative abilities. What's really fun is, after you make such drastic changes in response to demands, the people that asked for them proceed to tell you that they wanted it changed back -- or aren't willing to pay for them. (I've been there - fortunately from the software side where it's just a matter of a rollback - and now require rather hefty deposits before undertaking projects where such is a clear risk.) To make it clear that I am not among that wishy-washy crowd, let me further say that I would put my money down now for a few GumBus cards if Gumstix, Inc. could give me a date for their arrival. But I do not expect them to make promises that they may not be able to keep, and any proposed idea for hardware changes falls into that category since the boards are already in production. The only real solution that can ever hope to please everybody is to offer a family of related products, thus beating the problem that "nothing can be all things to all people" by having several things that can be all things to only a good number of people. But again, that is simply not tractable at this juncture, so we are left with a design that is well-suited for some things --- and clearly not for others. Cheers, Zach |
From: Jon M. <or...@ma...> - 2004-03-26 09:10:15
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Zach Welch wrote: **snip-snip** > But hey, this lack of foresight just mean more profits for folks like > myself who offer professional services to bail out folks who find > themselves up such creeks. So go forth and make your messes, and call > me when it doesn't work. My time equals money, and I might stand to > become rich man from such "creative" ideas alone.... > I'd actually be interested in your professoinal services when I get to the point in needing them. Also your services belong on the upcoming Gumstix Web Ring. **snip-snip** > >> So I propose that someone, anyone. Put together a list of what we >> know for certain a gumstix can be used for, and place them into two >> categories. The first is if you are a software guy and have only a >> limited ability in electronics. The second if you are a hardware >> hacker and want to slip in every possible peripheral over rs232 and I2C. > > > That seems rather silly. I would rather a single list of projects upon > which hardware and software folks can actually agree. Instead, you > propose a method that will lead to two "extremist views" of what is > possible, without leaving room for an actually tractable middle ground. > In effect, you are proposing the same kind of "unbalanced design" that I > was ranting about in my post about "mad engineering" last week. I'll > pass on that notion, thanks. > You are absolutely right. I'm not really sure where I was going with that idea. > Instead, I would rather see the community focus on producing a list of > URL for specifications to chips that *will* seamlessly interface with > the I/O available on the current Gumstik. Without this list, I feel we > are effectively trying to plant a forest without due consideration of > the species of trees that are best suited for the targeted climate. > Brilliant Idea! That's actually exactly what I need myself, and I'm sure almost everyone else here would benefit from that. **snip-snip** >> Personally I haven't come up with an idea yet, I know it's got to be >> good for something. perhaps with some I2C DACs and things it can >> replace the BasicStamp in my robot. And have some pretty impressive >> mapping functionality. perhaps with some audio-output I can just grab >> a public domain speech synthesizer and have it talk to me (festival >> or rsynth). a rs232 to ethernet adapter and an old DEC or Wyse >> terminal and it can become a cool console workstation. If you add 1 >> or two pieces of hardware the possibilities are endless. I hope now >> you understand my comment about "hardware hacker". Now what can we do >> about the software hackers who will be a great help in getting >> kernels, drivers, libraries and applications. > > > Okay, let me stop you right there. If you were to bring me a board with > an "rs232 to ethernet adapter", I would quadruple the price for the time > I'd spend trying to make it work, as I know enough from past experience > on these matters to know what an utter nightmare you've just proposed. > Sure, today you claim you just want to hook it up to a terminal, but the > second it gets put on a congested network, that design will go up in a > nice virtual cloud of smoke. I personally recommend you steer clear. > > That is *exactly* the kind of impractical design idea that makes an > experienced (and sane) software engineer run screaming for the hills -- > without ever looking back. Of course, there is always a good mix of > nuts in every professional field, so you can probably find opposing > opinions on this. In fact, I'm sure you can -- I've met said nuts. > Yes. it was insane. Now when I come up with a practical idea I'll tell you. But it hasn't come to me yet. :( >> Anyways you all should think about getting a website or project up >> and documented somewhere. Even if you've only just started on it. Put >> some notes on what you've gotten done so far. And once we get a few >> people with projects, either a listing of user websites on >> gumstix.org or gumstix.com would be great. Or possibly just a gumstix >> webring. If anyone wants to coordinate this (or if you want to >> convince me to coordinate it) then speak up now! > > > I think the webring is a great idea; please consider this my effort to > convince you to start one for the community. I also completely second > the suggestion that everyone begin putting together their own sites, as > such will likely increase the community momentum behind the platform. > Okay. I banged out some CGIs (in C) for the initial Gumstix Webring. http://gumstix.rm-f.net/ .. People should try it out and see what they think. There aren't any real sites listed yet of course. Enjoy! > This would also allow Gumstix, Inc. to simply reference the ring and > reduce the support burden of updating their list of community links > every time a new site comes on-line. I can't see any downsides. > >> ps- From the postings I've seen, I think there is a small (but >> noisy!) few who may have been happier to have a bare PXA on some kind >> of prototyping board (it's probably has too high of a pin count to >> put it on a SurfBoard). Some might have been happy to just have a big >> huge PXA for cheap and hook up all the peripherals themselves. I >> think the rest of us just want a PXA with the ideal combination of >> I/Os to do most, if not everything we want. > > > First, I really hope you meant to use the word "vocal" rather than > "noisy." The later has some rather negative connotations that I don't > particularly think you intended to convey to individuals like myself. > And if you did, I can gladly demonstrate the difference. :) > well... we won't go there. :) > Second, there is no "ideal combination of I/O" short of exposing the > pins for every functional module of the processor or giving complete > control (e.g. in an FPGA) over which lines are brought out. Otherwise, > *someone* (me?) will always complain that some other choice should have > been made. Even with all pins exposed, they will still be able to find > reasonable ways of finding faults in the system. Such is life. > Well by ideal strike the best balance between Cost, Number of users, Physical Size, and Flexibility. Obviously for maximum flexibility we'd want all I/Os exposed. (and I'd say possible have some gadgets added on). Now I see these SO-DIMM and SIMM computers everywhere. If you want all I/Os exposed a 168 pin DIMM would be big enough I think. Of course I would rather focus on what actually exists right now (Gumstix) instead of repeating what I'm sure a hundred other people have mentioned. > There are *always* improvements that can be made to any system, and > those that claim otherwise simply lack sufficient imagination to invent > the next generation of ideas. And I've heard some of the "best" claim > that these types of hardware and software systems *can* be finished, > which did nothing to bolster my opinion of their innovative abilities. > > What's really fun is, after you make such drastic changes in response to > demands, the people that asked for them proceed to tell you that they > wanted it changed back -- or aren't willing to pay for them. (I've been > there - fortunately from the software side where it's just a matter > of a rollback - and now require rather hefty deposits before undertaking > projects where such is a clear risk.) > > To make it clear that I am not among that wishy-washy crowd, let me > further say that I would put my money down now for a few GumBus cards if > Gumstix, Inc. could give me a date for their arrival. But I do not > expect them to make promises that they may not be able to keep, and any > proposed idea for hardware changes falls into that category since the > boards are already in production. > Well if we can put anything on our wish list then I will top you. I want a gumstix but instead of PXA I want an SPARCv8 system-on-chip. Using that GPL'd LEON-2 SPARCv8 core ( http://www.gaisler.com/leonmain.html ). Then we wouldn't have to indirectly pay the licensing fees to ARM, Inc. The point being. We can all wish for things, but I'm not convinced it's that constructive to go. Let's all be pragmatic about the business model and just try to buy and use what gumstix has already invested in before talking them into another product. > The only real solution that can ever hope to please everybody is to > offer a family of related products, thus beating the problem that > "nothing can be all things to all people" by having several things that > can be all things to only a good number of people. But again, that is > simply not tractable at this juncture, so we are left with a design that > is well-suited for some things --- and clearly not for others. > A family of products might not be practical. I suppose you could classify them into groups like Robotics, Networking, PDA/Wearable, etc. Of coruse we could just have something modular or expandable. A mainboard and then modules to turn it into one or more of the classifications/families i mentioned above. I'm sure someone could find some itty bitty connectors and you could stack gumstix-shaped moduiles pretty close together if you used a thin heatsink between them rather than leaving a gap for airflow. Of course then this would just be a smaller version of PC/104. That might be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. > Cheers, > > Zach -- Jon |
From: Zach W. <zw...@su...> - 2004-04-03 05:03:41
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Jon Mayo wrote: [ snip ] >> Instead, I would rather see the community focus on producing a list >> of URL for specifications to chips that *will* seamlessly >> interface with the I/O available on the current Gumstik. Without >> this list, I feel we are effectively trying to plant a forest >> without due consideration of the species of trees that are best >> suited for the targeted climate. >> > Brilliant Idea! That's actually exactly what I need myself, and I'm > sure almost everyone else here would benefit from that. I'll be starting such a list soon enough, but I've been too distracted by other matters of late to think about these things. I'd certainly enjoy seeing what anybody else has on their lists of dream chips for dropping onto daughterboards, either posted privately or to the list. > Okay. I banged out some CGIs (in C) for the initial Gumstix Webring. > http://gumstix.rm-f.net/ .. People should try it out and see what > they think. There aren't any real sites listed yet of course. Enjoy! I think it looks like a great start! :) Also to add to the TODO list would be things like: example HTML to add at each member's site (like mine!), a "deeply" validating URL parser plus submission system that takes a URL and checks to see that the example HTML is embedded in it, the same parser checking the ring periodically and e-mail site administrators if their ring HTML blob has been removed or damaged (a ring member defacement alert), and I could probably dream up a few other crazy ideas too. That should keep you plenty busy though. ;) > Now I see these SO-DIMM and SIMM computers everywhere. If you want > all I/Os exposed a 168 pin DIMM would be big enough I think. Of > course I would rather focus on what actually exists right now > (Gumstix) instead of repeating what I'm sure a hundred other people > have mentioned. Exactly, which is what I've reiterated before on this list. We have what we have, love it for what it is. And the Gumstix are quite cute and lovable, despite any perceived complaint I've had with them to date. Oh, and I appreciate you taking my "smackdown" with style; my lack of subsequent response stems from my own insane present situation and has depriving me of further "GumMadness" to unleash upon you all. Bear with me: I should soon have something "interesting" for everyone to chew on, but keep it all comin' in the meantime. Don't wait to unleash your crazy ideas here because of little ol' me! I can out-crazy all of ya', as some of you may already know through private correspondance. ;) Cheers, Zach Welch Superlucidity Services |
From: Rich G. <ri...@te...> - 2004-04-03 05:11:19
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Zach wrote: > but keep it all comin' in the meantime. Don't wait to unleash your > crazy ideas here because of little ol' me! I can out-crazy all of ya', > as some of you may already know through private correspondance. ;) I can attest to this truth... tangled in the swamp words versus deeds work and code which way is more free Happy days to all, Rich |
From: Zach W. <zw...@su...> - 2004-04-03 05:47:17
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Rich Gibson wrote: > Zach wrote: >> but keep it all comin' in the meantime. Don't wait to unleash your >> crazy ideas here because of little ol' me! I can out-crazy all of >> ya', as some of you may already know through private >> correspondance. ;) > > I can attest to this truth... > > tangled in the swamp > words versus deeds work and code > which way is more free > Freedom is not free. Vigilance makes the brave fall, among us, martyred... ...but, alas, haiku! My expression finds winter, with this discontent. So perhaps I'll transcend into art, Using skills unimpressive (but smart?), To express how I feel, As I eyeball the heel, Of the dagger poised over my heart. And with this I am sure I have shown The depths to which my madness are sown Beyond mortal reach I simply beseech You give me the respect that I loath. Now what that expression just said, May take you some time to comprehend. While I may be quite cocky, my results are jabberwocky that will earn me respect in the end. Or not. :-p "Superstupidly Yours," Zach Welch Superlucidity Services (Hey, it's friday night, gimme a break.... this is as good as beer ;) ) |