[Arm-netbook] EOMA server standard

[Gordan Bobic]

On 10/26/2012 06:58 PM, luke.leighton wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>  wrote:
>> On 10/26/2012 05:13 PM, luke.leighton wrote:
>>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>   wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hang on - 24 pins out of 68 are reserved for RGB?!
>>>
>>>    28.  leaving 40 for everything else, including 8 for GND and 5V.
>>> scarey, huh? :)
>>>
>>>> If there was ever a
>>>> good reason to use a composite video output - this is it.
>>>
>>> ah.  considered that, 18 months ago.  rejected it for 2 reasons.  3.
>>>
>>> a) composite video however isn't a lowest-common-denominator across a
>>> wide range of SoCs
>>
>> So add a chip to do it, maybe?
>
>   no.  absolutely not.  whatever the cost of that chip is, it's
> automatically too much.  see b), below, which i note conspicuously you
> didn't reply to or say "fair enough" or anything :)
>
>   it could be $0.50 for that chip, but automatically that's too much,
> esp. as that could be *greater* than the entire profit margin for a
> mass-volume 100 million+ units product.

To get a better product with more/better features most people probably 
wouldn't mind paying an extra $0.50 on the end retail price.


>>> so... no.
>>>
>>> plus, jammy buggers that we are, those 40^H^H32 remaining pins are
>>> *just* enough for USB3, 1000Eth, SATA and I2C, with 12 pins to spare!
>>
>> Fair enough. But if you had those other 20-odd pins, you could perhaps
>> avoid having to have multiple standards.
>
>   well, no, you wouldn't, because, again, due to the "nothing must be
> optional" rule, anything that was optional (as already discussed and
> eliminated) *or* "multiplexed" which is another no-no would have to be
> forcibly available as part of the standard.  *all* SoCs would be
> forced to provide *both* of the multiplex functions.
>
>   let's say you multiplexed PCIe x2 onto those 28 pins: you'd now
> *completely* eliminate all the low-cost SoCs out there that don't have
> PCIe x2 from the standard.

So instead you cripple the standard by excluding the possibility of 
using anything with PCIe?

Gordan