[Arm-netbook] Plug computer and FreedomBox-related devices

[Paul Boddie]

On Thursday 17. September 2015 01.34.15 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 11:49 PM, Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> > 
> > Sure, I understand that. But what worries me a little is that experience
> > isn't being gained to possibly refine the standard
> 
>  paul, you misunderstand the concept of a simple long-term standard.

Not really. What I meant by "refined" is actually this:

[...]

>  first revision was to remove SATA and replace it with a 2nd USB2.
> second revision was to add VREFTTL, add SD/MMC and UART,  third (or
> possibly still part of the 2nd) was to reduce 24-pin RGB/TTL to 18-pin
> RGB/TTL and use the 4 spare lines for an SPI interface, also USB3 was
> added at some point.  PWM and an extra EINT were also added.  the
> fourth - and almost certainly final revision - has been very recent:
> removal of Ethernet, upgrading to being able to do USB 3.1, as well as
> add 2 more EINT lines and 3 more GPIOs.
> 
>  those interfaces have all been very carefully considered, especially
> when developing the ICubeCorp IC3128 CPU Card, where, due to its low
> pincount and being a QFP, there's *literally* only 2 spare unused pins
> left on the *entire* processor that don't go to the EOMA68 interface
> or the SD/MMC boot card.

All of this has happened before we get to the point where we call it a final 
standard, but what worries me is that there may be an application that hasn't 
yet been considered because the collective experience of trying to make 
devices using it is not broad enough.

I must admit that this is coloured by my interests in "retrocomputing" where 
one can look at products that were made and then consider how they might have 
been improved, even by a small amount, in a way that might have made them a 
lot more successful. At the time, you'd have some company or other designing 
and manufacturing their products to a tight schedule (usually to hit the 
market at the best time of year), but there would be limitations discovered by 
the customers that would limit the competitive lifetime of the product.

In any case, from what you've written, I guess we'll find out for ourselves 
soon enough about how successful the refinement process has been. Not that I 
think that it hasn't been successful enough, however.

[...]

> > Still, I wonder what those of us reading this list might be able to do to
> > move the effort forward in our own way.
> 
> that would be great.

Any suggestions? :-)

Paul