This post is about modifying an asus eeepc 7inch notebook into accepting a pc card. You are invite to contribute.
Ron, it occurs to me that I may have something in my junk bin for you. Can you get me the model # of the LCD panel itself in that system? You'll have to take the lid apart... should be a bunch of mumbo-jumbo on the back of the panel in large letters.
If you're not sure -- host a picture of the label on one of those many image-hosting sites out there, and post up the link here. I'll know it when I see it.
This post is about modifying an asus eeepc 7inch notebook into accepting a pc card. You are invite to contribute.
Following up on the "RK3399" email:
For your information, I am in a censorship dispute with lkcl. I do not know what he will come up with. Maybe some or all of my posts will be stopped.
I'm going to get an EEEoma Wiki up in the following week and start documenting everything there; if you end up losing posting privileges, feel free to email me directly.
I do not follow lkcl's opposition on this.
He's trying to make sure that the resulting design is safe and 1) won't ruin reputation of EOMA68 2) will be a good reference design for other designers that want to make EOMA68-compatible things, so that their designs won't ruin the EOMA68 reputation.
It is a weller sp 40l 40w.
It seems to have a wide tip, so I'm wondering if it's suitable for soldering things like a 0.8-pitch connector... We'll see. At worst, you can get a working soldering iron for $5 from China, and a set of good tips for $5 more.
In case I did not mention it before. I have a raspberry pi 0 and a beaglebone black revision c if that could be useful.
Those could be useful for testing, I think.
I still have the asus eeepc's mainboard.
That's great =) So we likely can harvest a couple of chips from it if necessary.
The pocketchip's keyboard is an i2c keyboard. Is the asus eeepc's keyboard also an i2c keyboard?
The pocketchip's keyboard, just like the EEE PC keyboard, is not I2C by itself - it's a key matrix, and there's usually a controller that connects to this key matrix. In PocketCHIP's case, it talks I2C - in case of EEE PC, that controller is a part of Embedded Controller on the EEE PC mainboard (which controls a whole load of functions), so we're making our own controller by taking a microcontroller, putting it on a board with a 28-pin connector and writing a firmware for it.
Instead of modifying the asus eeepc's keyboard into an usb keyboard, what about i2c connecting the keyboard to the pc card?
Either that, or use PS2 - since we likely will have a PS2-USB chip anyway (for the touchpad). The benefit of using PS/2 is that we won't need to write our own kernel driver - however, we will need to find a way to reliably source PS2-UAB converter chips, or converter boards.
To my knowledge you can use the beaglebone black revision c to test i2c devices.
You can also use the Pi Zero for the same task, if I understand you correctly (just FYI).
I have this forestalled remark. I would prefer not to cut in the asus eeepc's cabinet. If I do it wrongly, I do not have another cabinet.
Hmm. That's tricky - I was planning to suggest the "cutting" approach, but I don't know of a good way to cut into the cabinet so that it's easy and mistake-proof. Thankfully, I have 2 spare cases to experiment with, and I have some ideas =)
Instead at the bottom of the asus eeepc there is a removable plate. There is a balk which likely can be removed. I would prefer to insert the pc card by that plate.
I'll measure it and see if it's suitable - that is, if we can even insert the card. I can't yet imagine how it would work, but I will think about it. (the space inside the EEE case is quite limited, so there's only so many ways to keep the card in).
I have not been able to find something like the pcmcia/eoma 68 breakout board. Should we not find a shop to buy one?
I haven't yet found PCMCIA breakouts (or EOMA68 breakouts, for that matter), so it's not a commodity item, and I'm guessing that places that have them will have it at high prices, just because it's not that popular. Lkcl has breakouts listed on Crowdsupply, but I imagine there's some time until they will be manufactured and available. Until that, we can either work on other tasks - and, later on, we can design our own breakouts if it proves necessary.
Cheers! Arsenijs
Quick post from my phone -- existing PCMCIA card cages from random laptops are a dime-a-dozen on fleaBay, if you want to go that route. They would likely need minor modifications to the keying, but that's hardly a showstopper.
Ron, did you see my previous email? I have an LCD panel that may work for you, to replace the original in the Eee - but I won't know if it's compatible, without that part number. If it *is* compatible, I'll ask you to cover shipping costs and that's all.
I know /almost/ for a fact that my display will work with an EOMA68 card, as it takes a parallel TTL input -- somewhere I think I have the datasheet -- I just need your part number to know if they are physically interchangeable without getting out the craft knife... I suspect the aspect ratios are different, though -- mine is straight SVGA (800x600), and IIRC, Eee PC netbooks were always widescreen -- either 800x480 or 1024x600...
On Feb 11, 2018 4:40 PM, "Pičugins Arsenijs" crimier@yandex.ru wrote:
This post is about modifying an asus eeepc 7inch notebook into accepting a pc card. You are invite to contribute.
Following up on the "RK3399" email:
For your information, I am in a censorship dispute with lkcl. I do not know what he will come up with. Maybe some or all of my posts will be stopped.
I'm going to get an EEEoma Wiki up in the following week and start documenting everything there; if you end up losing posting privileges, feel free to email me directly.
I do not follow lkcl's opposition on this.
He's trying to make sure that the resulting design is safe and 1) won't ruin reputation of EOMA68 2) will be a good reference design for other designers that want to make EOMA68-compatible things, so that their designs won't ruin the EOMA68 reputation.
It is a weller sp 40l 40w.
It seems to have a wide tip, so I'm wondering if it's suitable for soldering things like a 0.8-pitch connector... We'll see. At worst, you can get a working soldering iron for $5 from China, and a set of good tips for $5 more.
In case I did not mention it before. I have a raspberry pi 0 and a beaglebone black revision c if that could be useful.
Those could be useful for testing, I think.
I still have the asus eeepc's mainboard.
That's great =) So we likely can harvest a couple of chips from it if necessary.
The pocketchip's keyboard is an i2c keyboard. Is the asus eeepc's keyboard also an i2c keyboard?
The pocketchip's keyboard, just like the EEE PC keyboard, is not I2C by itself - it's a key matrix, and there's usually a controller that connects to this key matrix. In PocketCHIP's case, it talks I2C - in case of EEE PC, that controller is a part of Embedded Controller on the EEE PC mainboard (which controls a whole load of functions), so we're making our own controller by taking a microcontroller, putting it on a board with a 28-pin connector and writing a firmware for it.
Instead of modifying the asus eeepc's keyboard into an usb keyboard, what about i2c connecting the keyboard to the pc card?
Either that, or use PS2 - since we likely will have a PS2-USB chip anyway (for the touchpad). The benefit of using PS/2 is that we won't need to write our own kernel driver - however, we will need to find a way to reliably source PS2-UAB converter chips, or converter boards.
To my knowledge you can use the beaglebone black revision c to test i2c devices.
You can also use the Pi Zero for the same task, if I understand you correctly (just FYI).
I have this forestalled remark. I would prefer not to cut in the asus eeepc's cabinet. If I do it wrongly, I do not have another cabinet.
Hmm. That's tricky - I was planning to suggest the "cutting" approach, but I don't know of a good way to cut into the cabinet so that it's easy and mistake-proof. Thankfully, I have 2 spare cases to experiment with, and I have some ideas =)
Instead at the bottom of the asus eeepc there is a removable plate. There is a balk which likely can be removed. I would prefer to insert the pc card by that plate.
I'll measure it and see if it's suitable - that is, if we can even insert the card. I can't yet imagine how it would work, but I will think about it. (the space inside the EEE case is quite limited, so there's only so many ways to keep the card in).
I have not been able to find something like the pcmcia/eoma 68 breakout board. Should we not find a shop to buy one?
I haven't yet found PCMCIA breakouts (or EOMA68 breakouts, for that matter), so it's not a commodity item, and I'm guessing that places that have them will have it at high prices, just because it's not that popular. Lkcl has breakouts listed on Crowdsupply, but I imagine there's some time until they will be manufactured and available. Until that, we can either work on other tasks - and, later on, we can design our own breakouts if it proves necessary.
Cheers! Arsenijs
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Quick post from my phone -- existing PCMCIA card cages from random laptops are a dime-a-dozen on fleaBay, if you want to go that route. They would likely need minor modifications to the keying, but that's hardly a showstopper.
True, but they have proprietary pinouts, can easily be as big as to be unwieldly, and they're more expensive - I just checked Taobao and a PCMCIA socket there is 72 cents, I'll get 10pcs.
Ron, did you see my previous email? I have an LCD panel that may work for you, to replace the original in the Eee - but I won't know if it's compatible, without that part number. If it *is* compatible, I'll ask you to cover shipping costs and that's all.
I can check it tomorrow, too - I'm not at my workplace right now. I also imagine you can look up eBay for "asus eee 701 panel" and find the model numbers.
I know /almost/ for a fact that my display will work with an EOMA68 card, as it takes a parallel TTL input -- somewhere I think I have the datasheet -- I just need your part number to know if they are physically interchangeable without getting out the craft knife... I suspect the aspect ratios are different, though -- mine is straight SVGA (800x600), and IIRC, Eee PC netbooks were always widescreen -- either 800x480 or 1024x600...
Right, EEE PC 701 has a 800x480 screen. So, I'm guessing that the display bezel mod will be necessary, too.
I'll see what I can find on the screen... eBay does not reliably list model #s but who knows.
Oh -- and for the keyboard -- look into the work done with custom keyboards and a microcontroller called the "Teensy" -- the code should be compatible with an Arduino Micro -- of which cheap clones can be had on eBay. To be clear, you want the Arduino MICRO with the ATMEGA32U4 in it, and specifically NOT the similar Arduino NANO with the ATMEGA328 in it. The '32U4 part has on-chip USB so you can do USB-HID stuff with it. I will warn you that the cheap Arduino clone boards tend to use a particularly touchy voltage regulator -- I've fried one of those boards that way, it's not hard...
On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 4:58 PM, Pičugins Arsenijs crimier@yandex.ru wrote:
Quick post from my phone -- existing PCMCIA card cages from random
laptops
are a dime-a-dozen on fleaBay, if you want to go that route. They would likely need minor modifications to the keying, but that's hardly a showstopper.
True, but they have proprietary pinouts, can easily be as big as to be unwieldly, and they're more expensive - I just checked Taobao and a PCMCIA socket there is 72 cents, I'll get 10pcs.
Ron, did you see my previous email? I have an LCD panel that may work for you, to replace the original in the Eee - but I won't know if it's compatible, without that part number. If it *is* compatible, I'll ask you to cover shipping costs and that's all.
I can check it tomorrow, too - I'm not at my workplace right now. I also imagine you can look up eBay for "asus eee 701 panel" and find the model numbers.
I know /almost/ for a fact that my display will work with an EOMA68 card, as it takes a parallel TTL input -- somewhere I think I have the
datasheet
-- I just need your part number to know if they are physically interchangeable without getting out the craft knife... I suspect the
aspect
ratios are different, though -- mine is straight SVGA (800x600), and
IIRC,
Eee PC netbooks were always widescreen -- either 800x480 or 1024x600...
Right, EEE PC 701 has a 800x480 screen. So, I'm guessing that the display bezel mod will be necessary, too.
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Oh -- and for the keyboard -- look into the work done with custom keyboards and a microcontroller called the "Teensy" -- the code should be compatible with an Arduino Micro -- of which cheap clones can be had on eBay. To be clear, you want the Arduino MICRO with the ATMEGA32U4 in it, and specifically NOT the similar Arduino NANO with the ATMEGA328 in it. The '32U4 part has on-chip USB so you can do USB-HID stuff with it.
A Teensy could work, indeed. The issue is - the keyboard needs 24 (16+8) pins. Now that I think of it, we can use 32U4, it has 8 PCINT pins (that we can use for 8 rows) and there are 18 GPIOs remaining - enough to implement I2C (without the INT pin, though) or PS/2 - or, indeed, use USB.
I will warn you that the cheap Arduino clone boards tend to use a particularly touchy voltage regulator -- I've fried one of those boards that way, it's not hard...
Does the regulator come into play if we feed the ATMega32U4 from either 5V or 3.3V directly into VCC? I guess it doesn't.
The regulator does not come into play if you feed it directly with 5v. I don't think the 3.3v pin is an allowable input, though... I remember that the 5v pin can go either way like that, but I dunno about the 3.3v one. Personally, if you're feeding it /regulated/ 5v -- desolder the regulator. You're better off without it. It's a little four-pin SOT that looks like a transistor with a tab pin... the specific part number is A1117.
Word to the wise on the $5-8 eBay USB soldering irons -- they work remarkably well, but use ONLY with a power bank. There's a Scottish bloke on YouTube calls himself "Big Clive Dot Com" -- he has a segment from 2016 or so on these irons, and he explains why I'm saying this far better than I can explain it myself. Go watch the episode, it's here (~20min, and worth every second) --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-8D5t6TJYU
...also...
If eBay is to be believed on part numbers here -- you should have an AUO brand A070VW04 screen in that thing. If it's a stock screen, then according to what I'm looking at, you don't need my display, you've already got one that's 24bit TTL parallel.
Here's the datasheet I found --> http://www.taopanel.com/ auo/datasheet/A070VW04-V0.pdf
If youi WANT my display -- again, just pay shipping -- I can send it along. I'll get model # and datasheet upon profession of interest. It'll give you a few extra pixels, if you put it in, but you'll definitely need to cut down that ginormous bezel to fit the thing -- it looks like they put a seven inch display in a ten inch netbook, ha! (Insert inevitable intelligence-comparison joke here.) I do remember that it was from a real cheap pile-of-doodoo "eReader" tablet that my mother bought herself about three months before Borders Books fell flat... Velocity Micro Cruz R101 is the make and model. Usual horribly-cheap fare... it was probably outdated when new. It never went above IIRC Android 2.something IIRC, had a 600MHz or so VIA SoC that was probably overclocked and inevitably undercooled, and was just all-around awful to use. It positively /reeked/ of cheap.
On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 5:15 PM, Pičugins Arsenijs crimier@yandex.ru wrote:
Oh -- and for the keyboard -- look into the work done with custom
keyboards
and a microcontroller called the "Teensy" -- the code should be
compatible
with an Arduino Micro -- of which cheap clones can be had on eBay. To be clear, you want the Arduino MICRO with the ATMEGA32U4 in it, and specifically NOT the similar Arduino NANO with the ATMEGA328 in it. The '32U4 part has on-chip USB so you can do USB-HID stuff with it.
A Teensy could work, indeed. The issue is - the keyboard needs 24 (16+8) pins. Now that I think of it, we can use 32U4, it has 8 PCINT pins (that we can use for 8 rows) and there are 18 GPIOs remaining - enough to implement I2C (without the INT pin, though) or PS/2 - or, indeed, use USB.
I will warn you that the cheap Arduino clone boards tend to use a particularly touchy voltage regulator -- I've fried one of those boards that way, it's not hard...
Does the regulator come into play if we feed the ATMega32U4 from either 5V or 3.3V directly into VCC? I guess it doesn't.
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On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 9:40 PM, Pičugins Arsenijs crimier@yandex.ru wrote:
I do not follow lkcl's opposition on this.
there's no "opposition" ron.
He's trying to make sure that the resulting design is safe and 1) won't ruin reputation of EOMA68 2) will be a good reference design for other designers that want to make EOMA68-compatible things, so that their designs won't ruin the EOMA68 reputation.
correct. arsenijs i leave it up to you to explain it to ron's satisfaction. anyone is permitted to use the word "EOMA68"... *ONLY* if it meets ***MY*** approval. that means you follow the rules that *** I and I alone *** set, regarding EOMA68.
this is to ensure that you do not end up killing someone through a lithium battery fire because you didn't fucking well listen... and the fire investigators do not go "oh it's an EOMA68 product... shut those fuckers down NOW"... and the parents of the child whom you effectively murdered through your highly irresponsible negligence try to sue *** ME *** because *** YOU *** broke Trademark Law by putting "EOMA68" on the product without my explicit consent and authorisation, and did not go through and did not respect that there has to be a proper and full audit and review of the entire product - by me - before you can use the (copyrighted) phrase "EOMA68".
bottom line: you are free to do whatever you like.... *IF* you do NOT mention IN ANY WAY that you and your product are directly or indirectly associated with EOMA68. if however you want to mention "EOMA68" anywhere on the product or the website, you REQUIRE MY PERMISSION TO DO SO and need to do EXACTLY WHAT I ASK.
this is Trademark Law. it exists for a damn good reason.
if this is unacceptable to you, if you cannot accept that Trademark Law applies, if you do not recognise that i am the sole exclusive Copyright holder of the EOMA68 Certification Mark, if you are unable or unwilling to respect the compliance requirements for the *FULL* EOMA68 Specification, you should stop using the phrase "EOMA68"... *right now*.
this is really important that you understand and accept, ok?
I haven't yet found PCMCIA breakouts (or EOMA68 breakouts, for that matter),
same difference...
digikey have some PCMCIA connectors available: they'll get you started at least. yes i do have some (at the factory in china), i may have some at the flat in taiwan, i'll have to dig them out. if you can look on digikey for PCCARD or PCMCIA connectors or anywhere else, just to get some sort of breakout board, go for those. i'd recommend the through-hole ones as you can solder directly to the pins if necessary.
l.
On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 03:05:17PM -0500, ronwirring@Safe-mail.net wrote:
This post is about modifying an asus eeepc 7inch notebook into accepting a pc card. You are invite to contribute.
I find the idea to turn an asus eeepc 7inch notebook into an EOMA68 housing very interesting. I don't have the knowledge to contribute at the current stage.
I recommend to use the terms of the glossary right from the beginning (https://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA68#Glossary_of_Ter...). So I think the above statement from Ron should better be phrased: "This post is about modifiying an asus eeepc 7inch notebook to work as a housing for an EOMA68-card." I don't want to appear overly nitpicky but I think common terms are important to avoid misunderstanding.
Good luck with the project and happy hacking!
kind regards Pablo
arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
-
Christopher Havel -
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton -
Pablo Rath -
Pičugins Arsenijs -
ronwirring＠Safe-mail.net