[Arm-netbook] preorder and roadmap clarification

[Gordan Bobic]

On 12/22/2011 04:28 AM, lkcl luke wrote:

>> and there is a working motherboard (that breaks out at least
>> ethernet, USB and console of some sort (VGA/DVI/HDMI or serial).
>
>   weeeelll... that means you'd need what i call a "micro" engineering
> board, which would be nothing more than a single-sided 2-layer board
> on the end of the PCMCIA connector.  actually the only 4 wires you'd
> (personally) need would be the ethernet.  everything else you
> (personally) need will be on the CPU card itself: HDMI and USB-OTG.

Well, there'd also need to be power input on the motherboard (taking in 
4-6V or 10-14V), a few extra USB ports broken out, SATA, maybe a RTC 
battery...

>> Can
>> you clarify (or at least make a hopeful guess) whether this is the case
>> and when a basic u-ATX format motherboard with the mentioned ports might
>> be available?
>
>   oo, a u-ATX motherboard's a different matter.  mostly it'd be empty!

Well, with a 17cmx17cm Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX board, the PCMCIA card 
would cover about 1/6 of the motherboard. The rest of the ports that 
need breaking out would cover probably twice that much again. So yes, 
it'd be relatively sparsely populated.

The advantage is that it would fit in any *TX case which is important 
for those of us that want to use off the shelf parts.

What I think would be ideal is something like this:
http://www.compulab.co.il/a510/html/a510-sb-datasheet.htm

They basically have a CPU+RAM daughter board and a generic 
Micro-ATX/Mini-ITX motherboard. I think this would be the most generic 
format.

Gordan