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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: 500 Micro Desktop PCB Assemblies
by Paul Boddie 27 Mar '19

27 Mar '19

Hello again, It was nice to see this latest update on the project: "Just a brief update: Mike’s factory has assembled the 500 Micro Desktop PCBs, though the through-hole VGA connectors still need to be hand-soldered on. These are the simpler of the two boards, so all of the Micro Desktops are being done, whereas explained in a previous update, the more complex board, the EOMA68-A20, will only be done in a smaller test run of 100 at first." https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/500-micro-desktop-… It must be satisfying to see all of this start to come together. On the topic of casings for the computer cards, I get the sense that there are no ready-made solutions for the outward-facing side of the cards, this despite most traditional PCMCIA/CardBus-profile cards exposing ports of different kinds (such as modems, network ports, like two cards I have from many years ago) and thus having similar requirements. I suppose 3D printing or some other creative casing solution isn't an option. Injection moulding seems to be quite demanding, as the following from the Tomu campaign indicates: "Right now a shop in China is etching the Tomu case shape into one ton of steel. Once that’s done they’ll manufacture a few units to verify the etching works. After this “T0” shot, they will harden the steel tool and start production." https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu/updates/design-done-product… To provide context, the Tomu case is a tiny piece of plastic of around one square centimetre and probably no more than 3mm in depth! Paul

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Laptop LCD Touch Pad: Display KB Layout Idea
by Alexander Ross 25 Mar '19

25 Mar '19

On the laptops lcd touch pad. Here’s a idea for a feature. When leaning new keyboard layout. Say dovrak for example. The trouble is learning where the new keys are. For me at least, one could do with a constant reminder. What if the lcd touch pad displayed the current pressed keys? Maybe on a image of the keyboard, meaning some way of representing where the key you pressed is relative to other keys. So if its the wrong one you can see where the right one is. This info is only displayed while the keyboard is in use. When the touch pad is in use it switches to a relevant display for touch pad use. As for when the user is using not the touch pad nor the keyboard? What then? display keymap? If playing video display: video controls, time left, is internet speed fast enough for this stream? etc.

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Heads up, RISC-V doing a world tour
by David Niklas 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Or at least it looks like that: https://sifivetechsymposium.com/ Might be interesting to attend (I can't). Especially to ask what to do about the companies that are already breaking the license of RISC-V. Note, however, that in the schedule for one of the events: https://sifivetechsymposium.com/agenda-boston/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_2AgWSrIUTQhN… Says that it is only 1 day! And it's apparently sponsored by someone, both because it's free and because I see 2 "Ecosystem Partner Presentation"s. I'm more interested in what on earth they expect to do in 1 day then the event itself... Sincerely, David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAlxtsG8ACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP9shw//aBpeZHiuTA/pG6JxjshZn8H3O2XJuaAwMm8sD9ZvGKAEklMka1zoYUNm HlS8c+1omeReiC9NBJT1mq116iv9TP9olFtkxRq351OcN4qC4NmDgKskZTNXFyNz qNgPlgT3aZV3AQCR6kkhBDzfbdhtC/+pyzGI/ukUH2cBCLZxXL/6du9BS5+GHosb ZJvS9B3VUktsOHKW2o+J4vx0fZGuAD5k2PcGLkTRS0MoPoKYUU2yYk/DVP8sda29 NJmwVXTSfZ6oOMaYJ0Og6OxOlA0I7+MlCx/3r8kKSikAiv7DjA85BVa0/H/3IBJi /gnrnVB2D2P9V2cDh5k+UsE7PRMJ7B4j2G5vLNXqOyzttCx+A43arJCPmnkrWhzk YGi0gt2rKom83H7dyDsH2UVhbmaKH+ATcG9bWo+ta76ITiV1lJ4Z54uFeFic/Ree 21pD1PNIzWOM0bjM6BH1hPnEeyx7TlY14rL1ira2NUfBo5d2XxXGAPjEK/Xz8Sn3 8Q1L9KASZNWVDrhl6/2xEBE+5pPS3HxTH7t9YFyo40dkouFr5TpNwoB2di8Ih3xj yJnFC83VPg6JKQ37EQN4MTjvPvRGkrT63DFSuaxShF5kVtt2UYTVVe12AuWlo9e6 sZYfwMK+c4ZV+8hs6atvdkdyk/BI9ZntROuex/gecjnr8wvuQe0= =zSdp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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NLnet PET Grant 1st round selection approved, 2nd round to begin soon
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

i've received word that we've passed the 1st round selection criteria for a EUR $50,000 Grant from the NLnet foundation. they have EUR $5.6m available however they must have well over a hundred other applications and they need to go through a strict 2nd round of questions. https://nlnet.nl/PET/guideforapplicants/ https://nlnet.nl/PET/ i'll keep people informed: given that the project is entirely based around providing the hardware that respects peoples' privacy, and that it's pretty unique and has no competition, we stand a high probability of success. l.

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Another processor with RISC-V and it's not looking OSHW
by David Niklas 20 Feb '19

20 Feb '19

http://linuxgizmos.com/linux-driven-96boards-sbc-features-ai-and-risc-v-com… At first I was excited. Now that I find out it's not really OSHW I'm not so excited. What the future of RISC-V is I can only guess at. And my guesses are involving vendor lock-in and the usurpation of OSHW... Sincerely, David

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Just a thought for the 2nd revision of your standard,
by zap 19 Feb '19

19 Feb '19

https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort https://linux-sunxi.org/A64 sunxi cedrus now supports this processor. I would be estatic to see that happen. A64 is a good processor because it is 64 bit, and 32 bit has less people interested in it more and more as time passes... What do you think Luke? Especially given the whole bootlin/cedrus support. Seems the Video Engine is available now. Let me know what you think of this as a possible Rev2 of eoma68 the standard. ps, I am mainly interested in this because of the possibility of wine-staging on it. But yeah, even better it has no issues of meltdown/spectre. :) https://olimex.wordpress.com/tag/allwinner/ https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5544

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Dear luke, I was thinking of your problem with needing to drive 128 gates from 1. <disclaimer> There comes a time in life where people, or rather I, must demonstrate to the world just how stupid I really am. And there comes a time in life where people like you rebuke my idea in the foolish expectation that it will *never* be proposed again. :) I am going to propose a solution that works on paper. I have NO experience with logic programming, architecture, or chip design of any sort. What I propose causes a major increase in complexity, while keeping the amount of transistors roughly the same, and maintaining the speed and power efficiency you desired. <\disclaimer> I have no idea how well my idea will scale, with respect to the amount of driven gates. But I have throughly researched it as best as I can. You can find a nice table, which I can only partially understand here: https://courseware.ee.calpoly.edu/~dbraun/courses/ee307/F99/01_10/01_Franco… It will explain how many gates you can drive from one with respect to the maximum and minimum current that the gates accept and output. The capacitance and resistance of the gates and wires may prove somewhat more difficult to ascertain. Attached are 2 images (No, ASCII art would not have worked here). One shows a set of NAND gates with an ordinary layout. I chose NAND gates because NAND is one of two universal gates. The second image shows a modified version of the first. It uses a recursive layout of NAND gates enabling a tree like effect. These were both drawn while riding in a car so don't expect perfection. Also, my scanner got both sides of the paper on one page (technically, image), which was annoying. So I cleaned the images up a bit. I'm excited about my idea, however pitiful it is. Tell me what you think! Thanks luke, David

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Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 09 Feb '19

09 Feb '19

Is the CDC 6600 and it's successors an open source CPU? The way luke talks about the CDC 6600, it is totally available for inspection, unless you're looking for the more obscure parts where you just have to know someone. If so, I'd be interested in finding out more. Experimenting with your own CPU using plain old off-the-shelf parts is rather interesting. Yes, I have heard of the youtube guy who made a CPU called Megaprocessor. I often think that we lost a lot of genius due to the closed source nature of modern processors. Not to mention the methods of creating these CPU designs. Concerning luke's need to drive 128 gates from 1. You could probably operate more gates at once if you used a MOSFET instead of a normal transistor for your driving gate (I have no idea if or how that would work in silicon though). Thanks!

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Modular U-Boot - FOSDEM presentation
by Jeffrey Sites 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

I don't recall seeing a reference to this already, nor a resolution to the open question of how to enable U-Boot for different EOMA68 configurations, so I figured it may be useful to someone to review the applicability of a talk given at the recent FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/porting_u_boot_to_a_modular_device/ I hope this is helpful to someone! Happy Hacking

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EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: New Factory Equipment, New Grant Proposal
by Paul Boddie 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

Hello, Good to see another update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/new-factory-equipm… I hope Mike is bearing up in the face of his recent difficulties. With regard to your funding proposal [1], I see that you wish to revive the other computer cards, and this brought to mind a couple of things I saw recently. One of them was the StereoPi crowdfunding campaign: https://www.crowdsupply.com/virt2real/stereopi The relevant aspect of this is the use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module as the core of the solution. Previously, the Compute Module was rather "unobtainium", shall we say, but given that Adafruit and the like seem to actually have the latest models in stock, I guess that they are being made and sold to real people. Although things like the StereoPi have developers as their audience, and so it doesn't really bother people that bare boards and edge connectors are the basis of modularity, it would be nice to be able to pitch EOMA68 (and related profile) products for these kinds of things. But these kinds of campaigns do help to demonstrate the case for EOMA68 and modular computing. Another thing that I noticed was in perusing the Dingoonity forums, where there is a fairly active forum about Ingenic-based handheld devices: https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/ As the URL indicates, a lot of them seem to be based on the JZ4760, but there was a curious remark about the JZ4770 used in the GCW Zero: "There's no GCW Zero clone. H350 is its presumed internal name. The factory illegally sold prototypes from the initial test runs. Apparently the factory is hogging the last JZ4770 SoCs in existence. So don't expect a third party to jump in and start manufacturing a compatible device." https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/gcw-zero-14324/msg1841… Of course, the JZ4770 is the Vivante-based product variant, alongside the JZ4780 (PowerVR-based) and JZ4775 (no GPU). The latter two are still featured on Ingenic's Web site and are presumably active products. Hopefully, there are no availability issues, although one may wonder whether the JZ4760 might be a fallback if there is a glut of those (as evidenced by the continual stream of handhelds) and a shortage of the others. Again, EOMA68 would be a good way of enabling products for this market. People seem to end up chasing discontinued products and settling for random imports, often being disappointed with some aspect of them or other, plus the software is not exactly responsibly produced, either. Paul [1] http://rhombus-tech.net/nlnet_2018/

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