2010-08-27 02:02 unclouded: great! but i didn't really had problems with building (it was only one line in Makefile), i had problems with running nightsky :) 2010-08-27 02:52 wolfspraul: http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo/ 2010-08-27 02:58 he 2010-08-27 02:58 what is that? 2010-08-27 02:59 the history of the RF board 2010-08-27 02:59 looks interesting 2010-08-27 03:00 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Tools for making a browseable graphical revision history of schematics. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/c10d643 2010-08-27 03:00 and here are the tools :) 2010-08-27 03:01 ah OK, the three columns are 3 pages of the schematics 2010-08-27 03:01 they go though git, extract the repository for each revision, run eeschema to "plot" the postscript, convert it with gs to PPM, then cache it 2010-08-27 03:02 then i go through the cached PPMs and compare them. if there's a difference, it's marked and output 2010-08-27 03:02 there are two parallel styles: the "full-sized" style, which is what you get when you click on one of the thumbnails, 2010-08-27 03:02 will it stay at that url /misc/ben/demo? 2010-08-27 03:03 and the thumbnail style where lines are fatter, the yellow boxes are more intense and bigger. that's why they sometimes look a bit different. 2010-08-27 03:03 ideally, it would move to a less obscure place :) 2010-08-27 03:03 I am very interested in this, will definitely try to get it onto the projects server. 2010-08-27 03:04 but I need some time (yesterday and today I'm somewhat sick actually, but that should get better soon) 2010-08-27 03:04 so I will add it to my todo list, where else :-) 2010-08-27 03:05 for schematics with a lot of pages it will get quite wide 2010-08-27 03:05 the cahcing is still a but crude. it keeps tons of useless stuff around, to turn the cache on and off, you need to edit the script, and it doesn't know how to do incremental updates 2010-08-27 03:05 but even at 5-10 pages it should still be fine, and we can first see which projects we actually have with that many pages 2010-08-27 03:05 (lots of pages) perhaps you can shrink it a little more 2010-08-27 03:06 I like to start with the projects that we actually have today, rather than preparing for the 100+ pages schematics now, that we will never have anyway... 2010-08-27 03:06 Airbus3000-all-schematics.zip ? ;-) 2010-08-27 03:08 (known limitations) there are also fencepost errors. e.g., it doesn't properly introduce the first commit. and i haven't tested whether it marks deleted or new pages correctly. 2010-08-27 03:09 it also doesn't track name changes other than changes of the top-level schematics file 2010-08-27 03:10 it should also do a bit more linking. e.g., to the commit and maybe to a postscript or pdf file with a zoomable version of the schematics 2010-08-27 03:11 but all that's relatively easy. the hard part was to get the graphical diffs. 2010-08-27 03:12 let's see how it likes xue .. 2010-08-27 03:14 to save space, one could collapse empty columns. but i kinda like the way it is now. it's easy to see where a given sheet changed. 2010-08-27 03:16 aha, xue had a name change too ;-) 2010-08-27 03:19 phew. and for a while some libraries or the profile weren't committed, making kicad bring up a clickable complaint for each revision :-( 2010-08-27 03:20 that could be a problem for automated schematics. of course, it's also instant qa ;-) 2010-08-27 03:21 no I like it, the look is good 2010-08-27 03:21 no collapse 2010-08-27 03:22 sure of course, as long as the script itself is stable, if the output is not good that also means the kicad project files may not be committed well etc. 2010-08-27 03:25 then something is missing, kicad pops up a dialog. so the batch stops until you click it away. not sure if i can just suppress dialogs. if all else fails, i could add a timeout. 2010-08-27 03:26 (and skip the corresponding commit(s). changes would then show up at the next valid commit. not very nice, though.) 2010-08-27 03:28 asks for a --quiet option, that will also not be accepted upstream :-) 2010-08-27 03:29 yeah. well, the dialogs showing up is of course a sign that my --plot hack is indeed not quite kosher :) 2010-08-27 03:33 ah, you can just attach it to that patch - suppress dialogs 2010-08-27 03:33 grmbl. seems that each new components in xue takes 2-10 commits before it's in properly :-( 2010-08-27 03:34 over time people will have better discipline in checking in small but autonomous changes 2010-08-27 03:34 so far, it's just the libraries dialog. shouldn't be too hard. pcbnew has a few more annoyance dialogs. i also haven't quite figured out how to make pcbnew plot without running a lot of the code. 2010-08-27 03:34 but what about commits that don't impact schematics at all? 2010-08-27 03:35 layout? documentation? 2010-08-27 03:35 i still extract everything and generate images. since they don't produce a diff, i ignore them later. not particularly efficient, i admit. 2010-08-27 03:35 ah OK 2010-08-27 03:36 aha ! now it threw up my syntax somewhere 2010-08-27 03:38 silly bug of mine 2010-08-27 03:42 and a formatting problem ... and then we have the good old A4 vs. A3 issue ... 2010-08-27 03:44 hmm. many of the sheets are either empty or my script is borked 2010-08-27 03:46 and xue needs better renaming compensation. so far, i track renames that move the project around in the directory hierarchy. xue had a major renaming of chie-* to xue-*, which my scripts miss. 2010-08-27 03:47 so all the files appear twice 2010-08-27 03:51 wolfspraul: http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo2/ 2010-08-27 03:55 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Fixed two small bugs in schhist2web. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/1774ae2 2010-08-27 03:58 hmm, the symbols with yellow background don't plot well in monochrome. (e.g., in xue-rnc-PSU) 2010-08-27 03:59 yup. the already come out of kicad as big black blocks. 2010-08-27 04:01 and the "empty" sheets aren't. maybe one of those fencepost errors in my script. 2010-08-27 04:05 and eeschema is very unhappy if i run it without a display to show its complaints on. well, i expected that. 2010-08-27 04:11 wpwrak: nice! 2010-08-27 04:11 maybe the commit text should be on the left? 2010-08-27 04:11 13 pages, it's pushing the layout 2010-08-27 04:11 i think the commit text could get wide 2010-08-27 04:11 but then a lot of that depends on screen size, I think it's OK 2010-08-27 04:12 oh I see 2010-08-27 04:12 but it's a table you can just set a width 2010-08-27 04:12 half of the pages are just renames. once i track them properly, they disappear 2010-08-27 04:12 hmm 2010-08-27 04:13 right now, my script is just good at tracking the quirks of wpan-atrf :) 2010-08-27 04:15 it's a great start 2010-08-27 04:16 i wonder if i should just also show sheets that haven't changed. the highlighting should make them easy enough to ignore. might make the overall appearance a bit less scattered. 2010-08-27 04:19 could be crowded 2010-08-27 04:20 kyak: could you please try building from the latest nightsky ( 20100827)?Â Â I think the 20100823 version of nightsky had a bug in the Makefile that would involve /usr/lib from the host in the build, which I think might be why the version you built didn't run.Â Â xiangfu had the exact same problem as you did ( hang on getpwuid()) and his build works with the latest upstream 2010-08-27 04:21 (crowded) hmm, and it can hide changes that show up in the full-sized view but not in the thumbnail. e.g., the 3rd commit on http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo/ 2010-08-27 04:22 there, an N changed to M. with the thick lines in the thumbnails, this change isn't visible and thus there is no marking. in the full-sized view, it is detected, though. something like one pixel :) 2010-08-27 04:22 good point 2010-08-27 04:24 should be pretty rate, though. i could also teach ppmdiff to read a different set of files for the changes. that way, it could "see" changes it doesn't even show. 2010-08-27 04:25 s/rate/rare/ 2010-08-27 05:47 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Allow markup to be synchronized with other (better resolution) pair of http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/0d53761 2010-08-27 08:20 heya, can someone help me create these pages? 2010-08-27 08:20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_NanoNote 2010-08-27 08:21 rejon, you should start it with "Ben NanoNote is a device manufactured by.." or something like that 2010-08-27 08:21 yes 2010-08-27 08:21 please help edit it! 2010-08-27 08:21 :) 2010-08-27 08:22 well, i think i lack the right knowledge about ben nanonote ;) 2010-08-27 08:22 i think people from dev team should write this article 2010-08-27 08:23 i say, people from sales team should write it :) 2010-08-27 08:24 for all technical details users should refer to qi's wiki pages 2010-08-27 08:27 +1 2010-08-27 08:27 I'm from the sales team, and I won't write it 2010-08-27 08:28 not because I'm lazy or because I don't like Wikipedia, but because I think it's too early 2010-08-27 08:28 the Ben NanoNote does not have 'encyclopedic' quality yet 2010-08-27 08:28 imho 2010-08-27 08:28 maybe I'm a bit German on that, he he. I think the German Wikipedia is leading in deleting articles for irrelevance :-) 2010-08-27 08:29 yeah 2010-08-27 08:29 that sucks 2010-08-27 08:29 "you need references" 2010-08-27 08:29 bartbes, qi wiki should be fine for the references 2010-08-27 08:29 and then I was like "it's a freaking FOSS project, how are we going to provide references?" 2010-08-27 08:29 can't 2010-08-27 08:29 zear: fail 2010-08-27 08:29 i think they only don't accept forum posts for references 2010-08-27 08:29 *multiple* *known* sources 2010-08-27 08:29 who are *unbiased* 2010-08-27 08:30 it's *that* sucky 2010-08-27 08:30 i'm not from the sales team 2010-08-27 08:30 they prefer freaking newspapers 2010-08-27 08:30 and i wrote it 2010-08-27 08:30 bartbes, no, the official specification/other info from the qi wiki is a valid reference 2010-08-27 08:30 there are many articles already linking to it as a red link 2010-08-27 08:30 its worthy 2010-08-27 08:30 plus, i can pay off the wikipedia admins 2010-08-27 08:30 zear: not what I was told 2010-08-27 08:30 actually 2010-08-27 08:30 I'm pretty sure it's not 2010-08-27 08:30 (that was a joke, btw) 2010-08-27 08:30 rejon: I was just going to report it somewhere. 2010-08-27 08:31 wolfspraul, i think it's the right time to make a wiki article about the nanonote 2010-08-27 08:32 the device exists for a few good months already 2010-08-27 08:32 this is off-topic, and I haven't thought about it long, but I do think any project that looses focus will eventually die. So Wikipedia does have to be a little careful to continue their success story. 2010-08-27 08:32 the number of people volunteering time on Wikipedia seems to not grow anymore. so if the flood of junk keeps growing, at some point it will become unmanageable. 2010-08-27 08:33 what is junk or not is up to the people to define that are volunteering their time to keep it all clean 2010-08-27 08:33 anyway 2010-08-27 08:34 hahaha 2010-08-27 08:34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_hardware_projects 2010-08-27 08:34 sounds like Wikipedia has no future already :) 2010-08-27 08:34 wolfspraul: sounds like an argument from a german about adding more control to wikipedia IMO :) 2010-08-27 08:34 rejon: the unbiased nature of it is magic, don't forget 2010-08-27 08:35 very easily lost, once the spin doctors take over it's done 2010-08-27 08:35 we are spin doctors 2010-08-27 08:36 anyway, Ben now has the article in wikipedia, and it should better be good 2010-08-27 08:38 thanks kyak 2010-08-27 08:38 :) 2010-08-27 08:38 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft_Hardware 2010-08-27 08:38 history is up to those who write it. 2010-08-27 08:38 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Wayne 2010-08-27 08:39 oops 2010-08-27 08:55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharism got deleted! 2010-08-27 08:57 well this was not about the famous company in Hong Kong anyway 2010-08-27 08:57 no tears here, sorry 2010-08-27 09:06 wolfspraul i didn't think you could make them? 2010-08-27 11:02 aah, nothing like a good morning of sleep ! now that it's noon, what shall i do before my afternoon siesta ? :) 2010-08-27 11:09 guys, i have a question.. i have this device "tengu usb" (just google it). It uses USB port as a power supply 2010-08-27 11:09 is there any way to connect it to Ben and to get those 5V? 2010-08-27 11:13 kyak doesn't look too good. perhaps if you either want to add an external voltage converter or open the device and see if it runs on 3.3 V inside ... 2010-08-27 11:15 wpwrak: so, Ben itself runs on 3.3V? no source of 5V inside? 2010-08-27 11:18 don't remember seeing any. it's all 3.3 V or less. (battery is a little more, but you'd still need a boost converter) 2010-08-27 11:18 i see.. 2010-08-27 11:19 i'm just thinking about some way to demonstrate this Tengu thing outside 2010-08-27 11:19 Ben would've been very handy 2010-08-27 11:19 put three AAA batteries together and see if the ~4.5 V you get are enough ? 2010-08-27 11:20 that's a good idea 2010-08-27 11:20 or just take a laptop with you, as portable power source :) 2010-08-27 11:21 yeah, laptop is the first obvious thing i came up with, but because we are going to drink i'd prefer not to take it with me :) 2010-08-27 11:22 maybe get a usb wall charger then ? they're cheap. 2010-08-27 11:22 that's what i'm looking for in my table right now 2010-08-27 11:23 i don't remember, did Ben have one in package? 2010-08-27 11:23 and, regarding drinking and carrying fancy tech, remember what happed with the iphone ;-) 2010-08-27 11:23 lol 2010-08-27 11:23 no, ben comes without items that could incur the wrath of watchful customs 2010-08-27 11:24 next day, we'll see reviews in IT articles about some never-seen-before device called "Ben" left in cafeteria :) 2010-08-27 11:25 then wolfgang has to start a wordwide manhunt via interpol and marketing can rest for this year :) 2010-08-27 11:35 no usb wall charger -\ got nokia phone charger, i think i can adapt that 2010-08-27 11:35 output 5.7V/800 mA 2010-08-27 11:37 a bit high, but may work 2010-08-27 11:38 yeah, but, on the second thought, it is hard to connect it to usb port.. i'll have to cut some usb<->mini usb wire 2010-08-27 11:39 use the mini-usb part of it 2010-08-27 11:39 and the question at the end - is it worth it? :) 2010-08-27 11:40 no hacker should ever have to ask this question :) 2010-08-27 11:41 seems that i'm no hacker :) ok. let's see how it'll work 2010-08-27 11:59 i think it doesn't like 5.7 V 2010-08-27 11:59 getting crazy :) 2010-08-27 12:00 LEDs are blinking randomly and very strange 2010-08-27 12:00 when i plug it back into USB port, it works fine 2010-08-27 12:03 could be worse :) 2010-08-27 12:03 yeah 2010-08-27 12:03 i was afraid, a little bit 2010-08-27 15:10 [commit] Werner Almesberger: ben-kbd-bottom-100um is not pretty but it's done. (Data files and Web index.) http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-scans/a939369 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: schhist2web: use a cache by default and give the user control over it. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/099b626 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: schhist2web: better technical and visual quality of HTML output. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/5761b6e 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: ppmdiff detects lack of changes more quickly. Improved cache robustness. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/94dc35e 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Only use commits that change anything we care about. Accelerates full build http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/43d512c 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Run eeschema only once (not twice) per commit. 20% speed improvement. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/a241265 2010-08-27 15:13 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Add links to project page and commit. Put placeholder if sheet doesn't change. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/627d7d7 2010-08-27 18:06 hi i need choosing sata cable for my sata hard drive 2010-08-27 18:06 i building pc for first time 2010-08-27 18:07 there are 3 cables can someone tell me the right one > (1)Plexus Serial ATA 2.0 SATA 7-pin Cable (Red) 61cm / 24", (2) Startech Serial ATA Cable (1 End Right Angled) 18" 2010-08-27 18:07 (3)Plexus SATA 2.0 to right angle SATA 7-pin Cable (Red) 46cm / 18" 2010-08-27 18:15 wrong channel, johnny0 2010-08-27 18:16 if u know the answer then just tell me 2010-08-27 18:16 u only have to pick from the 3 2010-08-27 18:16 i made the question very easy for u guys 2010-08-27 18:17 this is still the wrong channel, and nobody can tell you which cable to choose, if they can't see the case you are using 2010-08-27 18:17 this is not a pc hardware channel 2010-08-27 18:17 i m using Casecom 6630 Black Midi Tower Case 2010-08-27 18:18 for MSI GF615M-P33 motherboard 2010-08-27 18:41 we should just rename this to #wrong-channel :) 2010-08-27 18:42 or, pronouncing "qi" in a german way, extend it to #queer-hardware. might at least get us more interesting off-topic questions :) 2010-08-27 18:44 I suppose we could have referred him to an on-line guide to IRC etiquette 2010-08-27 18:45 or have qi-bot every newcomer show a FAQ :) 2010-08-27 18:46 hmm, s/show/read/ or move the "show". i shouldn't multitask :( 2010-08-27 20:04 hm. any ubifs specialist there? 2010-08-27 20:38 hm. this is interresting. 2010-08-27 20:39 got his hands on ar6k hw... which seems to load firmware from userspace with some tool 2010-08-27 20:39 roh: the full firmware ? or just some binary patches ? 2010-08-27 20:39 dunno 2010-08-27 20:40 it uses bmiloader to manipulate the running one and loads multiple files in there 2010-08-27 20:40 looks like calibration data, custom eeprom data and such 2010-08-27 20:40 and one can set the PC of the arm inside the module it seems from the comments 2010-08-27 20:41 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Allow schhist2web and friends to run from a directory outside the working tree. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/d7d95ff 2010-08-27 20:41 [commit] Werner Almesberger: New script sanitize-profile to remove glitches from a KiCad profile. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/2921bce 2010-08-27 20:41 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Work-around for "black block symbol" syndrome. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/45935dc 2010-08-27 20:41 [commit] Werner Almesberger: Thumbnails of new and deleted sheets were grey, not green/red. http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/daa4501 2010-08-27 20:41 wolfspraul: the ben-wpan demo now almost looks good (updated): http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo/ 2010-08-27 20:42 wolfspraul: the xue version still has a lot of problems. fewer than before, though: http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo2/ 2010-08-27 20:42 wpwrak athwlan.bin is 174582 bytes 2010-08-27 20:43 quite big. maybe it's indeed the full fw 2010-08-27 20:43 *g* 2010-08-27 20:44 well.. if i find a sane way to dumpÂ Â this fw already... 2010-08-27 20:44 the wifi firmwares I have seen are 80-300 KB binary 2010-08-27 20:44 any idea how to dump a ubi device from userspace without extra tools? 2010-08-27 20:44 the proprietary hostage we are trying to free :-) 2010-08-27 20:44 there is no mtdblock anymore 2010-08-27 20:45 wolfspraul hehe... in the end hardmac would be ok, if we can load our own fw 2010-08-27 20:45 i dont really care who builds the hw as long as there are specs and documentation and free code to use it. 2010-08-27 20:46 roh: ah, lemme guess ... ar6002, not ar6001, right ? 2010-08-27 20:46 wpwrak: I think the diffs are awesome! I showed it to Andres and he loved it too. I need to get it integrated into the projects server. 2010-08-27 20:47 wolfspraul: kewl :) sorry for crowding your to do list :) 2010-08-27 20:48 wpwrak jap 2010-08-27 20:48 wpwrak /lib/firmware/AR6002/ 2010-08-27 20:48 roh: makes sense then. the 6002 is "flash-less" 2010-08-27 20:49 roh: what are you trying to achieve exactly? 2010-08-27 20:50 wolfspraul nothing exactly (with the ar6k) .. just stubled over that 2010-08-27 20:50 wpwrak: not at all. Seriously, this is extremely important. 2010-08-27 20:50 got a device on the table which i need to dump the fw from 2010-08-27 20:51 there are many ways we can 'open up' kicad files and the development process, also on the more commercial side later, bom data, etc. 2010-08-27 20:52 but step by step 2010-08-27 20:54 wolfspraul: yes, the next challenge will be diffs for the layout. perhaps even more interesting than schematics. with the schematics you can guess from the text diff at least what some of the changes do. with the layout, it's pretty hopeless. 2010-08-27 20:55 wpwrak: if the commit message is good that should work for the layout too, no? 2010-08-27 20:55 the only thing I am always careful about is to not create a process that is so perfect that it overwhelms the people that are supposed to use it 2010-08-27 20:56 so those wiki pages with documentation about layout changes of course are a lot of manual work, but it's also fairly easy and can be created and amended over time 2010-08-27 20:56 but let's see. 2010-08-27 20:57 wolfspraul: (layout) the difficulty is in generating the images. not sure if it even makes sense to hack a --plot into pcbnew. might be as easy to just parse the .brd file. 2010-08-27 20:57 definitely trying to automate doesn't hurt. as long as the automation is too difficult to use we can still have redundant documentation elsewhere, and slowly everybody adapts to the automated process. 2010-08-27 20:58 wolfspraul: (overwhelm) i have to admit that it is a little complex. running it is relatively easy, though. 2010-08-27 20:58 automated processes are ok if they are well documented and that documentation is linked from the the right points on 2010-08-27 20:58 wolfspraul: (wiki) the problem with manual processes is that you can never be sure if what they show is really what happened. also, since it's a lot of work, people tend to get sloppy after a while. 2010-08-27 21:01 agreed, we are on the same page. just _sometimes_ (ahem) your scripts are a bit scary to me... :-) they assume a lot of very conceptual understanding and not everybody may be able to follow, not today, and not ever. 2010-08-27 21:01 the sloppiness is basically a HR problem - a person who's good at doing new things is often weak at boring repetitive things. so you'd need someone else to take over this task. basically replace the "pioneer" with a "maintainer". sometimes, you can find people who are good in both roles and don't mind doing that for a while, but you have to be extremely lucky. 2010-08-27 21:02 but if we can make something work automatically behind the scenes, and then you can click on things throug your browser, that's another story. people can adapt their behavior until what they can click on looks right :-) 2010-08-27 21:04 wolfspraul: (complex scripts) heh :) one issue is of course that such scripts always tie together lots of different things. so they deal with quirks from kicad, ghostscript, your web browser, and even individual projects all at the same time. plus, they try to be reasonably robust, which, particularly in the shell, means lots of subtle quoting. 2010-08-27 21:06 btw, Andres says he has mostly finished even the layout for Xue already 2010-08-27 21:06 whee ! that's great ! how did he do it ? all in kicad ? 2010-08-27 21:06 that sounds quite scary to me given that there has been little review yet, and also that I am slow in providing him with some datasheets and reference schematics I promised. but still... it's good news 2010-08-27 21:06 yes, all in kicad 2010-08-27 21:06 well, I am just relaying his words 2010-08-27 21:07 he said he thinks there is not much missing in kicad to make it a really good tool 2010-08-27 21:07 nice :) 2010-08-27 21:10 (review) generally seems to be a bit of a problem in the qi-hw projects. there's a bit of review activity on the software side, little on hardware. well, there's carlos vs adam on SIE, but that's pretty much all that's happening visibly. 2010-08-27 21:11 if it's not visible it doesn't exist :-) 2010-08-27 21:12 I would probably agree, it seems hard to motivate people for really systematic and thorough review. 2010-08-27 21:12 you were quite successful in gta02-core I think :-) 2010-08-27 21:12 hmm, not sure. are there project groups at the various sites ? some members may be "invisible". 2010-08-27 21:12 but of course you also spent quite a bit of time to make a review checklist, ask people to take on certain parts, etc. 2010-08-27 21:12 (gta02-core) at least for a while :) 2010-08-27 21:13 yeah, cheerleading is important :) 2010-08-27 21:13 of course there are people like DocScrutinizer and others, but I feel bad directly poking them for unpaid stuff 2010-08-27 21:14 also emeb, he said he might be interested in reviewing Xue, I need to ping him again... 2010-08-27 21:14 one problem with reviews may also be that some of the projects just aren't of interest for a lot of people. multiply with community size. if the number is too small, you get no review. 2010-08-27 21:14 for the Xue layout, I am thinking about asking the layout house that did the Milkymist One layout for a review, if that is possible 2010-08-27 21:15 of course we can only give them GERBER files which they would need to import into whatever works 2010-08-27 21:15 not sure that makes much sense or not, but if they can spot something and give us feedback, I would be willing to try 2010-08-27 21:15 wpwrak: true, definitely 2010-08-27 21:15 you can visit them with kicad on your laptop and tell them where they can download it, if they want to :) 2010-08-27 21:16 I think giving them gerbers and letting them import those files into a software they are comfortable with will yield better results. 2010-08-27 21:16 anyway, I will ask 2010-08-27 21:16 it would probably only cost a few hundred USD 2010-08-27 21:16 if the chance is even only 5% that they will find something, it's already worth it 2010-08-27 21:17 meanwhile we try to crank up things on our side, another reason why I like your schdiff scripts (schematics I know, but still, right direction) 2010-08-27 21:18 (review by layout house) yeah, can't hurt. knowledge transfer out of china for once ;-) 2010-08-27 21:21 for the first xue run, my #1 worry is that the boards work 2010-08-27 21:22 obviously 2010-08-27 21:22 we achieved that with milkymist one, so that's the goal 2010-08-27 21:41 hmm, 6 layers. medium routing complexity. most of the board is uncrowded, which helps. 2010-08-27 21:41 wolfspraul: saw you mentioned me 2010-08-27 21:41 still lurking on the list & irc - checking the xue git periodically 2010-08-27 21:42 , 2010-08-27 21:44 pretty thin traces. only 3.9 mil. 2010-08-27 21:45 3.9mil is pretty thin - is that necessary to route out of the BGA? 2010-08-27 21:47 emeb: hey, nice you read this... so I don't need to email 2010-08-27 21:47 yes, it seems Xue is making good progress, Werner has worked on a nice visualization of schematics changes 2010-08-27 21:47 yep - monitoring most days 2010-08-27 21:48 http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo2/ 2010-08-27 21:48 (just ignore the empty columns) 2010-08-27 21:48 I saw that visualization just now - cool stuff! 2010-08-27 21:48 yes! :-) it's fantastic 2010-08-27 21:48 that's the kind of thing you could sell... 2010-08-27 21:48 I need to integrate this into the projects server so every kicad project automatically has it 2010-08-27 21:48 no we will freely share it :-) 2010-08-27 21:49 understood - just noting the value is >>0 2010-08-27 21:49 so Andres says even the layout is mostly finished? I cannot verify this, neither in completion status nor quality 2010-08-27 21:49 but maybe you can? 2010-08-27 21:49 if you like, any review you could do would be more than appreciated 2010-08-27 21:49 if anything blocks you, let us know what it is 2010-08-27 21:49 I'll check it out over the weekend. Soon enough? 2010-08-27 21:50 he he. of course! :-) 2010-08-27 21:50 OK. 2010-08-27 21:50 do you have KiCad installed? 2010-08-27 21:50 Need to come up to speed on some of the system issues. 2010-08-27 21:50 Yes - already have Kicad 2010-08-27 21:50 unfortunately many Linux distros ship with very outdated versions of it 2010-08-27 21:50 which version? 2010-08-27 21:50 just need to do a git pull & load it up 2010-08-27 21:50 ok great 2010-08-27 21:50 emeb: (thin traces) not sure. he did power traces on the bga with 8 mil, signal traces 4 mil. well, if the pcb house is happy with it ... 2010-08-27 21:50 v 2010-05-09 2010-08-27 21:51 Andres may even use a KiCad with some of Werner's improvements, like fped (footprint editor). But I am not sure whether it's needed for review. 2010-08-27 21:51 wolfspraul i found a ppa for kicad with more recent ones. still not with your patchsets of course 2010-08-27 21:51 8 mil power traces is pretty thin too, but if he's got planes then it's not a big deal 2010-08-27 21:51 emeb: note that Xue is a derivative project of Milkymist One, for which we have Altium files 2010-08-27 21:51 https://launchpad.net/~paxer/+archive/ppa 2010-08-27 21:51 you don't need fped for review. you need my kicad patches if you want to generate the schematics diffs, though 2010-08-27 21:52 and those Altium files have already been used to produce working boards 2010-08-27 21:52 Eh - altium shovelware 2010-08-27 21:52 you could ask that guy if he could add the patches 2010-08-27 21:52 emeb: can you open Altium files? I think the plain gerbers and PDF schematics should also be somewhere... 2010-08-27 21:52 gerbers & pdfs OK - altium not 2010-08-27 21:52 emeb: I just wanted to tell you that that is basically Xue's parent. And it is known to work. So a good reference point for some questions in Xue. 2010-08-27 21:53 that's the great thing about xue - first time we move this to a free tool 2010-08-27 21:53 wolfspraul: that's fine 2010-08-27 21:53 one sec let me find some links 2010-08-27 21:54 http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Milkymist_One 2010-08-27 21:54 actually it's all nicely linked here 2010-08-27 21:55 PDF schematics, layout criteria 2010-08-27 21:55 if you go to the "SMT/DIP process" page you find stencils and AI files 2010-08-27 21:55 (fped) that is, unless you want to review the footprints themselves. fped encourages the design of review-friendly footprints. 2010-08-27 21:56 http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Milkymist_One_Layout_Criteria 2010-08-27 21:56 the gerbers must also be somewhere... 2010-08-27 21:57 ah yes, here http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Milkymist_One_RC1_PCB_Specification 2010-08-27 21:57 wolfspraul: got it. 2010-08-27 21:57 xue did all the big chips with fped. good ;-) 2010-08-27 21:57 it's all linked from that top-level Milkymist_One page 2010-08-27 21:57 just pulled the latest xue 2010-08-27 21:57 looks like there are still a few components hanging off the outside of the board... 2010-08-27 21:57 so since Xue is basically a derivative, or 'reduced' version of Milkymist One, we have a really good baseline to compare against, with all that data from the Milkymist One RC1 run, which, again, resulted in working boards :-) 2010-08-27 21:58 wpwrak: does emeb need a KiCad that includes fped to do review? 2010-08-27 21:59 wolfspraul: something useful to do with a new schematic when using FPGAs is this: 2010-08-27 21:59 fped is completely separate. it generates the kind of module files kicad can read. i'd recommend building fped if he wants to examine the footprints. much easier to do it there than poking around in the gerbers or the layout. 2010-08-27 22:00 create a .UCF file for all the FPGA I/O as defined by the board and a top-level stub of the FPGA design. 2010-08-27 22:00 compile that with the Xilinx tools & check for errors before committing to a board. 2010-08-27 22:00 I think I've heard .ucf before, could it be that it is in the Milkymist repository? 2010-08-27 22:00 That can help find lots of I/O bugs 2010-08-27 22:01 is the xue fpga pinout identical to milkymist? 2010-08-27 22:01 if not then the mm .ucf is of little use 2010-08-27 22:01 (good starting point though) 2010-08-27 22:01 hmm 2010-08-27 22:01 it's a derivative, it should be the same, as much as possible 2010-08-27 22:02 I'll check. 2010-08-27 22:02 there are many things removed on Xue (compared to Milkymist One) 2010-08-27 22:02 the footprints look decent enough, using fped properly. the measurements are almost complete. 2010-08-27 22:02 DMX, MIDI, video in, VGA, etc. 2010-08-27 22:02 I'd be surprised if it's identical - FPGAs give you flexibility and it's good to use it. 2010-08-27 22:02 then a CMOS image sensor was added, that's new 2010-08-27 22:02 well we want to keep it as compatible as possible 2010-08-27 22:03 also one of the design goals of Xue is low power consumption, which was not a design goal for Milkymist One 2010-08-27 22:03 so I believe the power supply is very different, but that shouldn't affect the FPGA 2010-08-27 22:03 but since it's new (compared to Milkymist One), probably a good point for review too 2010-08-27 22:03 power supplies can change a lot w/o affecting the logic 2010-08-27 22:05 http://github.com/lekernel/milkymist/blob/master/boards/milkymist-one/synthesis/common.ucf 2010-08-27 22:05 there's two other .ucf files in that folder 2010-08-27 22:05 http://github.com/lekernel/milkymist/tree/master/boards/milkymist-one/synthesis/ 2010-08-27 22:07 yep - looks like the pinouts are completely different 2010-08-27 22:08 not surprising... Board layout is new 2010-08-27 22:08 and FPGA pinout should be optimized for layout 2010-08-27 22:08 Would be wise to create new .ucf & compile against top-level stub. 2010-08-27 22:09 emeb: andres_calderon just joined :-) 2010-08-27 22:09 cool 2010-08-27 22:09 andres_calderon: looks like the FPGA pinout for xue is different from milkymist - correct? 2010-08-27 22:10 correct, but just need a new ucf 2010-08-27 22:10 hey andres_calderon ! nice work ! you'll be the one who finally convinces wolfgang that doing serious projects with kicad is feasible :) 2010-08-27 22:11 andres_calderon: have you made the new .ucf yet? 2010-08-27 22:11 kicad is a good software 2010-08-27 22:13 emeb,Â Â the layout is not over ... 2010-08-27 22:13 wpwrak: so you consider fped to be a totally separate package from kicad? is there a debian package for it? should I create one to make it easier distributable? 2010-08-27 22:14 We hope to finish the layout the next week 2010-08-27 22:14 wolfspraul: fped and kicad don't share any code. they only share the same file format for modules. you can build and use fped without having kicad at all, and vice versa. 2010-08-27 22:15 wolfspraul: you can use fped also for tasks not related to kicad. e.g., i used it to design furniture ;-) 2010-08-27 22:15 understood, but where do you see it from a packaging standpoint. I mean KiCad already includes several utilities, couldn't it also include fped? Would you want that? Or do you think a separate package is better? 2010-08-27 22:15 andres_calderon: understood. When you are near completion of the FPGA pin assignments try this: 2010-08-27 22:16 wolfspraul: (debian) dunno. maybe it helps. fped is easy to build but has a number of prerequisites that may be surprising, e.g., transfig. 2010-08-27 22:16 create the .ucf and an empty top level verilog stub for the design 2010-08-27 22:16 run these through ISE to check that all the I/O assignments are valid. 2010-08-27 22:16 wolfspraul: a separate package is better 2010-08-27 22:17 I've found some errors this way in the past - things like input-only pins, 2010-08-27 22:17 wpwrak, great work! just amazingÂ Â http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/demo2/ 2010-08-27 22:17 or mismatched differential signals 2010-08-27 22:17 andres_calderon: thanks :) still have a few bugs to fix, though ... 2010-08-27 22:18 emeb, ok 2010-08-27 22:19