2011-02-20 00:04 kristianpaul: i think parametric is the way to go. (stable version) hopefully soon. well, over the last week, i already thought three times i had the final version ... one even progressed to the point of having boards cut, etched, and via-ed. and then i realized it still had some features i'd rather not have there :-( 2011-02-20 00:05 wpwrak: development hell trap? :p 2011-02-20 00:07 argg i give up, no more tries of printing the buttons.. 2011-02-20 00:07 i'll make work what i alredy printed 2011-02-20 00:13 kristianpaul: well, #1 was me realizing that i could make quite a dramatic improvement to the layout. #2 was me realizing that some things in the layout where too tight (also discovering some new traps in how kicad handles zones). #3 was me overlooking one flaw. now, i allowed me one extra day to review #4. let's hope this was time well spent, and that it works now ;-) 2011-02-20 00:20 phew, finally it fits and i be pressed 2011-02-20 00:45 bartbes: hi 2011-02-20 00:46 woah 2011-02-20 00:46 delayed response 2011-02-20 00:46 kristianpaul: this is absolutely awesome!!! 2011-02-20 00:47 can you do a blog post, or mail, or even just a few lines here describing the steps it took you to make the case? 2011-02-20 00:47 like how did you find your local acrylic supplier, how did you find the laser shop? 2011-02-20 00:47 sure sure 2011-02-20 00:47 how long did it take you, what did it cost, which difficulties did you run into (tolerances, etc) 2011-02-20 00:47 how about screws and spacers, other small parts? 2011-02-20 00:48 good point 2011-02-20 00:48 I had printed my own buttons, is not the _perfect_ thing but it works 2011-02-20 00:49 (find your local acrylic supplier, how did you find the laser shop) is same shop 2011-02-20 00:49 http://dataprint.webs.com/ 2011-02-20 00:49 I just send case, pay, choose color and thats it 2011-02-20 00:49 can you upload some of those pics (or maybe just all) to the wiki? it should be a news item in our community news 2011-02-20 00:50 sure 2011-02-20 00:51 difficulties so far, are missing small parts, mostly the spacers that came with the mm1 are not compaible with the case, so i have a slight un-aligned 2011-02-20 00:51 I do not have plans of buy screws 2011-02-20 00:52 I already made my own hole for let jtag-serial cable to go inside case (i used it most of the time) 2011-02-20 00:53 I'll blog later, an upload pics to wiki, righ now i'm wiring sige board to mm1, and i need to see how handle the ribbon cable there.. 2011-02-20 00:54 cost: 10usd material and cut process + 5 usd shipping to my home 2011-02-20 00:54 kristianpaul: soon you'll need another case - a presentable one, without all the extra holes ;-) 2011-02-20 00:54 wpwrak: hmm, may be, also i can try green color ;-) 2011-02-20 00:55 the "smoke" looks very nice 2011-02-20 00:56 wolfspraul: i just send cad file as it is on repo plus a pic from a already made case then i got the quote 2011-02-20 00:57 I got the link to this company as a guy have a reprap machine told me about then 2011-02-20 00:57 I think tolerances in general will be good with the right small parts.. 2011-02-20 00:57 buttons are really tricky 2011-02-20 00:59 wpwrak: smoke is nice indeed,Â Â i'm planning also put may be some smalls blue leds in two sides to get a nice effect, (for future events) 2011-02-20 00:59 wolfspraul: thatsÂ Â it ! 2011-02-20 00:59 at least now mm1 is easy to handle :-) 2011-02-20 01:02 kristianpaul: ok, maybe write a little 'how I made my own m1 case' story somewhere 2011-02-20 01:02 and you know how it is, it's either done fast or never. now you still remember the details :-) If you don't get to it, I understand. So many things. But it would be a great story I think. 2011-02-20 01:03 wolfspraul:Â Â (story) sure 2011-02-20 01:05 rejon: did you see this? kristianpaul made his own m1 case, totally independently in Colombia! 2011-02-20 01:05 cc alive, in hardware :-) 2011-02-20 01:06 that is she shit 2011-02-20 01:06 kristianpaul i want to come to columbia 2011-02-20 01:06 you got a pic? 2011-02-20 01:06 rejon: http://kristianpaul.org/gallery/mm1%20case/index.html ? 2011-02-20 01:07 kristianpaul: soon, people will do pilgrimages to buga just to see your case ;-) 2011-02-20 01:07 yeah 2011-02-20 01:07 i want to come to argentina and colombia 2011-02-20 01:08 that is killer! 2011-02-20 01:08 i talked with roh about that 2011-02-20 01:08 how we can make some future products but with even more customized bits 2011-02-20 01:09 like how can we make some products that are special to the owner 2011-02-20 01:09 he was skeptical :) 2011-02-20 01:09 hahah 2011-02-20 01:10 ok dinner...bbiab 2011-02-20 01:26 kristianpaul: are they licensed under cc-by? pd? I will just do the wiki upload if you don't mind... 2011-02-20 01:26 (the pics I mean) 2011-02-20 01:27 wolfspraul: yes sure, and thanks ! 2011-02-20 01:27 http://kristianpaul.org/ <- botton BY-SA 3.0 2011-02-20 01:29 great, will do 2011-02-20 01:33 kristianpaul: where are those dataprint guys located? how did they ship to you (how much did shipping cost and how long did it take?) 2011-02-20 01:35 ah I found it - in Bogota 2011-02-20 01:40 wolfspraul: http://kristianpaul.org/comoblog/Local_fabbed_case_for_the_Milkymist_One__Full_log_.html 2011-02-20 01:40 hope all answers are there.. 2011-02-20 01:40 dinner 2011-02-20 01:48 wpwrak: if rejon is coming some day we should invite kristianpaul as well, so with his mikymist one we can do the qi party here :) 2011-02-20 01:49 zrafa: :D 2011-02-20 01:49 kristianpaul: wpwrak has a nice terraza for asados :) 2011-02-20 01:50 kristianpaul: in the middle of Buenos Aires 2011-02-20 01:51 kristianpaul: wow yes, fantastic, this post answers it all. 2011-02-20 01:51 kristianpaul: do they know your case and M1 is open hardware? (the guys who did the case) 2011-02-20 01:52 zrafa: nope.. i may send the blog post.. what do you think? 2011-02-20 01:52 kristianpaul: I think that you should explain them about the machine and case. They could get interested and be part of qi community some day 2011-02-20 01:52 okay i can give a try :-) 2011-02-20 01:57 kristianpaul: I uploaded your pics. btw, we have a MultiUpload feature now http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Special:MultipleUpload 2011-02-20 01:57 it's a bit buggy with strange warnings after upload, but the stuff gets uploaded still. 2011-02-20 01:57 (multiupload) great 2011-02-20 02:01 sometimes Adam has series of scope pictures, or x-ray pictures, so he needed that feature 2011-02-20 02:04 btw, it's depressing to see that our friends from linuxencaja are already buried under spam and I guess gave up on removing it http://wiki.linuxencaja.net/wiki/Special:RecentChanges 2011-02-20 02:06 they need to disable anonymous edits asap 2011-02-20 02:07 or add catcha.. 2011-02-20 02:08 first disable anonymous edits, immediately 2011-02-20 02:08 the spam bots are ripping their beautiful wiki apart right now 2011-02-20 02:09 from the last 500 edits it looks like 50% or more are spam 2011-02-20 02:22 still better than mail :) 2011-02-20 02:33 hmm, 10Mhz, 3V3, 15pf load per pin, i should not extend this so much.. 2011-02-20 02:36 wolfspraul: What you think about ARM clones? i mean use it on real products 2011-02-20 02:39 don't understand your question 2011-02-20 02:44 I mean arm is getting popular, soon or later it may get implemented on fpga and described with some HDL language and use it somwhere 2011-02-20 02:44 Non couting the already linux adn gccÂ Â support it make interest for developers 2011-02-20 02:45 you need to ask Sebastien, I would think ARM will vigorously protect their IP 2011-02-20 02:45 oh sure 2011-02-20 02:45 but clones will appear one next to other 2011-02-20 02:46 so if you just ask me, I can see arm cores inside ASICs, and they can be great for us 2011-02-20 02:46 when it comes to an integrated IC design, I believe in the Milkymist/LM32 path, which we can only implement in fpgas right now 2011-02-20 02:46 what do you mean with 'clones will appear'? 2011-02-20 02:47 implentarios of arm-like cores compatible with gcc/linux 2011-02-20 02:48 wolfspraul: how about the pre-FPGA nanonote line ? would a ya with, say, a Marvell PXA be something you'd consider ? 2011-02-20 02:48 I don't see that at all right now for myself, so the question is very hypothetical. 2011-02-20 02:49 sure ;-) 2011-02-20 02:49 putting that aside, what's the difference between a Marvell PXA and an Ingenic chip? None I think. 2011-02-20 02:49 just comes down to features 2011-02-20 02:49 but given all the things we did to bring the NanoNote alive, I would try to protect our software investments above everything else first. 2011-02-20 02:50 same with Milkymist, as we improve the tools around it 2011-02-20 02:50 wolfspraul: yeah, i mean if the feature set would be more attractive 2011-02-20 02:50 bottom line: someone else needs to make that Marvell NanoNote :-) 2011-02-20 02:50 yes, and if the NanoNote would not have been started, then yes, sure 2011-02-20 02:51 the Marvell chip may be more expensive and harder to source 2011-02-20 02:51 and Marvell would be far less flexible than Ingenic 2011-02-20 02:51 using the same core has of course the advantage of a more-or-less binary-compatible user space 2011-02-20 02:51 no hopes of ever installing a server behind the Marvell firewall that will do a nightly rsync to shuffle some sources out :-) 2011-02-20 02:51 ;-))) 2011-02-20 02:51 I like working with Ingenic, even if it's dormant RIGHT NOW. 2011-02-20 02:52 a large Ingenic customer contacted us recently because they saw what we did on the NanoNote. 2011-02-20 02:53 I don't expect any big business opportunity there, but that's how things grow if you do solid work in some place, rather than jumping around and building random boards with random chips, and nothing ever works well. 2011-02-20 02:53 kristianpaul: my main worry about ARM 'clones' would be patents, and the way ARM will defend their IP. 2011-02-20 02:53 wolfspraul: indeed 2011-02-20 02:53 you need to ask Sebastien about this, I trust and follow his judgment. Milkymist is just starting... 2011-02-20 02:54 sure 2011-02-20 02:54 wolfspraul: (jumping around) yeah, agreed. continuity is good. 2011-02-20 02:54 hey andres-calderon 2011-02-20 02:54 but I am not 'against' ARM cores, that would be so stupid I think. we are trying to build great copyleft hw, fast, that really works, and has great features/specs. 2011-02-20 02:54 there exist some ARM-compatible desgins. 2011-02-20 02:55 but mostly for early ARM versions 2011-02-20 02:55 andres-calderon: noticed the spam edit around linuxencaja? http://wiki.linuxencaja.net/wiki/Special:RecentChanges 2011-02-20 02:55 wolfspraul: just wanted to know your general opinion with respect to ARM, apart from OMAP overengineering 2011-02-20 02:55 sure but there can be several 'back stories' to this 2011-02-20 02:55 1) they exist because they operate and sell in places where ARM does not have judicial reach 2011-02-20 02:56 2) they exist because they are small, and ARM is better off letting them grow first, then apply their tax 2011-02-20 02:56 3) they exist because ARM is actually not vigorously patenting and defending their IP, maybe (theoretically) because they even support such clones? 2011-02-20 02:56 4) they exist because they already have a licensing agreement with ARM 2011-02-20 02:56 those are the 4 options that come to my mind right now 2011-02-20 02:57 i meant opensource designs 2011-02-20 02:57 you mean a gpl licensed hdl source code? 2011-02-20 02:57 yes 2011-02-20 02:58 if an implementation infringes ARM patents, that changes nothing 2011-02-20 02:58 5) they exist because it is an open source software design that no company would ever dare to manufacture or sell because of ARM patent infringement 2011-02-20 02:59 I added that one :-) 2011-02-20 03:00 wolfspraul: You care about US export laws about lattice mico32? 2011-02-20 03:00 i'm not arguing about that. just wanted to point out that there _are_ ARM compatible designs, because kristianpaul said there _will_ be. 2011-02-20 03:00 larsc: yep 2011-02-20 03:00 up to ARM6 may be free from patents or close to it (~1-2 years), as far as the 20 years limit applies 2011-02-20 03:01 that concept never worked for MIPS 2011-02-20 03:01 yeah, but who knows why ... 2011-02-20 03:02 kristianpaul: I care, but that's an entirely different subject and typically outside of scope for free projects. There are a lot of embargoes... 2011-02-20 03:02 maybe MIPS paid them to stop claiming it was free from patents ;-) 2011-02-20 03:02 wpwrak: oh I know why. because MIPS is doing very aggressive lobbying and very aggressive legal actions. 2011-02-20 03:03 I spoke in person with the people running it on both sides. 2011-02-20 03:03 wolfspraul: ah, so it's the sue-to-lose-but-kill-the-enemy-anyway approach 2011-02-20 03:03 if you think you can make a MIPS-clone under the 'patents are expired' idea, you can go try, and MIPS Inc. will be your enemy 2011-02-20 03:03 the Chinese government tried, and failed! 2011-02-20 03:04 if that is not enough proof for you, MIPS will gladly take on Werner Inc. next 2011-02-20 03:04 wb /me ;) 2011-02-20 03:04 wolfspraul: lemme first rig some laws my way :) 2011-02-20 03:05 ARM is in the UK, they could use less leverage via their government. But not that much less, UK is still someone... 2011-02-20 03:05 my ben still doesn't boot :( 2011-02-20 03:06 I think it's simple. If you believe in ARM clones, get a written statement from ARM Inc. that your theory is OK and they acknowledge that what you do is legal. 2011-02-20 03:06 once you have that, we can move 2011-02-20 03:06 Fusin: you we're flashing it? or tryin boot? 2011-02-20 03:06 I reflashed 2011-02-20 03:06 but still doesnt boot 2011-02-20 03:06 ormris: Did you get usbboot to work finally? 2011-02-20 03:07 you ran reflash_ben.sh ? 2011-02-20 03:07 yep 2011-02-20 03:07 Fusin: what it said on screen? 2011-02-20 03:07 screen is black 2011-02-20 03:07 after reflashing, unplug the USB cable, take out the battery, wait 20 seconds 2011-02-20 03:07 lsusb show something? 2011-02-20 03:08 Fusin: then battery back in, then press power-on button for a solid 5 seconds 2011-02-20 03:08 Bus 001 Device 009: ID 0525:a4a1 Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB Ethernet Gadget 2011-02-20 03:08 let's try that first. maybe the reflash was successful and you just didnt' reset/reboot yet. 2011-02-20 03:08 ok i try power off 2011-02-20 03:08 that looks as if the kernel is actually booted 2011-02-20 03:08 may it be lcm bus unpluged? 2011-02-20 03:08 Fusin: it just happen? it was working well before? 2011-02-20 03:09 that would be bad, but not very likely that it happens in conjunction with a reflash 2011-02-20 03:09 no did not work before 2011-02-20 03:09 hmm.. 2011-02-20 03:09 i wait 20 secs ;) 2011-02-20 03:09 Fusin: when did you get your Nano? did you ever see it boot/turn on the screen? 2011-02-20 03:09 never saw it running 2011-02-20 03:09 new buy, got it yesterday 2011-02-20 03:10 connected to laptop for charging 2011-02-20 03:10 waited until led light goes off 2011-02-20 03:10 looks like your nanonote screen is broken/not connected 2011-02-20 03:10 then tried boot 2011-02-20 03:10 too bad, could be that your LCM cable/connection is bad and you need to return/replace the device 2011-02-20 03:10 then read lotsa in the wiki 2011-02-20 03:11 can you ping the nano? 2011-02-20 03:12 how without ipconfig on nano? 2011-02-20 03:12 it have default ip 2011-02-20 03:12 192.168.254.101 2011-02-20 03:13 --- 192.168.254.101 ping statistics --- 9 packets transmitted, 0 received, +9 errors, 100% packet loss, time 8010ms 2011-02-20 03:13 no pongs :( 2011-02-20 03:13 first you have toÂ Â ifconfig usb0 192.168.254.100 up 2011-02-20 03:13 do you have usb0 setup for 192.168.254.1/24 2011-02-20 03:15 error in usb 2011-02-20 03:15 what it said? 2011-02-20 03:15 usb0: FEHLER beim Auslesen der Schnittstellenmerker: Kein passendes GerÃ¤t gefunden 2011-02-20 03:15 doesnt found device on usb0 2011-02-20 03:15 try dmesg 2011-02-20 03:16 too see if is thre 2011-02-20 03:16 there* 2011-02-20 03:16 does lsusb show 0525:a4a1 as you posted before? 2011-02-20 03:16 --- 192.168.254.101 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5001ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.360/0.875/2.828/0.875 ms 2011-02-20 03:16 now got pongs 2011-02-20 03:17 he, let's try one more thing 2011-02-20 03:17 on the Ben, press 'Ctrl-Alt-F2', then 'enter' 2011-02-20 03:17 but auto disconnected as linux mint told me 2011-02-20 03:17 (I know the screen is blank) 2011-02-20 03:18 disconnect? try 'telnet 192.168.254.101 22' - see whether you get a ssh response 2011-02-20 03:18 screen is still black 2011-02-20 03:18 yes, leave it like that for now 2011-02-20 03:18 can you try 'telnet 192.168.254.101 22'? 2011-02-20 03:18 22? 2011-02-20 03:19 ssh, yes 2011-02-20 03:19 why not ssh.. 2011-02-20 03:19 I think it will not work without setting a password on ben first. 2011-02-20 03:19 definitely looks like a display connection issue 2011-02-20 03:19 ah yes.. 2011-02-20 03:19 and because he said something about 'disconnect', I first want to see whether he get the ssh response 2011-02-20 03:20 Fusin: to set the ssh password on the Ben, try this (even with blank screen) 2011-02-20 03:20 connection refused :( 2011-02-20 03:20 1. Ctrl-Alt-F2Enter 2011-02-20 03:20 sorry I meant 2011-02-20 03:20 1. Ctrl-Alt-F2 2011-02-20 03:20 2. Enter 2011-02-20 03:20 passwd 2011-02-20 03:20 3. passwd 2011-02-20 03:20 etc pp 2011-02-20 03:20 I'm used to linux :D 2011-02-20 03:20 ok great 2011-02-20 03:20 type it twice 2011-02-20 03:21 then ssh root@192.168.254.101 from your host 2011-02-20 03:21 maybe you can login :-) 2011-02-20 03:21 but you need to do Ctrl-Alt-F2, and first, otherwise passwd will not run 2011-02-20 03:21 still connection refused... 2011-02-20 03:22 shitty situation :( 2011-02-20 03:22 ok the ssh connection would have just been for fun anyway 2011-02-20 03:22 when you did telnet 192.168.254.101 22, did you see the SSH response? 2011-02-20 03:24 fusin@limint-t43 ~/Downloads $ ssh 192.168.254.101 fusin@192.168.254.101's password:Â Â Permission denied, please try again. 2011-02-20 03:24 shit shit 2011-02-20 03:24 seems it doesnt changed root passwd 2011-02-20 03:24 you did Ctrl-Alt-F2? and then ? 2011-02-20 03:24 fusin@? 2011-02-20 03:24 just try again with Ctrl-Alt-F3 :-) 2011-02-20 03:24 root@.. 2011-02-20 03:24 oops 2011-02-20 03:25 ah good point! 2011-02-20 03:25 fusin is my username on mint.. 2011-02-20 03:25 redo as root 2011-02-20 03:25 is not on ben :-) 2011-02-20 03:26 root@192.168.254.101's password:Â Â Â Â BusyBox v1.15.3 (2010-12-14 14:36:17 CET) built-in shell (ash) Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.Â Â root@BenNanoNote:~# i'm in :D 2011-02-20 03:26 I'm in the ben 2011-02-20 03:26 wolfspraul: do you have a extra set of "small parts" s for a mm1 perhaps? 2011-02-20 03:26 but screen is still black 2011-02-20 03:26 so i guess ribbon is faulty, eh? 2011-02-20 03:26 just in case.. gmenu2x 2011-02-20 03:27 Fusin: ribbon may be, but that part need to be checked visually 2011-02-20 03:27 at lest linux can diagnostice thatÂ Â part, larsc ? 2011-02-20 03:27 top said gmenu is running 2011-02-20 03:28 ah ok :-) 2011-02-20 03:28 Fusin: yes, I am really sorry but you need to return/replace the device, that's the easiest way. 2011-02-20 03:28 we've had 5-10 cases like this so far, in about 1100 nanos. 2011-02-20 03:29 wolfspraul: all fo the just disconnected lcm bus? 2011-02-20 03:29 s/fo/of 2011-02-20 03:30 that's bad for me :( 2011-02-20 03:30 return nano and wait new one takes time... 2011-02-20 03:30 Fusin: where are you from? 2011-02-20 03:30 where did you buy it? 2011-02-20 03:31 I usualy work approx 200 - 500km from home 2011-02-20 03:31 so it take weeks before I'm back home... 2011-02-20 03:31 <- NÃ¼rnberg Germany 2011-02-20 03:31 where did you buy it? maybe the replacement can be sent there? 2011-02-20 03:31 oh, i will 2011-02-20 03:31 it's from Pulster 2011-02-20 03:32 also sold me my Freerunner ;) 2011-02-20 03:32 he. welcome to the NanoNote club then, even though you are having a hard first time... 2011-02-20 03:32 reminds me my first Linux :D 2011-02-20 03:32 kristianpaul: there seems to be a variety of causes 'around' the LCM cable 2011-02-20 03:33 Softlanding System 0.99pl6 :D 2011-02-20 03:33 the connector on the mainboard side, the connector on the LCM board side, the cable itself 2011-02-20 03:33 tooks days to install on an 386 :D 2011-02-20 03:34 took also one week to get X11 working in greyscale 2011-02-20 03:34 wolfspraul: oh, really?.. getting fun with hardware then :-) 2011-02-20 03:34 but i survived :P 2011-02-20 03:34 Fusin: one sec let's try another thing, just for fun (you can still replace) 2011-02-20 03:35 listens 2011-02-20 03:35 the LCM cable goes through the hinge on the right side 2011-02-20 03:35 where the 'mic' hole is 2011-02-20 03:36 press your thumb on that area (keep the Ben running), see whether the LCM comes on 2011-02-20 03:36 you can try the same on the other side (the LCM), roughly where 'qi-hardware' is printed 2011-02-20 03:36 hmm, how do I quit gmu?? *g* 2011-02-20 03:36 with key commands? 2011-02-20 03:37 alt + enter 2011-02-20 03:37 or just kill it in ssh :-) 2011-02-20 03:37 thx 2011-02-20 03:40 Fusin: when you press on those places, does the LCM turn on? 2011-02-20 03:40 nada :( 2011-02-20 03:40 means : no 2011-02-20 03:40 you can press quite hard, just not so much as to break the plastic 2011-02-20 03:41 ok, was a long shot anyway 2011-02-20 03:41 I think there were 1-2 people who said pressing there helped 2011-02-20 03:41 (of course the devices were exchanged still) 2011-02-20 03:41 or try open screeen to max then close again.. and see 2011-02-20 03:42 ok, thx for help 2011-02-20 03:43 i goto bed now, it's 4 o'clock in the morning :) 2011-02-20 03:43 sorry again for the LCM problem 2011-02-20 03:43 keep us posted how your exchange is going 2011-02-20 03:43 ok 2011-02-20 03:43 n8 guys 2011-02-20 03:44 nite 2011-02-20 03:45 wolfspraul: You do stress test on nanonote lcm before leave? 2011-02-20 03:45 I mean let said, 50 open and close, or vibration tests.. 2011-02-20 03:45 hehe, just dreaming :-) 2011-02-20 03:46 kristianpaul: i guess soon he will :) 2011-02-20 03:46 wolfspraul: i think if the connection is really hosed, the LCM will miss the initialization sequence, so pushing later wouldn't do much 2011-02-20 03:46 I remenber when my laptop failed, lemote said we tested the power suply 50 times to make sure it will came back OK 2011-02-20 03:47 kristianpaul: not every device is stress-tested, and I'm not sure that would help. 2011-02-20 03:47 wolfspraul: i have one problem LCM, too (developed after a while - didn't examine it yet), and there the contact was intermittent. so the LCM came up, but then the contact failed. in this case, it could be brought back with pressure once. 2011-02-20 03:48 the LCM connection is definitely the weakest spot in the hw design 2011-02-20 03:49 agree 2011-02-20 03:50 yup. very fragile. 2011-02-20 03:50 well i damaged my self lcm connector too 2011-02-20 03:50 is kinday weak... i think, i dint aplied too much force i remenber 2011-02-20 03:54 i suspect the cable can just develop hairline cracks anywhere. i don't think the receptacle is nearly as likely to fail. 2011-02-20 03:56 flexible cables are just one of these troubled technologies. i'm sure wolfgang has vivid memories of that from his openmoko days, too :) 2011-02-20 03:56 but freerunner dint have mobile parts.. 2011-02-20 03:57 the cable between mainboard and (fixed) lcm worked quite well. i never heard of problems there. 2011-02-20 03:58 but then it also had the debug board. that connected with a long FPC to the main unit. endless fun has been had with this one ... 2011-02-20 04:00 a particularly nice moment was when we took an OEM project under our wings. that one was loosely based on the freerunner technology. they had a horrible contraption for their debug board, though. so we suggested to replace this with the openmoko debug board. 2011-02-20 04:02 so we made the design changes. then, the plan was to ship something like ten or twenty debug boards with cables to our customer (in the US). so i got the items and did a quick test to make sure everything was alright ... much later that night, after beginning to seriously doubt my sanity, i knew that about 10% of the whole batch really worked. 2011-02-20 04:04 the rest had all sorts of issues. also, many worked sometimes and then not. turned out that our previous FPC supplier had vanished and we had to order cables from a new source. that new source had not made them with the necessary accuracy. so basically the whole production run had to go back (well, or into the trash. don't know where they ended up.) 2011-02-20 04:04 :-/ 2011-02-20 04:06 one of the issues was that many cables were not wide enough. so you could shift them a little. if you *just* hit the right spot, they would work. if not, some pins wouldn't connect. so you may get serial but no jtag. during one of those nights, i figured out the failure pattern and learned how to position the critters. 2011-02-20 04:07 basically, insert it, then gently move to the left until you hit the border. then to the right, until you hit that border. then move back half the distance (a few dozen micron). then lock the thing and test. if it doesn't pass, repeat. 2011-02-20 04:08 the next day, we verified the scratch marks on the contacts with a microscope. and yes, they were all over the place. 2011-02-20 04:09 another batch of these cables was too wide. so you could 1) try to force them in anyway, or 2) try to cut them down to the right size. 1) would sometimes work, sometimes not. 2) was a game of chance. 2011-02-20 04:10 and then these cables developed hairline fissures quite easily. so when you bent it one way, it may give contact. bend it the other way, and it's gone. and again, this usually just affected one signal out of more than a dozen. so you never quite knew if a cable didn't have some defect that you just hadn't looked for yet. 2011-02-20 04:11 oh yes, i learned to love those FPCs ;-) 2011-02-20 04:12 eventually, i was sufficiently fed up with that mess that i made idbg. that solved the problem for good - at least for me :) 2011-02-20 04:13 fdti was not so popular in that time? 2011-02-20 04:17 ftdi is ancient :) we had an ftdi on the debug board. i picked the silabs chip for idbg because it's more flexible and needs less space than the ftdi chips (they didn't have a crystal-less solution back then) 2011-02-20 04:17 ftdi documentation also sucks. lots of secrecy that's just plain annoying. 2011-02-20 04:19 ftdi is surprisingly unpopular among people who really tried to use it, and push to the limits 2011-02-20 04:19 and what's documented still leaves lots of things unclear 2011-02-20 04:19 i'm not surprised at all ;-) 2011-02-20 04:19 their brand is strong though, so I guess it gets selected by 'managerial decision' into many places still, whether the engineers are complaining or not 2011-02-20 04:19 of course, i'm one of them. if "try anything but dumb serial" already counts as "push to the limits"Â Â :) 2011-02-20 04:20 so what you recomend instead of fdti? 2011-02-20 04:20 a microcontroller 2011-02-20 04:20 :-) 2011-02-20 04:20 well but you are demanding on the details, you demand clear documentation, etc. 2011-02-20 04:21 wolfspraul: is it demanding when you want to know which bits in their EEPROM you have to set to enable bit-banging on the "C" bus ? the manual just tells you that this needs to be configured, but doesn't tell you how. 2011-02-20 04:21 the ft2232hq on the m1 jtag-serial board seems to fulfill its purpose well though 2011-02-20 04:21 wolfspraul: also, due to the poor documentation, there are all sorts of bugs in the drivers 2011-02-20 04:22 maybe the problem is just that people try to use the ftdi chip it all sorts of diverse environments, and then it fails 2011-02-20 04:23 naw, the issue is that they somehow feel they shouldn't tell you what you need to know. this is very different from the usual incompleteness you find in documentation. 2011-02-20 04:24 there are also obscure bugs that manuals don't warn you about. like data being lost apparently at the byte level. 2011-02-20 04:25 stick on his trusty or well know microchip for me pic18 2011-02-20 04:25 the ft2232 has a special engine for things like jtag. the simpler chips don't have that engine. but their documentation claims capabilities that would make it perfectly feasible to accomplish the same, only perhaps less efficiently 2011-02-20 04:26 but eventually you realize that you probably won't even get something like SPI to work reliably 2011-02-20 04:26 thats shame 2011-02-20 04:27 anyway for me fdti was just usb2ttl and now jtag with mm1 2011-02-20 04:27 and amoong the two or three possibilities for implementing it the manual suggests exist, you'll find that at least one is not accessible because of incomplete documentation 2011-02-20 04:28 ok but I think for the very specific purpose that the ft2232hq is hard-wired on the m1 jtag-serial board, it's a good choice and the problem is solved 2011-02-20 04:28 that's not to say that I don't hear the type of feedback we hear from you now many times already 2011-02-20 04:28 and so on. i tried to make one of the ftdi critters work for programming the c8051f32x chips, but eventually gave up after trying for one or two weeks. 2011-02-20 04:28 I would be very careful to see the ftdi chips as some sort of debug-board-swiss-army-knife. for sure they are not. 2011-02-20 04:29 yes, if you have a use case that someone else already validated and you don't to anything else but exactly that, then you're probably fine 2011-02-20 04:30 it's kinda like the stories you tell of OMAP :-) 2011-02-20 04:32 well, one good thing came out of all this - in the end, i used the ben for programming my c8051f32x chips, with a predecessor of ubb :-) 2011-02-20 04:34 btw, also the ft2232 has its bugs. if you use its regular big-banging mode, it can also "swallow" commands. i saw when making a remote reset tool for the openmoko debug board. hadn't realized the context back then, though. 2011-02-20 04:41 can we run into those bugs with the m1 jtag-serial board? 2011-02-20 04:41 if all you do are jtag and serial, then i think you should be fine 2011-02-20 04:42 good 2011-02-20 04:42 :-) 2011-02-20 04:42 if you control anything else, e.g., a led or so, you may have to send the command several times before it "takes" 2011-02-20 04:45 http://svn.openmoko.org/developers/werner/dbgrst/dbgrst.c (set_high) and http://svn.openmoko.org/trunk/src/host/norwp/norwp.c (main) 2011-02-20 04:46 i don't know if these are really reliable, though. dbgrst should be pretty good, because i used it in scripted tests and would have noticed a failure rate > 10% or so. norwp never saw such intense testing. 2011-02-20 06:29 . 2011-02-20 09:13 mirko: hey, are you there? 2011-02-20 09:19 mirko: the top Makefile is also not quite OK. eg. it has staging_dir/toolchain-mipsel_gcc-4.3.3+cs_uClibc-0.9.30.1/usr/include/QtGui in INCPATH. But this is not correct, must be staging_dir/target-mipsel_uClibc-0.9.30.1/usr/include/QtGui 2011-02-20 09:20 mirko: but then you are right that further Makefiles have even more problems (for example, empty CC) 2011-02-20 09:20 mirko: i'm trying it with "Tile" application, which is quite simple and has only one Makefile 2011-02-20 11:51 kyak: btw, speaking of the openwrt build: after the discussion on build time, i tried to see how long it would take to run it on my pc. one thing i noticed is that the "jikes" dependency seems to be an anachronism that cannot be satisfied with any recent ubuntu. (the build failed subsequently somewhere in gcc, which is when i dropped the idea) 2011-02-20 11:53 wpwrak: $ rpmquery -a |grep jikes returns nothing. Why do you have this dependency? 2011-02-20 11:54 kyak: it's listed on xiangfu's page about the build process 2011-02-20 11:54 btw, at takes ~2.5 hours to build from scratch here. I don't build all the packages, maybe only half of them (my rootfs size was 256 Mb) 2011-02-20 11:54 so i guess full build would take 5-6 hours 2011-02-20 11:55 wpwrak: you should ask xiangfu then 2011-02-20 11:55 i don\t have jikes installed on my build 2011-02-20 11:58 wpwrak: i want to disassemble my Ben :) 2011-02-20 11:58 need to clean behind the LCD glass 2011-02-20 11:58 there is some dust and particles these 2011-02-20 11:59 how i can do this? is the top case disassemlable? 2011-02-20 11:59