[9fans] my ts7200 port

[9fans] my ts7200 port

[ron minnich]

found what is likely the latest version lying on my laptop from over
two years ago and dumped it in
sources in ts7200.tar

I got excited by the beagleboard again ...

ron

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Nick LaForge]

> found what is likely the latest version lying on my laptop from over
> two years ago and dumped it in
> sources in ts7200.tar
>
> I got excited by the beagleboard again ...
>
> ron

Thank you for remembering to find this, it will be of great help to me!

Nick

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Nick LaForge<nicklaforge@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for remembering to find this, it will be of great help to me!

which board/cpu are you targeting? I really like that beagleboard.

ron

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Nick LaForge]

>> Thank you for remembering to find this, it will be of great help to me!
>
> which board/cpu are you targeting? I really like that beagleboard.
>
> ron

The TS-7200 Technologic board, the exact board in your port, I
believe.  The intent is to use it to netboot other machines.

Also of interest is the Technologic TS-7500,

http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-7500

for a wifi point that can serve a HDD, and also wake up an attached
larger machine and then attach itself as a usb device.  (The machine
has slave usb in addition to the host usb.)

Thank you for the Beagleboard information.  I have a need for driving
a small vga lcd with a low-power arm board.  The intent is to replace
my ailing terminal, a thinkpad 600e.  I had previously assumed the
latest Gumstix board would serve this purpose, I believe which is more
expensive.

Nick

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[ron minnich]

OK, be warned, the ether driver in that tree is not very good. I just
ported the linux driver over and then ran out of time to do much more.

ron

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[J.R. Mauro]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just ported the linux driver

I'm interested in how hard this is, and how it might be made easier.

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Jul  6 19:41:36 EDT 2009, jrm8005@gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I just ported the linux driver
>
> I'm interested in how hard this is, and how it might be made easier.

that depends.  i've found that porting a driver or working backwards
from an example is often harder than just writing a new driver.
this is because the hard part is understanding how the hardware works,
not in coding that knowledge up.  and unfortunately, looking at a
linux driver hasn't been very instructive to me.

i'm sure one could create a compatability layer for certain driver types
along the lines of ndiswrapper.  but given the instability of linux
internal interfaces, this might be finished about the same time as
duke nukem forever.

- erik

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[erik quanstrom]

> Thank you for the Beagleboard information.  I have a need for driving
> a small vga lcd with a low-power arm board.  The intent is to replace
> my ailing terminal, a thinkpad 600e.  I had previously assumed the
> latest Gumstix board would serve this purpose, I believe which is more
> expensive.

unfortunately x86 cannot be beat, if the object of the game is price/performance.
i'm trying to work out the details on a non-intel fanless atom system.  it
appears that everything works well on this system; dual-ethernet, serial,
sata, ata, usb.  i haven't yet tried the on-board vga.  it looks to be in the
price range of the fancier gumstix motherboards.

- erik

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> OK, be warned, the ether driver in that tree is not very good. I just
> ported the linux driver over and then ran out of time to do much more.

I'm curious....  When I first heard about the BeagleBoard a couple of
years ago, my first thought was, "terminal."  However, then I heard
that there was no builtin ethernet and one had to use a USB<->Ethernet
bridge.  This seemed unsatisfactory to me, but was in keeping with the
spirit of what the BeagleBoard folks were trying to do; has this been
rectified?  Is there now an onboard Ethernet device?  Or is the driver
in question for a USB ethernet thingy?

        - Dan C.

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[erik quanstrom]

> I'm curious....  When I first heard about the BeagleBoard a couple of
> years ago, my first thought was, "terminal."  However, then I heard
> that there was no builtin ethernet and one had to use a USB<->Ethernet
> bridge.  This seemed unsatisfactory to me, but was in keeping with the
> spirit of what the BeagleBoard folks were trying to do; has this been
> rectified?  Is there now an onboard Ethernet device?  Or is the driver
> in question for a USB ethernet thingy?

usb ethernet thingee:  http://beagleboard.org/

- erik

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Nick LaForge]

> unfortunately x86 cannot be beat, if the object of the game is price/performance

the object of the game is price and power.  Performance doesn't
factor, notwithstanding that the terminal must drive 1024x768 vga.

Nick

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 23:50:14 -0400
erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:

> On Mon Jul  6 19:41:36 EDT 2009, jrm8005@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I just ported the linux driver
> >
> > I'm interested in how hard this is, and how it might be made easier.
>
> that depends.  i've found that porting a driver or working backwards
> from an example is often harder than just writing a new driver.
> this is because the hard part is understanding how the hardware works,
> not in coding that knowledge up.  and unfortunately, looking at a
> linux driver hasn't been very instructive to me.
>
> i'm sure one could create a compatability layer for certain driver types
> along the lines of ndiswrapper.  but given the instability of linux
> internal interfaces, this might be finished about the same time as
> duke nukem forever.

What about emulating a usb-ethernet device in software? (Assuming the beagle board's usb interface can operate in gadget mode as opposed to host mode.) The Linux kernel does a good job of emulating a usb ethernet device, I use it extensively. I rather assumed the Bitsy port had this already, but perhaps not.


--
Ethan Grammatikidis

Those who are slower at parsing information must
necessarily be faster at problem-solving.

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 12:36:31 +0100
Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 23:50:14 -0400
> erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mon Jul  6 19:41:36 EDT 2009, jrm8005@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:37 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I just ported the linux driver
> > >
> > > I'm interested in how hard this is, and how it might be made easier.
> >
> > that depends.  i've found that porting a driver or working backwards
> > from an example is often harder than just writing a new driver.
> > this is because the hard part is understanding how the hardware works,
> > not in coding that knowledge up.  and unfortunately, looking at a
> > linux driver hasn't been very instructive to me.
> >
> > i'm sure one could create a compatability layer for certain driver types
> > along the lines of ndiswrapper.  but given the instability of linux
> > internal interfaces, this might be finished about the same time as
> > duke nukem forever.
>
> What about emulating a usb-ethernet device in software? (Assuming the beagle board's usb interface can operate in gadget mode as opposed to host mode.) The Linux kernel does a good job of emulating a usb ethernet device, I use it extensively. I rather assumed the Bitsy port had this already, but perhaps not.

Huh, I just realised that if both ends of the fake ethernet link run Plan 9 then the only advantage of what I suggested would be that both ends of the link are known quantities with open source code.

Now I wonder if it might be simpler to implement 9p directly over USB.


--
Ethan Grammatikidis

Those who are slower at parsing information must
necessarily be faster at problem-solving.

Re: [9fans] my ts7200 port

[erik quanstrom]

> > What about emulating a usb-ethernet device in software? (Assuming the beagle board's usb interface can operate in gadget mode as opposed to host mode.) The Linux kernel does a good job of emulating a usb ethernet device, I use it extensively. I rather assumed the Bitsy port had this already, but perhaps not.
>
> Huh, I just realised that if both ends of the fake ethernet link run Plan 9 then the only advantage of what I suggested would be that both ends of the link are known quantities with open source code.
>
> Now I wonder if it might be simpler to implement 9p directly over USB.

sure.

but you still have to solve the problem of talking to the usb device.

- erik