[9fans] nvram for plan 9

[9fans] nvram for plan 9

[Brantley Coile]

We're building a new product for Coraid to
complement the EtherDrive storage blades, and we had
to have a small amount of nvram.  We have designed a small
printed circuit board that inserts into the IDE
connectors and has a small eeprom on it (32K).  It's
NOT a Compact disk or anything else that looks like
an IDE device, but software can bit-bang the data
into and out of the eeprom.  It struck me that
this would be useful for replacing the floppy
disk on CPU servers.

When we go into production on our device, would
anyone like some of the little goodies?

 Brantley Coile
 http://www.coraid.com

Re: [9fans] nvram for plan 9

[andrey mirtchovski]

> When we go into production on our device, would
> anyone like some of the little goodies?

mmm, goodies :)

isn't there any way to make it slightly larger so it'll fit 9load as
well as the nvram?

9load currently sits at 200K...

Re: [9fans] nvram for plan 9

[Brantley Coile]

Two problems there.  One, this thing is really tiny and getting a couple
of hundred K would push it's size for our needs.  Second, the bios 
can't read
it. It doesn't look like an ide--we just used the ide as an io port.

On Jan 9, 2005, at 11:06 AM, andrey mirtchovski wrote:

>
>> When we go into production on our device, would
>> anyone like some of the little goodies?
>
> mmm, goodies :)
>
> isn't there any way to make it slightly larger so it'll fit 9load as
> well as the nvram?
>
> 9load currently sits at 200K...
>

Re: [9fans] nvram for plan 9

[Ronald G. Minnich]

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Brantley Coile wrote:

> We're building a new product for Coraid to complement the EtherDrive
> storage blades, and we had to have a small amount of nvram.  We have
> designed a small printed circuit board that inserts into the IDE
> connectors and has a small eeprom on it (32K).  It's NOT a Compact disk
> or anything else that looks like an IDE device, but software can
> bit-bang the data into and out of the eeprom.  It struck me that this
> would be useful for replacing the floppy disk on CPU servers.

what's the cost likely to be? Reason I'm asking is that a reasonable 
IDE-FLASH (32M or so) is about $40 I think. See www.magicram.com for 
details. 

ron

Re: [9fans] nvram for plan 9

[Brantley Coile]

Oooh, thanks.  I'll check on their pricing.
I think we may be a lot cheaper, but I'll see.
After we get this in production I'll let everyone know
the costs.  We'll not be in the business of selling
these things, but I like to help 9fans.

On Jan 9, 2005, at 11:08 AM, Ronald G. Minnich wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Brantley Coile wrote:
>
>> We're building a new product for Coraid to complement the EtherDrive
>> storage blades, and we had to have a small amount of nvram.  We have
>> designed a small printed circuit board that inserts into the IDE
>> connectors and has a small eeprom on it (32K).  It's NOT a Compact 
>> disk
>> or anything else that looks like an IDE device, but software can
>> bit-bang the data into and out of the eeprom.  It struck me that this
>> would be useful for replacing the floppy disk on CPU servers.
>
> what's the cost likely to be? Reason I'm asking is that a reasonable
> IDE-FLASH (32M or so) is about $40 I think. See www.magicram.com for
> details.
>
> ron
>