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SuperDuoHack Brainstorming Session =8-D
- Thread starter Trash80toHP_Mini
- Start date
Sure the docking connector is a direct link to the processor bus . . . but it's to the "theoretical" 68030 bus on the slow side of the PBX Bus Bridge Adapter. A 603e PDS it ain't!
Go back to the devnotes, review block diagram, do not pass go!
Don't worry, somewhere I've got the FULL pinout of the DD connector, and it's everything you need to do the T-Rex/PC-Card-Cage-Hack™ and then some. But as for hanging an accelerator on that particular hook, it just ain't gonna happen, unless you're talking about a Radius Rocket in a NuBus slot in the DD. [
] ]'>
True, but only for the “theoretical” Mac OS version of this multi-threaded brainstormin' party! [
] ]'>That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
] ]'>You miss my point, only the Mac OS shackled hack would retain the bridged '030 skateboard/millstone.
The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
] ]'>BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
] ]'>BTW, I know some folks in the “war room” who can fix up your nom-de-guerre probs if you should wish to have it done? [
] ]'>
Drat and tarnation. I had a feeling that might be the case right after I posted.
Aye aye, cap'n!Go back to the devnotes, review block diagram, do not pass go!
Including the ones that are unknown at pinouts.ru?
Two of them! With '040 socket 601s! And 50MHz QuadDoublers with cache! Muahahahah!!!
:scrambled:
host is offline
I hate to say it, but I think it's about this point I start losing the plot... oh, okay, I see scrolling back a reference to some embedded ARM board. It gets *really* confusing because at some points you're talking about "hijacking" busses on a Powerbook Duo motherboard or cramming a new CPU into it, and at other points you're, uhm, talking about replacing the innards with some other board, but somehow continuing to use a DuoDock interface for... something? (No, wait... you want that ARM board to somehow substitute for the PBX IC on the motherboard...?) And I'm really confused how "Ubuntu" and "Open Source" gets mixed up into this.That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
(I don't think you're going to find oodles of wide-ranging enthusiasm out there for an "open source hardware project" that's somehow dependent on hacking up obscure 12 year old *highly proprietary* laptop computers. It's sort of silly to call a Netbook a "closed system" by comparison. The IBM PC platform has evolved into the epitome of an "Open Platform", able to cover applications from matchbox-sized embedded devices to supercomputers, and even a humble $300 Netbook is bristling with modern expansion capabilities. Generally at least two of them (USB Ports). However, if you really need to do something *weird* most Netbooks use a Mini-PCIe slot to connect their wireless module. A nearly passive adapter card can adapt Mini-PCIe to full-size PCIe, and Magma and others can sell you PCIe-to-PCIe or PCIe-to-classic-PCI expansion chassis. It'd be stupidly expensive to cobble together compared to just using a PCI/PCIe desktop motherboard for your weird real-time-high-speed-bus-requiring hack project, but it's *very doable* with hardware bought right off the shelf.)
I think you need to type up a whitepaper including a few illustrations and a block diagram. Or at least take a photo of a whiteboard with your idea on it. My poor primitive brain has really run off the rails trying to grok what you have in mind. Is this all one grand project or a bunch of unrelated ideas getting hopelessly smashed into psuedotechnical goo?
(At this point Jordi LaForge shows up and starts hollering something about tachyons flooding the warp overdrive conduit manifold and causing a cascade blawblawblawTECHTECHTECH... No, wait, reading back again I see there *was* a bifurcation point where it became "new guts Duo body"... but then it went back to G3s and "substitute this board for the "PBX IC"....
And on that subject, I have to admit I really don't understand the strange obsession with "fast side/slow side" on this thing. Sure, if you're interfacing RAM you want all you can get, which I guess means you want to be on the "fast" 33Mhz/64 bit side, but for *just about any* conceivable homebrew peripheral 25Mhz/32 bits should do just grand. One of my coworkers is constructing his own 3D CNC milling machine, and all he needs to control 3 stepper motors in real time is a simple IBM PC parallel port. Which is a lot slower then the PBX IC's "slow side".
The only thing "wrong" with the PBX IC is it has a 56MB RAM limit, which was probably a reasonable number when the Duo was new. It wasn't some evil limitation put there to forever irk mankind. It just... is what it is. I don't see many owners of 1967 MGB Midgets complaining that they can't drive 500 miles per hour while carrying a couple dozen tonnes worth of bulk cargo in the trunk. If you need to actually do those things simultaneously you're not in the market for a tiny sports car, you're shopping around for a good deal on a used 727 freighter conversion. You can say the same thing about all the other "dated/limited" components in the Duo. The whole thing was a compromise between cost, weight, size, and the available technology. If you don't like the formula it's probably sort of pointless to try to "fix" it even if you're enamored with the aesthetics.)
Okay... and this is all going to be better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard... how? Never mind. Sounds AWESOME. Just don't expect it to perform any better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard. If what you really want is an ARM CPU'ed laptop running Ubuntu supposedly a tidal wave of them should be available "any day now". They're not going to perform better than Atom netbooks but they should eek out more battery life. At the cost of binary software compatibility, of course, which may or may not matter.The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
If you find an LCD panel that has enough pixels for you and fits in the space occupied by the Duo's LCD there are *oodles* of both ARM and x86 embedded motherboards that should fit in the available space in the Duo case and have LCD drivers onboard. (Beware, however, the video controllers in most ARM hardware tends to be "PDA-centric" and tops out at fairly low resolutions.) The suggestion about using the guts of a laptop instead of an SBC mostly comes from the fact that stripping down an existing laptop will probably be cheaper than a custom embedded board once you factor in finding all the bits to make it really "go". (Another advantage is a laptop will come with a BIOS which supports intelligent battery power management, something you'd have to homebrew otherwise.) A single integrated motherboard, whether it's from a laptop or an industrial SBC, should do what you want much more easily than running down some strange cobbled-together-from-mismatched-bits rathole, which is what "traffic cop SBC plus powerful CPU card!" sounds like to me.
But I guess if running down a rathole is the whole point, then, uhm... squeak!
I could go either way. As long as it's primitive, toothy, bad-tempered, and has a tiny brain either avatar suits me fine. ;^)Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
BTW, I know some folks in the “war room” who can fix up your nom-de-guerre probs if you should wish to have it done? [
Welcome to my brain! [I hate to say it, but I think it's about this point I start losing the plot... oh, okay, I see scrolling back a reference to some embedded ARM board. It gets *really* confusing because at some points you're talking about "hijacking" busses on a Powerbook Duo motherboard or cramming a new CPU into it, and at other points you're, uhm, talking about replacing the innards with some other board, but somehow continuing to use a DuoDock interface for... something? (No, wait... you want that ARM board to somehow substitute for the PBX IC on the motherboard...?) And I'm really confused how "Ubuntu" and "Open Source" gets mixed up into this.That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
] ]'>:lol: Good one EudiG!
I have to admit that I'm not quite all there mentally yet and I have trouble keeping things straight myself!
) Once I get some notion of the hardware available, I'll do just that! [
] ]'>That's nothing to worry about. I was just explaining to B why the DuoDock/Docking Connector/'030 side of PBX was the wrong side on which to hang an accelerator.
How'd you guess that a (vertically arranged) CNC table will be my next project? [
] ]'>I never thought anything else about the design parameters of the Duos. Back in the day, when Dr. Bob and I were going at it hammer-n-tongs, I just wanted to do a workaround that'd make my precious PowerDuo PC-Card WiFi capable and upgrade it to the performance level of my 1400/G-3, despite the fact that it was 640 x 480 limited.
Though I've switched gears, I'm keeping the Mac OS DreamDuo alive in parallel with the ubuntu brainstorming! }
It'd be better only if it's faster, has the Duo's larger keyboard, its spherically correct pointing device and has more pixels in a full height format instead of chopping the display off 180 degrees out of phase for efficient Web browsing like the NetBooks do. [Okay... and this is all going to be better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard... how? Never mind. Sounds AWESOME. Just don't expect it to perform any better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard. If what you really want is an ARM CPU'ed laptop running Ubuntu supposedly a tidal wave of them should be available "any day now". They're not going to perform better than Atom netbooks but they should eek out more battery life. At the cost of binary software compatibility, of course, which may or may not matter.The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
] ]'>8-o Nope! Rat-holes are to be avoided whenever possible!
If a replacement MoBo works better, it's just fine and dandy by me! I'd like to keep the Docking connector and ports near stock. My only real complaint about HP_Mini is that HP abandoned the "announced" Dock AND deleted the Docking Connector in lieu of a VGA port (on the wrong side, where the cable will be in the way for right handed mousers) for the newer versions. Docks are where it's at, as far as usability/connectivity is concerned, IMHO!
I'd like to break out all the Dockable connections to the Duo's Docking Connector and modify one of the Docks to keep that BZZZZZT
cool factor goin' and make hooking up the connections I don't need in the field, but do use at home, a breeze. If that's not feasible, there are plenty of front panel breakout boards available that could be shoe-horned behind that cute lil' trap door! [] ]'>:lol: If I were a comedian, I'd say that sounded like my ex! But she's just about the exact opposite and probably the best friend I'll ever have in this life!I could go either way. As long as it's primitive, toothy, bad-tempered, and has a tiny brain either avatar suits me fine. ;^)Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
If you wanna change it, lemme know, otherwise, I'll just call you EudiG! :rambo:
Yep. There are two (at least two!) seperate hacks in train here:
- FastBusHijackHack™ - every version which keeps at least some of the Duo logic intact.
- ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ - complete heart/lung/brain transplants in Duo shell, using Duo's physical ports for I/O
That's why I've started separating my replies into individual posts on each, and using the appropriate subject line, to try to *ahem* encourage Trash to do the same.
That seems the most promising path for Duo-like dockability.
Aye indeed, and I have given Trash a gentle nudge in that direction already.
That sounds eminently doable:
- Single board computer with LVDS and Mini-PCI(e)
- Your choice of compatible LCD panel
- Gutted USB trackball
- Mini-PCIe (et al) kludged directly to docking bar (Duo side)
- Docking bar (dock side) kludged directly to Mini-PCIe -> PCIe adapter (et al)
- Duo keyboard ...
Wait, what? You want to keep the single worst aspect of the Duo experience? Far, far, better IMHO to trawl the swap meets and computer bargain centers for a small, USB keyboard that fits in the Duo KB cavity.
Aaaand there's your kludge point right there! The cable connection between the two modules. Cut that cable or find a longer one to hack up, and wire each side to each side of the docking bar. Left hand board goes in DuoBuntu, right hand board goes in Dock, takes power from Dock PS.
I'll bet it's a heck of a lot cheaper than Magma's ExpressCard->PCIe chassis. The nearest in spec to an original Duo Dock costs $2k, and even their one-slotter is $700+
The reason you need the Magma chassis or something like it is to supply multiple slots, assuming that's a requirement. Remember, PCI isn't like ISA where you can just split one slot into many with a passive backplane. You need another PCI->PCI bridge chip to fan out more slots. (Same applies to PCI-e) The adapter cable alone gives you *one slot* in place of your wireless module. (Which in principle isn't a huge loss, as you could hang a wireless module off USB instead.)
Yep, I was aware of that, though it bears pointing out.
I'm unclear about this though:
Does that mean that this adapter can mount two PCIe cards?
Or on the other hand, I suppose you could find a board with more than one Mini-PCIe slot. I think Soekris make some with up to four for use as wireless base stations, though the CPU is probably nothing to write home about. I could ask my local Wifi club if they know of anything better.
I'm unclear about this though:
Does that mean that this adapter can mount two PCIe cards?
Or on the other hand, I suppose you could find a board with more than one Mini-PCIe slot. I think Soekris make some with up to four for use as wireless base stations, though the CPU is probably nothing to write home about. I could ask my local Wifi club if they know of anything better.
=8-P
First, don't bother with Mini-PCIe! VGA, USB 2.0, Firewire, stereo-out, Mic-in, maybe Video (if available) are all the connections necessary to adapt to the Docking Connector. Serial & Parallel would be OK too, assuming there are enough connections available for alternating signal/ground lines to prevent crosstalk. It's a DuoNetBookMaxiHack, not a desktop replacement!
You forget so fast! Remember the etched copper-clad fiberglass custom PCB replacement for the KBD's lower acetate flexible circuit matrix! No more SpongeBoard/SpringBoard action while utilizing the stock Duo KeyMatrix! [
] ]'>Also remember: the Duo's KBD is undersized, but a little less so than HP_Mini's, so don't expect to find many suitable replacements!
The original equipment: ADB TrackBall's serial output shouldn't be all that hard to adapt to USB & the circuitry should fit into a tiny corner of any SBC's available on-board FPGA. [
] ]'>
I know it's silly to point this out, but... if what you want is a small, powerful laptop with a port replicator/dock there are quite a few nice choices out there. It sort of strikes me you're mad that HP didn't offer a port replicator/dock for the Mini 1000 and because of that think you have to start chasing Unicorns down mineshafts in search of the ULTIMATE DUO HACK in order to get a dockable laptop. (In all fairness, I don't think anyone offers port replicators for their Netbooks. Port replicators are generally considered a "pro"/"business" feature.)
How about... I dunno, a Dell Latitude E4200 plus a E-Port Plus Replicator? The dock has Ethernet, serial, parallel, VGA, 2x DVI, 2x Displayport (you can only use up to 2 of the monitor connections at once, but you won't need any adapters...), eSATA, 5x USB, audio, and PS/2 keyboard/mouse ports, and the laptop has firewire, SD-card and Expresscard ports on top of all that. And it weighs under two and half pounds. (!)
If you don't trust Dell the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad x200 is almost exactly the same, if somewhat less port-rich. (Subtract Firewire, and it "only" has VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort on the matching "Ultrabase". But it still has Expresscard if you simply must have Firewire. And the build quality is undeniably better.)
Either of those machines will run Ubuntu, and will run it much faster than almost anything you'll cobble together out of parts small enough to fit in a Duo case. About the smallest "generic industrial" motherboards I've seen are a class of boards designed to have a footprint roughly the same as a 3.5 inch hard drive. Here's an example of one that takes mobile Core Duo 2/socket P CPUs and has onboard LVDS drivers, which in principle is the equal to most integrated video laptops, and I'm guessing you could probably cram that into the space available in a Duo. However, you'll have to design a cooling system for the CPU and chipset that also fits in the space which would be a *very nontrivial* challenge. You'll also have to figure out some sort of power management circuitry (the board is designed to run off a 12VDC transformer, which I suppose makes it a good candidate for a car computer...) and battery, and you'll have to cut all the peripheral connectors off the board and replace them with relays or whatnot so you can bring them out to both discrete ports and to a dock connector.
I think part of the issue with your requirements is you're looking at embedded ARM boards and saying "that's cool!" (which they are), but then thinking they would be a good basis for a *fast* computer, which they're not. A dual-core 2Ghz Cortex A9 according the company's own crowing benchmarks "just barely" outperforms a single-core Atom 270, the oldest, slowest one on the market. (And it's also worth noting that the benchmarks where Atoms and ARMs are pitted against each other usually involve Java, which netappliance-targeted ARM CPU often have specific optimizations for.) The CPUs more typically found in embedded boards with onboard FPGAs (300-700Mhz single cores) might actually be *slower* than the stock CPU in a Duo 2300c. (The 400Mhz Xscale CPUs that were popular in PDAs a few years ago were generally considered roughly equivalent to a 133Mhz-ish Pentium. Which is a pretty good match for a 100Mhz PPC 603.
So I guess to some extent what's "correct" for your plans here really depends on how high up the list "performance" is on your whiteboard scribbling. If it's a high priority you're not looking at those awesome ARM boards. You *are* looking at a *really tricky* build either way, though.
[Hey, I thought we were brainstorming here!
] ]'> [)] ]'> [] ]'>I was just looking at the BeagleBoard and thinking it might work, depending on the support it gets for Laptop/NetBook uses, of course.
I really HATE to sound like SJ (the idiot in jeans and designer black T-Shirts) about anything, but, basic NetBook hookups coupled with a powered USB Hub & a decent Monitor/KBD/Mouse are about all that I would assume necessary for the SuperDuo™/SuperMediumDock™ combo. I've already got a first pass prototype of the SuperMediumDock™ sittin' on the display shelf! [
] ]'>
Just wanna have my SuperMediumDock™, an upgraded Duo KBD, its spherically correct pointing device with an upgraded netbook performing klugeboard and a full format LCD . . .
. . . and the Duo's unarguable 1995
factor! }
Space is ALWAYS the factor in DuoHackin' that throws a monkey wrench into the works.
That said, you obviously don't need that galumphing, near glacier speed, modem! So find a connector with enough pins to roughly fit the RJ-11's porthole . . .
. . . and go to town! }
Pre-Post-Script???? Find a right angled solder down connector to fit the space and etch a pair of boards in the form factor of the modem card breaking a matching SCSI header into that form factor and maybe a DB-25 footprint (if it'll fit) so you can use the same PCB inside the Duo and on the other end of the cable attached to the Duo . . .
. . . or just gang up pairs of two dedicated PCB's on the same copper clad FRP PCB blank! :rambo:
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