Discussion about the Inferno operating system and the Limbo programming language

Dylan Saunders | 12 Dec 2011 17:21

Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

Is the notion of an ARM based reference platform for Inferno still alive at Vita Nuova? I remember that the Intrynsic CerfCube was endorsed for a while however Intrynsic has mostly gotten out of the hardware business, plus their boards were a little too expensive for hobbyists. Cambridge U. seems to be backing the Raspberry Pi, a cheap ARM board intended for education.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/

They are talking about a price of around £22 / $25.00(model A) - $35.00(model B) and it is supposed to be available by the end of 2011.

Dylan R. Saunders

Instructor: IT CS Program

School of ICT

Ph. (403)210-5875

http://www.sait.ca

headers

Charles Forsyth | 12 Dec 2011 18:00

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

I'm certainly on the e-mail list for raspberry pi.

headers

John Floren | 12 Dec 2011 18:46

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

Yep, my order goes in as soon as I find out they're ready. For the
price of a couple drinks, you really can't go wrong; at the very
least, I'm sure Inferno will run hosted.

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Charles Forsyth
<charles.forsyth@...> wrote:
> I'm certainly on the e-mail list for raspberry pi.
>

headers

John Floren | 12 Dec 2011 18:01

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

Downside: the chip is Broadcom.

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 8:21 AM, Dylan Saunders <dylan.saunders@...> wrote:
> Is the notion of an ARM based reference platform for Inferno still alive at
> Vita Nuova? I remember that the Intrynsic CerfCube was endorsed for a while
> however Intrynsic has mostly gotten out of the hardware business, plus their
> boards were a little too expensive for hobbyists. Cambridge U. seems to be
> backing the Raspberry Pi, a cheap ARM board intended for education.
>
>
>
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/
>
>
>
> http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/
>
>
>
> They are talking about a price of around £22 / $25.00(model A) -
> $35.00(model B) and it is supposed to be available by the end of 2011.
>
>
>
> Dylan R. Saunders
>
> Instructor: IT CS Program
>
> School of ICT
>
> Ph. (403)210-5875
>
> http://www.sait.ca
>
>

headers

Jack Norton | 12 Dec 2011 22:32

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

On 12/12/2011 10:21 AM, Dylan Saunders wrote:
> Is the notion of an ARM based reference platform for Inferno still alive
> at Vita Nuova? I remember that the Intrynsic CerfCube was endorsed for a
> while however Intrynsic has mostly gotten out of the hardware business,
> plus their boards were a little too expensive for hobbyists. Cambridge
> U. seems to be backing the Raspberry Pi, a cheap ARM board intended for
> education.
>
> http://www.raspberrypi.org/
>
> http://www.reghardware.com/2011/11/28/raspberry_pi/
>
> They are talking about a price of around £22 / $25.00(model A) -
> $35.00(model B) and it is supposed to be available by the end of 2011.
>
> Dylan R. Saunders
>
> Instructor: IT CS Program
>
> School of ICT
>
> Ph. (403)210-5875
>
> http://www.sait.ca
>

How about the OpenRISC reference board as a ...erm... reference board?
link: http://opencores.org/or1k/Ordb2a-ep4ce22
they have a new ref board, linked above, that is 139euro.  It isn't 
anywhere near the horsepower of well... anything but it is a truly open 
design.  That particular unit is the bare-bones setup.  There are many 
'peripherals' that could be integrated at opencores.org including AC97 
audio, more connectivity besides fast ethernet, VGA video cores, codecs 
and other DSP, etc...

My reasoning is that inferno and plan 9 are best known for their superb 
clarity for use in instructional and university environments.  How neat 
would it be to have the 'recipe' for everything from the logic/net 
layouts, all the way up to the final software stack?  I personally think 
they were made for each other in this sense.

The OpenRISC (or ORSoC -- Open RISC System on Chip) project has really 
caught my attention as the ultimate in future proof fun.  After the 
crazy holiday season I will be buying one myself.

I hadn't intended to post anything on the subject until I saw your post.

-Jack

headers

Charles Forsyth | 12 Dec 2011 23:02

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

If people know of cheap or interesting potential targets there's no harm in mentioning them.

"Cheap" sometimes means only "much less expensive than the typical development board".

On 12 December 2011 21:32, Jack Norton <jack-ZmGtJxTVvJw@public.gmane.org> wrote:

I hadn't intended to post anything on the subject until I saw your post.

headers

hiro | 13 Dec 2011 09:40

Re: Raspberry Pi - new reference platform?

iomega iconnect (EUR 45)
seagate freeagent net/home (EUR 55)

Documentation is only handling the plugging of cables though.

headers

Ethan Grammatikidis | 31 Dec 2011 19:23

JTAG queries (Was Raspbery-Pi)

On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:40:45 +0100
hiro <23hiro@...> wrote:

> iomega iconnect (EUR 45)
> seagate freeagent net/home (EUR 55)
> 
> Documentation is only handling the plugging of cables though.

This reminds me I have a couple of Seagate DockStars I've never done
anything with. I assume I'll need JTAG to do anything interesting with
them but I hardly know what JTAG is or what it can do. Any pointers on
how to use it to load software and/or interact with the running system
would be appreciated.

Well, it's not quite true to say I haven't doen anything with them, I
attempted to put u-boot on them both. It worked on one of them, but
only having ethernet for communication makes me nervous. :) The
other one will require JTAG to get any further use out of it at all.

headers

hiro | 1 Jan 2012 17:03

Re: JTAG queries (Was Raspbery-Pi)

I haven't used JTAG on these machines yet, but there's definitely also
a TTL serial port you can use to interact with u-boot and your OS. The
"hacked" u-boot is a good start.

http://jeff.doozan.com/debian/uboot/

On 31.12.2011, Ethan Grammatikidis <eekee57@...> wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:40:45 +0100
> hiro <23hiro@...> wrote:
>
>> iomega iconnect (EUR 45)
>> seagate freeagent net/home (EUR 55)
>>
>> Documentation is only handling the plugging of cables though.
>
> This reminds me I have a couple of Seagate DockStars I've never done
> anything with. I assume I'll need JTAG to do anything interesting with
> them but I hardly know what JTAG is or what it can do. Any pointers on
> how to use it to load software and/or interact with the running system
> would be appreciated.
>
> Well, it's not quite true to say I haven't doen anything with them, I
> attempted to put u-boot on them both. It worked on one of them, but
> only having ethernet for communication makes me nervous. :) The
> other one will require JTAG to get any further use out of it at all.
>