[Oberon] New FPGA Oberon board

[Jörg Straube]

Wojtek

The idea of Project Oberon was to build a COMPLTE computer from scratch, including an own CPU, obviously with an own OS and an own complier for this home grown CPU.

I didn't know BBB and was just quickly browsing through the specs.
If I got it right the ARM processor on the BBB is the host for the SD card and all the other peripherals.
For our Project Oberon case an FPGA cape is the host for all peripherals , as it is running the CPU.
Can a cape access the interfaces on the BBB or do we need additional SD, HDMI, VGA, RAM capes to do that?

br, Jörg

> Am 17.05.2015 um 17:55 schrieb <skulski at pas.rochester.edu> <skulski at pas.rochester.edu>:
> 
> Hello:
> 
> trying to define our own specs is the biggest mistake we can possibly
> make. We are a small community. Too small to take advantage of the economy
> of scale. Anything of our own will cost a lot to make in small numbers.
> Seemingly trivial items like enclosures will be either very costly or
> impossible to manufacture. I have been there. I made this mistake. I
> learned the lesson.
> 
> There is one possible way to beat the economy of scale while being small.
> Join someone else's standard and design in a form factor that is exactly
> compatible. Electrically, pin to pin exactly the same.  Then you can use
> their expansion boards. Mechanically, the same dimensions and the same
> mountig holes. The same external connectors in the same exact places. Then
> you can use their enclosures. You do not have to think where to get those
> little trivial pieces, which in practice make a huge difference.
> 
> If you agree on that, then the next question is which bandwagon to jump
> on. I vote for BeagleBone Black (BBB). It defines the set of interfaces,
> such as the mouse, keyboard, SD card, HDMI, and pin connectors. The boxes
> (very nice ones!) cost five dollars a piece. There is a growing number of
> expansion boards, which you can adopt without designing your own. The
> expansion card specs are rigidly defined. These are called "capes". The
> design files for most capes are available in either Eagle or OrCAD. I am
> now finishing the design of a very advanced "cape". It took me about three
> weeks (maybe four) from scratch. If this community moves forward with the
> BBB path then I can contribute the template schematics and the preplaced
> layouts of the connectors, holes, power, and several others. This I can
> discuss offline with the actual designer.
> 
> Why BBB rather than Arduino, RPi, or whatever other great board?
> 
> 1. The BBB is truly open source. All the design files are available. RPi
> is closed source. Others I do not know.
> 
> 2. BBB has a lot of expansion pins. Others do not. You will be surprised
> how many pins you will need in future. Do not cripple yourself at the
> start. BBB standard will not cripple us.
> 
> 3. Lots of BBB capes are available, from simple to complex. There will be
> many more available because BBB is gaining momentum. All of these will
> become immediately available to the Oberon community, if we design to this
> standard.
> 
> 4. I designed a few pieces in this standard and I will design more. I can
> share the building blocks such as connectors, power, etc.
> 
> 5. I can advise the actual designer behind the scenes, or maybe even share
> some of the design burden (within reason).
> 
> Closing remarks:
> 
> I am ready to advise which FPGA, Spartan-6 or Artix. I vote for Artix and
> I can share the schematics of Artix-FG484. All Artix chips fit into this
> footprint, so it is a very future-oriented design path.
> 
> Concerning the memory, I vote for ZBT RAM such as IDT71T75602/IDT71T75802
> (2 MBytes in a single chip). It is faster than asynch (166 MHz) and it is
> truly clocked. Hence, no pesky timing because the RAM will be synchronous.
> At the same time, it avoids the complexities of DRAM.
> 
> I hope you will find this discussion of some help in reaching the decision.
> 
> Thank you,
> Wojtek
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> New FPGA Oberon board (greim)
>> Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 14:51:55 +0200
>> From: greim <greim at schleibinger.com>
>> Subject: [Oberon] New FPGA Oberon board
>> To: oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch
>> Message-ID: <55573D6B.2070401 at schleibinger.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>> Hello Magnus,
>> Hello Chris,
>> An FPGAOberon board would be great!
>> My suggestions:
>> - Baseboard incl. FPGA, SRAM (incl. Goldcap or battery buffer), SD-Card
>>   (usable as standalone embedded system).
>> - All interfaces (PS/2, Keyboard, VGA or HDMI..on a extra shield or
> breakboard. Maybe following the mechanical and electrical specs of the
> Arduinio (DUO, Mega?) shields. This standard is not only used by
> hobbyists also TI, Intel etc. are now offering evaluation boards with
> this interface.
>> - More I/O space for external individual hardware. I know we are running
> out of the I/O lines. Maybe using one or two SERDES chip.
>> - More SRAM to bring color in the  future of Oberon!
>> Should we start a Kickstarter Project?
>> Maybe some support from Xilinx? I can imagine, after the paper presented
> in their journal, there maybe some feedback from Universities etc.
> Regards
>> Markus Greim
>> I will cross-post this message in the Oberon list and in the Saanlima Forum
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
> https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon
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