[Oberon] Pepino LX9, USB, and other hardware running OBERON

[Ulrich Hoffmann]

Hi Lars,

> So essentially it's a blackbox abstracted away


In deed - the black box is the on board FTDI FT2232H (Dual High Speed 
USB to Multipurpose UART/FIFO IC) chip [1]. It's a typical way how
FPGA or microcontroller systems connect to PCs nowadays.

On Pepino you are not forced to use the chip. You could also 
just bit bang a serial line on one of the I/O pins in Oberon if 
you want to explain serial communication. On the other hand Project 
Oberon also uses highly integrated nRF24L01+ [2] RF transceiver
modules for wireless communication and their inner workings
is not explained in Oberon either.

It all boils down whether or not you want a completely and easily 
explainable system.

Regards,
	Ulrich

[1] http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/FT2232H.htm
[2] https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/2.4GHz-RF/nRF24L01P

Am 15.02.2016 um 14:11 schrieb Lars:

> On Mon, February 15, 2016 4:52 am, Chris Burrows wrote:
> 
>> See my previous message today about using a USB bridge for serial
>> transfers. Also, the Pepino can use both USB and JTAG for configuring the
>> FPGA
>> hardware. These additional hardware capabilities are transparent to the
>> operating system. Project Oberon just has to deal with the simple RS232
>> protocol.
> 
> So essentially it's a blackbox abstracted away, out of site, out of mind,
> and you don't "learn" about USB? i.e. hiding it under the rug, pretending
> it's RS232 when in fact there is a USB blackbox somewhere in there...
> 
> I'm okay with this, just wondering why Wirth is okay with that or Oberon
> folk are okay with it. I could also have it completely wrong.  i.e. at
> some point the USB has to be abstracted away and hidden from site, in
> order for oberon to work with usb without knowing much about usb - so in
> some sense it is a black box.  But how is that any different from a rasp
> pi with usb that no one really understands fully. are we just moving goal
> posts here and pretending this is an "ethical" usb choice?
> 
> It seems to be the ethics of oberon is that you have to understand all
> parts of the system.  Can you fully understand the Pepino USB system or is
> it just a hardwared blackbox?
> 
> Sorry for my ignorance, I'm still in the research stages of seeing how
> Pepino actually works. FPGA's are also quite confusing.
> 
>> 
>> We support five different RISC5 systems (including the Spartan-3 Starter
>> Kit
>> which is now only available second-hand) altogether. They are listed with
>> URLs linking to more information at:
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.astrobe.com/RISC5
> 
> 
> Thanks, it's helpful.
> 
> Regards
> --
> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
> https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon