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

[Jörg Straube]

My view:
The Pepino board is designed as USB "client" to be controlled by a computer with an USB "host". 
Being able to connect USB mice, keyboards, printers, memory sticks or webcams (in short USB clients) to the Pepino board, I would need - apart from the driver SW someone has to write or port - a different USB HW.

This could be solved with an additional card and some pins for connection. Just as an example of the type of USB HW that would be needed:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoUSBHostShield

Jörg

> Am 15.02.2016 um 20:51 schrieb Ulrich Hoffmann <uho at xlerb.de>:
> 
> 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
> 
> --
> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
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