I think the same thing. If you look at all the PDAs on th market, they are value-less without third party support. It would seem silly to base the PDA around some fixed processor architect that will always run into some limitation with some specific application. What about a PDA based around a low cost high density CPLD. I already have a basic hardware design finished---was curious though to see the interest since cutting a board would be expensive for what might be an experiment. Most sizeable CPLD/FPGAs only come in BGA footprints, which means board development might be around a thousand. However I for that money I could get a handful of boards built. If theres willingness to share the cost I'd be interested in pursuing this further. The idea would be to come up with the VHDL code of a processor core with an LCD controller (routed out of the CPLD to an actual LCD), a touchscreen and button interface, and some extras like speakers/jack, a mic, and maybe a IRDA pair. What do you think? Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ingo Maindorfer ingo@l... > To: openrisc@o... Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:47:55 +0100 Subject: [openrisc] Open PDA

Hi. I think an FPGA based PDA is a great idea in principal. I'm glad you've published the idea here. I've been worrying that someone would try to patent it. The only down-side I see is battery life, but compared to running Windows CE and driving a bright color display, it's possible that the FPGA might not dominate the power draw. The PDA probably needs to have a lithium-ion battery. Add a small perpheral slot, and you've got a pretty flexible system. Bill Wronka@optonline.net wrote:

I think you would want an FPGA and not a CPLD. OpenRISC is a great core to use, but I think it is verilog only right now (maybe you can use a verilog to VHDL translator). I've been looking into how to make a design with a CPLD, FPGA and a micro disk drive. The CPLD would read the FPGA code from the disk drive and JTAG program the FPGA. Then the CPLD would work as a hd controller and boot linux for the OpenRISC core. I know how to do the JTAG programming and translate the files from Xilinx tools. I don't understand EXT2 yet and I'm looking into that. I'd like to use the HD's from Cornice (http://www.corniceco.com/). When it comes out it will be 1.5 Gb and cost around $70. If anyone knows about how to make a core that reads EXT2 partitions and can search for and load a specific file (the FPGA image), please let me know. This type of project could be used for rapid prototypeing an ASIC, a robust PDA or as a base for any low-volume production. Thanks, Brian P.S. The CPLD will work like the System ACE chip from Xilinx. -----Original Message----- From: openrisc-bounces@opencores.org on behalf of Wronka@optonline.net Sent: Wed 12/10/2003 9:10 AM To: openrisc@opencores.org Cc: Subject: Re: [openrisc] Open PDA I think the same thing. If you look at all the PDAs on th market, they are value-less without third party support. It would seem silly to base the PDA around some fixed processor architect that will always run into some limitation with some specific application. What about a PDA based around a low cost high density CPLD. I already have a basic hardware design finished---was curious though to see the interest since cutting a board would be expensive for what might be an experiment. Most sizeable CPLD/FPGAs only come in BGA footprints, which means board development might be around a thousand. However I for that money I could get a handful of boards built. If theres willingness to share the cost I'd be interested in pursuing this further. The idea would be to come up with the VHDL code of a processor core with an LCD controller (routed out of the CPLD to an actual LCD), a touchscreen and button interface, and some extras like speakers/jack, a mic, and maybe a IRDA pair. What do you think? Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ingo Maindorfer ingo@l... > To: openrisc@o... Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 13:47:55 +0100 Subject: [openrisc] Open PDA _______________________________________________ http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/openrisc

on gate arrays would work well. When I was experimenting with the openrisc,
I never was able to synthesize beyond 25Mhz.

To me a better solution would be to use a dedicated cpu and
put the FPGA on the bus and be accessible by DMA.
Basically allow the dedicated cpu to do what it does best
and use the FPGA to do what it does best.

At 06:10 PM 12/10/2003 +0100, you wrote:

and

me
The easiest way is to fix this image to a specific space on the harddisk. Preferably the very first byte on the disk. Reading it from there isn't that hard, as all parameters are fixed. You will use LBA encoding, which is much simpler than CHS. Use a statemachine to program the harddisk and read the data (PIO mode). Note that a single sector on a harddisk is fixed as 512bytes. The OS data would start at the next sector. Your OS, or the harddisk controller, should take into account that the first sector is not useable. You guys should also take a look at the dragonix project. That might be a good starting point: http://dragonix.openhardware.net It's a Motorola Dragonball based PDA like device. The FPGA is loaded with OpenCores IPs. OS is uClinux 2.4. Richard

I think that I will take a different approach. I will put a hd on the board, a large Xilinx FPGA and an epprom. The FPGA will be able to program it's own epprom whenever that is needed. It is easier to impliment this. -Brian -----Original Message----- From: openrisc-bounces@opencores.org on behalf of Richard Herveille Sent: Thu 12/11/2003 12:36 AM To: 'List about OpenRISC cores,free microprocessors' Cc: Subject: RE: [openrisc] Open PDA
and

me
The easiest way is to fix this image to a specific space on the harddisk. Preferably the very first byte on the disk. Reading it from there isn't that hard, as all parameters are fixed. You will use LBA encoding, which is much simpler than CHS. Use a statemachine to program the harddisk and read the data (PIO mode). Note that a single sector on a harddisk is fixed as 512bytes. The OS data would start at the next sector. Your OS, or the harddisk controller, should take into account that the first sector is not useable. You guys should also take a look at the dragonix project. That might be a good starting point: http://dragonix.openhardware.net It's a Motorola Dragonball based PDA like device. The FPGA is loaded with OpenCores IPs. OS is uClinux 2.4. Richard _______________________________________________ http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/openrisc -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 3216 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.opencores.org/forums/openrisc/attachments/20031211/7596a3bf/attachment.bin