No Subject

[jfox@xxxxxxxxxx (Jeff Fox)]

Dear MISC readers:

Eugene Leitl <Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> wrote to MISC saying:

>I have been unable to reach Jeff/Chuck lately, had anybody more luck? Any 
>inside info, how the iTv box is progressing, somebody?

The iTV box is coming along well.  We are finishing up the i21 for
the first product.  We have an integrated web browser and
email application, and are completing the first release product.

>  In http://www.dnai.com/~jfox/f21stat.html Jeff states:
>
>  "A limited number of F21b prototype chips and F21 PCBv1 are available
>   from Ultra Technology".
>
>Has anybody ordered/used these? What was your experience so far?

No.

>What I need:

>- a PAL output (NTSC is useless in Europe, I know MuP21 can do PAL in
  theory)
>- a standard PC keyboard input
>- a serial port (best 2 x RS232, but I'd settle for one)
>- some kind of mass storage, e.g. a flash memory card
>- some digital I/O lines
>- a small prototype area (optional)

>Does the Offete system qualify?

I think so.  PAL is just a different oscillator and slightly different
video program.  Just modify the OK code that creates the video coprocessor
code to create PAL video.   Chuck once said it could not be perfect
because he would have needed a 1/4 pixel delay to get a perfect PAL,
but bottom line is try it, get as close as you can and see how it
looks.

Offete's board for the plcc MuP21h has a serial input for keyboard,
and a serial i/o port.  Instead of decoding 8 bits of parallel input
and output as Dr. Ting did on the first two boards, this one
interfaces an 8251 serial chip into the sram address space.  The
serial circuit is driven from an oscilator and is solid.  It does
not experience the problem of speed drift throwing off a bit-banged
serial i/o.
The mass storage is the PC at the end of the serial cable.  Or you
could interface to the ROM memory.  You can jumper a pcmcia socket
to the ROM socket and add _WE.  Then you can use RAM/PROM/one-time/
FRAM/ or whatever cards in place of or in addition to the ROM.
However loading could become  a problem if you place too many
devices to be driven off the MuP21 memory connect signals.
You can decode devices into the memory spaces with the above
restrictions.
I think there is some prototyping area, but I don't have one of the
latest MuP21 boards so I am not sure.

In some ways the new P21 board is similar to the iTV board in that
it has keyboard, serial, video, and some other stuff built in.

>Thanks a lot in advance,
>-- Eugene

Jeff Fox

jeff@itvcorp.com       the iTV Corporation
jfox@netcom.com        Ultra Technology Inc.
jfox@dnai.com
http://www.dnai.com/~jfox