SCSI replacements (was Re: Data General computer)

On Dec 2, 2011, at 3:09 AM, Eric Smith wrote: I don't find them generally undesirable (we've used them in projects, too), but their voltage rails aren't as flexible. Perhaps I'm overthinking it (a result of too many projects where the rails got out of hand). I'm actually having a hard time remembering now what in particular I was thinking about as far as problems with the Stellaris. Their ROMed drivers are a nice feature, and the built-in PHY is pretty handy. I guess it's probably a result of too many unfortunate interactions with TI's support on other projects. They have a nasty habit (probably from experience, but still) of assuming that if you're asking for the datasheet for something, you're going to be calling their engineers up for support all the time. We had an outdoor wildlife camera project where the requirement was booting from a cold start and take a picture in under a second. Not entirely unreasonable if you're running on bare metal. TI had one of their media processing chips with an embedded JPEG engine, and I asked for the datasheet to that part (which was unreleased). They told me to just "use the provided Linux driver", regardless of my protestations that that wasn't really an option for something that needed to boot in a second. Anyway, long-winded rant. The Stellaris parts are fine, I think I just have some negative associations with TI support that color my thinking. :-) - Dave