14 Feb
2017
14 Feb
'17
10:13 a.m.
Personally, i don't care about lead free solder. I am quite happy with lead. Is there
a rohs requirement for small production, non profit, prototyping project?
________________________________
From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de>
Sent: Feb 14, 2017 11:54 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: New batch of pdp8 OMNIBUS to USB interface! Please Read and react!
Hi,
I'm interested. How much did a board from the
previous batch cost?
Was different. I first made a poll and sold a batch of boards
in my
online shop for a certain price. It was somewhere about 105 EUR without VAT.
After I received the payment, I made the boards and delivered them (I
announced exactly that procedere!!).
Later, as a few boards were left, I increased the price up to nearly EUR
200. I did it like with kickstarter - the people who trusted and funded
got it cheaper. The whole thing barely covered the costs btw.
And
will that be any indication of what the new boards price?
No, not really. But I
already have some rough idea.
The board will most probably be full size again. Reducing the size does
seems not to offer enough benefit with respect to the hassle of adding
enlargement afterwards.
After my poll it looks as if there will be the following options:
- Kit with full size board and SMT already soldered RoHS compliant.
This will most probably go for short under EUR 100 (without VAT where it
applies).
I have to check with the assembly house. This time I try not to sit
there and solder lead free SMD by hand for days. I like soldering SMT
but that lead-free stuff and masses of boards can get quite annoying.
The last boards were all hand soldered by me.
One problem could be the gold fingers: My usual board house finally
realized that their calculation tool was plain wrong when it charged me
extra EUR 1,50 per board for the hard gold fingers.
The board will be like the old ones but:
* some unused (upper bit) IC positions removed
* The diode stuff moved away from the edge (that was so stupid, sorry!)
* The USB connector will be moved away from the edge, I will think about
some holes to fix the cable using a strap. The USB will become mini USB.
- Wonderful handle/set of handles to attach to the board. Probably made
of milled wood, still thinking about it.
This will be extremely expensive, I have no idea yet. Perhaps EUR 30 per
"one piece" or set.
And if someone really insists, I will manually complete and test a
board. That would add another EUR 65 to the game. And perhaps an USB cable.
If I continue to sell boards in that way, it will take not even 5 more
years until it has paid for my Eagle 6 and 7 licenses..
Please continue to add to the doodle "calendar", if you are interested.
Kind regards,
Philipp
14 Feb
14 Feb
11:27 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 6:13 PM, W2HX <w2hx at w2hx.com> wrote:
Personally, i don't care about lead free solder. I
am quite happy with lead. Is
there a rohs requirement for small production, non profit, prototyping project?
Personally I _do_ care about lead free solder. I won't have it. The
fact that part
of this board comes pre-assembled with that horrible muck means I won't
even consider buying one.
-tony
11:45 a.m.
> Personally, i don't care about lead free
solder. I am quite happy with lead. Is
> there a rohs requirement for small production, non profit, prototyping project?
On Tue, 14 Feb 2017, Tony Duell wrote:
Personally I _do_ care about lead free solder. I
won't have it. The
fact that part
of this board comes pre-assembled with that horrible muck means I won't
even consider buying one.
I'm sure that it would be possible to special order an unsoldered one, if
ARD actually wants a pdp8 OMNIBUS to USB interface!
1:31 p.m.
On 14.02.2017 20:27, Tony Duell wrote:
Personally I _do_ care about lead free solder. I
won't have it.
I don't want it, too.
The
fact that part
of this board comes pre-assembled with that horrible muck means I won't
even consider buying one.
You will get a fresh board, no problem! ENIG gold, no tin, nothing
lead-free pre-applied - you can do what you like (and what lasts the best!).
But I don't know yet how I will preprogram the CPLD.
I am very sorry but it has really become illegal to use real 60/40
solder if you want to ship that stuff anywhere except the military.
1:36 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
But I don't know yet how I will preprogram the
CPLD.
What does it take to post-program the CPLD? SMT package aside, if
it's possible to install some flying wires going off to a device
programmer, which programmers would be able to load the CPLD in the
first place?
I am very sorry but it has really become illegal to
use real 60/40 solder if
you want to ship that stuff anywhere except the military.
Yeah... it's a real PITA. I've had several devices fail due to
mechanical impact (dropping) and RoHS solder fracturing.
-ethan
2:33 p.m.
What does it take to post-program the CPLD? SMT
package aside, if
it's possible to install some flying wires going off to a device
programmer, which programmers would be able to load the CPLD in the
first place?
The board has a programming header. So after soldering it's no problem.
You need a JTAG programming adapter that can be used by the Xilinx tools
(impact).
I use this one:
https://shop.trenz-electronic.de/en/24624-JTAG-HS2-Programming-Cable
Perhaps you can borrow one. The tools can be downloaded on the Xilinx
website. Then you are also able to alter the code and make the ting do
other stuff for you.
2:44 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 5:33 PM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
Perfect.
What does it
take to post-program the CPLD?
The board has a programming header. So after soldering it's no problem. You need a JTAG programming adapter that can be used
by the Xilinx tools
(impact).
I use this one:
https://shop.trenz-electronic.de/en/24624-JTAG-HS2-Programming-Cable
I have an older JTAG adapter that has, IIRC, a 2x5 header plug
Perhaps you can borrow one. The tools can be
downloaded on the Xilinx
website. Then you are also able to alter the code and make the ting do other
stuff for you.
Awesome. I'm definitely interested in the least amount of
pre-assembly. I've been burning PALs and GALs and EPROMs for over 30
years. I own several full-sized programmers, I just wasn't sure what
adapter this CPLD was happy with.
Thanks!
-ethan
1:21 p.m.
On 14.02.2017 19:13, W2HX wrote:
Personally, i don't care about lead free solder.
I care about lead: It's essential!
Is there a rohs requirement for small production, non
profit, prototyping project?
Yes. At least here: You are not allowed to put anything
on the market
which is not RoHS conform. And "putting on the market", in german
"inverkehrbringen" does explicitly not mean "large quantity, for profit
etc." Even doing it for fun and giving the product away for free is not
allowed. With that they want to catch the smart people who try to sell
kits and assemble them for free afterwards.
BTW the OmniUSB is NOT a non profit project!! I have to admit that! It
gives me some funding for my Eagle license and workshop equipment. But
not that much. And it does actually not cover a fraction of the
development work. So it's for fun on the one hand but officially run by
my small business on the other hand.
The CPLD and board design are not secret...
Kind regards
Philipp :-)
________________________________
From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de>
Sent: Feb 14, 2017 11:54 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: New batch of pdp8 OMNIBUS to USB interface! Please Read and react!
Hi,
--
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten
Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
philipp at hachtmann.com
www.tiegeldruck.de
facebook.com/buchdruck
UStdID DE 202668329
I'm interested. How much did a board from the
previous batch cost?
Was different. I first made a poll and sold a batch of boards
in my
online shop for a certain price. It was somewhere about 105 EUR without VAT.
After I received the payment, I made the boards and delivered them (I
announced exactly that procedere!!).
Later, as a few boards were left, I increased the price up to nearly EUR
200. I did it like with kickstarter - the people who trusted and funded
got it cheaper. The whole thing barely covered the costs btw.
And
will that be any indication of what the new boards price?
No, not really. But I
already have some rough idea.
The board will most probably be full size again. Reducing the size does
seems not to offer enough benefit with respect to the hassle of adding
enlargement afterwards.
After my poll it looks as if there will be the following options:
- Kit with full size board and SMT already soldered RoHS compliant.
This will most probably go for short under EUR 100 (without VAT where it
applies).
I have to check with the assembly house. This time I try not to sit
there and solder lead free SMD by hand for days. I like soldering SMT
but that lead-free stuff and masses of boards can get quite annoying.
The last boards were all hand soldered by me.
One problem could be the gold fingers: My usual board house finally
realized that their calculation tool was plain wrong when it charged me
extra EUR 1,50 per board for the hard gold fingers.
The board will be like the old ones but:
* some unused (upper bit) IC positions removed
* The diode stuff moved away from the edge (that was so stupid, sorry!)
* The USB connector will be moved away from the edge, I will think about
some holes to fix the cable using a strap. The USB will become mini USB.
- Wonderful handle/set of handles to attach to the board. Probably made
of milled wood, still thinking about it.
This will be extremely expensive, I have no idea yet. Perhaps EUR 30 per
"one piece" or set.
And if someone really insists, I will manually complete and test a
board. That would add another EUR 65 to the game. And perhaps an USB cable.
If I continue to sell boards in that way, it will take not even 5 more
years until it has paid for my Eagle 6 and 7 licenses..
Please continue to add to the doodle "calendar", if you are interested.
Kind regards,
Philipp
3:45 p.m.
Not sure if you are aware, but FYI - Malcolm MacLeod with some
involvement from Kyle Owen, Jack Rubin, and others ported your code to a
ATF1508 CPLD with a minimal test board. I believe the longer term plan
was to make a full featured community project from it, but it's stalled
a bit atm. You can find the code repo here:
https://github.com/malmacleod/omni-serial [1]
And the Eagle files for the minimal test board here:
https://www.retrotronics.org/svn/omniserial/ [2]
All 5V PTH with minimal component count. However the FTDI micro-USB DE-9
shell connector violates the component height requirements. But it could
be sub'd for a 6 pin header and USB serial cable.
-Alan
On 2017-02-14 16:21, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
On 14.02.2017 19:13, W2HX wrote:
Links:
------
[1] https://github.com/malmacleod/omni-serial
[2] https://www.retrotronics.org/svn/omniserial/
Personally, i don't care about lead free
solder.
I care about lead: It's essential!
Is there a rohs requirement for small production,
non profit, prototyping project?
Yes. At least here: You are not allowed to put
anything on the market which is not RoHS conform. And "putting on the market",
in german "inverkehrbringen" does explicitly not mean "large quantity, for
profit etc." Even doing it for fun and giving the product away for free is not
allowed. With that they want to catch the smart people who try to sell kits and assemble
them for free afterwards.
BTW the OmniUSB is NOT a non profit project!! I have to admit that! It gives me some
funding for my Eagle license and workshop equipment. But not that much. And it does
actually not cover a fraction of the development work. So it's for fun on the one hand
but officially run by my small business on the other hand.
The CPLD and board design are not secret...
Kind regards
Philipp :-)
15 Feb
15 Feb
5:55 a.m.
On 02/15/2017 12:45 AM, Alan Hightower wrote:
Not sure if you are aware, but FYI - Malcolm MacLeod
with some
involvement from Kyle Owen, Jack Rubin, and others ported your code to a
ATF1508 CPLD with a minimal test board.
Oh, ah! I looked into their github and the
README.md.
There is a copy of the GPLv3 and as it looks no source code. And no hint
that they used code from me.
That would NOT be ok!!!
Even if I have disclosed the source code, I have not licensed it under
GPLv3 or put it into the public domain. It's a copyrighted work and I am
the author. And the code is currently not licensed to anyone. And nobody
but me has the right to license that code or parts of it to anyone.
That rant only to be clear... How something like that should happen:
1. Ask the author to license the stuff under a free license like GPL
(I probably would do that!)
2. Start own project, copy and reuse as much or little as desired.
The new project's license *must* be compatible to the license of the
used other code.
You have to mention the original author ("based on ... by...", "in parts
based on ... by ...").
I believe the longer term plan
was to make a full featured community project from it, but it's stalled
a bit atm.
Why?!? To have a single board KL8E replacement? Which it actually is.
OmniUSB's strong points are the following:
- HIGH speed
- No baudrate setting
- Direct USB connection
- Special instructions to use really tight loops.
- USB FIFO solution implicitely double buffered AND locked on both
sides: As long as you obey the teleprinter flag on the 8, you cannot
create a buffer overrun and lose data. On the PC's side you access the
device with usual blocking I/O. You can't write more data when the PDP8
has not read from the FIFO. Therefore no single byte lost without
thinking about it.
Example: PDP8 does a disk dump. PC program is stopped. The pdp8 waits.
Example: PC is sending a huge block of data to the pdp8. It just writes
as fast as possible. The pdp8 is stopped for an our during the
transmission. No byte is lost.
Using traditional RS232 somewhere in between is just stupid bullshit. It
completely spoils the beauty of the idea.
Of course one could add an FTDI 240x FIFO (NOT!!! NOT!!! UART!!!!) to
the design - then it would be equivalent to OmniUSB.
But why should one make another design? Through hole parts?!? We're
living in the 21st century! The company where I want to bring the stuff
for soldering just told me that they usually don't stock that old and
clumsy 0805 components by default...
Soldering a 200 pin TQFP is easier than doing some wire wrap connections
and takes 4 minutes if you are UNexperienced. SMT soldering is easier
than THT if you have done it for more than one half hour! (Of course
with SMT you're on the way to really difficult stuff, but that's not
part of the discussion)
They just should have asked me about cooperation :-)
7:24 a.m.
Perhaps I was unclear. It is not a direct port. It was inspired by your
board during a road-trip to VCF-E to make an easier-to-assemble design.
There is obviously no FT245 support. And just about any implementation
of logic responding as a KL8E would look very similar. The code is
available under MAIN.pld on the previous link.
The design uses a UART and can be run up to 230 Kbps and tested up to
460 Kbps. It runs faster than the original hardware. The UART design
certainly has limitations as you point out. But it is still an
improvement on the original DEC serial hardware which most people still
use. The design goals of this board are not the same as yours.
It was designed to be easy to assemble without SMT. While I personally
agree with your SMT comments, most people do have problems soldering
.5mm pitch leaded components - as evidenced by the number of new-run
orders you have taken. The ATF1508 was chosen after noticing it's data
sheet revealed it could source the current requirements of the omnibus;
a rare thing.
Using traditional RS232 somewhere in between is just
stupid bullshit. It completely spoils the beauty of the idea. But why should one make
another design? Through hole parts?!?
They just should have asked me about cooperation :-)
After your reaction, clearly... Look, no one is trying to step on toes.
It's an alternative project and fully open source. I do not belive it's
existence is harming you or the community. After reviewing the code, if
you still believe there is an outstanding IP credit issue, we will
resolve it. It is clearly NOT a derived work and does not warrant a
derived license.
Thanks Phil,
-Alan
On 2017-02-15 08:55, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
On 02/15/2017 12:45 AM, Alan Hightower wrote:
Not sure if you are aware, but FYI - Malcolm
MacLeod with some
involvement from Kyle Owen, Jack Rubin, and others ported your code to a
ATF1508 CPLD with a minimal test board.
Oh, ah! I looked into their github and the
README.md.
There is a copy of the GPLv3 and as it looks no source code. And no hint that they used
code from me.
That would NOT be ok!!!
Even if I have disclosed the source code, I have not licensed it under GPLv3 or put it
into the public domain. It's a copyrighted work and I am the author. And the code is
currently not licensed to anyone. And nobody but me has the right to license that code or
parts of it to anyone.
That rant only to be clear... How something like that should happen:
1. Ask the author to license the stuff under a free license like GPL
(I probably would do that!)
2. Start own project, copy and reuse as much or little as desired.
The new project's license *must* be compatible to the license of the used other
code.
You have to mention the original author ("based on ... by...", "in parts
based on ... by ...").
I believe the longer term plan
was to make a full featured community project from it, but it's stalled
a bit atm.
Why?!? To have a single board KL8E replacement? Which it actually is.
OmniUSB's strong points are the following:
- HIGH speed
- No baudrate setting
- Direct USB connection
- Special instructions to use really tight loops.
- USB FIFO solution implicitely double buffered AND locked on both sides: As long as you
obey the teleprinter flag on the 8, you cannot create a buffer overrun and lose data. On
the PC's side you access the device with usual blocking I/O. You can't write more
data when the PDP8 has not read from the FIFO. Therefore no single byte lost without
thinking about it.
Example: PDP8 does a disk dump. PC program is stopped. The pdp8 waits.
Example: PC is sending a huge block of data to the pdp8. It just writes as fast as
possible. The pdp8 is stopped for an our during the transmission. No byte is lost.
Using traditional RS232 somewhere in between is just stupid bullshit. It completely
spoils the beauty of the idea.
Of course one could add an FTDI 240x FIFO (NOT!!! NOT!!! UART!!!!) to the design - then
it would be equivalent to OmniUSB.
But why should one make another design? Through hole parts?!? We're living in the
21st century! The company where I want to bring the stuff for soldering just told me that
they usually don't stock that old and clumsy 0805 components by default...
Soldering a 200 pin TQFP is easier than doing some wire wrap connections and takes 4
minutes if you are UNexperienced. SMT soldering is easier than THT if you have done it for
more than one half hour! (Of course with SMT you're on the way to really difficult
stuff, but that's not part of the discussion)
They just should have asked me about cooperation :-)
8:13 a.m.
Hi,
On 02/15/2017 04:24 PM, Alan Hightower wrote:
Perhaps I was unclear. It is not a direct port. It was
inspired by your
board during a road-trip to VCF-E to make an easier-to-assemble design.
Ah, ok.
There is obviously no FT245 support. And just about
any implementation
of logic responding as a KL8E would look very similar. The code is
available under MAIN.pld on the previous link.
Oh, I did not see that. No, that
file has nothing to do with my source.
I have never seen that strange language. I only use VHDL (and verilog if
I'm forced to) for logic descriptions... So this .pld looked like some
binary for me. OK, I even didn't know that there are Atmel CPLDs.
The design uses a UART and can be run up to 230 Kbps
and tested up to
460 Kbps. It runs faster than the original hardware. The UART design
certainly has limitations as you point out.
The speed does not matter. There it exactly one fault: The design uses
an UART. The qualities or speed of the UART are irrelevant. But it's too
slow, of course.
But it is still an
improvement on the original DEC serial hardware which most people still
use.
The design goals of this board are not the same as yours.
Probably :-)
I have to admit that I don't understand the design goal: Why should one
*not* want to use a KL8<something> serial board? I like it very much and
use some of them from 110 baud to 19200 baud.
I use them only as terminal connection.
So I see no use case for a however improved serial card - except when
you don't have a KL8E. But that's a very theoretical assumption.
When I design something to be used with vintage hardware, I usually
think of it as an addition instead of a replacement. I use OmniUSB IN
ADDITION to KL8E. At the same time, of course. Console over KL8E, high
speed data communication <-> PC over OmniUSB. I use it with Kermit,
dumprest etc.
It's of course also possible to have several OmniUSB boards in the
system :-)
It was designed to be easy to assemble without SMT.
While I personally
agree with your SMT comments, most people do have problems soldering
.5mm pitch leaded components -
Yes, that's because they just did not try at all. They're stuck with the
idea that they would have to solder the stuff pin by pin with a
microscopic soldering tip. But I use a big reservoir tip. And then it's
REALLY becoming easy! I also belonged to the fraction that thought it
would be somehow impossible to solder TQFP and friends. Until I tried
it. That was the day I started to forget about which THT components I
could have laying around. With normal SMT and 0805 resistors I am
completely happy.
The ATF1508 was chosen after noticing it's data
sheet revealed it could source the current requirements of the omnibus;
a rare thing.
Yes, really.
After your reaction, clearly... Look, no one is trying
to step on toes.
I did not expect that. Don't worry! I just wanted point out how
things
in that area are handled properly.
I'm working in the software business and that kind of thought is part of
my day job.
One should also be aware of the difference between public domain, open
source, free software and the different license models and have an
understanding of the applicable rights and obligations.
Kind regards
Philipp
2867
days inactive
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12 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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alan＠alanlee.org -
ard.p850ug1＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
hachti＠hachti.de -
w2hx＠w2hx.com