On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 11:34 AM, W2HX <w2hx at w2hx.com> wrote: Me too. I was also slightly curious, but I have a pile of mini USB cables from external drives, a ZipIt palmtop texting device, and even my ZoomFloppy, so I'm all set there. I don't mind a dedicated cable sticking out of my PDP-8. -ethan

On 13 February 2017 at 19:10, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: Well, it's not _only_ that, but it's part of it. Apple led the way with its symmetrical Lightning connector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector) This introduced millions of customers to a USB-sized single plug for data, audio & power that could go into its socket either way. That "primed the pump". Then a design student published a, well, um, a design for a USB plug that could go in either way: http://dornob.com/double-sided-usb-solves-painfully-universal-design-proble… This was widely admired and discussed, or as they say now, "went viral". I think some companies implemented it but it violates the USB formal spec. (Not that that bothers the cheapo vendors -- e.g. I have both external hard disks and a laptop cooling stand that both take a USB *A* to *A* cable. I.e. the computer-end connector on both ends. This is highly illegal -- you could connect 2 computers directly and blow at least one of them up thereby -- but nobody enforces the rules.) The bi-directional plug and Lightning both demonstrated that this was desirable, possible, and that there was demand. Also, there were the bodges of USB 3 extensions to the micro-USB spec such as this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#/media/File:Connector_USB_3_IMGP6033_… ... and this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#/media/File:USB-3.0-Stecker_(Typ_B).j… And commentary such as this: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/4696874/galaxy-note-3-usb-3-0-power-connec… Sort of Siamese-twin double connectors -- big and ugly and a very visible kludge. Something Had To Be Done. USB C is the result. And although owners and prospective owners of the new MacBook Pro laptops are complaining widely that they *only* have USB-C ports, it's actually a good thing, IMHO. As this eloquently explains: https://medium.com/@ageitgey/the-new-macbook-pro-is-kind-of-great-for-hacke… The higher-end MacBook Pro has 4 of them -- *and nothing else*. You can plug the power cable into any of them. Doesn't matter. Plug a display in to any of them. Doesn't matter. Phone, memory stick, wired network cable, docking station. Any port. Doesn't matter. Plug the power supply into the MacBook, the MacBook charges. Plug the same cable into your phone, the phone charges. Plug the phone into the MacBook -- same cable -- the phone charges and syncs. I really like the idea of a small silent computer that's got a bunch of ports and anything plugs into anything. 2 or 3 screens? Just works. Sync several phones? Just works. Where's the power socket? There isn't one. Plug it in anywhere. If it fits, it works, either way round. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

FWIW, Mini-B connectors are on their way out, nor USB OTG compliant. Though agreed that they are flimsy... Why not just a type A or something? Easy, big, and robust.

This is a peripheral. USB OTG doesn't apply, and USB-A would be "inappropriate". Pretend this is an inkjet printer. What plug would you expect to find on that? A type B plug.

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:09 AM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: Indeed, but as far as USB is concerned, there's more similarity than difference. Interesting. Thanks. Yes. Footprint only. And I love the idea of holes in the board to strap down the cable. As for the connector placement on the original board, I'm thinking it's fine for the -8/e/f/m, but it might be in an awkward place for an -8/a. What you have been describing for this new board sounds like it will be good for both (conveniently for me, I have both types of boxes...) Thanks! -ethan

On Tue, 14 Feb 2017, Chris Elmquist wrote: ("blue-ribbon") A DB25 Howzbout a DE-9? Original style USB-B

On 2/14/2017 6:27 AM, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote: Why not mini and regular? Ben. PS: Add a 45.5 baud serail port. Control everything with a 5 level TTY. :)

On 14.02.2017 20:09, Ethan Dicks wrote: A model 19? I have some model 28 ASR and KSR (ASCII), and of course 33. And some Lorenz Lo15 which are license built model 15s. Like them a lot. Are you sure that it's 45.5 baud?!? The normal telex networks operates on 50 baud. 45.5 baud is for RTTY. A normal UART16550 can at least output 5N2 at 50 baud (yes, two stop bits!!) and of course 8n2 at 110 baud for the ASCII teletypes... I also could just hook up another teleprinter off my shelf of teleprinters. Two or three of my machines can be seen working in the movie Operation Valkyrie with Tom Cruise :-) But I lost track which ones in the room. Not all were working so the machines were moved without the covers several times. In the end they were sorted, of course... :-)

On 14.02.2017 22:36, W2HX wrote: Wow :-)

On 14.02.2017 22:18, geneb wrote: The 45 baud machines do NOT run on 20mA. They usually run on 40mA :-) 20mA is the domain of model 28, 32, 33 etc.

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 10:01 AM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: KiCad has no affiliation to Arduino; in fact, it's being heavily maintained by CERN. I don't suppose you've had a need to being an Eagle guy, but have you tried out KiCad before? With the licensing model Eagle has just moved to, alternatives like KiCad sure seem attractive. Why are you bent out of shape over the Arduino community? It seems clear to me that teenagers growing up with them will outgrow the language and hardware limitations and move onto more advanced things before starting their careers. I think one could make a decent analogy to BASIC on many 8-bit microcomputers from decades past. Kyle

On 17.02.2017 17:21, Kyle Owen wrote: But wherever I (!) look, in my part of the universe, a strongly biased and personal view, I see only those Arduino folks using it. Might be different in other places, but... The new Eagle license model is a mess. I will stick to my Eagle 7. The idea of my little board designs being held hostage by a company somewhere is not good. And when the day has come that I can't go with the then old Eagle anymore and the licensing has not been repaired, then I will think about alternatives. Perhaps then KiCAD has already changed into the greatest EDA tool ever made. Easy: If I had the impression that it is like you write, I'd be totally fine with it! But back in those days with BASIC it was easier to take the next step. If you want to go further beyond Arduino, you will have to instantly understand a huge amount of stuff. In my opinion the learning step from using a fancy Arduino library to understanding/modifying/writing another is too big. In BASIC it started with little things like peek and poke. There was no hidden C++ :-)

On 19.02.2017 12:15, Holm Tiffe wrote: Yes, I have some Arduino nano flying around. I even sometimes use their bootloader.

On 17.02.2017 17:55, Jon Elson wrote: :-) By the way my handmade prototype with three CPLDs (I ordered the wrong pincount) had CoolRunner II. I then switched to the old one because the IO voltage compatibility. I was unsure if I could connect TTL IN(!!!)-puts to the pins without degrading the chip too much: TTL inputs go up to 5V when they are left floating. I was simply not sure if the CoolRunner pins are properly protected against that. So I chose the safe option.

Just to add my $0.02 to this conversation. I?m an Eagle (professional) user for well over a decade. The issue the Phillip mentioned about footprints and designs is real. On my last design I decided to give KiCAD a try and quickly realized that the large libraries of parts and footprints I have would have to be completely re-done. That made the bar too high to switch. Most of my designs use footprints that I have developed or are readily available. Also, many new parts vendors supply Eagle libraries for their parts so I don?t have to develop them. I haven?t seen anything for KiCAD regarding that?which means even more work for me. Tool lock-in is a real phenomenon not just for the ?wet-ware? but also for all of the parts libraries that exist for the tools (either vendor, community or self developed). So without a support infrastructure for parts libraries, a tool is just a ?toy? regardless of how good the underlying implementation is. In terms of community supplied libraries, Eagle has those too and I?ve found that by and large they are junk (it?s easier/quicker for me to create a part on my own than to try and figure out what bizarre thing the contributor actually did and I still need to check it anyway). While I haven?t seen a lot of KiCAD contributed libraries (that?s part of the problem) I have no expectation that they would be better than the Eagle contributed libraries. TTFN - Guy

Alan Hightower wrote: Who should made those tools if not the people that needs them ..eg. you? And why you think should KiCad priorize your wishes over new features or the others? YOU want this, do it. I'm not a full time layouter but that KiCad thing fits my needs very well. I can do commercial stuff w/o pay thousend Dollars to someone to have a software handy (not for owning it like before Autodesk was the owner) that connects every now and then to a license Server on the net... ..and is doing what exactly? Nothanks. For sure there are many things still todo for the KiCad people, but this nose high attitude "thats vor arduino people only" is the wrong thing for sure.. (german saying: Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall) It could do much much more and much better than what you pay for it. I had a KiCad development version for approx a year running on my FreeBSD Host that I'm using for my delay work, updated for a week or so and I can say de biggest difference to the previous version is a well sorted and big footprint libraryw with many additional 3D Extensions! Maybe you should have a look again. I've used the predecessor of KiCad's PCBnew (simply PCB) before KiCad, it had no Schematics Editor but could use Netlists, wasn't restriced in PCB sizes and could do 6 layers (more than I ever would need). I've done footprints on my own in the past..so what? Do you want to know how eagles UI feels from my point of view? Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 info at tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Philipp Hachtmann wrote: ..and this is simply wrong. Most eagle users are complaining aboZ ut a not so tight coupling between the schematic symbols and the footprint (which you can change in the schematic editor or in a program called cvpcb) and this is a entirely different thing. yes .. but from far away. :-) To this times I've used Orcad on a Robotron EC1834 :-) It don't even had a mice, I've managed to use a graphics tablet (K6405) for that but it wasn't rally neccessary. Nevertheless, I don't think that I want to push you to use KiCad, but you _really_ should change your attitude about it. This isn't really playing stuff for kids anymore.. simply watch some of the youtube videos explainig that push and shove router, that is a really nice thing I don't want to miss anymore. For sure you will find out that KiCad isn't eagle, but it never wanted it to be.. Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 info at tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741

A while ago I went looking for 3D CAD again, after giving up on TurboCAD in disgust. Found FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org). Works on Mac, Windows, Linux. It's a computational solid geometry program. One of the interesting features is a Python API; the model I created (Rolf Nelson's spaceship) is 5000 lines of Python. It also has a GUI, of course; I went the Python approach because it let me construct stuff numerically with ease. It also let me customize the export machinery for POVray output. paul

On 02/19/2017 04:28 PM, Paul Koning wrote: Several of the guys at work are using FreeCAD and doing great stuff with it. Jon

I am so sorry that I use Eagle! Please let us stop this discussion. It's just a tool. And KiCAD is another tool. I currently use Eagle and that's it.

Thanks, Peter! Here it's way not as bad as on the Linux Kernel mailing list... I once came up with some nice additions to the ftdi usb serial driver. Reaction was something like "Do it right! Now!" The "right" was only a question how the thing should be controlled from the system's perspective. I only added functionality and a simple sysfs interface. But that was not enough. They wanted it to be attached to the GPIO framework (which I still consider unsuitable for the issue). Instead of taking my changes and staying with the wish that there should be even more stuff added, it was refused and I lost interest in upstreaming my mega-speed patch. But I will produce my board (again). Withe xc9572xl and Eagle and without Arduino. Whoever wants a different board, can make/derive one afterwards. Kind regards Philipp -- 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 UStdID DE 202668329

Philipp Hachtmann wrote: Thanks for the flowers :-) Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 info at tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Philipp, On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote: I tend to agree with Jay here. It would be great to have a way of expanding the board. From your standpoint, the advantage might be larger volumes. I was ready to order and then thought about what I would do with it. I have a high speed serial interface (RX8E) and that works for me. What I would like to have is a way to experiment with some other peripherals that I will never have and see how to virtualize them in an FPGA or CPLD. Of course that is your prerogative. I respect that this is real and not some paper design that gets discussed forever and comes to nothing. I also see all that board area with nothing on it and think why not populate it with a layout for some other things. What I am wishing for are Omnibus and Unibus adapters to an FPGA. Regards, -chuck http://www.chdickman.com/

On 2/17/2017 10:01 AM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: The thanks was for your effort. The hope that it works out was to say that I hope that you decide to make some more and sell them, which seems uncertain at this point. I knew you had used an CPLD in the first version, but I had no idea what you intended to do for the next one. That was why I wrote CPLD/FPGA. That was why I specifically wrote *shield*. There are a lot of SPI interface boards out there, and if there were a little room in the chip to handle an Omnibus/SPI interface, a lot could conceivably be done with it. Examples: SD Cards, Ethernet and so on. I understand, and have no problem with that as a philosophy. The why was that, before today, I had not realized that there might be tools to convert from Eagle to KiCAD, which made Eagle files of no use to me. As others have since pointed out, KiCAD has nothing whatsoever to do with Arduino. Others have addressed its strengths and weaknesses. In my case, the comment stemmed from perhaps wanting to take you hardware design, and adapt it for other purposes, without having to start from scratch. Thanks again.