Thread
SuperDuoHack Brainstorming Session =8-D
If you do that to yours then I will have to get a Duo for myself. 
Nab a few anyway, they're a lot of fun to play around with and they don't take up much space, or $ for that matter!If you do that to yours then I will have to get a Duo for myself.
As I said before, I've moved on to hacking modern open-source software, components/appropriate SBC (or two) into the Plastic enclosure of my favorite computer of all time. I'm keeping both hack notions alive in this thread, fishin' for Duo converts and any info/ideas/help available for either project.
BTW, the FastBusHijackHack™ would be a perfect fit for a 1400/G-3!
I guess this thread may be morphing into a three pronged offensive! :
¡Ay carumba! My brain hurts just contemplating that. And it does make one wonder, if you have to go all that effort, why bother with the 603e/G3 at all? Which is obviously the conclusion you reached, too
On the other hand, the uh ... relatively simple G3 transplant (leaving the rest of the Duo as is) still seems like it's worth pursuing, and applicable to the 1400 and 5300 as well.
Perhaps a useful way to experiment with the transplant would be to practise on the replaceable 603e CPU modules from the 1400? Then at least if it stuffs up, you're not losing an entire Powerbook - just try again with another module
The cacheless 117MHz modules are essentially disposable - heck, I'll donate one or two myself. Once working, you can try the same method on a 5300, before moving on to the 2300.Your enthusiasm is admirable, but you are aware of the fact that the flash (NAND) in an SD card absolutely cannot substitute for RAM memory, right?
Exactly, which is why . . .
] ]'>
As I said, this is just brainstorming in this thread, especially as regards the Mac OS DuoMoBoHack approach. I'm very committed to working out the "carrier board/SBC(s) approach" to an ubuntuCentricDuoHack™
Using some modern RAM on the same card with battery backup as a RAM Disk, would help to alleviate chiplet wear-n-tear, make bootup supersonic, and using some of it as L? Cache probably wouldn't hurt system performance much either. [
] ]'>As I said, this is just brainstorming in this thread, especially as regards the Mac OS DuoMoBoHack approach. I'm very committed to working out the "carrier board/SBC(s) approach" to an ubuntuCentricDuoHack™
Okay... I don't see this working without revising the system's ROMs so they understand the concept of cold-booting from a RAM disk. It's true that the classic OS allows for RAM disks that persist through a warm boot, but so far as I know the only machine which supported both booting from a RamDisk and had a battery-backed-up method of keeping it persistent was the PB100.
As for backing the RAM disk (and active RAM?) onto an SD card, NAND flash isn't that fast. Doing a complete load/store of a good-size chunk of RAM might not be any faster then just booting the machine off an OS image stored on a Compactflash adapter. And of course you'll need a microcontroller to handle the store-restore process... and if the plan is to "freeze" the computer so it can perform an instant-on resume you're back to needing something running on the main CPU to cleanly save/restore register states. It's an interesting brainstorm but implementation would be way, way out there in nontrivial-ville.
Anyway, it's fun to dream. ;^) It really does seem, though, that by far the easiest way to make a Duo do what you seem to want it to do would be to just open the case, loosen the screws to all the innards, shake them out into the nearest garbage can, and replace them with the guts of a $300 Netbook. Even if you factor in emulation overhead running Sheepshaver it'll probably outrun a real Duo and it'll have direct access to oodles of RAM, USB ports, Wifi...
As for backing the RAM disk (and active RAM?) onto an SD card, NAND flash isn't that fast. Doing a complete load/store of a good-size chunk of RAM might not be any faster then just booting the machine off an OS image stored on a Compactflash adapter. And of course you'll need a microcontroller to handle the store-restore process... and if the plan is to "freeze" the computer so it can perform an instant-on resume you're back to needing something running on the main CPU to cleanly save/restore register states. It's an interesting brainstorm but implementation would be way, way out there in nontrivial-ville.
Anyway, it's fun to dream. ;^) It really does seem, though, that by far the easiest way to make a Duo do what you seem to want it to do would be to just open the case, loosen the screws to all the innards, shake them out into the nearest garbage can, and replace them with the guts of a $300 Netbook. Even if you factor in emulation overhead running Sheepshaver it'll probably outrun a real Duo and it'll have direct access to oodles of RAM, USB ports, Wifi...
I'm relying upon very dim memories of running RAMdisk+ something like . . .
. . . 20 years ago! :
Weren't system ”extensions” basically ROM revisions? :?:
Yep! My first PowerBook: BabyPB, Sony's phenomenal downsized version of the MacLuggable, would be the inspiration for this particular feature. Considering everything else Apple “appropriated” from Sony's masterpiece of industrial design, you would think they'd have included this feature on their “100 series” clunky upsized imitations of the PB100!
There are several kinds of solid state memory inside or attached to HP_Mini, if the chiplets aren't the best choice, one of the others must be! Remember, we're just brainstormin' ATM!
Check out the earlier posts for the I/O subsystem card I found for the “open source” ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ for that “required microcontroller,” for this function, among other things! [
] ]'>Might be easiest, but the Duo's got beaucoup cubic inside to do a hack that'll leapfrog current Atom ChipSet NetBooks like HP_Mini. The KBD/Palmrest/Lid are ALL larger, supporting more pixels, a “spherically correct” pointing device, (or a TorquemadaPad for those into such masochis . . . ) room for more batteries, and don't forget that wonderful signal rich docking connector for new Micro & MiniDock expansion possibilities and the VCR-like goodness of the DuoDocks. New logic/carrier boards utilizing the Neolithic Duo Docking Hardware/Connector for new interfaces will open wonderful new possibilities for Hacking!
All right G, you're very competent technically, you're humoring me/being helpful, and you use “then” for “than,” just like someone else I knew, back in the day. The only person I've ever “known” in the NetVerse to use that: ;^) emoticon, in the middle of a post, was my 'fritter-only” buddy: eudi . . . fess up dude!
Why the switch from a pterosaur to a therapsid for your username/avatar?
mode>
You've got to be able to boot before you can load an extension. Chicken and the egg problem here. ;^)
Uhm, use the innards from a *bigger* laptop instead? Or a Lenovo IdeaPad S10? That has an Expresscard slot if USB 2.0 (which in terms of bandwidth crushes the Duo dock connector already) isn't a good enough expansion connector for you.
Beyond a certain point if you want to go faster you have to chuck out your old vehicle and start over. A one-cylinder curved-dash Oldsmobile from 1902 might (uncomfortably) handle having a Model T four-banger crammed into it, assuming you can find the space. But a bored-and-stroked 454 big block crate motor belongs somewhere else, period. Floor it in the Horseless Olds and you'll end up sitting in the middle of a twisted pile of splinters with a clutch disk stuck in your skull. On bus speed alone an Atom 270 is a big block next to the Duo's 68030-based go-cart architecture.
Yeah, you got me. I never was any good with the Then-Than thing. I also used to get in serious trouble for "improving" the illustrations in my spelling workbooks. Oh, well.
As to the name change I tried signing up with my "proper" Internet nom-de-plume, but either this forum doesn't send signup confirmations to my free email provider of choice (and fails to warn you it won't), or said provider thinks email from this forum is junk mail. (I did some digging into the 68kmla's DNS records and I have reason to think it may be the latter.) So I was forced to choose an alternate, having locked out the other in my failed attempt.
Busted?
Trash: All the lines you need are right there on the docking port connector, as far as I know. A partial pinout, and a note to that effect are about halfway down my linkdump/scratchpad/blog at Applefritter.
Full pinout
How about a board to mount a G3 upgrade in the empty bottom half of an UltraDock 16sce? Or in a fullscale Duo Dock? An L2 cache slot upgrade from a desktop 603e Mac might be a possible approach, and they go to 500MHz.
Alternatively, use the docking bar as your one stop shopping mounting point/dev port for fast-side hackfoolery - at least for prototyping.
Unfortunately the linked MLA discussion of ideas that sprang from that discovery was lost in the Great Crash. I do remember a line about "a Duo that's a 100MHz 603e on the road, and a 500MHz G3 when docked" }
It may be deprecated tech now, but MiniPCI is/was a fairly common connector on SFF boards, and it can be broken out to a fullsized PCI slot (again, see linkdump above). I believe similar trickery can be performed with ExpressCard->PCI.
Sure the docking connector is a direct link to the processor bus . . . but it's to the "theoretical" 68030 bus on the slow side of the PBX Bus Bridge Adapter. A 603e PDS it ain't!
Go back to the devnotes, review block diagram, do not pass go!
Don't worry, somewhere I've got the FULL pinout of the DD connector, and it's everything you need to do the T-Rex/PC-Card-Cage-Hack™ and then some. But as for hanging an accelerator on that particular hook, it just ain't gonna happen, unless you're talking about a Radius Rocket in a NuBus slot in the DD. [
] ]'>True, but only for the “theoretical” Mac OS version of this multi-threaded brainstormin' party! [
] ]'>That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
] ]'>You miss my point, only the Mac OS shackled hack would retain the bridged '030 skateboard/millstone.
The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
] ]'>BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
] ]'>BTW, I know some folks in the “war room” who can fix up your nom-de-guerre probs if you should wish to have it done? [
] ]'>Drat and tarnation. I had a feeling that might be the case right after I posted.
Aye aye, cap'n!Go back to the devnotes, review block diagram, do not pass go!
Including the ones that are unknown at pinouts.ru?
Two of them! With '040 socket 601s! And 50MHz QuadDoublers with cache! Muahahahah!!!
:scrambled:
host is offline
I hate to say it, but I think it's about this point I start losing the plot... oh, okay, I see scrolling back a reference to some embedded ARM board. It gets *really* confusing because at some points you're talking about "hijacking" busses on a Powerbook Duo motherboard or cramming a new CPU into it, and at other points you're, uhm, talking about replacing the innards with some other board, but somehow continuing to use a DuoDock interface for... something? (No, wait... you want that ARM board to somehow substitute for the PBX IC on the motherboard...?) And I'm really confused how "Ubuntu" and "Open Source" gets mixed up into this.That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
(I don't think you're going to find oodles of wide-ranging enthusiasm out there for an "open source hardware project" that's somehow dependent on hacking up obscure 12 year old *highly proprietary* laptop computers. It's sort of silly to call a Netbook a "closed system" by comparison. The IBM PC platform has evolved into the epitome of an "Open Platform", able to cover applications from matchbox-sized embedded devices to supercomputers, and even a humble $300 Netbook is bristling with modern expansion capabilities. Generally at least two of them (USB Ports). However, if you really need to do something *weird* most Netbooks use a Mini-PCIe slot to connect their wireless module. A nearly passive adapter card can adapt Mini-PCIe to full-size PCIe, and Magma and others can sell you PCIe-to-PCIe or PCIe-to-classic-PCI expansion chassis. It'd be stupidly expensive to cobble together compared to just using a PCI/PCIe desktop motherboard for your weird real-time-high-speed-bus-requiring hack project, but it's *very doable* with hardware bought right off the shelf.)
I think you need to type up a whitepaper including a few illustrations and a block diagram. Or at least take a photo of a whiteboard with your idea on it. My poor primitive brain has really run off the rails trying to grok what you have in mind. Is this all one grand project or a bunch of unrelated ideas getting hopelessly smashed into psuedotechnical goo?
(At this point Jordi LaForge shows up and starts hollering something about tachyons flooding the warp overdrive conduit manifold and causing a cascade blawblawblawTECHTECHTECH... No, wait, reading back again I see there *was* a bifurcation point where it became "new guts Duo body"... but then it went back to G3s and "substitute this board for the "PBX IC"....
And on that subject, I have to admit I really don't understand the strange obsession with "fast side/slow side" on this thing. Sure, if you're interfacing RAM you want all you can get, which I guess means you want to be on the "fast" 33Mhz/64 bit side, but for *just about any* conceivable homebrew peripheral 25Mhz/32 bits should do just grand. One of my coworkers is constructing his own 3D CNC milling machine, and all he needs to control 3 stepper motors in real time is a simple IBM PC parallel port. Which is a lot slower then the PBX IC's "slow side".
The only thing "wrong" with the PBX IC is it has a 56MB RAM limit, which was probably a reasonable number when the Duo was new. It wasn't some evil limitation put there to forever irk mankind. It just... is what it is. I don't see many owners of 1967 MGB Midgets complaining that they can't drive 500 miles per hour while carrying a couple dozen tonnes worth of bulk cargo in the trunk. If you need to actually do those things simultaneously you're not in the market for a tiny sports car, you're shopping around for a good deal on a used 727 freighter conversion. You can say the same thing about all the other "dated/limited" components in the Duo. The whole thing was a compromise between cost, weight, size, and the available technology. If you don't like the formula it's probably sort of pointless to try to "fix" it even if you're enamored with the aesthetics.)
Okay... and this is all going to be better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard... how? Never mind. Sounds AWESOME. Just don't expect it to perform any better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard. If what you really want is an ARM CPU'ed laptop running Ubuntu supposedly a tidal wave of them should be available "any day now". They're not going to perform better than Atom netbooks but they should eek out more battery life. At the cost of binary software compatibility, of course, which may or may not matter.The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
If you find an LCD panel that has enough pixels for you and fits in the space occupied by the Duo's LCD there are *oodles* of both ARM and x86 embedded motherboards that should fit in the available space in the Duo case and have LCD drivers onboard. (Beware, however, the video controllers in most ARM hardware tends to be "PDA-centric" and tops out at fairly low resolutions.) The suggestion about using the guts of a laptop instead of an SBC mostly comes from the fact that stripping down an existing laptop will probably be cheaper than a custom embedded board once you factor in finding all the bits to make it really "go". (Another advantage is a laptop will come with a BIOS which supports intelligent battery power management, something you'd have to homebrew otherwise.) A single integrated motherboard, whether it's from a laptop or an industrial SBC, should do what you want much more easily than running down some strange cobbled-together-from-mismatched-bits rathole, which is what "traffic cop SBC plus powerful CPU card!" sounds like to me.
But I guess if running down a rathole is the whole point, then, uhm... squeak!
I could go either way. As long as it's primitive, toothy, bad-tempered, and has a tiny brain either avatar suits me fine. ;^)Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
BTW, I know some folks in the “war room” who can fix up your nom-de-guerre probs if you should wish to have it done? [
Welcome to my brain! [I hate to say it, but I think it's about this point I start losing the plot... oh, okay, I see scrolling back a reference to some embedded ARM board. It gets *really* confusing because at some points you're talking about "hijacking" busses on a Powerbook Duo motherboard or cramming a new CPU into it, and at other points you're, uhm, talking about replacing the innards with some other board, but somehow continuing to use a DuoDock interface for... something? (No, wait... you want that ARM board to somehow substitute for the PBX IC on the motherboard...?) And I'm really confused how "Ubuntu" and "Open Source" gets mixed up into this.That thought had crossed (what little is left of) my mind, but in doing so, you'd remain shackled to a newer "closed system" and what I've got in mind is an "open source" hardware/software hack project! [
] ]'>:lol: Good one EudiG!
I have to admit that I'm not quite all there mentally yet and I have trouble keeping things straight myself!
) Once I get some notion of the hardware available, I'll do just that! [
] ]'>That's nothing to worry about. I was just explaining to B why the DuoDock/Docking Connector/'030 side of PBX was the wrong side on which to hang an accelerator.
How'd you guess that a (vertically arranged) CNC table will be my next project? [
] ]'>I never thought anything else about the design parameters of the Duos. Back in the day, when Dr. Bob and I were going at it hammer-n-tongs, I just wanted to do a workaround that'd make my precious PowerDuo PC-Card WiFi capable and upgrade it to the performance level of my 1400/G-3, despite the fact that it was 640 x 480 limited.
Though I've switched gears, I'm keeping the Mac OS DreamDuo alive in parallel with the ubuntu brainstorming! }
It'd be better only if it's faster, has the Duo's larger keyboard, its spherically correct pointing device and has more pixels in a full height format instead of chopping the display off 180 degrees out of phase for efficient Web browsing like the NetBooks do. [Okay... and this is all going to be better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard... how? Never mind. Sounds AWESOME. Just don't expect it to perform any better than a simple, clean replacement motherboard. If what you really want is an ARM CPU'ed laptop running Ubuntu supposedly a tidal wave of them should be available "any day now". They're not going to perform better than Atom netbooks but they should eek out more battery life. At the cost of binary software compatibility, of course, which may or may not matter.The point of the ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ is to build a carrier board to knit together an easily interfaced I/O traffic cop (self booting into Linux) SBC and a much more powerful CPU card. The Duo MoBo/Expansion Card form factor “carrier board” would retain ONLY the Duo's CONNECTORS for Power, a totally revamped battery, something new and exciting running on a DIN-X (or a newer round connector of similar size) where the serial port was, possibly RJ-45 (or something REALLY Sexy) where the Modem Connector was and only the physical Docking Connector itself, outfitted with an all new set of modern interface signals from the I/O traffic cop. (similar to the two Apple II Procs doing I/O Co-Processing in the Iifx! [
BTW, one might also load an LVDS (?) driver board into the FPGA section of said I/O traffic cop! }
] ]'>8-o Nope! Rat-holes are to be avoided whenever possible!
If a replacement MoBo works better, it's just fine and dandy by me! I'd like to keep the Docking connector and ports near stock. My only real complaint about HP_Mini is that HP abandoned the "announced" Dock AND deleted the Docking Connector in lieu of a VGA port (on the wrong side, where the cable will be in the way for right handed mousers) for the newer versions. Docks are where it's at, as far as usability/connectivity is concerned, IMHO!
I'd like to break out all the Dockable connections to the Duo's Docking Connector and modify one of the Docks to keep that BZZZZZT
cool factor goin' and make hooking up the connections I don't need in the field, but do use at home, a breeze. If that's not feasible, there are plenty of front panel breakout boards available that could be shoe-horned behind that cute lil' trap door! [] ]'>:lol: If I were a comedian, I'd say that sounded like my ex! But she's just about the exact opposite and probably the best friend I'll ever have in this life!I could go either way. As long as it's primitive, toothy, bad-tempered, and has a tiny brain either avatar suits me fine. ;^)Absolutely, and a hearty welcome to the ranks of the 68kMLA, eudi! [
If you wanna change it, lemme know, otherwise, I'll just call you EudiG! :rambo:
Yep. There are two (at least two!) seperate hacks in train here:
- FastBusHijackHack™ - every version which keeps at least some of the Duo logic intact.
- ubuntuCentricDuoHack™ - complete heart/lung/brain transplants in Duo shell, using Duo's physical ports for I/O
That's why I've started separating my replies into individual posts on each, and using the appropriate subject line, to try to *ahem* encourage Trash to do the same.
As I dimly recall it, even that involved some pretty serious surgery, to make the Duo logic capable of mounting a 1400 G3 CPU module, and the PCMCIA card cage.
That seems the most promising path for Duo-like dockability.
Aye indeed, and I have given Trash a gentle nudge in that direction already.
That sounds eminently doable:
- Single board computer with LVDS and Mini-PCI(e)
- Your choice of compatible LCD panel
- Gutted USB trackball
- Mini-PCIe (et al) kludged directly to docking bar (Duo side)
- Docking bar (dock side) kludged directly to Mini-PCIe -> PCIe adapter (et al)
- Duo keyboard ...
Wait, what? You want to keep the single worst aspect of the Duo experience? Far, far, better IMHO to trawl the swap meets and computer bargain centers for a small, USB keyboard that fits in the Duo KB cavity.
Aaaand there's your kludge point right there! The cable connection between the two modules. Cut that cable or find a longer one to hack up, and wire each side to each side of the docking bar. Left hand board goes in DuoBuntu, right hand board goes in Dock, takes power from Dock PS.
I'll bet it's a heck of a lot cheaper than Magma's ExpressCard->PCIe chassis. The nearest in spec to an original Duo Dock costs $2k, and even their one-slotter is $700+
The reason you need the Magma chassis or something like it is to supply multiple slots, assuming that's a requirement. Remember, PCI isn't like ISA where you can just split one slot into many with a passive backplane. You need another PCI->PCI bridge chip to fan out more slots. (Same applies to PCI-e) The adapter cable alone gives you *one slot* in place of your wireless module. (Which in principle isn't a huge loss, as you could hang a wireless module off USB instead.)
Yep, I was aware of that, though it bears pointing out.
I'm unclear about this though:
Does that mean that this adapter can mount two PCIe cards?
Or on the other hand, I suppose you could find a board with more than one Mini-PCIe slot. I think Soekris make some with up to four for use as wireless base stations, though the CPU is probably nothing to write home about. I could ask my local Wifi club if they know of anything better.
I'm unclear about this though:
Does that mean that this adapter can mount two PCIe cards?
Or on the other hand, I suppose you could find a board with more than one Mini-PCIe slot. I think Soekris make some with up to four for use as wireless base stations, though the CPU is probably nothing to write home about. I could ask my local Wifi club if they know of anything better.
=8-P
First, don't bother with Mini-PCIe! VGA, USB 2.0, Firewire, stereo-out, Mic-in, maybe Video (if available) are all the connections necessary to adapt to the Docking Connector. Serial & Parallel would be OK too, assuming there are enough connections available for alternating signal/ground lines to prevent crosstalk. It's a DuoNetBookMaxiHack, not a desktop replacement!
You forget so fast! Remember the etched copper-clad fiberglass custom PCB replacement for the KBD's lower acetate flexible circuit matrix! No more SpongeBoard/SpringBoard action while utilizing the stock Duo KeyMatrix! [
] ]'>Also remember: the Duo's KBD is undersized, but a little less so than HP_Mini's, so don't expect to find many suitable replacements!
The original equipment: ADB TrackBall's serial output shouldn't be all that hard to adapt to USB & the circuitry should fit into a tiny corner of any SBC's available on-board FPGA. [
] ]'>I know it's silly to point this out, but... if what you want is a small, powerful laptop with a port replicator/dock there are quite a few nice choices out there. It sort of strikes me you're mad that HP didn't offer a port replicator/dock for the Mini 1000 and because of that think you have to start chasing Unicorns down mineshafts in search of the ULTIMATE DUO HACK in order to get a dockable laptop. (In all fairness, I don't think anyone offers port replicators for their Netbooks. Port replicators are generally considered a "pro"/"business" feature.)
How about... I dunno, a Dell Latitude E4200 plus a E-Port Plus Replicator? The dock has Ethernet, serial, parallel, VGA, 2x DVI, 2x Displayport (you can only use up to 2 of the monitor connections at once, but you won't need any adapters...), eSATA, 5x USB, audio, and PS/2 keyboard/mouse ports, and the laptop has firewire, SD-card and Expresscard ports on top of all that. And it weighs under two and half pounds. (!)
If you don't trust Dell the Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad x200 is almost exactly the same, if somewhat less port-rich. (Subtract Firewire, and it "only" has VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort on the matching "Ultrabase". But it still has Expresscard if you simply must have Firewire. And the build quality is undeniably better.)
Either of those machines will run Ubuntu, and will run it much faster than almost anything you'll cobble together out of parts small enough to fit in a Duo case. About the smallest "generic industrial" motherboards I've seen are a class of boards designed to have a footprint roughly the same as a 3.5 inch hard drive. Here's an example of one that takes mobile Core Duo 2/socket P CPUs and has onboard LVDS drivers, which in principle is the equal to most integrated video laptops, and I'm guessing you could probably cram that into the space available in a Duo. However, you'll have to design a cooling system for the CPU and chipset that also fits in the space which would be a *very nontrivial* challenge. You'll also have to figure out some sort of power management circuitry (the board is designed to run off a 12VDC transformer, which I suppose makes it a good candidate for a car computer...) and battery, and you'll have to cut all the peripheral connectors off the board and replace them with relays or whatnot so you can bring them out to both discrete ports and to a dock connector.
I think part of the issue with your requirements is you're looking at embedded ARM boards and saying "that's cool!" (which they are), but then thinking they would be a good basis for a *fast* computer, which they're not. A dual-core 2Ghz Cortex A9 according the company's own crowing benchmarks "just barely" outperforms a single-core Atom 270, the oldest, slowest one on the market. (And it's also worth noting that the benchmarks where Atoms and ARMs are pitted against each other usually involve Java, which netappliance-targeted ARM CPU often have specific optimizations for.) The CPUs more typically found in embedded boards with onboard FPGAs (300-700Mhz single cores) might actually be *slower* than the stock CPU in a Duo 2300c. (The 400Mhz Xscale CPUs that were popular in PDAs a few years ago were generally considered roughly equivalent to a 133Mhz-ish Pentium. Which is a pretty good match for a 100Mhz PPC 603.
So I guess to some extent what's "correct" for your plans here really depends on how high up the list "performance" is on your whiteboard scribbling. If it's a high priority you're not looking at those awesome ARM boards. You *are* looking at a *really tricky* build either way, though.
[Hey, I thought we were brainstorming here!
] ]'> [)] ]'> [] ]'>I was just looking at the BeagleBoard and thinking it might work, depending on the support it gets for Laptop/NetBook uses, of course.
I really HATE to sound like SJ (the idiot in jeans and designer black T-Shirts) about anything, but, basic NetBook hookups coupled with a powered USB Hub & a decent Monitor/KBD/Mouse are about all that I would assume necessary for the SuperDuo™/SuperMediumDock™ combo. I've already got a first pass prototype of the SuperMediumDock™ sittin' on the display shelf! [
] ]'>Just wanna have my SuperMediumDock™, an upgraded Duo KBD, its spherically correct pointing device with an upgraded netbook performing klugeboard and a full format LCD . . .
. . . and the Duo's unarguable 1995
factor! }
A small thought:
Say your 2300 is booting from the internal IDE header. What - space aside - would prevent you breaking out the internal SCSI header to the outside world, for dockless SCSI access?
Say your 2300 is booting from the internal IDE header. What - space aside - would prevent you breaking out the internal SCSI header to the outside world, for dockless SCSI access?
Space is ALWAYS the factor in DuoHackin' that throws a monkey wrench into the works.
That said, you obviously don't need that galumphing, near glacier speed, modem! So find a connector with enough pins to roughly fit the RJ-11's porthole . . .
. . . and go to town! }
Pre-Post-Script???? Find a right angled solder down connector to fit the space and etch a pair of boards in the form factor of the modem card breaking a matching SCSI header into that form factor and maybe a DB-25 footprint (if it'll fit) so you can use the same PCB inside the Duo and on the other end of the cable attached to the Duo . . .
. . . or just gang up pairs of two dedicated PCB's on the same copper clad FRP PCB blank! :rambo:
Another candidate logic board for you here Trash: Balloonboard. 520MHz ARM with your choice of CPLD or FPGA onboard.