[jornada] Jornada Flashboard

All:

Thank you for all of your thoughts for my new addition! This is actually our second - our first is now four years old.

Anyway, to answer some of your questions: Yes, I am pretty sure that I can "squeeze" 64Megs of RAM onto the flashboards. All I need to do is to read the part numbers off of the chips on my fried daughtercard as the J728 has 64Megs RAM. Actually, I am going to try and get as much RAM and flash on it as I can, barring any problems with the Jornada's memory map (i.e. what is RAM and what is flash, etc.). Also, I want to put at least 32Megs of flash on it, but I need to review the memory map and be sure I'm not clobbering anything.

The hardest part of the whole process is figuring out how to program the flash for the first time. There are two possiblities:

1. program the flash, then solder it to the board, or
2. solder it to the board, then program the flash.

Programming the flash first makes logistics a little easier as I can simply find the nearest standard flash programmer and have at it. However, if I (or anyone else for that matter) bricks a board, the board is pretty much dead unless the flash chips are removed and reprogrammed - and removing SMT chips is *not* fun.

Programming the flash after the chips are on the board means that I need to design and build a special programmer, but makes the whole process easier and bricking a board is "no big deal". This is the option I am currently exploring. I am fairly certain I can use a USB interface to a PIC microcontroller and let the PIC handle the programming. However, I don't have any PIC experience, but I do know someone who does.

Anyway, that is where I am currently. Any and all ideas are welcome.

Regards,
-Mark Gollahon
Received on Mon Jun 20 2005 - 23:05:21 EDT