RE: [jornada] Jornada 680e

        So .. booting issues aside .. will NetBSD/hpcarm run on a 680e
.. or is it 720 specific?

-----Original Message-----
From: John Ankcorn [mailto:ankcorn_at_hpl.hp.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 24 July 2002 3:32 p.m.
Cc: jornada_at_handhelds.org
Subject: Re: [jornada] Jornada 568

First off, there is a poor choice of terminology that is prevalant in
the
industry. Compact Flash (CF) is a small form factor version of
the PCMCIA interface developed for interface options for laptops/etc.

Although the first usage (and still the most common) for compact flash
devices is to package flash memory chips, it is not the only usage.
Since
the PCMCIA interface was adopted, most CF form factor flash memory
cards actually present a disk-type IDE interface to the host rather
than the older (an now seldom used) "memory" interface that is
also standardized in PCMCIA.

Older units (like the 680 and 720) were made in an era when
manufacturers
decided for 2 reasons to ship system software in mask programmed
(once only) ROM rather than reprogrammable flash memory: 1) cost -- it
was considered a barrier to market acceptance to increase the price
of the end unit by the price difference for flash and 2) an extreme,
worldwide shortage of flash memory chips themselves (caused by
the dramatic growth in the cellphone market).

We now fast forward to today and the situation has changed quite
significantly: 1) cellphone user growth has tapered off and
2) flash memory prices have dropped enough so that the convenience
of user, non-volatile memory and the ability to make O/S upgrades
has caused most new devices to be flash memory based (although
note that for size reasons, these memory chips are mounted
directly in the PDA, not plugged into CF-style cards).

In addition, the 680 was build before the current generation of SDRAM
and used EDO DRAM, with a different memory controller, etc

Life goes on and sometimes it is hard to remember how fast the
semiconductor world is changing!

jca

Damien Connolly wrote:

> Hmmm I am still *confused* as to why it is so hard to boot
strap
> one of the older
> Jorndas and not as hard to boot strap a new one.
>
> What is the difference between a 680e and the 720 ?
>
> Different kind of flash device??
>

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Received on Wed Jul 24 2002 - 03:53:42 EDT