Re: Looking for suggestions for small, low power machine

["bifferos '" <bifferos%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:22 AM, Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost> 
wrote:
>> Anyhow, if nobody wants to work on it it's no big deal.
>
> At $56, yeah, it's somewhat interesting (it'd be a lot more interesting
> if it had more than one Ethernet).  Though in terms of functionality/watt
> I think embedded x86 will always be a bit of a lose.

The chip has two ethernet ports, but the Bifferboard only connects a single
PHY, same with USB.  You could make a board with dual USB and dual
ethernet, I think there's an evaluation board which does that but it isn't
widely available.

> 150MHz FPU-less 486 -- what's the CPU exactly?  Is it an AMD Elan?  I
> have never seen the 150MHz variant of that chip though I have seen the
> datasheet from time to time.

The CPU on the Bifferboards is either S3282, or R3210 (BGA
version) from RDC (http://www.rdc.com.tw).  The data sheet is
copyright RDC, and I'm not allowed to publish it but I can send it to
individuals who want to take a look at it.

There are several CPU variants, all containing the same core:
R8610, R3210, S3282 and AMRISC20000.  RDC make the first three,
I've no idea who makes the AMRISC20000.

These chips show up in a bunch of routers e.g. Sitecom WL-176, and
also the AMRISC20000 is found in the MGB-100 wireless hard disk
http://tintuc.no-ip.com/linux/tipps/mgb100/

> NetBSD does support x86 systems with no FPU.  So whatever the problem is,
> it's assuredly not that.

Yes, I seem to remember needing to make a very minor change to get it
past the FPU stage, but then it got stuck on the PIC initialisation, but
it was some time ago, and obviously with an old version of NetBSD.
It's probably worth another look if -current now has an R6040 driver.

regards,
Biff.