On 12/14/2024 6:40 PM, Kenneth Pettit wrote:
Hey Doug,
I didn't ever actually get the TDock hat up and running and the
project has been just sitting there since probaly 2013 or so. I think
I had gotten to the point were I was asking myself "Does it really
make sense to use a Linux machine as a display / TPDD terminal for a
Model 100?".
Maybe not, but RPI does not require Linux
If I were going to revive that project today, I would probably opt to
use a Tang Nano 4K FPGA (it has HDMI) and 5V to 3.3V level translators
for the 11 or so I/O required to interface on the parallel port. The
Tang Nano FPGA is really inexpensive and doesn't have the boot time of
Linux, require Linux drivers, etc.
While I think the Nano is a cool device, I think it should be compared
to RPI (or RPI Zero) running SW on the bare HW, using circle
libraries/dev environment:
https://github.com/rsta2/circle
If Doug wants to go alone and can handle Verilog or VHDL, it's entirely
up to him, but projects like this always appreciate more help, and Linux
or even bare metal C development allows more folks to contribute. The
cost of the two devices are comparable (if you compare to the RPI Zero
W), and the RPi has a few more SoC devices to offer (802.11n, Bluetooth,
...)
I will see if I can dig up my old files, etc.
I think your existing project may be of great use, and I hope you can
find the files.
Jim
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