7 ms·
System on SO-DIMM
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoInteresting, but is not a fully “system” I think, it lacks a GPU to be complete.
- _Microft 5y agoThat's my wording, not theirs. It seemed close enough to be acceptable at the time. (Technically it is not even an SO-DIMM but a module in the form factor of an SO-DIMM.)
- gumby 5y agoFew 386 machines had GPUs
- tpetry 5y agoA server may not need a gpu, most servers may not need a gpu.
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoYes true, sorry I’ve explained wrong: what I wanted to say is that is a very interesting system, but in order to be a full compact SoC like what we mean now, it should had only a GPU.
- mnd999 5y agoI suspect it’s your use of ‘GPU’ that’s causing the confusion. I would expect a GPU to have some form of 3D acceleration or compute capability and I don’t think that’s really applicable to the EGA / VGA video chips of the 386 era. I could be incorrect though, I’m not sure there is a settled definition of GPU.
- giuliomagnifico 5y agoYes my mistake because also now we call “GPU” some cores related to graphic processing inside a complete SoC, but is not really a GPU, only a “graphic core/s”. What I wanted to say is that in order to “output something directly to a display like a contemporary SoC, this 386 system lacks only a graphic unit”. Maybe in this way is more correct.
- tenebrisalietum 5y agoThe chip that would read RAM and generate a video signal was called a CRTC or RAMDAC back in the day - though RAMDAC, standing for RAM Digital to Analog Converter, only really applies to VGA which is analog. Some game consoles had an equivalent chip (Brooktree/Conexant) that was called an encoder. This is separate from anything that blits textures, rasterizes triangles to video RAM, performs parallelized math operations on big vector lists, runs shader code, or does MPEG/etc. decoding. All of that stuff is what constitutes a GPU. I'm not sure what the modern term for DAC is given everything is all digital.
- monocasa 5y agoI still see the CRTC or RAMDAC terms used for modern scan out engines, even if the terms are a bit anachronistic.
- h2odragon 5y agoThe 3dfx Voodoo1 card _might_ be classifiable as the first GPU, I'd say. While SGI had display hardware with more processing before that, it wasn't (afaik) in a form that could be moved to a different system.
- numpad0 5y agoI understand by GPU you meant VGA, but either way a lot of SBCs come without a VGA/GPU. It’s x86/PC quirk that everything comes with a VGA compatible framebuffer.
- cout 5y agoI think the term you are looking for is "video controller"?
- zaarn 5y agoYou do not require a GPU for a system, a serial port is sufficient for a terminal and putting code on it.
- toast0 5y agoDepends on the application. Plenty of SoCs in IoT/WiFi access point applications with no video out.
- CyberRabbi 5y agoIf you’re interested in SoC x86 hardware, you might enjoy this custom super tiny 486 SoC build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1E2vjpcRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1E2vjpcRo
- _Microft 5y agoFor the ones among us who are not familiar with foone yet: They only post on Twitter because blogging doesn't work for them [0]. The Twitter thread UI sucks and that's unfortunate but somewhat unavoidable in this case. I still prefer it to not getting any of foone's "weird hardware" discussions at all. You might have to click "Show thread/more" if you do not see all of the posts. Or just run the post through a website like threadreaderapp, it will collect follow-up posts by the same user and compile it into a page similiar to a blog post. [0] https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128
- disillusioned 5y agoFoone is literally enough reason to use Twitter alone.
- goldenkey 5y agoYeah he is amazing! Such a diverse chap :-)
- kook_throwaway 5y agoIt hurts how much that resonates with me, especially the constant editing. I'll probably be editing this post for two hours and attempt to tomorrow but then realize that it's too late.
- someperson 5y agoTwitter's user interface is as bad as New Reddit. But at least with Reddit, you can still use Old Reddit (https://old.reddit.com/ https://old.reddit.com/). Can anybody recommend a Twitter frontend that's as information dense as Old Reddit? The awful user-interface is the only thing stopping me using Twitter.
- danhor 5y agoI think nitter is probably the best alternative. It's a bit more dense, no js, so not quite Old Reddit but still way better
- pjc50 5y agoThis is an embedded/industrial PC; SODIMM is a convenient connector form factor when you need a really large number of pins. Old Pi Compute modules also used SODIMM: https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-1/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-1/ PC104 is another common form factor: https://www.steatite-embedded.co.uk/product_categories/motherboards_and_sbcs/pc-104-boards/ https://www.steatite-embedded.co.uk/product_categories/mothe... A unique part of the product offer is the longevity commitment - they agree to provide identical replacements for years. These things end up in tills and machine control systems all over the place.
- Aissen 5y agoYup, very good summary. I'll add: advantage of this design, is that you only need a SODIMM connector on your breakout board, which is very easy to source. Also, you can have a breakout board tailored to your needs, relatively cheap (e.g less PCB layers), with less care for radio design (most of it is done on the module), etc. It's mostly advantageous for low-quantity, high margin embedded systems, with modules supported for years.
- qwerty456127 5y agoAFAIK PC104 is meant specifically for this. Re-using SO-DIMM (a connector meant for something entirely different) being a conventional practice seems slightly unusual however. Like if somebody was using NEMA 5-15 connectors for something like USB.
- RL_Quine 5y agoPC104 has a connector that simply nobody has, is giant, and routes a bunch of signals nobody wants. It's a very very old world way of doing this.
- colejohnson66 5y agoIsn’t PC104 (the original) based on the ISA bus, which this module uses?
- 5y ago
- st_goliath 5y agoIf you work with embedded hardware, this isn't exactly strange or weird. Even before the Raspberry Pi compute module was a thing, there were already many vendors around (e.g. Kontron, Phytec, Toradex, ...) who sell SO-DIMM form factor modules with the entire system on it and a breakout board to plug it in to. AFAIK the usual deal is that you get the design files for the breakout board, customize it for your application and simply plug in the vendor sourced module (semi-relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/; https://xkcd.com/1053/; given that the RPI compute module is a thing for some years now I considered this something that "people know by now"). To be honest, I've never seen one with an x86 SoC on it tough, instead of something ARM based. I would consider that strange or weird, but having bought a BifferBoard[1] way back when, I don't find it that surprising that x86 hardware of that size exists. [1] https://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/ https://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/
- svckr 5y agoSo, they only use the physical connector not the … uhm … transfer protocol associated with memory modules? Tbh, at least with memory, I always conflated both. If there are multiple vendors around SO-DIMM SoCs, is there a common standard for how they are using the pins?
- mschuster91 5y ago> If there are multiple vendors around SO-DIMM SoCs, is there a common standard for how they are using the pins? Not really. If you want a common standard with multiple vendors, look at COMexpress and Qseven, with the former sporting everything up to Xeon CPUs and the latter low-power (12W TDP, iirc) only.
- st_goliath 5y ago> is there a common standard for how they are using the pins? None that I'm aware of. Considering some pinouts I've seen my guess is that different vendors simply assign them as they see fit. Also, especially ARM SoCs have widely varying capabilities, and different SoMs have all kinds of different hardware on module/off module, different bus systems they support, and so on. Also, some SoCs can change some of their pin assignments to a degree. Given all that and considering that the whole purpose is usually to cheaply develop semi-customized embedded hardware for specific applications, there might not be much demand for that either.
- cnxsoft 5y agoWhat's really odd about this SoM is the extra cable coming out. Usually, all signals are routed to the edge connector.
- rasz 5y agouCsimm was one of the more famous computers on a stick in open source circles. https://web.archive.org/web/20000815061057/http://www.uclinux.org/ucsimm/ https://web.archive.org/web/20000815061057/http://www.uclinu... MMUless MC68EZ328 at 14.3MHz, 1.79 bogomips, 2MB ram, 8MB flash rom, running uClinux port. 30 pin SIMM form factor. https://multicores.org/blog/tag_uClinux.html https://multicores.org/blog/tag_uClinux.html https://stolk.org/robotics/robotux/ https://stolk.org/robotics/robotux/ http://wearcam.org/seatsale/programs/www.beyondlogic.org/etherip/ucsimm.htm http://wearcam.org/seatsale/programs/www.beyondlogic.org/eth...
- cout 5y agoI did not realize DR-DOS was still a product; the last time I used a DR DOS derivative, it has been renamed Caldera OpenDOS.
- qwertox 5y agoIs this just a SOC with a SO-DIMM form factor, or is the pinout compatible and interoperable with any x86 or ARM CPU-mainboard-combo?
- Gigachad 5y agoPerhaps it was to save money on sockets.
- qwertox 5y agoDatasheet: https://www.kontron.com/download/download?filename=/downloads/datasheets/dimm-pc386-ie.pdf&product=86778 https://www.kontron.com/download/download?filename=/download... - Ready for Windows CE - 10 (ten) MBit Ethernet This must be super old.
- 1-6 5y agoInteresting read on the application of DIMM-PC's. http://www.pwt.et.put.poznan.pl/srv08/papers/PWT%202008_1892.pdf http://www.pwt.et.put.poznan.pl/srv08/papers/PWT%202008_1892...
- dmitryminkovsky 5y ago> and the obvious question is CAN IT RUN DOOM?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tambourine_man 5y agoFoone's got a patreon, I wasn't aware of it. If you enjoy the content: https://www.patreon.com/foone https://www.patreon.com/foone
- dheera 5y agoThis looks a lot like the Jetson form factor.
- adfm 5y agoIf you want something a little more familiar, but in a SO-DIMM package, check out the SOPINE 64 from pine64.org https://www.pine64.org/sopine/ https://www.pine64.org/sopine/
- IYasha 5y agoMore than anything else, this card looks like a Tyan IPMI / OPMA add-on card for server boards. I'd love to have one if that's the case.