UZEBOX AVCore up and running!

Topics regarding the Uzebox hardware/AVCore/BaseBoard (i.e: PCB, resistors, connectors, part list, schematics, hardware issues, etc.) should go here.
havok1919
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Re: UZEBOX AVCore up and running!

Post by havok1919 »

ravyne wrote:Excellent, sounds like a sound choice and I'm glad it gives you more margin for all your hard work.
Alas, no extra margin, but it did get me back down to the price I'd budgeted as opposed to being way over. ;-) I usually don't have much hand-add through-hole stuff on my designs (I try to avoid it), so I didn't do a very good job estimating that part of the price. (I came within ~$0.50 USD on the SMT stuff, but was WAY off on the through-hole!)
Do you have baseboards soon to be ready to go as well?
I'm expecting ~20 of them tomorrow! (I did those on a prototype process since it was a slightly newer design. I got obsessed with making it the same size as a business card, so I scrunched things down a bit. ;-) As long as I didn't screw something up, those should be super easy to build. Maybe a few minutes each is all. Eight connectors, a couple switches, a few SMT parts. (Which reminds me, I need to make an alignment jig for the SNES connector soldering still...)

-Clay
Lerc
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Re: UZEBOX AVCore up and running!

Post by Lerc »

So it struck me that you've got a 40 pin dip dodad there.

and most keyboards I've opened look like this inside

Image

Now, it'd require a different pin configuration (I'm not sure what exactly), and maybe not doable at all, but slapping somethinkg like an AV core in there then hacking off the cable and replacing it with something for power/video, Instant computer :-)

That would make something remarkably close to one of my goals. A plugin and go keyboard computer.
havok1919
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Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:44 pm
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Re: UZEBOX AVCore up and running!

Post by havok1919 »

Lerc wrote:Now, it'd require a different pin configuration (I'm not sure what exactly), and maybe not doable at all, but slapping somethinkg like an AV core in there then hacking off the cable and replacing it with something for power/video, Instant computer :-)
That would make something remarkably close to one of my goals. A plugin and go keyboard computer.
Hahah... True enough. Might need more I/O's for the keyboard matrix though.

I had considered just adding an older PC-style PS/2 keyboard port as an option on the 'experimenter' baseboard. The Uzebox design might actually be a little tricky to interface by just plugging in a PS/2 keyboard though since the keyboard generates the clock which needs to be read quickly to latch the serial data (might not be compatible with the Uzebox's method of generating video). Could probably just stick a little ATTiny2313 to be a keyboard/mouse pre-processor or something though.

Your idea is interesting though-- PS/2 style keyboards are only about $5 anymore. Cheap to try!

-Clay
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