From adburchill at iinet.net.au Tue Jul 6 22:40:27 2004 From: adburchill at iinet.net.au (Andrew Burchill) Date: Wed Jul 7 04:39:24 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] dt205 track Message-ID: <40EB629B.3000304@iinet.net.au> RE: DT205 RevA Hi All, just started playing with my empty 205 board, and noticed that some track is missing on the D5 line between the two IC's, this results in the J4/D5 connection not working. If there already have been posts on this forgive the wasted B/W. (could not find anything on site page, or in archives.) From support2004 at dontronics.com Wed Jul 7 06:03:11 2004 From: support2004 at dontronics.com (Don McKenzie) Date: Wed Jul 7 06:03:21 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] dt205 track In-Reply-To: <40EB629B.3000304@iinet.net.au> References: <40EB629B.3000304@iinet.net.au> Message-ID: <40EBCA5F.5010804@dontronics.com> Andrew Burchill wrote: > RE: DT205 RevA > Hi All, > just started playing with my empty 205 board, and > noticed that some track is missing on the D5 line > between the two IC's, this results in the J4/D5 > connection not working. If there already have > been posts on this forgive the wasted B/W. > (could not find anything on site page, or in > archives.) It is the first I have heard of it Andrew, I will assume it is a manufacturing fault at this stage. bear in mind that these boards have been around for a few years now, I would think that someone would have come across it before. It isn't just a via plated through that isn't connected or similar perhaps? Cheers Don... -- Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics USB to RS232 Converter that works http://www.dontronics.com/usb_232.html Don's Free Guide To Spam Reduction http://www.e-dotcom.com/spam_exp.php From david.doty at lmco.com Wed Jul 7 13:43:25 2004 From: david.doty at lmco.com (Doty, David) Date: Wed Jul 7 13:43:26 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? Message-ID: <4C66670E3862A6419DA003F220D07C8403F31FA4@emss04m14.us.lmco.com> Hi, All - I'm interested in being able to demonstrate 802.11, Bluetooth, or ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless connectivity on a SimmStick bus. I would guess that the quick-and-dirty implementation would be a to use (a) a JStik's Ethernet and an Ethernet-wireless gateway or (b) a USBSimm and a USB-based wireless device. This would leave the development of the driver and protocol stack (since most of these devices assume a Linux or Windows PC host). It would seem to me that a longer-term solution would be to have the wireless implemented on a SimmStick board in any of several configurations. One possible example is the CC2420 802.15.4/ZigBee chip. The chip accepts and provides data through an SPI interface. A driver and protocol stack could reside in a comm coprocessor on the same SimmStick (this could be a 'simple' repackaging of, for example, the Ember reference design www.ember.com) or in the SimmStick host. The coprocessor configuration would (presumably) have better performance but cost more. I can envision 3 * 2 * 2 different products in several families distinguished by the following choices : 1. Band and protocol : a. 802.11 [divided into subfamilies for (b), (g), etc.?] b. Bluetooth c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee d. etc etc etc 2. Comm coprocessor or SimmStick host handles protocol stack? 3. Separate comm board for each band/protocol or common SimmStick part + interchangable wireless parts? For example, a small SimmStick board decodes bus / chip select / etc and passes relevant SPI through a separate connector to the RF section. So - my questions to the community are : Is anyone interested in wireless on SimmStick? If not, hang_head_and_slink_away ... Do people who *are* interested have preferences for any of the above options? Any ideas about the time / expense / etc. to design one or more of the above? Size of the potential market? (Outside my customer organization, where there really isn't any telling how big the market could be if the price were right but where there may not be enough interest to result in funding the (hardware) development - software development might be possible if hardware was available.) Thanks! David David C Doty Voice : 240-568-6278 Email : david.doty@lmco.com Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems and Solutions 133 National Business Parkway, Suite 200 Annapolis Junction, MD 20701 From adburchill at iinet.net.au Wed Jul 7 17:06:38 2004 From: adburchill at iinet.net.au (Andrew Burchill) Date: Wed Jul 7 17:06:40 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 Message-ID: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> Don, I did assume some type of manufacturing defect, the trace in question starting from the simmstick bus, makes its way to the IC pair, then as it continues on to a via it goes through a couple of directional changes, and on a vertical path that it is lost, a good 8 to 9 mm of it. No evidence of partial etching, I would suggest that this has carried through on other boards in the batch. The fix is simple enough, but knowing that it is there, before trying to debug the S/W, is a big help. Andrew Burchill From support2004 at dontronics.com Wed Jul 7 17:35:00 2004 From: support2004 at dontronics.com (Don McKenzie) Date: Wed Jul 7 17:35:04 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 In-Reply-To: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> References: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> Message-ID: <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> Andrew Burchill wrote: > Don, > I did assume some type of manufacturing > defect, the trace in question starting from > the simmstick bus, makes its way to the IC > pair, then as it continues on to a via > it goes through a couple of directional > changes, and on a vertical path that > it is lost, a good 8 to 9 mm of it. > No evidence of partial etching, I would > suggest that this has carried through > on other boards in the batch. > The fix is simple enough, but knowing > that it is there, before trying to > debug the S/W, is a big help. > > Andrew Burchill I just pulled a board and a schematit out Andrew. I see that it is May 1997, so that will be over 7 years since I designed the board :-) Can you give me the pin numbers I should be looking for, and I check it out fully. If there is an error there, I will write it up on the page. Cheers Don... -- Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics USB to RS232 Converter that works http://www.dontronics.com/usb_232.html Don's Free Guide To Spam Reduction http://www.e-dotcom.com/spam_exp.php From support2004 at dontronics.com Wed Jul 7 17:46:49 2004 From: support2004 at dontronics.com (Don McKenzie) Date: Wed Jul 7 17:46:56 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] dontronics.com Message-ID: <40EC6F49.70202@dontronics.com> Hi Gang, just to let you all know that I will be travelling from around the 21 Jul to 15 Aug 2004 I will have a notebook with me and hope to be able to use it for email during this time, however I won't be in a position to really get involved in too much, as I will be in tourist mode. :-) I will use "mobile2004 at dontronics.com" as a contact address, and Sharon in sales will be available to assist with any transactions. "sales2004 at dontronics.com" All mail sent to my standard address at "support2004 at dontronics.com" will be saved for my return. Don... -- Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics USB to RS232 Converter that works http://www.dontronics.com/usb_232.html Don's Free Guide To Spam Reduction http://www.e-dotcom.com/spam_exp.php From rob at usbmicro.com Wed Jul 7 18:21:45 2004 From: rob at usbmicro.com (rob@usbmicro.com) Date: Wed Jul 7 18:14:06 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 In-Reply-To: <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> References: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> Message-ID: <1588973274.20040707172145@usbmicro.com> ( As a follow-up here is a smaller picture for the list...) > Can you give me the pin numbers I should be looking for, and I check it > out fully. If there is an error there, I will write it up on the page. Don, Does this picture help? I guess I only use D0-D3 for the relay board... -Rob USBmicro.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: D5x.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 14164 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/simmstick_group_dontronics.com/attachments/20040707/756ca29f/D5x-0001.jpg From rob at usbmicro.com Wed Jul 7 18:17:12 2004 From: rob at usbmicro.com (rob@usbmicro.com) Date: Wed Jul 7 18:19:22 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 In-Reply-To: <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> References: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> Message-ID: <294812584.20040707171712@usbmicro.com> > Can you give me the pin numbers I should be looking for, and I check it > out fully. If there is an error there, I will write it up on the page. Don, Does this picture help? I guess I only use D0-D3 for the relay board... -Rob USBmicro.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: D5.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 154619 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/simmstick_group_dontronics.com/attachments/20040707/e9025c22/D5-0001.jpg From support2004 at dontronics.com Wed Jul 7 18:56:35 2004 From: support2004 at dontronics.com (Don McKenzie) Date: Wed Jul 7 18:56:48 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 In-Reply-To: <1588973274.20040707172145@usbmicro.com> References: <40EC65DE.7010200@iinet.net.au> <40EC6C84.9000102@dontronics.com> <1588973274.20040707172145@usbmicro.com> Message-ID: <40EC7FA3.1030201@dontronics.com> rob@usbmicro.com wrote: > > ( As a follow-up here is a smaller picture for the list...) > > >>Can you give me the pin numbers I should be looking for, and I check it >>out fully. If there is an error there, I will write it up on the page. > > > Don, > > Does this picture help? I guess I only use D0-D3 for the relay > board... > > -Rob > USBmicro.com Thanks Rob, :-) and thanks for the picture. this one rings a bell, but it has been too many years. I have documented it on the page so we will all be aware. http://www.dontronics.com/dt205.html There you go Andrew. I almost feel that we fixed this, and perhaps some of the old boards have appeared. Don... -- Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics USB to RS232 Converter that works http://www.dontronics.com/usb_232.html Don's Free Guide To Spam Reduction http://www.e-dotcom.com/spam_exp.php From adburchill at iinet.net.au Thu Jul 8 00:33:22 2004 From: adburchill at iinet.net.au (adburchill@iinet.net.au) Date: Thu Jul 8 00:33:33 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 Message-ID: <1089261202.40ecce9291fa6@mail.iinet.net.au> Hi, trace looses it after pin6 E1/E2, I have attached a pic of solder side of PCB, note the yellow wire is my fix. The area of intrest is where the track runs close to pin10 of E1/E2. If the pic does not make it, can it be posted from the http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics link? Andrew Burchill From support2004 at dontronics.com Thu Jul 8 06:15:37 2004 From: support2004 at dontronics.com (Don McKenzie) Date: Thu Jul 8 06:15:43 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: dt205 In-Reply-To: <1089261202.40ecce9291fa6@mail.iinet.net.au> References: <1089261202.40ecce9291fa6@mail.iinet.net.au> Message-ID: <40ED1EC9.3090709@dontronics.com> adburchill@iinet.net.au wrote: > > Hi, > trace looses it after pin6 E1/E2, I have attached > a pic of solder side of PCB, note the yellow wire is my fix. > The area of intrest is where the track runs close to pin10 of E1/E2. Thanks Andrew, however Rob Severson has just posted it, and I have added it to the page. > If the pic does not make it, can it be posted from the > http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics link? No, it is a web form only. support2004 at dontronics.com will do the trick. Cheers Don... > > > Andrew Burchill -- Don McKenzie E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.e-dotcom.com/ecp.php?un=Dontronics USB to RS232 Converter that works http://www.dontronics.com/usb_232.html Don's Free Guide To Spam Reduction http://www.e-dotcom.com/spam_exp.php From bboyes at systronix.com Thu Jul 8 14:03:51 2004 From: bboyes at systronix.com (Bruce Boyes) Date: Thu Jul 8 14:03:48 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? In-Reply-To: <4C66670E3862A6419DA003F220D07C8403F31FA4@emss04m14.us.lmco .com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20040708114814.02d81cf8@mail.xmission.com> At 01:43 PM 7/7/2004 -0400, Doty, David wrote: >Hi, All - > I'm interested in being able to demonstrate 802.11, Bluetooth, or > ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless connectivity on a SimmStick bus. I would guess > that the quick-and-dirty implementation would be a to use (a) a JStik's > Ethernet and an Ethernet-wireless gateway or (b) a USBSimm and a > USB-based wireless device. This would leave the development of the > driver and protocol stack (since most of these devices assume a Linux or > Windows PC host). It would seem to me that a longer-term solution would > be to have the wireless implemented on a SimmStick board in any of > several configurations. OK, I will jump in here with some thoughts and also some vague idea of where Systronix is headed with this stuff. > One possible example is the CC2420 802.15.4/ZigBee chip. The chip > accepts and provides data through an SPI interface. A driver and > protocol stack could reside in a comm coprocessor on the same SimmStick > (this could be a 'simple' repackaging of, for example, the Ember > reference design www.ember.com) or in the SimmStick host. The > coprocessor configuration would (presumably) have better performance but > cost more. I doubt that cloning the US$5000 Ember reference design would be 'simple'. I'm guessing there are licensing issues there. Also the Zigbee antennna design is not a trivial issue, and the finished board must be tested for FCC compliance. > I can envision 3 * 2 * 2 different products in several families > distinguished by the following choices : > >1. Band and protocol : > > a. 802.11 [divided into subfamilies for (b), (g), etc.?] We have no plans for 802.11 but could reconsider if low cost chips become available. 802.11 is too power hungry for most of our apps, and we don't have an easy way to interface into our TCP/IP stacks at the moment. > b. Bluetooth Bluetooth is dead in the embedded space. Prove me wrong if you can. So far no one has. Name one commercial embedded system Bluetooth product. I cannot. BT is the wrong solution for low power embedded sensors and distributed processes, and there are huge barriers to using BT. Forget about it. We have. > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start serious development. > d. etc etc etc > >2. Comm coprocessor or SimmStick host handles protocol stack? JStamp or JStik can easily be the Zigbee processor as a small background task. Or it could exist on a small micro. I can't say more right now since this is a new product and we don't want to give all the details away, and many don't exist yet. >3. Separate comm board for each band/protocol That's our approach. >or common SimmStick part + interchangable wireless parts? Not possible/practical. > For example, a small SimmStick board decodes bus / chip select / etc > and passes relevant SPI through a separate connector to the RF section. > > So - my questions to the community are : > >Is anyone interested in wireless on SimmStick? If not, >hang_head_and_slink_away ... Our first products will be 2.4 GHz Maxstream JSimm/Simmstick boards early this fall: http://jcx.systronix.com/rfmodems.htm Note the above page is somewhat out of date but gives you the idea. These will NOT interface with Zigbee, they use different protocols. The Maxstream units will be ready sooner and have longer range than Zigbee. By year end we should be shipping Zigbee systems. What you can do today: 1) get Maxstream dev kits from maxstream.net and start using them. 2) Same for Zigbee, from multiple vendors. 3) give up on BT, it's not worth the effort, and it's wrong for most embedded systems anyway 4) plug a WAP from Linksys or whomever into the JStik RJ45 - voila - wireless 10BaseT Bruce >Do people who *are* interested have preferences for any of the above >options? Any ideas about the time / expense / etc. to design one or more >of the above? Size of the potential market? (Outside my customer >organization, where there really isn't any telling how big the market >could be if the price were right but where there may not be enough >interest to result in funding the (hardware) development - software >development might be possible if hardware was available.) > > Thanks! > > David > >David C Doty >Voice : 240-568-6278 >Email : david.doty@lmco.com >Lockheed Martin >Integrated Systems and Solutions >133 National Business Parkway, Suite 200 >Annapolis Junction, MD 20701 > > >_______________________________________________ >SimmStick_Group mailing list >SimmStick_Group@dontronics.com >http://dontronics.com/mailman/listinfo/simmstick_group_dontronics.com ------- WWW.SYSTRONIX.COM ---------- Real embedded Java and much more www.jrealtime.com and www.tstik.com +1-801-534-1017 Salt Lake City, USA From caska at virtualbreadboard.com Thu Jul 8 14:19:29 2004 From: caska at virtualbreadboard.com (James Caska) Date: Thu Jul 8 14:19:41 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20040708114814.02d81cf8@mail.xmission.com> Message-ID: <001001c46518$1c2761e0$ef6ea143@JONAMB1> > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start serious development. Bruce, if you are interested in co-developing/porting a Zigbee stack in java that will run on both Jstamp and muvium devices then count me in. James Caska www.muvium.com uVM - 'Java Bred for Embedded' -----Original Message----- From: SimmStick_Group-bounces@dontronics.com [mailto:SimmStick_Group-bounces@dontronics.com] On Behalf Of Bruce Boyes Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 11:04 AM To: SimmStick Group Subject: Re: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? At 01:43 PM 7/7/2004 -0400, Doty, David wrote: >Hi, All - > I'm interested in being able to demonstrate 802.11, Bluetooth, or > ZigBee/802.15.4 wireless connectivity on a SimmStick bus. I would guess > that the quick-and-dirty implementation would be a to use (a) a JStik's > Ethernet and an Ethernet-wireless gateway or (b) a USBSimm and a > USB-based wireless device. This would leave the development of the > driver and protocol stack (since most of these devices assume a Linux or > Windows PC host). It would seem to me that a longer-term solution would > be to have the wireless implemented on a SimmStick board in any of > several configurations. OK, I will jump in here with some thoughts and also some vague idea of where Systronix is headed with this stuff. > One possible example is the CC2420 802.15.4/ZigBee chip. The chip > accepts and provides data through an SPI interface. A driver and > protocol stack could reside in a comm coprocessor on the same SimmStick > (this could be a 'simple' repackaging of, for example, the Ember > reference design www.ember.com) or in the SimmStick host. The > coprocessor configuration would (presumably) have better performance but > cost more. I doubt that cloning the US$5000 Ember reference design would be 'simple'. I'm guessing there are licensing issues there. Also the Zigbee antennna design is not a trivial issue, and the finished board must be tested for FCC compliance. > I can envision 3 * 2 * 2 different products in several families > distinguished by the following choices : > >1. Band and protocol : > > a. 802.11 [divided into subfamilies for (b), (g), etc.?] We have no plans for 802.11 but could reconsider if low cost chips become available. 802.11 is too power hungry for most of our apps, and we don't have an easy way to interface into our TCP/IP stacks at the moment. > b. Bluetooth Bluetooth is dead in the embedded space. Prove me wrong if you can. So far no one has. Name one commercial embedded system Bluetooth product. I cannot. BT is the wrong solution for low power embedded sensors and distributed processes, and there are huge barriers to using BT. Forget about it. We have. > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start serious development. > d. etc etc etc > >2. Comm coprocessor or SimmStick host handles protocol stack? JStamp or JStik can easily be the Zigbee processor as a small background task. Or it could exist on a small micro. I can't say more right now since this is a new product and we don't want to give all the details away, and many don't exist yet. >3. Separate comm board for each band/protocol That's our approach. >or common SimmStick part + interchangable wireless parts? Not possible/practical. > For example, a small SimmStick board decodes bus / chip select / > etc > and passes relevant SPI through a separate connector to the RF section. > > So - my questions to the community are : > >Is anyone interested in wireless on SimmStick? If not, >hang_head_and_slink_away ... Our first products will be 2.4 GHz Maxstream JSimm/Simmstick boards early this fall: http://jcx.systronix.com/rfmodems.htm Note the above page is somewhat out of date but gives you the idea. These will NOT interface with Zigbee, they use different protocols. The Maxstream units will be ready sooner and have longer range than Zigbee. By year end we should be shipping Zigbee systems. What you can do today: 1) get Maxstream dev kits from maxstream.net and start using them. 2) Same for Zigbee, from multiple vendors. 3) give up on BT, it's not worth the effort, and it's wrong for most embedded systems anyway 4) plug a WAP from Linksys or whomever into the JStik RJ45 - voila - wireless 10BaseT Bruce >Do people who *are* interested have preferences for any of the above >options? Any ideas about the time / expense / etc. to design one or more >of the above? Size of the potential market? (Outside my customer >organization, where there really isn't any telling how big the market >could be if the price were right but where there may not be enough >interest to result in funding the (hardware) development - software >development might be possible if hardware was available.) > > Thanks! > > David > >David C Doty >Voice : 240-568-6278 >Email : david.doty@lmco.com >Lockheed Martin >Integrated Systems and Solutions >133 National Business Parkway, Suite 200 >Annapolis Junction, MD 20701 > > >_______________________________________________ >SimmStick_Group mailing list >SimmStick_Group@dontronics.com >http://dontronics.com/mailman/listinfo/simmstick_group_dontronics.com ------- WWW.SYSTRONIX.COM ---------- Real embedded Java and much more www.jrealtime.com and www.tstik.com +1-801-534-1017 Salt Lake City, USA _______________________________________________ SimmStick_Group mailing list SimmStick_Group@dontronics.com http://dontronics.com/mailman/listinfo/simmstick_group_dontronics.com From jay at sprucegrove.com Thu Jul 8 14:21:00 2004 From: jay at sprucegrove.com (D. Jay Newman) Date: Thu Jul 8 14:23:38 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? In-Reply-To: <001001c46518$1c2761e0$ef6ea143@JONAMB1> from "James Caska" at Jul 08, 2004 11:19:29 AM Message-ID: <200407081821.i68IL0x27471@sprucegrove.com> > > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee > > This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We > have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start > serious development. Will you have interfaces other than SimmStick? A simple header? I have been burned on the SimmStick interface since my dev kits for both the JStamp and JStik failed on me. Now, it could be because I got some of the earliest of both. On the other hand, I have them working without having to use the SimmStick, so I'm relatively happy. And I do want to experiment with ZigBee. It sounds like it has a lot of potential uses. -- D. Jay Newman ! DCX - it takes off and lands base first, jay@sprucegrove.com ! as God and Robert Heinlein intended. http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! From bboyes at systronix.com Thu Jul 8 18:01:26 2004 From: bboyes at systronix.com (Bruce Boyes) Date: Thu Jul 8 18:01:24 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? In-Reply-To: <200407081821.i68IL0x27471@sprucegrove.com> References: <001001c46518$1c2761e0$ef6ea143@JONAMB1> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20040708155731.02d1f618@mail.xmission.com> At 02:21 PM 7/8/2004 -0400, you wrote: > > > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee > > > > This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We > > have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start > > serious development. > >Will you have interfaces other than SimmStick? A simple header? Not clear yet. It wants to be SPI for the best performance. >I have been burned on the SimmStick interface since my dev kits for both >the JStamp and JStik failed on me. Now, it could be because I got some >of the earliest of both. On the other hand, I have them working without >having to use the SimmStick, so I'm relatively happy. Your experiences are unusual. The earliest "flat lever" Simm sockets do not hold up well. We've had no problems with the later (shipping last 1.5 years or so) angled metal lever sockets. I can't recall if it was you or someone else who declined our offer to replace all SIMM socket boards and return the bad ones so we could analyze them. In any case we've had no documented failures of the newer/better SIMM30 sockets. >And I do want to experiment with ZigBee. It sounds like it has a lot >of potential uses. We think so! Bruce From bboyes at systronix.com Thu Jul 8 18:06:26 2004 From: bboyes at systronix.com (Bruce Boyes) Date: Thu Jul 8 18:06:18 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? In-Reply-To: <001001c46518$1c2761e0$ef6ea143@JONAMB1> References: <5.2.0.9.2.20040708114814.02d81cf8@mail.xmission.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20040708160134.03306a08@mail.xmission.com> At 11:19 AM 7/8/2004 -0700, James Caska wrote: > > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee > >This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We >have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start >serious development. > >Bruce, if you are interested in co-developing/porting a Zigbee stack in java >that will run on both Jstamp and muvium devices then count me in. Based on information at hand today, running at least the limited function Zigbee device stack on muvium should be possible. We also want to run JXTA on top of Zigbee, as the Zigbee "application layer". Then we'd have seamless integration with wired 802.11, 2.4 GHz RFModem, wireless 802.11, etc. When we get closer we will be definitely trying to do at least some layers of this as an open source project. We are also planning a muvium JSimm board maybe in August. I'm encouraged by your recent additions to the API. It's looking more and more useful. We have some possible ideas for muviums spread through a system, but fall will be the earliest time to get going on that... Regards Bruce From david.doty at lmco.com Mon Jul 19 11:00:16 2004 From: david.doty at lmco.com (Doty, David) Date: Mon Jul 19 11:30:13 2004 Subject: [SimmStick_Group] Re: Interest in SimmStick <-> Wireless? (Bruce Boyes) Message-ID: <4C66670E3862A6419DA003F220D07C8403F31FAB@emss04m14.us.lmco.com> Hi, Bruce - Thanks for the insights and information about Systronix' plans. I would have gotten back to you sooner, but I was in Russia visiting my soon-to-be children (another story for another day ...) > > One possible example is the CC2420 802.15.4/ZigBee chip. The chip > > accepts and provides data through an SPI interface. A driver and > > protocol stack could reside in a comm coprocessor on the same SimmStick > > (this could be a 'simple' repackaging of, for example, the Ember > > reference design www.ember.com) or in the SimmStick host. The > > coprocessor configuration would (presumably) have better performance but > > cost more. > > I doubt that cloning the US$5000 Ember reference design would be 'simple'. > I'm guessing there are licensing issues there. Also the Zigbee antennna > design is not a trivial issue, and the finished board must be tested for > FCC compliance. I'm sure you're right. My tongue was in my cheek about the job being 'simple' - I tend to speak as a software engineer who has heard "it's a simple matter of programming" from far too many hardware folks (or, even worse, managers) when *I* know better. Next time I'll add an ironic smiley ;) > > a. 802.11 [divided into subfamilies for (b), (g), etc.?] > > We have no plans for 802.11 but could reconsider if low cost chips become > available. 802.11 is too power hungry for most of our apps, and we don't > have an easy way to interface into our TCP/IP stacks at the moment. Noted. > > b. Bluetooth > > Bluetooth is dead in the embedded space. Prove me wrong if you can. So far > no one has. Name one commercial embedded system Bluetooth product. I > cannot. BT is the wrong solution for low power embedded sensors and > distributed processes, and there are huge barriers to using BT. Forget > about it. We have. Aside from the power requirements, what do you see as the barriers to BT in the embedded space? (not doubting your expertise - expressing curiosity) > > c. 802.15.4 / ZigBee > This is where we are investing. Will have shipping products this fall. We > have dev kits on order due in first week August, that's when we start > serious development. Excellent! > Our first products will be 2.4 GHz Maxstream JSimm/Simmstick boards early > this fall: > http://jcx.systronix.com/rfmodems.htm > Note the above page is somewhat out of date but gives you the idea. These > will NOT interface with Zigbee, they use different protocols. The Maxstream > units will be ready sooner and have longer range than Zigbee. > > By year end we should be shipping Zigbee systems. > > What you can do today: > 1) get Maxstream dev kits from maxstream.net and start using them. > 2) Same for Zigbee, from multiple vendors. > 3) give up on BT, it's not worth the effort, and it's wrong for most > embedded systems anyway > 4) plug a WAP from Linksys or whomever into the JStik RJ45 - voila - > wireless 10BaseT That sounds like a good plan. Thanks again for your thoughts.