initial host platform

I took the asus eee notebook as the target platform because this it doesn't have a hard disk build in. This pc works completely on SSD. The only mechanical weak part is still the small fan. XP is installed on the 4G C drive and the 8G D drive serves for data and programs. Not having a hard disk has a great advantage espacially if it must work 24/7. Also the small layout is ideal for placing it in a switch board closet. It has default WIFI on board so my access point can be dropped. It runs on a celeron M 1Ghz processor more than enough power to drive my needed applications. I also benefit of the audio availability which is built in by default. I already tested it for a few days with my web server running and the no issues were dedected. The only bad thing I can say for now is that it only has 4Gb to store the operating system on. As windows XP SP3 is installed now I only have 500Mb left. But up till now I see no blocking issues to start working with this configuration. Maybe this can be replaced in time by a server system running on RAID. I'll see what I can get out of this small 3E pc.

first analyse

On the left my first ideas to cope with an FTDI based architecture. I isolated a few topics:

- Development platform
- Target deployment
- Physical composition
- Low level software interpretation

Mean less to say that this can be changed when I'll have some feedback on the overall performance and reliability of the system in this initial layout.

kick off

Just started with the FT2232D chip of the new FTDI USB generation. I tried to order a development kit but the order never came trough so I cancelled it. Meanwhile I wrote some hardware specification to build my own board that easily interfaces my I2C IO board. I already did some first tests with a VC program and the FTDI dedicated DLL to have a first impression on performance. I did these tests with a ft232 chip of the previous generation. One USB call via the DLL api takes a minimum time of 2ms. This is acceptable however. So I continued my strategy in using this chip targeted for I2C communication. So it can be used together with my IO board. This means of course that the final application will be running on a PC platform. I'm not sure yet if the OS will be windows or linux because FTDI drivers are provided for several possible operating systems. But I start my development on windows for a start.

The PCB layout will soon be in production. Attached to this blog the drawing of the customized pcb. As soon it's soldered properly I post a picture. Further news will follow as we go ahead !