adacomputer
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adacomputer [2009/10/20 22:48] ladyada |
adacomputer [2016/01/28 18:05] (current) |
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| - **Must have hardware/motherboard parallel port (printer port).** Parallel ports are the pinkie toe of electronics hacking. Youd think they'd be gone by now but nooo, they're still there, hanging around and often necessary for using older software/hardware/schems. I use them a lot for talking to laser and label printers, CPLD/FPGA programmers, bitbanging all sorts of stuff, programming chips via PonyProg, etc.. USB-parallel converters aren't good enough due to the slowness from the USB layer. Hardware parallel ports are just damn handy! | - **Must have hardware/motherboard parallel port (printer port).** Parallel ports are the pinkie toe of electronics hacking. Youd think they'd be gone by now but nooo, they're still there, hanging around and often necessary for using older software/hardware/schems. I use them a lot for talking to laser and label printers, CPLD/FPGA programmers, bitbanging all sorts of stuff, programming chips via PonyProg, etc.. USB-parallel converters aren't good enough due to the slowness from the USB layer. Hardware parallel ports are just damn handy! | ||
| - **Must have hardware/motherboard serial port** (COM/Modem port). Two if you can. These are more common than parallel ports. You can use USB-serial ports for most things but sometimes you need the hardware speed of an onboard serial port especially if you're doing some funky bitbanging. | - **Must have hardware/motherboard serial port** (COM/Modem port). Two if you can. These are more common than parallel ports. You can use USB-serial ports for most things but sometimes you need the hardware speed of an onboard serial port especially if you're doing some funky bitbanging. | ||
| - | - **Should be small**, we dont got a lot of room here at adafruit. | + | - **Should be small and quiet**, we dont got a lot of room here at adafruit. And nothing is worse than fan noise. |
| - **Doesnt need hardcore video** Not a lot of game playing around here, mostly working! | - **Doesnt need hardcore video** Not a lot of game playing around here, mostly working! | ||
| - **Processor type** Can be Intel or AMD. Both are fine by us. Lately we've liked AMD a lot. | - **Processor type** Can be Intel or AMD. Both are fine by us. Lately we've liked AMD a lot. | ||
| - **Lots of USB ports.** Both on the outside and on the motherboard. Especially for the shipping computer theres just tons of stuff that needs to plug in - programmers, barcode scanners, scales, backup usb keys, Arduinos. You can also use hubs. | - **Lots of USB ports.** Both on the outside and on the motherboard. Especially for the shipping computer theres just tons of stuff that needs to plug in - programmers, barcode scanners, scales, backup usb keys, Arduinos. You can also use hubs. | ||
| - **Whole machine for $500 ** Not including monitor, key/mouse, etc. We wanted it lean and clean. | - **Whole machine for $500 ** Not including monitor, key/mouse, etc. We wanted it lean and clean. | ||
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| + | Of course you should recycle what you can. In this case we had already recycled all our hard drives, CD rom drives, etc into other machines! | ||
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| + | If you have some other suggestions, feel free to edit the wiki page. Thanks! | ||
| ====== What we got ====== | ====== What we got ====== | ||
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| The computer has 2 serial ports on board (COM1 and COM2). Unfortunately theres no punchout so you'll want a bracket. They're called "Serial Port Brackets" and come with a 10-pin IDC cable | The computer has 2 serial ports on board (COM1 and COM2). Unfortunately theres no punchout so you'll want a bracket. They're called "Serial Port Brackets" and come with a 10-pin IDC cable | ||
| {{:09480a.jpg|}} | {{:09480a.jpg|}} | ||
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| + | Unfortunately, ours were miswired, and had 'alternating' pins soldered instead of 'incrementing' - you can fix this pretty quickly with some soldering. | ||
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| + | {{:mboardcom.jpg|}} | ||
| If you're feeling adventurous, you can actually get two of these and a Keystone 9200-15 (double DB-9 bracket) and double up for both COM ports! | If you're feeling adventurous, you can actually get two of these and a Keystone 9200-15 (double DB-9 bracket) and double up for both COM ports! | ||
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| Personal machine: $200 + $150 + $80 + $30 + $50 + $20 + $10 + $20 = $560 - Nicer processor & 4 G RAM & wifi | Personal machine: $200 + $150 + $80 + $30 + $50 + $20 + $10 + $20 = $560 - Nicer processor & 4 G RAM & wifi | ||
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| Business machine: $200 + $40 + $40 + $30 + $50 + $10 + $20 = $390 - Cheap processor & 2 G RAM & no wifi | Business machine: $200 + $40 + $40 + $30 + $50 + $10 + $20 = $390 - Cheap processor & 2 G RAM & no wifi | ||
| - | I rounded up because I didnt include shipping. The keyboards and monitors were recycled. We've been happy with this set up, hopefully it will be useful for someone :) | + | Which means that we met the budget of $500 (averaged together) |
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| + | I rounded up because I didnt include shipping. The keyboards and monitors were recycled. | ||
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| + | We've been happy with this set up, hopefully it will be useful for someone :) | ||
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