[PLUG] Any embedded guys here?

[Rick]

Galen Seitz wrote:

>Rick <rfarmer at skyweb.net> wrote:
>
>>I've been lurking for a few months and I have yet to see a post by
>>anyone that rolls their own hardware. Is everyone here using
>>off-the-shelf hardware and distros?
>>
>
>I'm doing embedded PowerPC work.  I'm sure there are others here,
>such as Axian employees, that are using embedded linux.  Did you
>have questions?
>
 No, I'm just an embedded hardware guy trying to master the software 
side as well. I can program 8-bit micros with the best of them, but I 
see them becoming irrelevent in the near future just as 4-bitter have. 
16-bitter have never really been much of more than a nitch product, and 
probably always will be. So you could say I'm trying to get ahead of the 
wave. I'm trying to find the brains that I'll pick once I finish my 
reading list.

 Here's how I see the future of embedded processing unfolding: As 32-bit 
micros get more and more embedded memory, it will eventually become 
practial to ship them with an OS on chip and it won't be windows. As an 
example take the last 32-bit design that I did. It was a 5272 coldfire 
with 8MB of FLASH, 8MB of SDRAM, and an ethnet PHY on a 72-pin SO-DIMM. 
Motorola recently released the 5282 with 512KB FLASH, and 64KB DRAM. 
This isn't enough for Linux, but you could get by with as little as 2MB 
of FLASH (or less if you ROM the OS and use FLASH only for the user file 
system). If you use stacked die packaging and use an 8MB SDRAM you have 
a viable system on a chip with today's technology. I don't see this 
happening today, but it will happen eventually. And it may even happen 
for a reason other than the desire of chip makers to have the chip with 
the most stuff on it: it would mean that you no longer have to port an 
entire OS to your target. You can skip straigth to the step where you 
start developing the custom drive code for whatever is off-chip (if any) 
or the application code itself.

 I could ramble some more, but I figure this crowd gets the point...