Hello. I recently acquired a NetWinder...

[Ralph Siemsen]

Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:

> Regarding the website, perhaps, but you would know more about who ended  
> up with the licenses and copyrights, which is what I originally asked.

NetWinder Inc. is (was?) a subsidiary of Thor Solutions based in Nova 
Scotia, and as far as I know, they are the owners of the technology. 
Admittedly I have not heard from anyone there in at least a year, 
perhaps longer.  The current WHOIS for netwinder.net does not match up 
at all, I have no idea who is running that blog-style site, or if they 
are actually related at all.

> Evidently, any such discussion took place during an era of the mailing  
> list archives that I have not yet found. This synopsis seems slightly  
> paradoxical, since a lack of interest in that property is hardly  
> consistent with actively turning down requests for permission to use it  
> rather than taking advantage of opportunities to get rid of it.

We got so far as to have an email saying it was okay.  I decided to 
cover my butt and asked for it in writing signed by an authoritative 
person, but around the same time, netwinder inc closed their office and 
moved all the equipment (presumably to Nova Scotia), and became 
unresponsive at that time.  I tried for a year to "complete" the deal 
but eventually gave up.

> The list archives in the old FTP site stop in early 2000, but the  
> current pipermail begins in late 2004. I have not yet seen the  
> pipermail archives for the intervening time period.

I'll try to complete the collection from my own archive.

> So the board was fully populated at one point? Any idea how that  
> interfaced with software? Also, I don't see a Winbond video codec chip  
> anywhere in these pictures. Where would it have been? And what kind of  
> signals would be accessible through that little card-edge connector  
> under the fan?

Early cards were populated, but there was no software support, due to 
licensing costs for the 56k modem technology.  As far as I know the 
modem never worked.

See below for the video codec story.

The card-edge connector under the fan is a JTAG port.

> Ouch! You even deleted the changelogs! I guess now I'd better hope the  
> firmware in the machine never gets corrupted...

Ah but now OSU matches all the other mirrors :)

> Seems slightly wasteful if libfloat can't use hard-float support even  
> in the few instances when it's there...

I would think that writing a libfloat with this behaviour would be 
possible, but its not the same as having the opcodes of floating point 
instructions embedded in your executable.  And that is really the issue, 
you really can't have it both ways.

For netwinder, all the software is readily re-compiled from source, so I 
don't see any real issue with going to soft-float, and many other ARM 
architectures have long ago reached the same conclusion.

> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/20/427
> 
> It's not all that discouraging, yet...

At least there seems to be interest... that's the biggest challenge!

> That's the most disappointing thing I've heard so far. I think  
> framebuffer reliance is a rather steep price for a software upgrade.

We're been this way since early 2.4.  If you want VGA that badly, I will 
dig through old mail to see what PatB told us had to be done (actually 
you seem pretty good at googling, so you can probably chase down the 
last discussion on this)...

> I would think its presence would be coupled with the presence of the  
> Philips chip. Where on the board was this Winbond chip supposed to be?

Just below the cyberpro (where the philips chip is just above).  Its 
footprint is present on rev4 boards; on rev5 there is a glue logic chip 
there instead.

> Maybe the first step, but everything Corel-specific and Rebel-specific  
> in the DM images should ideally be available.

Lofty goal.  We haven't had any volunteers step forward...  Just 
building NW-9 as it stands today took a good few months of my time and 
effort, and while I enjoy this sort of thing, I do have other interests 
besides NetWinder :)

>> You can also do some clever cable-folding to make use of "free" space  
>> in the case.  Using a two-headed IDE cable, run it on top of the HDD,  
>> then do a 90 degree diagonal bend, and you'll have room on the side.   
>> The only issue is supporting it mechanically.
> 
> Room on the side? You mean put the second drive in sideways? I don't  
> quite see how that's possible...

I didn't say it was easy :)  One thing to note, the HDD is usually on 
rails, to adapt the spacing of the support screws.  This can be improved 
upon if one is mechanically inclined.  Heat is an issue though, with the 
CPU right under the hard drive - a second drive would only make it worse.

> As for the power supply, I have two with the Corel label, and their  
> plugs barely fit the power connector, becoming entirely dislodged at  
> the slightest touch. One of them I have not tried with the unit because  
> I was told that its operational status was unknown, and indeed, its  
> voltage without load is slightly lower than that of the one that  
> currently works.

Hmm I seem to recall for a while they shipped psu's where the connector 
was too short, and prone to falling out.  In fact I think I have a few 
of such supplies myself.  Even the "right" ones are pretty prone to 
falling out.  It was a common complaint, but the replacement 
(automotive) power connector used on the rackmounts drew its own 
complaints.  Get out your soldering iron ;)

-R