From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jan 29 22:03:46 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA17894 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:03:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from phoenix.volant.org (phoenix.volant.org [205.179.79.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA17885 for ; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:03:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from patl@phoenix.volant.org) From: patl@phoenix.volant.org Received: from asimov.phoenix.volant.org ([205.179.79.65]) by phoenix.volant.org with smtp (Exim 1.92 #8) id 106TVP-0007au-00; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:03:43 -0800 Received: from localhost by asimov.phoenix.volant.org (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id WAA13090; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:03:39 -0800 Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:03:39 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: patl@phoenix.volant.org Subject: Re: USB drivers To: Terry Lambert cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199901300347.UAA22080@usr05.primenet.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > So maybe a box with just a power connector, a FW port and a USB hub > > > chip (to seperate the "A" and "B" devices). > > > > If you are talking about external connections, I think the Apple iMac > > only has power, USB, and audio-out connectors. (I don't know what they > > use for the internal devices; but I would suspect it's pretty standard > > PCI with IDE/ATAPI, etc.) > > > > Of course, the iMac does have one big problem - there's no PowerPC > > port of FreeBSD... > > It also has a nasty IDE interface, a nasty modem, a nasty ethernet > port, a nasty ATI graphics chip, a nasty sound chip. Ok, so you're NOT talking about just external connections. I couldn't tell from you original posting. > So even if you bought a bare motherboard, you'd end up with all > this useless, expensive crap nailed to it. Somehow I suspect that it's still cheaper than USB or FireWire versions. After all, IDE is basicly still alive because it's cheaper than SCSI. > If I needed any of that, I'd buy a USB or a firewire version, and > plug in whatever I needed (and _only_ whatever I needed). > > I guess I could tolerate an SSD (solid state disk) socket... you > never know when you could use 78M of disk with PicoBSD on it. > > > Besides which, I'm pretty sure the motherboard is bigger than > > ``2.7" by 1.7" by .25" for a volume of about a cubic inch'' > > http://wearables.stanford.edu/ Yep, this falls into the class of machines where USB and/or FireWire would be an excellent choice. But then, this is also the sort of application where you're paying a significant bonus for small size and reduced parts count. But your original posting sounded like you were proposing a general- purpose desktop or notebook machine which only offered power, USB, and FireWire as external connectors. For that you'd need to be much closer to price/performance parity with more traditional designs. -Pat To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message