>(So Pine64 included a SPI flash for people not wanting an eMMC or SDXC.)
No, that is a suggestion from Armbian, 3-4 years ago, so ARM could eventually have a "bios"
It is a little known fact that todays (x86) bios is a grandchild (or great-grandchild)
of DR's s100 bios, also on disk (44 years ago)
On topic, how about small holes over emmc and serial switches, with flush rubber plugs?
Another dream feature for future hardware revision, would be increased memmory...
But due to hardware limitation, that probably won't be possible before some upcoming RK3366 or RK3388 in a couple of years.
(Or short of some exotic hardware, like RAM disk on the PCIe/NVMe bus, which is probably going to be too expensive to be practical)
(12-14-2020, 04:52 PM)wdt Wrote: On topic, how about small holes over emmc and serial switches, with flush rubber plugs?
If there was an onboard rs232 to usb converter, then there wouldn't need to be a serial switch.
What's more, many rs232-usb chips also have a few GPIOs which can be controlled over USB. This could be used to give the host the USB console is connected the ability to turn on/off eMMC and the SPI flash chip, without needing to open up the PBP and flip a switch. Would make the disable eMMC, boot, re-enable eMMC while running process used to reflash a bad eMMC a lot easier.
(12-11-2020, 04:33 AM)xyzzy Wrote: Rotate touchpad 180 degrees so that the physical buttons are under the top corners, rather than the bottom corners.
Quite frankly, this would make very little sense, unless we'd (hopefully) get a new keyboard with an integrated trackpoint, in which case we'd actually need a new trackpad with a total of four physical buttons.
12-16-2020, 11:33 AM (This post was last modified: 12-16-2020, 11:39 AM by Arwen.)
(12-15-2020, 07:08 PM)xyzzy Wrote:
(12-14-2020, 04:52 PM)wdt Wrote: On topic, how about small holes over emmc and serial switches, with flush rubber plugs?
If there was an onboard rs232 to usb converter, then there wouldn't need to be a serial switch.
What's more, many rs232-usb chips also have a few GPIOs which can be controlled over USB. This could be used to give the host the USB console is connected the ability to turn on/off eMMC and the SPI flash chip, without needing to open up the PBP and flip a switch. Would make the disable eMMC, boot, re-enable eMMC while running process used to reflash a bad eMMC a lot easier.
Interesting idea. One of the USB->TTL serial chip series I looked at, had both a model with some GPIOs and another with few, (or was that none?), GPIOs.
If we ran the power to the USB->TTL serial chip from the EXTERNAL source, we could even power off the Pinebook Pro and have the state of the GPIOs remain the same.
In my theoretical new daughter / small board with the built in USB->TTL serial converter chip, using external power was part of the plan. Basically if you don't plug in an external computer, their is no need for the USB->TTL serial to work. Thus saving a bit of power on the Pinebook Pro, (which might be running off battery).
I'd vote for a new privacy switch, for sound out. There is nothing more annoying when visiting a web site to find out it wants to blare loud sound.
And yes, I know I can get the volume control GUI to reduce volume. Or outright mute the output sound. But I had been stuck in situations were quiet was expected and sudden blaring of sound was disruptive. Stopping it immediately is needed. As in the longer it lasts, the more heat sent your way...
Don't know if this should affect the headset jack audio output. Probably should be same as the microphone privacy switch. If the headset jack's microphone input is disabled by the privacy switch, then the sound out should be affected by the new sound out privacy switch.
12-16-2020, 05:03 PM (This post was last modified: 12-16-2020, 05:06 PM by KC9UDX.)
I like that switch idea, and I've always thought about more switches, especially spares. I planned to install some more GPIO inside, some would be attached to that.
But more importantly, I'd like to move the existing switches (including the keyboard ones) to the top surface, "above" the keyboard. (The psychical-console-access caveat to security.)
I mostly agree on the additional switches. Having the UART/headphones switch inside the PineBook Pro is particularly inconvenient, so there should be either two jacks (one for the UART and the other for the headphones) or an externally accessible switch.
(12-16-2020, 08:39 AM)dsimic Wrote: get a new keyboard with an integrated trackpoint, in which case we'd actually need a new trackpad with a total of four physical buttons.
I love such setups (trackpoint keyboard with real clicky buttons under the space bar) and tend to use the clicky buttons even when using the trackpad.
Now if that potential keyboard could also not be missing the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert/Delete block that would even greater.
(I dislike needed to press yet another extra button for commonly used shortcut like "home", "ctrl"+"pgup", etc. The popularity of these "amputed keyboard" introduced by Apple is disturbing to me).
Basically, we'd need a keyboard from the ThinkPad T60 or T500 era, before the ThinkPads got "streamlined" (i.e., dumbed down). Something like the one in the attached image would be simply perfect.
