I googled this group and the web and haven't found what I'm looking for. Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just test/time them [for writing a bignum math library]. The specs are PPC [such as 405] + DB9 serial + 16MiB of SDRAM + enough flash/rom for a boot loader All I really want from the bootloader is "load" and "go" but dump/disassemble would be nice. I'm looking to spend at most 250$ USD on this. All I've found so far are 1Ghz boards with 3GiB of ram and a 640x480 LCD, etc, etc, etc. Any ideas or pointers? Tom
PPC eval board
Started by ●June 30, 2005
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
Tom St Denis wrote:> I googled this group and the web and haven't found what I'm looking > for. > > Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the > basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just > test/time them [for writing a bignum math library]. > > The specs are > > PPC [such as 405] + DB9 serial + 16MiB of SDRAM + enough flash/rom for > a boot loader > > All I really want from the bootloader is "load" and "go" but > dump/disassemble would be nice. I'm looking to spend at most 250$ USD > on this. > > All I've found so far are 1Ghz boards with 3GiB of ram and a 640x480 > LCD, etc, etc, etc. > > Any ideas or pointers? > > TomThere is a post by /Rob/ on comp.os.linux.embedded who is offerring some used PPC hardware for sale.. try it. -- Prafulla Harpanhalli
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
Tom St Denis wrote:> I googled this group and the web and haven't found what I'm looking > for. > > Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the > basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just > test/time them [for writing a bignum math library]. > > The specs are > > PPC [such as 405] + DB9 serial + 16MiB of SDRAM + enough flash/rom for > a boot loader > > All I really want from the bootloader is "load" and "go" but > dump/disassemble would be nice. I'm looking to spend at most 250$ USD > on this. > > All I've found so far are 1Ghz boards with 3GiB of ram and a 640x480 > LCD, etc, etc, etc. > > Any ideas or pointers?Why not get a used Mac? You can probably get one of the original day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX though, you might be stuck with OS9).
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
robertwessel2@yahoo.com wrote:> Why not get a used Mac? You can probably get one of the original > day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX > though, you might be stuck with OS9).I want to use OSS tools not apple-ported tools. I had a mac mini for all of about a day. I screwed up [don't know how] yaboot and then my box wouldn't boot of the HD or CD. Personally I don't care for the OSX box... I just want the cpu so I can test some PPC asm. The idea would be I'd build a recent PPC compiler from GCC sources then just load some flat binary to the device hit go and time/watch the output. Tom
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
> Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the > basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just > test/time them [for writing a bignum math library].Look at http://www.larwe.com/technical/current.html#kuro (my site) and read the first couple of articles there. This hardware platform (<$200) might be what you need. It does not have the DB9 serial built in, but you can easily add it.
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
l...@larwe.com wrote:> > Basically I want a PPC board [like a PPC405, something that runs the > > basic 32-bit ISA] where I can upload programs [usually <2MiB] and just > > test/time them [for writing a bignum math library]. > > Look at http://www.larwe.com/technical/current.html#kuro (my site) and > read the first couple of articles there. This hardware platform (<$200) > might be what you need. It does not have the DB9 serial built in, but > you can easily add it.The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]... Tom
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
> The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]...Grrr. Well, the price was $170-odd for the standard version. There is now a newer version, Kuro Box HG, which is slightly faster and sexier but basically the same thing. It's the best-value PPC platform I found (I had the same problem you did, with everything being so expensive).
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
larwe@larwe.com wrote:> > The source for your kurobox is down [website moving]... > > Grrr. Well, the price was $170-odd for the standard version. There is > now a newer version, Kuro Box HG, which is slightly faster and sexier > but basically the same thing. > > It's the best-value PPC platform I found (I had the same problem you > did, with everything being so expensive).Well if you can email me their phone number or sales email I'll see if I can ping them. Thanks, Tom
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
On 1 Jul 2005 04:52:20 -0700, Tom St Denis wrote:>robertwessel2@yahoo.com wrote: >> Why not get a used Mac? You can probably get one of the original >> day-glo iMacs for under $200 (I don't know if those will run OSX >> though, you might be stuck with OS9). > >I want to use OSS tools not apple-ported tools. I had a mac mini for >all of about a day. I screwed up [don't know how] yaboot and then my >box wouldn't boot of the HD or CD. > >Personally I don't care for the OSX box... I just want the cpu so I can >test some PPC asm. The idea would be I'd build a recent PPC compiler >from GCC sources then just load some flat binary to the device hit go >and time/watch the output.Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the user group at news.openwatcom.org. Mat Nieuwenhoven
Reply by ●July 1, 20052005-07-01
Mat Nieuwenhoven wrote:> Although it isn't advertised, the OpenWatcom development version has some > very limited PPC support: assembler (called wasppc), C compiler ( wccppc) and > compile/link (wclppc), plus the capability to do remote debugging (don't know > off-hand which links are supported for that). You can cross compiler from > OS/2 and Win32, some tools are available from DOS as well. No C libraries as > yet I think but if you're doing assembler you won't need them. You'll need > the latest daily sources and build the lot (about 5 hours on a 400 MHz > machine), but you only need to do this once. If you need more info go to the > user group at news.openwatcom.org.Thanks for the reply but it's totally not what I was looking for. I only run Linux and I need GCC since the library I'm working on builds with GCC only [but on a variety of platforms. Personally I don't care for proprietary compilers]. The funny thing is all I need is actually fairly trivial compared to what the average eval board is... seems nobody just makes "simple" boards anymore... Tom