Why and when flash memory is needed in embedded system?

larwe wrote:
> Tom Lucas wrote:
>
> > our conversations must be about what the little buggers have been up to
> > this week. I guess this must be revenge for the time I spend
> > disseminating the virtues of my GP2X to her ;-)
>
> What is a GP2X?

Here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X



-Isaac

Tom Lucas wrote:
> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1158844321.938326.21960@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Tom Lucas wrote:
> >
> >> > "The answers to your homework can be found in the reading list
> >> > provided by your professor".
> >>
> >> I don't think the students are back yet are they? The UK ones only
> >> put
> >> down their burger flippers on Sunday and are still too drunk to post
> >> on
> >
> > US students have been back at school for at least two weeks. (My wife
> > is a seventh grade teacher, and I'm back at college myself... so I
> > know
> > these things).
>
> My girlfriend is now in her second week as a newly qualified maths
> teacher. Unfortunately, she has little time to do anything else so all
> our conversations must be about what the little buggers have been up to
> this week. I guess this must be revenge for the time I spend
> disseminating the virtues of my GP2X to her ;-)

You got a GP2X? Cool!
I wanted one of those but I decided instead to blow my money on a Palm
Zire 71.
Did you code for it? How is coding for it? A 200Mhz ARM9 might be good
enough for a software 3D implementation maybe even a lot more. Though I
believe the GP2X has a hardware blitter so it may help ease some load.


-Isaac

Tom Lucas wrote:


> 
> Speaking to a very old hairy-eared engineered once he told be that the 
> ROM he used many many years ago was windings of copper wire with ferrite 
> beads on them to represent data. Apparently they always used women to 
> wind the wires because they were more accurate than men. But I 
> digress....
> 

Holy cow, it wasn't THAT long ago; I did a lot of transformer ROM
re-wiring (to change code).  --Still have devices running using
transformer ROM.

Most transformer ROM used U-cores so that the assembly can be easily
opened for maintenance (rather than torroids).

Regards,

Michael Grigoni
Cybertheque Museum

msg wrote:
> Tom Lucas wrote:
> 
>> Speaking to a very old hairy-eared engineered once he told be that
>> the ROM he used many many years ago was windings of copper wire
>> with ferrite beads on them to represent data. Apparently they
>> always used women to wind the wires because they were more
>> accurate than men. But I digress....
> 
> Holy cow, it wasn't THAT long ago; I did a lot of transformer ROM
> re-wiring (to change code).  --Still have devices running using
> transformer ROM.
> 
> Most transformer ROM used U-cores so that the assembly can be easily
> opened for maintenance (rather than torroids).

Is that another phrase for rope memory?

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John wrote:
> Is it possible that embedded system doesn't have flash memory? If we
> use flash memory in embedded system, then we don't need to use ROM, or
> both? My understanding is that flash memory is similar to ROM, that
> stores permanent data like boot up instructions?? Is that correct?
> Please advice. thanks...

One might boot from a serial line, a network routed message, a
r/f or optical signal.  It might have a ROM or FLASH internally to
do this, but devices can be hard wired to do any of the above
without any ROM or FLASH or non-volatile programmable memory
in them.

"msg" <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote in message 
news:12h5nn5b088nf0@corp.supernews.com...
> Tom Lucas wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Speaking to a very old hairy-eared engineered once he told be that 
>> the ROM he used many many years ago was windings of copper wire with 
>> ferrite beads on them to represent data. Apparently they always used 
>> women to wind the wires because they were more accurate than men. But 
>> I digress....
>>
>
> Holy cow, it wasn't THAT long ago; I did a lot of transformer ROM
> re-wiring (to change code).  --Still have devices running using
> transformer ROM.
>

When you're working at the cutting edge then two weeks is a long time 
ago ;-) 

"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1158854003.329059.314130@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Tom Lucas wrote:
>
>> our conversations must be about what the little buggers have been up 
>> to
>> this week. I guess this must be revenge for the time I spend
>> disseminating the virtues of my GP2X to her ;-)
>
> What is a GP2X?

That wiki that Isaac posted a link for will tell you the facts. In my 
opinion it is both a good product and a good idea - basically a linux 
based open source PSP with a major appeal to retro gamers due to the 
wide variety of emulators available.

I mainly use mine to watch movies on the train to/from work but I also 
play games on it too - quake is particularly and I have become 
re-addicted to Rick Danderous on the Amstrad CPC464 emulator.

It is still a little raw yet but with some concerted developer effort 
then it could become a real giant-killer. However, they need to get the 
power management sorted because, even with 2x2500mAh batteries it still 
goes through them in just over a movie. 

"Isaac Bosompem" <x86asm@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1158857970.781934.86410@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Tom Lucas wrote:
>> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1158844321.938326.21960@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > Tom Lucas wrote:
>> >
>> >> > "The answers to your homework can be found in the reading list
>> >> > provided by your professor".
>> >>
>> >> I don't think the students are back yet are they? The UK ones only
>> >> put
>> >> down their burger flippers on Sunday and are still too drunk to 
>> >> post
>> >> on
>> >
>> > US students have been back at school for at least two weeks. (My 
>> > wife
>> > is a seventh grade teacher, and I'm back at college myself... so I
>> > know
>> > these things).
>>
>> My girlfriend is now in her second week as a newly qualified maths
>> teacher. Unfortunately, she has little time to do anything else so 
>> all
>> our conversations must be about what the little buggers have been up 
>> to
>> this week. I guess this must be revenge for the time I spend
>> disseminating the virtues of my GP2X to her ;-)
>
> You got a GP2X? Cool!
> I wanted one of those but I decided instead to blow my money on a Palm
> Zire 71

How is the Zire? Was it the right decision? I'm delighted with my GP2X 
but would like a bit more battery life - it doesn't appear to have any 
power management at all. The chap who did all the power management for 
the Fedora Core distribution is a good buddy so I've been bribing him 
with beer and curries to see if he can put some time into GP2X power 
management. He's back at university now so he should have plenty of time 
available ;-)

> Did you code for it? How is coding for it? A 200Mhz ARM9 might be good
> enough for a software 3D implementation maybe even a lot more. Though 
> I
> believe the GP2X has a hardware blitter so it may help ease some load.

I haven't coded anything for it yet because I've been struggling to find 
any time. I need to master video conversion and processing before I can 
get into any coding though. The GP2X needs a really good stable movie 
player than can handle a lot of formats because the standard one is a 
bit limp. I've tried mplayer on it but never managed to get it to play 
anything at all.

There are 2 ARM9's in use and I believe one is for thinking and the 
other is purely for handling graphics so there should be enough power 
available for a bit of 3D - that would be a very interesting project and 
might be something I could fancy having a crack at.

I worked with ARM a good bit so I'm fairly comfortable with the 
processors but I have never coded for Linux before so I have a pretty 
steep learning curve. This is the main reason I bought the GP2X (other 
than for watching the Sopranos on the train) because I think I'll be 
using Linux in my next product and I want to learn how to use it in 
plenty of time. Also once I get the hang of Linux properly then I can 
finally be shot of Windows, for which my patience is dwindling - how 
many iterations of Outlook do they need to get it right? 

msg wrote:
> Tom Lucas wrote:
> 
> 
>>
>> Speaking to a very old hairy-eared engineered once he told be that the 
>> ROM he used many many years ago was windings of copper wire with 
>> ferrite beads on them to represent data. Apparently they always used 
>> women to wind the wires because they were more accurate than men. But 
>> I digress....
>>
> 
> Holy cow, it wasn't THAT long ago; I did a lot of transformer ROM
> re-wiring (to change code).  --Still have devices running using
> transformer ROM.
> 
> Most transformer ROM used U-cores so that the assembly can be easily
> opened for maintenance (rather than torroids).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael Grigoni
> Cybertheque Museum

Some of the old mainframes had absolutely no ROM.  When you boot them, 
you have to code in the machine code instructions using a set of DIP 
switches until you've got enough to start booting (from disk, tape, 
punch card, or whatever).  Fortunately, these things were seldom 
switched off.

Tom Lucas wrote:

> > What is a GP2X?
>
> That wiki that Isaac posted a link for will tell you the facts. In my
> opinion it is both a good product and a good idea - basically a linux
> based open source PSP with a major appeal to retro gamers due to the
> wide variety of emulators available.

Right, I knew of the GP32 but don't really follow it which is why I
never heard of the GP2X.

It's pretty nifty. The price is good, too.