--------------------------------------------------------------------------- File: ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/projects/6811/handy-board/README Last updated: Thu Nov 30 19:00:02 1995 For info contact: Fred Martin (fredm@media.mit.edu) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEAR READER: INFORMATION ABOUT THE HANDY BOARD IS PRIMARILY DISTRIBUTED VIA THE WWW. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE WWW ACCESS, PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE FILE "hbwww.tar.gz" WHICH IS A SNAPSHOT OF THE HANDY BOARD WEB SITE THAT YOU CAN BROWSE LOCALLY. THIS FILE IS ARCHIVED WITH THE UNIX TAR PROTOCOL AND THEN COMPRESSED WITH THE GNU ZIP FORMAT. If you do have WWW access, please see the HB web site at http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/handy-board Following is some old e-mail that documents the genesis of the Handy Board. Yours, Fred Martin Thu Nov 30 19:01:19 1995 To: robot-board@oberon.com Subject: looking for beta testers for the "Handy Board" Date: Tue, 25 Apr 95 22:37:56 -0400 From: "Fred G. Martin" Greetings all, I'm working on a new board layout that's just about ready to send out for a first prototyping run, and I'm looking for some of you to share the costs of the PCB run and act as beta testers of the design. The board is in between the complexity of the Mini Board and the 6.270 Board. Indeed it is quite like the 6.270 board, but has several changes that make it smaller and easier to use (more like the Mini). I'm calling it the "Handy Board" because it fits in the palm of your hand, and hopefully will be "handy" for many things. Distinguishing features of the Handy Board include: * mounts in an off-the-shelf plastic enclosure, with room for an 8-cell AA rechargeable battery pack underneath the board itself. * uses readily available 52-pin versions of the 6811 (e.g., A1 or E9), along with battery-backed 32K static RAM. * all through-hole technology so it's hobbyist-friendly. * two L293D chips for 4 DC motor outputs. * Mini and 6.270 Board standard 3-wire digital and analog sensor connectors. * an LCD screen, two buttons, a knob, and a beeper all mounted on the board. * hardware 40 kHz oscillator and power darlington circuit for infrared output; on-board IR sensor for infrared input. * 6811 SPI pins wired along with power and ground to 6-pin RJ12 jack (in Mini Board configuration). * small, separate RS-232 level converter/battery charger box, with industry-standard DB-25 female serial connector, means no more serial adapter hassles. * CPU board measures 4.25 x 3.15 inches; interface/charger board measures 3.16 x 1.97 inches. These odd sizes were chosen to fit into commercially available enclosures (see parts list for catalog numbers). I will send the design to a fairly inexpensive proto house in about a week. They'll manufacture plated-through-hole boards WITHOUT a silkscreen or solder mask. So the boards be a little harder to work with than your standard board. But since they are plated-through holes, it won't be too bad. I hope to get together between six and ten people to help me test and evaluate the design. If you are interested in beta testing the design, please download the files and take a look. The proto run will work out to about $35 per set of two boards (the CPU board plus the interface/charger board) in the small lot. I'm doing this board design as a pet project and hence my desire to get together a small group of people to share the set-up costs. Obviously, since this is a beta test, I can't warrant that the board will be 100% free of layout errors, but I don't expect many and since it's all through hole it won't be hard to rework. Please let me know if you're interested in participating. I'm interested in getting together a mix of people who have and have not used the 6.270 board before. Thanks, Fred Return-Path: fredm@media.mit.edu Received: by media.mit.edu (5.57/DA1.0.4.amt) id AA05902; Sun, 7 May 95 22:59:18 -0400 Message-Id: <9505080259.AA05902@media.mit.edu> To: handyboard@media.mit.edu Subject: board order submitted! Date: Sun, 07 May 95 22:59:18 -0400 From: "Fred G. Martin" X-Mts: smtp Hello everyone, The first run of 30 Handy Boards is submitted. If all goes according to schedule, I will have them back on Wednesday. I made the changes mentioned on Friday. There is now a 4x2 pin right angle male header for the SPI connection (it does not protrude over the edge of the PCB), and a DC power jack on the CPU board for directly connecting a wall wart to charge the battery. I have uploaded new support files to cherupakha. BTW, cher has been reorganized so most directories are now in a "projects" directory. The following Handy Board stuff is in ftp://cherupakha.media.mit.edu/pub/projects/6811/handy-board: hblayout.ps.Z double-size parts-placement silkscreen, with light gray image of component side of board (or yellow if printed in color) to help you visually align what goes where. Much more legible than previous diagrams. hbintlayout.ps.Z same as above but for the Interface/Charger board. The above two printouts are essential for building the boards. The following four are images of the PCBs themselves, which will be helpful if it's necessary to track errors by tracing wires on the PCB. hbcom.ps.Z double-size image of component side of the Handy Board. hbsol.ps.Z double-size image of the solder side. Prints so you can put the two images side-by-side rather than back-to-back when following traces. So lettering and stuff looks reversed. hbintcom.ps.Z 2:1 image, component side of Interface/Charger board. hbintsol.ps.Z 2:1 image, solder side of I/C board. Also I've written a short document explaining the assembly markings on the boards: hb-building-notes.txt Explains how to mount LEDs, chips, resistor packs, etc. on the Handy Board. Most of you who haven't yet sent me checks have assured me that they're on the way. Thank you. I appreciate the communication so I know I haven't ordered too many boards. If anything there will probably be demand for another board run real soon! I will probably turn it over to Mark or any other interested party at that point. Mark wants to do boards with silkscreen and solder mask, which will be nice. This was the first time I've used an autorouter to do a board, and I have to say it gave me a false sense of confidence. Just because the board is verified to match the schematic doesn't mean there are no errors! Amazingly enough, errors on the schematic translate directly into errors on the PCB. Everything I found wrong with the first run should be fixed. Ideally the next run doesn't add features---it should just fix bugs---but I didn't confront the vertical clearance problem with the SPI RJ11 until I had a board in my hand. So that had to go, which opened up room for a new feature (the coax jack and the trickle charge circuit). My colleague Brian Silverman had been lobbying for this before, so it was in my mind, and I added it. (Several of you wrote to me in support of this feature.) Hopefully I got everything right and didn't introduce any errors. We'll see! Here is the final order list for the beta run. Thanks, Fred NAME E-MAIL QTY $$ rcv'd? (* = yes) Rick Wagoner Rick.Wagoner@Ebay.Sun.COM 2 Prabal Dutta dutta@cis.ohio-state.edu 2 * George Scott scott@pasta.enet.dec.com 1 * Rich Catena catena@arrcee.enet.dec.com 1 Patrick Brennan patrick@harpo.aaec.com 1 Paul M. Rybski rybskip@uwwvax.uww.edu 2 Thomas A Tullia tullia@guam.nadn.navy.mil 3 Adam Smith et al. aws@cs.brown.edu 3 Erik Green longshot@krypton.mankato.msus.edu 1 * Chuck McManis cmcmanis@scndprsn.Eng.Sun.COM 2 Mark Reeves robotek@cybernetics.net 3 Corey J Kovacs nimrod@krypton.mankato.msus.edu 1 * Scott Sherman sherman@plains.nodak.edu 2 Robert McCartney robert@cse.uconn.edu 2 Charles Doughty 71162.1226@compuserve.com 2 *