Right, ballooners & potential Ballooners...
Compact Flash slot(s) are a bit contentious. I'm currently hoping (but not
guaranteeing) to fit 2 slots to Balloon3. However, there is (almost) no
chance of supporting 5V cards, only 3V. Since I posess exactly two CF
cards, I don't know how much of a limitation the 3V-only will be. Has
anyone with a microdrive any information on its requirements? Same goes
for other CF cards - wireless, Bluetooth, Ethernet, etc. (Similarly,
sketches of the bulges on the end of CF cards - antennas, connectors, etc)
that people would be hoping to use, would be interesting, to reduce the
likelyhood of mechanical clashes between CF cards (which plague my laptop
PCMCIA slots...)
The second limitation is that I don't plan to support hot-swapping for
Compact Flash. I expect the CF slots to be filled at the factory, rather
than ever being exposed to end users. With PXA27x, USB should be able to
support a huge range of random plugged-in toys, and allow them to be
hot-swapped on a whim.
The support to make CF (reliably) hot-swappable will cost, in pins,
board-space, PCB complexity and design time. If anyone has a usage model
for Balloon which needs hot-plug on the CF slots, can they please make
their argument now, to try to convince me?
It's also of note that I have a fearsome amount of non-Balloon work lined
up for the next 6 months. (have to pay the mortgage somehow, and Balloon's
just infill work). The plan is still to relase the prototype design for
Balloon3 by the end of the year, but I would be very interested to hear if
anyone is relying on that date.
Cheers, all
Steve Wiseman
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