[Cu-wireless] Seial PCMCIA for Soekris 4521?

[stephane_alnet at ureach.com]

Hi Dave,

> I think the 4521 actually has a second serial port, but it is missing
> line drivers and a jack. But if there are not solder pads for those parts,
> you won't be able to use it very easily.

It's the same center chip as the 4501 (Elan SC520), so it definitely has
the second UART built-in (the kernel detects it at boot-up). I didn't
think about the missing line drivers, but I double-checked the Jnn and
JPnn references on the boards, and although I was able to find a couple
extra LED outs and the reset pins on the top of the board, the second
serial port is definitely missing.

> If you're really ambitious, you could attach a serial UART and line
> driver to the GPIO header. And then you could write a driver. What fun
> you will have! =)

Nah -- I'm not at that level at all. I don't want to spend more money on a
one-time serial PCMCIA card either (probably would cost way too much
money). Also, I want to test with two wireless cards in the thing (one
orinoco, one aironet) to see whether they "feel" different things while
driving.  (That's why I need to get the kernel compiled with the aironet
driver first. :] )

All in all I'll probably end up with a more software oriented solution
(basically a NMEA parser with a proprietary command sequence that opens a
shell :] ) -- as far as I remember I started writing some NMEA parsing
code some time ago (have to find what I did with it).  I'll combine its
output with the output of iwconfig and log that. (Then post-process on the
back-end once I'm home.) Having a shell is more a niceness/backup than
anything else; by default the system will assume there's a GPS connected
(so that I can plug the thing in, boot it and be done with it).

Thanks for researching it, still!


Sorry I missed the last meeting, by the way. :(  I'll need a private
version of Mark's talk on waves.. Any interest in my bringing the
linux 4521 to this week's meeting (if any?)?

S.

PS: Have you noticed that the PCMCIA cards tend to touch the underlying
chips when you put them in the slots? Would you be concerned by that (I'm
thinking from a temperature standpoint, mostly)?