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User:Zazpot/EOMA68

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EOMA68 is a technical standard for modular computing appliances.[1][2] As of September 2016, it is under active development.[3]

In mid-2016, a crowd-funding effort to create computing hardware implementing the EOMA68 standard received international media coverage and exceeded its funding target.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

Physical properties

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The EOMA68 specification defines three types of computing card, inspired by the PCMCIA form factor and having the following physical properties:[10]

Type Thickness (mm) Length (mm) Width (mm) Maximum RGB/TTL output resolution (px) Maximum power consumption (W) Maximum average power consumption in prolonged use (W)
I 3.3 85.6 54 1920x1080 5 Unspecified
II 5 85.6 54 1366x768 5 3.5
III 8 85.6 54 Unspecified 10 Unspecified

The specification requires housings to correspond to one of the card types. Such housings must fully support cards of the corresponding and lower-numbered types, and must physically prevent cards of higher-numbered types from being inserted.[10]

Interfaces

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The EOMA68 specification defines a set of non-optional general-purpose interfaces which are themselves open and in common use for several decades.[11]

  • 1× USB 2.0 or below
  • 1× USB 3.1 or below
  • 1× SDIO up to 4-bit
  • RGB/TTL up to 18-bit, minimum 1366x768 for "Type I" and 1920x1080 for "Type II".
  • I²C Bus
  • SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface Bus) up to 4-bit
  • 1x 2-pin UART (Tx, Rx only)
  • 4x External-interrupt-capable GPIO (EINT)
  • 1x PWM (Pulse-width modulation)

All pins (with the exception of USB, I2C, RGB/TTL, 5V power and Ground pins) must be dual-function GPIO that uses CMOS-level signalling relative to a Reference Voltage, VREF supplied from EOMA68 Card. Additional general-purpose interfaces of any kind (HDMI, Wi-Fi, Audio, USB-OTG and many more) are permitted at the user-facing end (just as was with PCMCIA) on a per-module basis.

Connectors

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EOMA68 re-uses legacy PCMCIA connectors, housings, sockets and assemblies but is not electrically or electronically compatible with the legacy PCMCIA standard. Just as with PCMCIA, the user-facing end of EOMA68 may be used for any purpose, such as provision of WiFi antennae, HDMI or USB-OTG connectors.

Specification

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The EOMA68 standard is hosted on the eLinux site under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence. EOMA68 is the first standard in a series of standards[12] proposed by Rhombus Tech.

EOMA68 is unusual (but not unique) in that all its interfaces are mandatory.[11] Examples of the very few other "aggregation" style specifications that require all interfaces to be mandatory include PC/104 and COM Express. The consequences of mandatory interfaces are that there is no possible source of confusion for end-users throughout the entire projected standard's lifetime.

Implementations

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The first publicly-available hardware compliant with EOMA68 was offered by Make Play Live in 2013.[13] Although Make Play Live offered a CPU card called "Improv" for sale at $75 in 2014, it is not clear that the product ever shipped.[14]

In August 2016, another device compliant with EOMA68 was crowd-funded through Crowd Supply.[5][6][9][15][16] The first Computing Module in the series, the EOMA68-A20, was offered in a "Libre Tea" variant with the Parabola GNU/Linux-libre operating system installed, and is a candidate for Respects Your Freedom certification.[17] Additional hardware included two "Housings" - a Micro-Desktop and a 15.6in Laptop - as well as a break-out board for engineers and a Pass-through Card. The only implementations currently available are the Type II EOMA68 cards (5.0mm height).

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Brad Linder (2016-01-26). "EOMA68 Libre Laptop features upgradeable CPU card". Liliputing.com. Retrieved 2016-08-26.
  2. ^ http://elinux.org/index.php?title=Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA68&oldid=419121#EOMA68_Specification
  3. ^ http://elinux.org/index.php?title=Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA68&offset=20161001000000&limit=500&action=history&tagfilter=
  4. ^ Brad Linder (2016-06-29). "Crowdfunding begins for modular EOMA68 PC system (laptop, desktop, upgradeable PC card)". Liliputing.com. Retrieved 2016-08-26.
  5. ^ a b http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/A-Free-Laptop-Project
  6. ^ a b https://boingboing.net/2016/08/04/a-freeopen-computer-on-a-card.html
  7. ^ "EOMA68 will Basis für wiederverwendbare Open-Source-Computerhardware werden (EOMA68 aims to become the basis for re-usable open source computer hardware)". Heise News. July 19, 2016. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  8. ^ "Un ordinateur open source à 15 dollars : qui dit mieux ?". silicon. January 20, 2012. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  9. ^ a b "Earth-friendly EOMA68 Computing Devices". Crowd Supply. Retrieved 2016-08-26.
  10. ^ a b "EOMA68 Physical Dimensions". elinux.org.
  11. ^ a b "EOMA68 FAQ". elinux.org.
  12. ^ "EOMA Standards". elinux.org.
  13. ^ Linder, Brad (2013-11-25). "Improv is a $75 modular, ARM-based computer core (EOMA-68)". Liliputing.
  14. ^ "Improv order page". Vault Technology. 2014-06-02.
  15. ^ http://liliputing.com/2016/08/eoma68-modular-laptopdesktop-raises-more-than-150-thousand-through-crowdfunding-heres-whats-next.html
  16. ^ https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=EOMA68-Campaign-Returns
  17. ^ Donald Robertson (August 10, 2016). "Support the Libre Tea Computer Card, a candidate for Respects Your Freedom certification". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 2016-08-26.
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Category:Creative Commons-licensed works Category:Computer hardware standards Category:Open standards

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