{"id":7918,"date":"2018-03-11T20:07:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T00:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=7918"},"modified":"2018-03-12T05:59:34","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T09:59:34","slug":"how-to-get-started-on-the-upside-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=7918","title":{"rendered":"How to get started on the UPSide project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The current state of play is:  We have a high-level system design and a map of the behavior states. We have a capacity target (300W for 15 mins) and a peak-continuous-load spec (400W) We know we&#8217;re going to build a double-conversion design and we&#8217;re considering a couple of alternative topologies.  We pretty much know the external-interface specs (some details may change).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m expecting both my prototype copy of the forebrain Unix SBC (an Olimex LIME2) and the interface contract for the high-power subsystem to land on my desk tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Interest in this project continues to be huge. Another company wants in as of this morning.  The volume of feature requests is high enough that I&#8217;m buckling under the editing load.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of this post is instructions to potential contributors about how to get on board.<\/p>\n<p>1, Get an ID on GitLab. Tell me what it is so I can add you to the project group.<\/p>\n<p>2. If you have a feature request, please <em>Don&#8217;t post it on this blog.<\/em> Add it to the &#8220;General feature request thread&#8221; on the tracker.<\/p>\n<p>3. Read the wiki. Read the tracker issues. I try to keep both pruned so the volume is not overwhelming.  Read the Rejected Ideas page on the wiki, too.<\/p>\n<p>4. Read the design documents in the project wiki. The important one is the transaction design; the I2C message inventory will change, but the basic state diagram probably won&#8217;t. <\/p>\n<p>5. Participate in the design discussion. This takes place in tracker threads.<\/p>\n<p>6. When we&#8217;re ready to breadboard a prototype, throw some parts money in the tip jar we don&#8217;t have yet. If you must contribute before then the PayPal blogbutton works fine.<\/p>\n<p>7. Prototype builds will probably go down at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pamakerspace.com\/\">PA Makerspace<\/a> in Phoenixville, PA. If you are within driving distance and a competent electrics tech, consider joining us for a build.<\/p>\n<p>8. Once we have a full design with a PC board and enclosure: if you have a shop facilities for it, try to replicate the build. We&#8217;ll know we have the build recipe debugged when other people can do it.<\/p>\n<p>9. If your favorite hardware feature request doesn&#8217;t appear in the version 1 prototype, relax,  We may think it&#8217;s a good idea but be holding off till v2 out of a desire to keep v1 simple and launch fast.<\/p>\n<p>10. If your favorite <em>software<\/em> feature request doesn&#8217;t appear in the version 1 prototype, pitch in and make it happen. A Unix SBC is not a difficult programming environment &#8211; the OS on this one is a Debian port.<\/p>\n<p>After step 10 and a couple of design iterations the future becomes less clear.  maybe try to get it into volume manufacturing through a partnership with an established vendor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current state of play is: We have a high-level system design and a map of the behavior states. We have a capacity target (300W for 15 mins) and a peak-continuous-load spec (400W) We know we&#8217;re going to build a double-conversion design and we&#8217;re considering a couple of alternative topologies. We pretty much know the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=7918\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to get started on the UPSide project<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,13,9],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-7918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hacker-culture","category-software","category-technology","tag-upside","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7922,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7918\/revisions\/7922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}