Dell Laptop for Embedded Work

Chris Carlen · 2006-09-21T21:57:20+00:00

Hi:I'm considering to buy a Dell Precision M90 laptop to replace a regular PC on a cart that was used to wheel around and program various embedded devices.The new laptops of course don't offer old-fashioned ports like parallel and RS-232. Well, some have serial, but the M90 doesn't.I will be getting the docking station which *does* have a parallel and serial port though, so it should be just fine. There is also the option of USB->RS-232 converters. But the dock's parallel port will be critically important to work correctly.I will need to connect to the following devices:Atmel STK500 (RS-232) and JTAG-ICE (USB/RS-232)Spectrum Digital eZdsp 'F2812 (parallel)Xilinx Parallel Cable IV (parallel)In the future there will likely be a USB JTAG Emulator for the 'F2812, and perhaps I'll upgrade to a better Xilinx cable. Also will probably get into some Xilinx FPGAs and 3rd party development boards, but just need to be sure I can work my present tools.Anyone have any serious problems with Dell laptops for these or other tools?Thanks for input.-- Good day!________________________________________Christopher R. CarlenPrincipal Laser&Electronics TechnologistSandia National Laboratories CA USANOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis" and"BOGUS" from email address to reply.

Sep 21, 2006 43 Replies

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Dennis 19 years ago

I don't use the USB floppy very much (I actually borrow it from work) but haven't had any problems with it. (I mostly use USB flash drives._ It is plug and play under Windows XP and shows up as a removable drive (duh!). It is the IBM version which was in the $100 range. I have seen other ones in the $30 range, which is more reasonable. I haven't tried booting from the USB floppy but there are BIOS options that imply it can be done.

The parallel port use was all bit banging. Put out data for the LCD, pulse the E line, etc. I actually did it under Linux using a Knoppix CD (and a USB flash drive for my code) so as not to disturb the hard drive with Windows XP. I seem to remember I had to do some BIOS configuration on the parallel port so that is was where my Linux code expected to find it.

I think the USB is 1.1 - it doesn't support the 480Mb speed. It works with several different USB flash drives, my digital camera and the TI EZ430-F2013 development kit.

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jrwalliker 19 years ago

For lab use, a Via epia M10000 is really good. You need to put it in a box with whatever storage media you want, but otherwise it is a very complete computer with parallel printer port, serial ports, USB ports, ethernet, i2c, audio, display controller etc.

I use one in a very basic box with nothing but a hard disc. It happily runs linux and I rsh to it from another computer to save having lots of monitors about.

Bit-banging the printer port works fine, as does the i2c interface (although I only get 16kbit/s throughput using the linux drivers).

Its quiet and really cheap too!

John

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Jerry Avins 19 years ago

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Somebody gave my son a USB floppy she was going to throw out because it didn't work. By son took it because he thought I might like to see why. He was told that it was only supposed to work with an IMAC. I plugged it into my XP machine and it worked fine: no drivers needed. I asked my daughter to try it on her IMAC, and it worked for her too. That was a year ago and she won't give it back. I think the original cost was about $40.

Jerry

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Ulf Samuelsson 19 years ago

get an old one, or a PCMCIA card with a true parallel port.

The AVR Dragon has a nicer box :-)

Best Regards, Ulf Samuelsson This is intended to be my personal opinion which may, or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB

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