Front view of the first version of the LART main board. Note that the crystals were accidentally swapped in the layout. This has been corrected in the version available at the main board page. Wire R7 was placed when the power supply proved OK. In the future, R7 may allow the processor to measure the supply current.

...and the other side.

The front-side of the board: Digital SA-1100 StrongARM CPU, 4MB flash memory, 16MB main memory, high-speed connector, JTAG connector, RS232 connector, and power supply. The board dimensions are 10 x 7 cm (that is 4 x 3 inches in Stonehenge Units). I've included a Dutch guilder as a reference.

The back-side of the board: another 16MB of memory, lots of decoupling capacitors, and the low-speed interface connectors. Again, the Dutch guilder and next to it a dubbeltje, which is exactly as big as the hole in every CD (no wonder if you know that Philips developed the CD).

Just to get an idea of the actual size of a LART.

Kitchen Sink Board

The front side of the KSB: IDE connector, ethernet daughterboard connector, power supply, and some glue logic. Yes, that thing in the middle is a crystal that doesn't fit too well, but it was the only 12.288 MHz crystal we could get.

And the back side of the KSB: UCB 1200, PCM 1710 DA converter (the one on which you can't read the text), analog filters and amplifiers, CPLDs, and a bus driver.

The KSB mounted to the LART. As you can see, the KSB is exactly the same dimensions as a LART. Sorry for the bad image quality, but I took this picture with an SGI O2 camera.

The amount of space between the KSB and the LART: close to nothing. The thickness of the complete combo is 21 mm (0.8 inch).

Applications

The LART connected to a Digital VT220 terminal. Note the cool power source.

And this is what is on the screen. Yes, it actually does run Linux!

The LART connected to a daugterboard containing the LCD interface (read: some line drivers), a DC-DC converter, high voltage power supply, and the LCD. On the LCD an image from Jan-Derk's portrait collection. As you can see, it currently draws 262mA from the 9V power supply: 220mA for the LCD, 42mA for the LART. (Yes, the autofocus of a Sony Mavica can do better than this).

And a close-up of the LCD.

It's a bit difficult to see, but there are two LARTs in this pile of junk. They're connected with each other through an FPGA + FIFO daughterboard. This strange setup was used in a video transmission demonstrator: one LART did the channel decoding, the other one decompressed the H.263 encoded video stream and displayed it on the color LCD.

An FPGA + FIFO daughterboard. The FPGA is not visible because it is on the other side of the board.

A LART with KSB and two 64MB memory expansion boards connected to a Palm III that serves as a terminal. Nice demo system.

This is what's on the console in the previous picture.

Lunch box - the LART as CS lab platform

The LART-based 'lunch box' lab platform is a standalone, student-proof experimentation system. The system is used at Delft University in a Computer Science lab course where students gain experience with embedded systems programming and digital conditioning of sensor signals. An Ethernet connection (currently unused) and two RS232 serial links provide communications to the outside world. The box is powered by an internal recheargable battery pack, or by an external power supply. The lid is transparent.

A view under the hood. On the right a revision 5 LART, with a revision 4 KSB underneath. The top of the left board (with the thick traces) is the battery charger for the 4 'AA' NiCd cells in the black compartment on the bottom left side of the image. The bottom half of the left PCB holds a 3D accelerometer, an amplifier and three 12-bit serial ADCs. The black blob is an epoxy encapsulant; it turns out that the sensors we use are as sensitive to light as they are to acceleration. It would have been nice if the data sheet had mentioned that, though...

Four partially assembled lunch boxes, waiting for the epoxy to dry. Note that the top right box already has its Ethernet dongle installed.

LART production run - get them while they last!

The long awaited LART production run is finally in! Lots and lots of LARTs to be flashed...

7 Mar 2003