Dock ports?


dopefish

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Nov 26, 2007
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Quick question. I know a dock is proposed for the Dragonbox Pyra. In an effort to make docking and using the Pyra with external devices and peripherals easy, will the dock have passthrough ports for things like the HDMI, eSATA and USB? This way, I can simply dock the Pyra, and not have to worry about plugging in any extra cables in, since they are all plugged into the dock itself.
 
I would assume that something called "dock" would have such functionality, otherwise it would just be a charging station.
 
Eh?  Even a full-sized 25-pin RS232 port would fit on either edge of my Pandora fine, though not without taking out other ports or SD cards of course.

FWIW, the correct name for the 9-pin D-sub connector commonly used for serial ports, Sega joysticks and pre-VGA graphics is the DE-9.  A DB-9 plug would be the same size as a DB-25 but only have 9 pins.
 
As I understand, the dedicated USB charge port actually doubles as a serial debug port, although it may be TTL voltage and would need a level shifter to get true RS232, I'm not sure.

In theory, as a debug port, the system'll either be dumping logs to it or it'll be listening for connections, but either way I'm sure there'd be a way to change that and gain full serial functionality.
 
FWIW, the correct name for the 9-pin D-sub connector commonly used for serial ports, Sega joysticks and pre-VGA graphics is the DE-9.  A DB-9 plug would be the same size as a DB-25 but only have 9 pins.
The connector commonly found on network cables is not actually an RJ45, the real ones are keyed.
 
As I understand, the dedicated USB charge port actually doubles as a serial debug port, although it may be TTL voltage and would need a level shifter to get true RS232, I'm not sure.


In theory, as a debug port, the system'll either be dumping logs to it or it'll be listening for connections, but either way I'm sure there'd be a way to change that and gain full serial functionality.
I thought it was a Serial-over-USB device, not direct hardware serial...
 
My dock predictions:

All ports on Pyra get connected straight through with the exception of:

HDMI - which gets ported out as a 'normal' full size version of itself.

USB2.0/eSATA combo - which gets a 4 port USB 2.0 hub and a stand alone eSATA port.

microUSB 3.0 gets two stand-alone full size type A and B ports and a mechanical switch to choose between the two with a shutter on it to block the port not selected.

microUSB charging port does not come through - instead there is a serial port.

Dock is supplied 10A @ 5VDC and 4a @ 12VDC (for eSATA) via it's own charging brick.
 
Will it be available to add some more low layer port on the dock?

1. SPI port with 4 pin of chip select

2. I2C port.

3. UART port and hardware flow control.

4. some GPIO port.

5. take one usb line and connect to one Ethernet Port 

In addition, except the USB line for Ethernet,

all other port should be isolated by optical coupler

to avoid some misuse of the port damage the device.

Then we can use those port to communicate with more  special chips to do some more work with pyra. 
 
Here's my thoughts on what the Dock should have.

1) More USB Ports. I think people are getting a little over excited in relation to the dock and I think maybe 4 Full Sized USB 3 Ports. Only issue is that Pyra doesn't ship with a power supply so we'll need a power Supply to drive the dock and possibly provide power back to the Pyra and to power any peripherals coming out of the dock. The dock shouldn't require any OTG ports.

2) HDMI out of course this is part of the Pyra but if we're interfacing with a TV / LCD Display it would be great to just plug in the dock and away we go. forget VGA, DisplayPort and DVI

3) Ethernet. USB3 <-> Ethernet should be more than sufficient and may prove to be a less costly solution given that the bandwidth of the USB3 Bus can handle a full GB connection and the fact that some people may opt to use Wifi instead considering we'll have 802.11a capabilities. 

Just my .02c
 
The dock could probably also just connect to the Pyra using only the micro-USB 3.0 and the hdmi ports, ignoring the other ports to make it easier to dock/undock. Plugging in six connectors at once (4x USB + hdmi + audio) could be a bit tricky.

The micro-USB 3.0 can be used for charging and all data transfer (e.g. 4 full-size USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports (or even just 1.1) for input devices, and a 12V eSATAp 3.0 port (which gets converted to USB in the dock)), and the hdmi can be used for video and audio, with audio jacks (two headphones, line in and out, mic), full-size HDMI (maybe even two for a dual screen setup), DisplayPort and maybe convenience legacy ports (VGA, DVI, analog).

It would also be cool if the docking station would also have room for one or two standard PC drive bays, so you can install a DVD writer or a hard disk or a front-end USB port panel or whatever standard PC component you want, as long as it uses standard connections (SATA or USB).
 
Will it be available to add some more low layer port on the dock?

...
The Pyra has no dedicated docking connector, so it can only provide (extended versions) of the connector the base unit already provides. So everything you named needs to be connected over USB

Here's my thoughts on what the Dock should have.

1) More USB Ports. I think people are getting a little over excited in relation to the dock and I think maybe 4 Full Sized USB 3 Ports. Only issue is that Pyra doesn't ship with a power supply so we'll need a power Supply to drive the dock and possibly provide power back to the Pyra and to power any peripherals coming out of the dock. The dock shouldn't require any OTG ports.
I would like two "internal" (accesible via a latch or something) internal USB ports that provide enough space to put in USB peripherals (of course not of every size), and that have a little square piece of the case that could be removed (on the opposite case side of the USB connector). Usecases could be to "enhance" the dock with a ethernet port (via a usb ethernet adapter) or a usb soundcard. Sure it would be more fidly to connect the cables through the hole in the case, but you would not have a cluttered desk.

The dock could probably also just connect to the Pyra using only the micro-USB 3.0 and the hdmi ports, ignoring the other ports to make it easier to dock/undock. Plugging in six connectors at once (4x USB + hdmi + audio) could be a bit tricky.
This, but I fear even then, the connectors will be under a lot mechanical stress that will wear them out pretty soon.
full-size HDMI (maybe even two for a dual screen setup), DisplayPort and maybe convenience legacy ports (VGA, DVI, analog).
Unfortunately two makes no sense as HDMI only supports one single stream
It would also be cool if the docking station would also have room for one or two standard PC drive bays, so you can install a DVD writer or a hard disk or a front-end USB port panel or whatever standard PC component you want, as long as it uses standard connections (SATA or USB).
Could get heavy on the power side, ED would need to bundle a "brick" power supply in order to support DVD-writers and such.
 
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The dock could probably also just connect to the Pyra using only the micro-USB 3.0 and the hdmi ports, ignoring the other ports to make it easier to dock/undock. Plugging in six connectors at once (4x USB + hdmi + audio) could be a bit tricky.
This, but I fear even then, the connectors will be under a lot mechanical stress that will wear them out pretty soon.
The dock should be designed in such a way that mechanical stress on the connectors gets avoided as much as possible, e.g. by making it impossible to insert the Pyra incorrectly.
full-size HDMI (maybe even two for a dual screen setup), DisplayPort and maybe convenience legacy ports (VGA, DVI, analog).
Unfortunately two makes no sense as HDMI only supports one single stream
Depends on what version of HDMI the Pyra will support. If it can do 1080p at 60Hz, then it can also do two times 1080p at 30Hz.
It would also be cool if the docking station would also have room for one or two standard PC drive bays, so you can install a DVD writer or a hard disk or a front-end USB port panel or whatever standard PC component you want, as long as it uses standard connections (SATA or USB).
Could get heavy on the power side, ED would need to bundle a "brick" power supply in order to support DVD-writers and such.
Would it make a big difference whether only 5V power is available or also 12V?
If power is really an issue, then you could also work with standard laptop bays so you can install laptop hard disks and DVD writers, but I would prefer normal PC bays because they're much more standardized and cheaper, and space is not really an issue for a docking station.

(Although it would also be cool if the docking station would be somewhat modular so you can have a smaller part of it which acts simply as an unpowered USB hub, a part which acts simply as a video adapter, an extension of the unpowered USB hub which acts as a powered hub/charger, and so on. So when traveling you could take only the modules from the docking station that you're going to need, and keep the other things at home.)
 
The dock should be designed in such a way that mechanical stress on the connectors gets avoided as much as possible, e.g. by making it impossible to insert the Pyra incorrectly.
That will only be possible to a certain extent - especially if there are no guiding rails/trenches on the Pyra.
Depends on what version of HDMI the Pyra will support. If it can do 1080p at 60Hz, then it can also do two times 1080p at 30Hz.
Afaik the Pyra/Omap5 supports version 1.4a, so 1080p at 60Hz is possible. But I'm currently having a hard time to see how this could work out. You would need a mechanism on the software side to replace every second frame of the stream with a picture from the second desktop and on the docks side hardware that splits up every second frame and outputs in to the second port (and also fills in the gaps as most displays would probably be confused about half of the frames missing). Would you go into details about your idea ?
Would it make a big difference whether only 5V power is available or also 12V?

If power is really an issue, then you could also work with standard laptop bays so you can install laptop hard disks and DVD writers, but I would prefer normal PC bays because they're much more standardized and cheaper, and space is not really an issue for a docking station.
Even then you would need more power as you won't find many (if any) power sources that deliver more than 2.5 Ampere @ 5V in a formfactor one is used to in this device class > wall mounted power adaptors.
 
Citation Needed: Where did anyone get the idea that the Pyra will not ship with a power adapter?

The docking station will need it's own power supply. By definition it will be plugging into AC mains - both European 220VAC and US 110VAC. SO, it needs to be a switching/switchable power supply.

5VDC rail on PSU: It will need to be able to provide at least 5VDC @3A to charge the Pyra while it is operating at maximum draw. If we want it to have a USB hub in it capable of running an external DVD drive, then add at least 2A to the 5VDC rail. If we want the USB 3.0 host on the dock to be able to handle the whole USB 3.0 spec, we'll need ANOTHER 3A PER USB 3.0 host. Then add 1A for each USB 2.0 host. With the Pyra, ONE USB 3.0 host, FOUR USB 2.0 hosts that is 10A at 5VDC.

We also have a eSATA port that, while on just the Pyra, is missing the 12VDC rail entirely and will not be able to spin up anything bigger than a notebook HDD. I'm assuming we won't want this restriction on the dock's eSATA port - so, we need around 1A at 12VDC for this.

Now, assuming that we will have a simple power brick from the wall/mains to the dock, we'll want it to be at the higher voltage needed within the dock. It is easier to lower voltage than to bump it up. So... what we need from the wall is around 5A @ 12VDC ~ 60W ~ 10A@5VDC so a 60W 12VDC power brick is the -minimum- that should be used. Those are readily available.

http://www.amazon.com/SINOLLC--240V-Switching-Supply-Adapter/dp/B00GUBVI9K

Now, IMHO we should bump it up a notch and have a talk about doing an order through these guys.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/215201435/dart-the-worlds-smallest-laptop-adapter

They have a 65W adapter that could power the whole thing that has a diminutive size appropriate to the Pyra. It is, however, 3x the cost of a 'standard' giant clunky power supply/adapter in it's class.

Speaking of which - my wife's comment when she catches me using my Pandora: "The Keebler elves called. They want their computer back."
 
Afaik the Pyra/Omap5 supports version 1.4a, so 1080p at 60Hz is possible. But I'm currently having a hard time to see how this could work out. You would need a mechanism on the software side to replace every second frame of the stream with a picture from the second desktop and on the docks side hardware that splits up every second frame and outputs in to the second port (and also fills in the gaps as most displays would probably be confused about half of the frames missing). Would you go into details about your idea ?
HDMI 1.4 supports 4K at 30Hz, which should be enough bandwidth for 4 full HD images at 30Hz or 2 full HD images at 60Hz. So the bottleneck should not be with the HDMI itself. How exactly the image splitting would be implemented, I don't know -- I don't know anything about that kind of stuff, but I think it should be possible in principle.
 
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