Open-Source Support For AMD "Richland" APUs

[AJSB]

What have you got that plugs into parallel ports and serial ports? You might be interested in one of these:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4834 and http://www.aten.com/products/product...odel_no=UC232A

Or you could build your own:

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgu...QEwAw&dur=7713

Those devices works with some software, with other type of software, they are useful as a brick....we need truly native parallel/serial ports(s) in main board or else won't work....i'm talking about microcontroller stuff that is controlled at a very low level as for hardware goes (and many times even via software written in Assembler to achieve extremely precise timings)

[madbiologist]

"native" Parallel + Serial is a must have for me.

What have you got that plugs into parallel ports and serial ports? You might be interested in one of these:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4834 and http://www.aten.com/products/product...odel_no=UC232A

Or you could build your own:

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://pinouts.ru/images/usb-rs232-converter.gif&imgrefurl=http://pinouts.ru/Converters/usb_serial_adapter_pinout.shtml&h=641&w=694&sz=22&tbnid=G_FwwXHShiWdxM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=97&zoom=1&usg=__ZuYgnAfKPb2ZFPu-JqybfvX-VJg=&docid=IFNjd7O8XlavzM&sa=X&ei=_9dJUcq4N4-diAfuj4HgCA&ved=0CGQQ9QEwAw&dur=7713

[duby229]

Yeah I finally just broke down and bought a USB floppy drive. It still does everything that an internal drive can do, its just less convenient. Plus the quality of the drive seems lower. It's plastic.

[Adarion]

Well, once I buy something new today it should have USB3. Most have but with an external chip that might need an extra driver and that uses additional energy and is less performant.
Anyway, your chances on standard VGA are quite good, maybe if DVI-I is there you can use an adapter. Serial is sadly becoming a rare thing but parallel (Centronics)... wow. It's a rare find on any mainboard today and even addon cards normally only have lots of serial ports but lack parallel. I guess Super-IO still support "LPT" and floppy but due to space reasons or lazyness to spend 5 cents they are not executed as pin headers or anything.
For me serial and floppy are most welcome but increasingly hard to find, not even PCI controller cards are offered for FDDs. :/

[AJSB]

The chipsets are already there, but nobody uses them on mainboards. A68M (aka Brazos 2.0) is perfect for little machines since it ought to use less power (less SATA ports and such) but brings you native USB 3. On the normal desktop ATX with socketed chip side you'll find all sorts of combinations now, from recent A85X down to even 7xx (from 2008) series. But all those little mini-ITX things still use A50M (besides one but that lacks passive cooling). Oh well, there might be a few unaffordable hard to find industrial mainboards around, well, and laptops but this is no use for me.

It is not that A50M was bad, but it is by now a bit dusted and lacks native USB3. I just wonder why I don't see its successor(s) around.

...maybe because majority of ITX mobo owners don't need USB3 anyway ?

There are ITX mobos with USB3....even the ones with AMD E-350...

Personally i preferred to get a mini-itx E-350 with 4 USB2 + Parellel + Serial (besides HDMI and Sub-D...Sub-D is still a must_have in Europe) than to have USB3...."native" Parallel + Serial is a must have for me.

It's not a fanless mobo but it uses a 80mm fan (IIRC) and it's quite quiet....even when working as an HTPC...

[Adarion]

The chipsets are already there, but nobody uses them on mainboards. A68M (aka Brazos 2.0) is perfect for little machines since it ought to use less power (less SATA ports and such) but brings you native USB 3. On the normal desktop ATX with socketed chip side you'll find all sorts of combinations now, from recent A85X down to even 7xx (from 2008) series. But all those little mini-ITX things still use A50M (besides one but that lacks passive cooling). Oh well, there might be a few unaffordable hard to find industrial mainboards around, well, and laptops but this is no use for me.

It is not that A50M was bad, but it is by now a bit dusted and lacks native USB3. I just wonder why I don't see its successor(s) around.

[curaga]

How about:
- chipset has a hardware bug (see Intel recently, twice)
- product differentiation (ie this one has 20 sata ports but uses twice the power)

[duby229]

I'd be so much more happy if finally the chipsets would be refreshed. These nuts at Asus just seemed to bring a new ITX mainboard out, upclocked CPU and GPU but no more passive cooling but then - and this is worst - with a chipset (A50M) that was recent years ago. Did they buy 10 billions of them and have to get rid of them? Why all the new CPUs but totally outdated chipsets? And selling these outdated thing still at full price.
Having release day support is of course great (thumbs up) but as it seems the GPU is actually a generation older. (Still good for free driver support which is way better than for GCN a.t.m.)

I can only see one good reason for a company to release new chipsets, and that is if new hardware specs get released... New USB specs get released. You need to support USBv3 so you release a new chipset with that ability. New SATA specs get released/ You need to support SATA6 so you release a new chipset with that ability. etc, etc, etc....

If no new capability is available then why release a new chipset?

[Adarion]

I'd be so much more happy if finally the chipsets would be refreshed. These nuts at Asus just seemed to bring a new ITX mainboard out, upclocked CPU and GPU but no more passive cooling but then - and this is worst - with a chipset (A50M) that was recent years ago. Did they buy 10 billions of them and have to get rid of them? Why all the new CPUs but totally outdated chipsets? And selling these outdated thing still at full price.
Having release day support is of course great (thumbs up) but as it seems the GPU is actually a generation older. (Still good for free driver support which is way better than for GCN a.t.m.)

[AJSB]

Kabini A6-5200 is my target

What i really want is a mini-itx mobo with the new Kabini A6-5200 APU:

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2013/2013010801_AMD_discloses_performance_of_future_mobile_APUs.html

If "specs" are right and we can expect that improvement increase, it's all i need to play all my games (...if there is no bottlenecks that spoil it)....and all that with a extreme low power drain and very small form factor.