[time-nuts] Form factor

[Chris Albertson]

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:50 AM, bownes <bownes at gmail.com> wrote:
> That would all depend upon the interconnect strategy, which hasn't reached consensus either.
>
> Based on the early module list, a bus probably isn't necessary, and individual ribbon cable and/or coax will do if speeds stay low.

I think the goal on should be to have the least interaction between
modules as possible.  If you have a shared backplane or shared ribon
cable then system level integration will be a mess.  If this project
is successful there might be a half dozen module types and a couple
revisions of each one.  I doubt anyone will have a test lab where we
can test all posable module-to-module interactions.  So these have to
be mostly independent modules that send only minimal information.
Development might halt because in order to design a module you'd need
to own an example of every other module.

I put two requirements in my proposal to address this problem
1) Modules shall NOT expose their internal design to the system bus
2) Modulas must perform some potentially useful default mode function
when used stand-alone, disconnected from the system bus

These two requirements are aimed to make testing much simpler or even
posable when none of the designers are colocated


=====
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California