New FC hardware on the horizon

[Mychaela Falconia]

Hello again everyone,

We just made another step toward the new FreeCalypso hw that was
announced in my previous post: earlier today the batch of 20 fully
assembled DUART28 boards arrived at FreeCalypso HQ.  DUART28 is an
adapter from USB to two Calypso UARTs, taking the place of our
previous PLDkit FT2232D adapters, or the place of Sysmocom mv-uart.

Satisfied that the produced boards work as designed, I have published
the design files for this board:

ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/duart28-design-r1.tar.bz2

Inside the tarball there is a detailed design specification that
explains why I designed the adapter this way and exactly how it works,
but it is basically a direct drop-in replacement for PLDkit or mv-uart
adapters, just better suited for the quirks of our specific Calypso
application.

Licensing: this board design does not qualify for OSHW designation
because I do not give permission (see the LICENSE file inside the
tarball) to random third parties to produce their own clones of this
FreeCalypso hw piece and to sell those clones in ways that compete
with Falconia-made hw.  However, I am open to the possibility of
granting such permission on a case by case basis, in particular, I
would be open to granting such permission to Sysmocom.

Falconia-made DUART28 boards are available for $60 apiece, plus the
cost of shipping from USA.  Our #1 supporter Das Signal will be
getting one free of cost. :)

The next step is FC Caramel2, the new development board that is
expected to mostly supplant our current FCDEV3B at a lower cost.  C2
PCB layout was finished about two weeks ago, now I need to get it past
the necessary DFM/DFA reviews and send it off to PCB fabrication.
Stay tuned...

Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
Mychaela aka The Mother