NOTES

*This is a random collection of notes and snippits related to things I'm working on*

== Ideas for 11.4 ==

- add secondary time port for millisecond time resolution

  Probably this will be purely optional, with VM or OSes that
  don't support it returning zero.

- ngaro vm test suite

  A set of images to test the instruction set and IO functionality

- fully document casket and decompose, add detailed instructions
  on setting this up

- further expansions to the library

  - simple vectors
  - expand operatins on arrays
  - rewrite console' to use vm-level console support
  - form processing for casket apps
  - finish the calendar' vocabulary

- rewrite rancid to be pure retro + html

- cleanp css for documentaion


== Embedded Boards ==

arduino
mega 2560
ATmega2560
16MHz, 256K flash (8K for bootloader), 8K RAM, 4K EEPRON

Oleksandr is working on an implementation for this.


mbed
NXP LPX1768
Cortex-M3
96MHz, 512K flash, 32K RAM, ARM

On the mbed LPX1768, we have 14000 cells for the image. This is sufficient, once the
diet' vocabulary is loaded. You'll have around 3k cells for your application. Or a bit
more if you do a ^diet'extreme before saving the image and converting to 16-bit. 

NXP LPC11U24
Cortex-M0
48MHz, 32K flash, 8K RAM, ARM

The mbed implemenation does not support this board. If we adapt the VM to use an SD
card as the memory, read/write caching, and take some care, we could probably make it
work slowly. I don't have plans for this though.


ubw32
PIC32MX795
80MHz, 512K Flash, 128K RAM, MIPS

This one looks like a nice target. Not too pricey, lots of RAM, and plenty of flash.
As of February 1, Retro is able to run under RetroBSD on this (and similar) boards.


== Image Naming ==

retroImage

Followed by an optional suffix referring to bits per cell:

  16  for 16-bit
  64  for 64-bit

And a final optional suffix for endian:

  BE  for big endian