[Thumbgps-devel] Build vs. modify vs. what should we be doing anyway?

[Dave Taht]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:
> Patrick Maupin <pmaupin at gmail.com>:
>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Eric S. Raymond <esr at thyrsus.com> wrote:
>> > Sorry, my eyes aren't educated enough. (I'm an ex-mathematician; what
>> > relatively little I know about electronics design I've picked up by
>> > osmosis doing software). What does it say?
>>
>> It says:
>>
>> I am a very simple board.  My major components are:
>>
>> - USB module
>> - USB patch antenna
>> - Small PL2303 clone (fitting in with your lawsuit theory)

As noted elsewhere it might be cool to get away from serial emulation entirely.

>> - Simple 5v -> 3.3v voltage regulator
>> - Coin cell battery

I like the supercap idea more than the battery idea. I imagine (and I
may be wrong) - that that will have a longer field lifetime than a
battery could.

>> - Diode so as not to drain battery during operation
>> - USB connector
>
> Yes, I identified most of these myself.
>
>> There is nothing there that would require 4 layers, and all the
>> traces seem to "go somewhere".
>
> That is *exactly* what I thought when I looked at it.  Perhaps I am
> less clueless than I feared. :-)
>
> So, this is probably cloneable with relatively little effort, then?
>
>> There doesn't seem to be a real 8 pin SOIC PL2303.
>>
>> It almost certainly isn't illegal to clone one of these chips
>> (although there might be an infringed patent or two there, that isn't
>> necessarily true either).  It probably is illegal to exhort people to
>> download the copyrighted Windows PL2303 driver and use it with this.
>> Probably not a problem with Linux :-)
>
> At that, PL2303s are cheap.  This page
>
> http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=pl2303+usb
>
> clues us that they're probably less than $2 a unit.
> --
>                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>
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Dave Täht
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