Current Status (newest first, oldest last):

03/09/2004 - Bob Morrison has made tremendous progress on the design of the HCS_C and the network interface but has run into a software bug (which he caught!) and has to return to his studies. So the hardware has been delay until May (Sorry!). Further work will be done on the older A02 version so we can get the base OS up and running.

03/01/2004 - Bob has a wonderful design for the net card. It has the 16 bit AXIS chip and up to 512M SDRAM (depends on chips and config). Very nice!

01/02/2004 - Bob Morrison has gone wild! He has quite an offer ($299) on his Zeta Engineering web pages for those interested in helping out on the the new HCS_C check out his pages. He has a working State Analyzer, the flash code and the HCS_C. has X10 transmitting (the X10 is built into the FPGA) and has working token code. Thank you Bob!

01/11/2004 - Yeah, I know only the dates seem to be changing. ;-) I've spent yet more time cleaning up the pages further and adding a few new features (floating top bar, it's not javascript). Further updates as they arrive.

12/31/2003 - I've spent some time cleaning up the pages further and adding a few new features (floating top bar, it's not javascript), juggling sections and html files. And performing general web sites administration. Further updates as they arrive.

12/01/2003 - Bob's at it again, he now has X10 transmitting from the FPGA.

11/28/2003 - Bob Morrison has gone wild! He has a working State Analyzer, the flash code and the HCS_C.

11/26/2003 - This is my first attempt at XHMTL 1.0 (Strict) compliance. To be honest I didn't do too badly on my attempt. I had to drop all my html tags to lower case and correct a few loose tags, correct the css file and remove some attributes. Also I've added some pages and combined others. Things will probably change a bit more over the next few weeks before I move this page in as the production pages.

11/24/2003 - Bob Morrison has quite an offer on his Zeta Engineering web pages for those interested in helping out on the the new HCS_C check out his pages

11/09/2003 - Bob Morrison has create a board layout which you can get from his Zeta Engineering pages. I've ordered 2 boards (minimum order) from AP Circuits. It cost me about $160 (US) for the 2 boards. Just follow the directions on Bob's pages, it's that easy.

We've pretty much selected a prototype network interface; the RTL8019 Packet Whacker for EDTP Electronics as our prototyping board. EDTP is supposed to make another board based on the AX88976 (10/100M) chip. The 2 are quite similar so proceeding with the RTL8019 is pretty safe for now.

Lastly, we've selected somewhat of an OS (for lack of better term). It's ECOS! Since we have so few resources (people, equipment, & money) I thought it would fit our needs with one less thing to code up. It has support for the ARM chip we're using, the RTL8019 network chip, networking and a few other things. Some work will be needed to get it up and running with our setup but I think it would be less than starting from scratch. Also it's open source tools (for Linux & Windows) is a major plus! Lastly, since ECOS is not Unix, SCO's current proceedings should have no effect on this project. BTW, this doesn't mean the HCS II is dead. It's just very tough to add new features with it's limited memory and in assembly language to boot. Support and boards are still available.

Lastly, I've begun working with ATMEL's AT91-EB40A evauluation board so some headway can be made on porting ECOS to our HCS_C board. As usual things will move slowly as there are only a few of us and we're busy with other things too.

Hmmm, seem to be missing portions of 2002/2003

07/21 Bob Morrison has been busy despite lots of other things. He's managed to add a PC keyboard interface and reports that he's still not used up much of his FPGA! See Zeta Engineering for further details.

I've been able to compile all the comm-link modules code. That includes the PIC base modules and the 8031 based modules. So we now have the comm-link code, the SC code, the DOS Compile and Host code all working and supportable. I'm currently working on getting the directory structures all straightened out as things are all over the place right now.

06/11/2002 The article looks like it will appear in the August issue. So now I have to clean up the web page. Over the next few weeks I hope to clean up the links and put up links to all the hex files and executables. In other news the HCS II.V is now dead because the Z380 chip is no longer available. So we're moving on the the HCS-R (based on the Rabbit Semiconductor boards.

05/01 We so far have a decent bunch of links, I've written an article for Circuit Cellar that reintroduces the HCS II, I'm working on an article on using the RTC180 as the SC and then as a follow up articles on the comm-links (how to build them and write software for them). I hope this will garner further interest in the project. There have been many inquiries into getting the HCS II so I hope this will assist those new users who want to join us. The work on the next generation controller continues but not with out a few glitches. See the newsgroup for details.

BTW, we have the ROM source code and assembled hex files (ready to be burned). We also have a compiled Host.exe and compile.exe appropriate to the ROM version installed. On the design board are a few comm-links using Express PCB's software. It's free to download (Windows, eh) and their prices seem reasonable. So I guess we can claim some progress (wish it was more).

12/06 I haven't been keeping up with the updates (sorry). We're now working on putting together various links with howto's and basic/beginner stuff for the 'Do It Yourself' people who we have gear our project towards. I'll also be working on this page it needs updating. It really doesn't present the project as it should be presented.

08/12/2001 Steve Ciarcia has granted us permission to use the GPL as the defacto license for the HCS Open Source project. And we're now open for business. We currently have Version 3.6 and 4.10 of the HCS code available. We also have the approriate XPRESS compilers for both. Unfortunate we only have the binaries available for Host. We will make the source available for Host but we're unable to release the dependent libraries. We will be working on solutions to that so we can release it as a buildable package. See the links below for the source code pages.

07/30 V4.01 code is complete and we now need to work on V3.64. That is because the V4.01 supports the S180 processor while the V3.63 supports the Z180 processor. We are also trying to resolve the Licensing so we can get the code out to the developers.

As of 07/25/2001, we have the source code to the 3.60 HCS ROM and we're working on getting the 4.01 source. We also have Ed Nisley's Module code (written in C for the 8051/52 processor). We are pretty sure that the Micromint RTC180 can be use as the SC (Supervisory Controller). So we're not too bad off. We have a stable base from which to start with.

I'm currently working on this. I've managed to find the appropriate Byte Magazine issues which contained the original "Home Run Control System". And Circuit Cellar has a link to an index with all the articles about the HCS II and topics related to it's networking and user interface (and such).

HCS Web BBS:

Circuit Cellar has, for a number of years, run a BBS and newsgroups for it's audience. That BBS has now been retired in favor of the easier to use web based BBS. It's not just for this project but many other things related to Electronics and Computer Applications.

For further info email me at: ncherry@users.sourceforge.net.