Hardware:
These will be essentially beta hardware. There is one minor hardware related feature that still needs some testing and I now have a partner in crime helping me. He's a hardware engineer that wanted to make a performance focused PATA <-> SDCARD bridge. He's paralleling my Pi efforts but with a focus on more modern systems. He likes the Pi approach but we'll add a direct micro-SD socket in future board spins. None of that matters for now. He is actively testing PIO operation with IRQ generation with modern PATA motherboards. Assuming no hardware changes are needed, the hardware is good to go for beta.
Long-term Hardware:
All of the software: the DOS utilities, the new BIOS re-write I'm also working on, and all of the Pi side utilities/server can all be built on the Pi thanks to compiling OpenWatcom 2.0 natively on the Pi. I'd like to eventually do the same for the hardware. That means moving from a Lattice XO2 FPGA to a ice40 and using the IceStorm open-source synthesis chain. Before I make a production run, I want to get this done. So that bit may take a while.
ATA Image Serving:
This works perfectly atm w/ support for two drives. The only thing I need to finish up before pre-release is writing support for a descent config file to replace all my hard-coded testing defaults.
DOS Redirector:
This is going slow. I'm nearly functionally done but there are lots of bugs and weird behavior. I'm not going to let bugs hold this up however. As soon as I get 100% functional, beta is ready.
Serial Console:
This is 'done enough' for now. It works. You run picon.com and you get a terminal session connected to the Pi's console UART. There is no flow control and everything is being pushed though the DOS con driver one character at a time. On the up-side, with ANSI.SYS loaded, the terminal emulation 'just works'. But the Jr is horribly inadequate keeping up with 115200 console speed. It needs to be re-written to go direct to VRAM. However it's good enough for now for beta. *volunteer cough*
Packet Driver, Linux bridge interface, and RNDIS:
Not even started. It's getting lower and lower priority really for me as the possibilities of mounting a Pi directory as a DOS drive letter via pimount.com and that Pi directory could be (eg) an auto-mount point for USB, a SAMBA share over WiFi, a SAMBA mount exported over WiFi, a top level directory containing all three, .. is just amazing. I'll leave this one to Mike's indulgence. It should be possible to bridge a virtual NIC on the DOS side (via packet or RNDIS driver) to either a wired or wireless interface on the Pi side. And the best thing about pimount.com is the resident size will be 3-4KB! Try fitting network drivers and MS-LAN manager, PC-NFS, or mTCP in that footprint! The down-side is, at least for now, it requires DOS 5.0+.
Setup/Config Utilities:
I really need a DOS utility that allows you to configure the Pi's networking including browsing for and selecting discovered WiFi SSIDs, entering authentication credentials, etc. I'm not sure if getting this done will hold up a beta. It depends on finding a volunteer.
Docs:
This is the only thing that is really holding up beta. On the way to New Jersey, I'm going to try and dump a stream of consciousness that will turn into a wiki page documenting the project. The only thing that critically needs to be there is a very robust how-to guide on setting up your newly purchased $10 Zero w/ Wireless or $5 zero - including soldering the 40-pin connector. I can't supply people with zeros as if I buy them in bulk, they are no longer that cheap.
I'm close close close... stay tuned!
