[coreboot] Schematics and PCB design for ASMB4 (Was: There are ASMB5's on fleabay right now for $30/ea (firmware storage module required for OpenBMC on the KGPE-D16/KCMA-D8))

[Andrew Luke Nesbit]

Dear Daniel,

Please see my comments inline...

On 03/11/2018 04:32, Daniel Gröber wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 03, 2018 at 12:10:25AM +0100, Angel Pons wrote:
>> Is it me, or is that thing a SPI flash chip on a PCB plus a few
>> transistors? It seems like copying the PCB design is rather doable, or am I
>> missing something?
> 
> Indeed, very doable, but tedious work ;)
> 
> Here you go:
> 
>     https://github.com/DanielG/asmb4
>     https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/jZLoDQ3Y

This is fantastic, thank you!!

I've been intending to do something very similar to this.  So far I have
spent most of 2018 on my career change -- thankfully this is now done,
and should be more benefectial in the long run.

Cloning these modules would be very liberating, based on my experiences
so far.  Thank you for your work.  Please keep me in the loop for future
developments.  Nevertheless, I'll continue to follow your work, and I
will be available to contribute financially if appropriate.

I have some ASMB4- and ASMB5-iKVM modules, on which I have been doing
OpenBMC experiments for the D16 and D8.  This is now music to my ears :-)

> I had the schematics lying around on paper for a while now but I was
> too lazy to digitize them until now. The design is completely
> untested, I just ordered some boards though so we'll see.

If there's any possibility that you might have one or two spare
prototypes or clones to send me for evaluation, please let me know :-)

I'm happy to cover costs, plus some extra money to contribute to further
development or your time and labor.  This is an important project and I
am prepared to put money on the table to help move it forward.

> FWIW if anyone is interrested in gettingd some assembled boards I might
> do a small production run.

Yes.  As I already mentioned, I can contribute financially to support
libre-friendly designs.  I am also keen to help to verify designs and
actual prototypes, conduct formal(?) methods for testing, and to help to
load these modules in UAT, STAGING, or PROD environments.

Kind regards,

Andrew
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