Well folks, today the JRC-1 project reached a major milestone: the design is complete, and parts and PC boards have been ordered!
I should to have everything in my hands in about a week, and with some luck, a working assembled board a few days after that.
Ordering PC boards is always a bit nerve wracking for me. One can never be 100% sure that a board is going to work until you get them back from the fab house and try assembling one. In addition, the final JRC-1 board comes in at 200×120 mm, which is considerably larger (and more expensive) than any of my previous designs. Still, I am very relieved to have finally hit this milestone, and assuming no major problems arise with the design I can shift my focus to creating the BIOS and operating system.
Over the next few days I will be copying most of the information from my private JRC-1 planning document over to the JRC-1 home page. This will include information such as the memory layout, component information, and details on the expansion slots and user port. Stay tuned.
