[coreboot] USB debug cables and emulation

[Tom Sylla]

Others have pretty much replied with what I was trying to point out,
but here are a couple more comments:

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Joseph Smith <joe at settoplinux.org> wrote:
> I guess you don't get it. I am not doing it to mass produce and sell at a
> lower cost. I don't really care about any kind of profit. I'm simply doing
> it for a "HOWTO build your own USB 2.0 Debugger For Around 20 Dollars". $20
> Dollars for a PCB??? I am going to use a generic PCB you can pick up at
> radio shack for 2 dollars. If I have to get some of the components at a
> larger volume to get a cheaper price and re-sell them to interested parties
> so they get a cheaper price I will. This is more for educational, learning,
> and teaching purposes. Everything is not about money you know (or not) :-(

I am not at all talking about greed, I am talking about practicality.
You said you want to create instructions to build a $20 USB debug
cable. I am saying that I don't think that is possible, and at *best*,
you will be closer to the $50 number in the end. I am just hoping you
realize that before you spend a lot of time and effort on it.

What sort of volume discounts are you expecting? The number I said for
the 2272 *was* for high quantity. I see 1 for $11, 100 for $9.73, and
500 for $9.45. Still pretty high. If there are other USB device ICs of
the *same caliber* that are much cheaper, I would be very interested
to know about them.

If your goal is to learn USB, great, you'll learn a lot from doing
something like that. Just expect that the kits or instructions you may
offer in the end will get pretty close to the price of the Net20DC (at
least in the US). Maybe you could create a cheaper solution for people
outside the US, but expect that you will need to spin a PCB, and
supply them to whoever might want to do it.