
- #Freeagent dockstar. serial
- #Freeagent dockstar. update
#Freeagent dockstar. serial
realtime data acquisition device (USB logger and serial ports?). semiportable network notification device (USB to parallel port, HD44780 LCD display). multihomed router (I have a stack of pegasus USB modules). Home NAS (without Internet file sharing). Here is a list of some things I’ve been thinking of doing with it so far: While the software on the device (stock) comes with a filesharing service called Pogoplug, I do not intend on using that software and will be looking to get this device as far away from stock as possible. Just looking at the hardware overall, it would appear that the Seagate Dockstar is a very capable device that just needs to be altered to run whatever we choose to run with it. The small chip just under the black tape in the upper right hand corner of the board is presumably the ethernet NIC however googling the chip numbers came up with nothing. which should be more than adequate for general Linux fun. According to their chart, the dockstar’s storage is 256MB. The large black square on the lower right is the NAND storage for the device and while I couldn’t pull up the datasheet for it, the guys over at PlugPBX already had a forum post that showed the Dockstar’s hardware specs for us. (Bad cameraman, no cookie.) There’s not really much to note here as the board layout is jam packed with passive components. Unfortunately, the board is now oriented that the front of the dockstar is now at the bottom of the picture. This is the bottom of the dockstar’s mainboard.
Since this device is so low-level I would not recommend trying to connect a regular serial port to it directly as it more than likely requires a level shifter like a MAX232 to bring the -12/+12VDC down into something that won’t blast the components.
#Freeagent dockstar. update
Once I get it in and test it, I will update this article with a pinout diagram for you.
Presumably this can be used for a serial port however I do not have the cable for that. Also of note, just below and to the right of the processor is a small ten pin header. For now, just know that it’s an arm compliant processor and when I post an update article, I will have more juicy details on the capabilities of the processor. I tried to pull some more datasheets from, but their datasheet listing is quite lacking. From research I have performed, this appears to be a Marvell 1.2GHZ processor (just like the sheevaplug devices that Marvell is also selling. Datasheet available here and the large square is the device’s main processor. The small black square is Nanya 1Gb (comes out to ~128 megabytes) DDR-2 RAM in a BGA package. The front of the device is to the right in this photograph. This is the dockstar in all it’s nude glory.