Re: [TenTec] The future of The Orion I

["A. Sewell" <n5na@att.net>]

W. Engelke wrote:

> Still the announcement of a follow-on product was a shock because it seemed to 
> me the Orion was still a pretty new product. Alas that is not the case with 
> electronics. I am a bit concerned about the O1 and its current owners for the 
> follwing reasons:
>
> 1.  Will V2 really fix timing problems in the O1 chip, since it is a slower 
> processor?
>  
Per W4PA on 7/21

"The DragonBall processor in the original Orion is up to the task of 
accomodating all the functionality of the transceiver 
itself..........................What I have said before - and will say 
again, is that perhaps wehaven't used the DragonBall to its full 
capability...hence the v2.0 of thefirmware."
> 2.  I'd guess that the use of the DragonBall Super VZ for the O2 was made because 
> this chip would have the same instruction set as the original processor, giving an 
> easier implementation of V2.  Very reasonable. But a check of Freescale's web site 
> seems to imply that they are about to discontinue the entire DragonBall line. (See 
> http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MC68SZ328&nodeId=01J4Fs2973vL2v
>  ). Wow- how about that - the O2's processor is obsolete and possibly discontinued 
> before the first customer-ready O2 is sold.
>
>  
Per W4PA on 7/21:

"The reason we were given by Freescale that it's listed as "do not base 
new designs" is because a lead-free solder use replacement part is going 
to be issued. Instead of merely stating that as the reason on the 
website, it's listed as "do not base new designs" without a description 
of why this would be the case. A recent phone call to Freescale from a 
Ten-Tec employee provided the explanation that they hadn't gotten around 
to making the appropriate changes to their website."