Hi

The Jackalope board supports UART TTL headers for USB converter cables already and the legacy RS-232 ports for those going old-school. For those who don't like one or the other just leave those pads unpopulated as it won't matter.

Yes, there has been a lot of movement on the DRAM controllers of late. Apparently work continues on the KISS-68030 and there may be a new and improved version of the DRAM controller by the time we're ready for step two. The Tobster DRAM controller might be an option too so we'll just have to see what's the best way forward once we get there.

The good news is Jackalope is basically ready for production now. All the designs have been updated, the PCB trace routed and optimized. All it needs is an order and we'll have much improved next generation boards -- regardless of the merits of the design.

The Gryphon project is still a long ways from done though. To realistically run Linux it has to have more CPU throughput and DRAM capacity which are addressed in the plan posted above.