TINI, the Tiny INternet Interface, is a product of Dallas Semiconductor. The TINI home page should be your first stop for information about TINI. This site is intended to augment, not replicate, the information available there. The information on this page is based primarily on first hand experience with the TINI board we received, which was a "Model 390, Release 1.xx w/ 512K NV SRAM" (aka Rev F). Some of the information on this page is based on information available from the Dallas Semiconductor and TINI web sites.
Calling TINI a "board" seems a bit overstated. The "board" is really a 68-pin SIMM that is approximately 103 mm wide, 32 mm tall, and 10 mm thick at its thickest. Its rectangular bounding box has an approximate volume of 33 cubic centimeters, or just over 2 cubic inches. The actual displacement of the TINI board is given on the TINI home page as "less than 1 cubic inch". The board we received had a clear coating of some sort that was applied after the components were soldered in place. This coating may be intended to prevent accidental shorting of pins or traces on the board. The identifying marks on most of the chips were difficult, if not impossible, to read. Some of the information regarding the chips used comes from the schematic of Rev E of the TINI board.
Note: This section describes the discontinued
68-pin socket board.
The TINI board needs to be connected to the
outside world in order to function. If you
are a do-it-yourself kind of person, you
can simply get a 68-pin SIMM socket ($2 +
shipping) and go from there. For everyone
else, the only other options currently available
are the TINI Developer Station ($450 + shipping),
the TINI Socket with voltage regulator ($35
+ shipping), or the TINI socket without voltage
regulator ($20 + shipping). More information
on all of these options is available from
the TINI Gear page. An image (253KB) of the TINI socket and some observations about it is available.
The Flash ROM on the TINI board comes pre-loaded with a loader program that must be used to load the rest of the TINI firmware. The loader program can also be used to load other software. The TINI firmware and some TINI software can be downloaded from the TINI web site. Guillaume Fournier has provided the TINI Board Resource Center, which contains a document called Getting Started with the TINI board. This document contains step-by-step instructions for getting the TINI firmware and sample software loaded.
Since the TINI board runs Java programs, people can create software for TINI using freely available Java tools from Sun Microsystems. Note that TINI supports a subset of Sun's Java platform instead of "full blown" Java. This means that only Java programs conforming to this subset will run on TINI. We are working to create useful programs for TINI. Some of the software we are currently developing is listed here:
Other software is available from the TINI Community Contributions page.
Dallas Semiconductor maintains a mailing list for people interested in TINI. You can subscribe to this list by sending an e-mail message to majordomo@dalsemi.com with the two words subscribe TINI in the body (not subject) of the message. An archive of the TINI mailing list is available on the TINI web site.
Please send any comments about this page or additional TINI information to include on this page to TINI-info@smartsc.com.