Hello Carsten,
There are a few reasons that pins are not nailed down forever-forever.
The outputs subject is as follows:
8 timers, currently 2 for inputs, 6 for outputs.
In future, 8 for inputs (maybe configurable outputs too), 36 NORMAL pins powered by the XGATE coprocessor.
It's not the future, yet
It's quite likely that we can keep using the same 6 pins even once the software is upgraded, but not guaranteed. I'm in absolutely NO rush to add that software for a few reasons:
It will attract more "users" which are a drain and annoying and largely useless. "users" is not the same as testers/hackers, who can mostly take care of themselves and are a help, not a hurdle.
Other pin selection subjects are potential reserved pins for "always" functions and potential concurrency issues between XGATE and S12 in terms of accessing the same registers at the same time. IE, we may need to clearly split the 36 outputs onto ports not at all used by XGATE, or provide a mechanism for inter-CPU communication about pin state, or both.
It's a development system, no users, only testers. I'm not shy about that, nor am I shy about what it can do. It'd be a HUGE mistake to have "ordinary" users involved at this point. They'd simply end up frustrated and disappointed and hating the system, which is bad long term. The limitations are not hardware, nor are they people, there are certain things that I personally need to take care of, and my time is limited. The more users, the less time I have. It's starting to be the case that others know about the system, and can help. This is also bad, though, as there is still a proportion of stuff that's just me. The more it grows, the faster it grows, and I'm critically aware of that, and the fact that it could implode if it grows too fast without being ready for it. Much like a small business growing will go nuts and die off if it grows too fast without being prepared. Basically what I'm focused on is that preparation, making the system as "normal" person friendly as possible, which it's VERY MUCH NOT right now.
I hope that clears it up.
If you want to hack up your own stuff, at your own risk, follow the jaguar schematics and consider T2-7 to be your outputs, put ignition first 2,3,4 of them, and fuel second, 4,3,2 of them. You can do 5/1 but 5 cylinder/10 cylinders are rare. You can do 6 of just ign or just fuel, but that's not too useful. You can do 6 of both, and provide ability to jumper them around between say PORT B and PORT T, which future proofs it (partially), and allows it to be configurable between say 4/2, 3/3, 2/4 in the short term.
If your spoken English is good, I'd be very happy to have a chat with you on skype one of these days very soon, ditto anyone else who wants to ask questions on a dynamic way and get quick answers. PM me if you want
Fred.