Let me join the i-am-an-enduser-too crowd. You know, I am able to shed up to US$ 200 for a FPGA just to foster the effort, but looks like it is going to cost more than that. I can still donate some change for the effort regardless of buying hardware.
I want to share my thoughts with the developers, maybe you could estimate the feasibility of this alternative plan. I see a world trend in having portable devices like mp3 players/portable game devices/PDA/smartphone cobbled together. As such, I am just wating to see a really good linux solution come by, which has not happened so far. I am lurking int his list, as well as on the Gumstix project (I have already posted about them before), and I really think that a synergy between both projects would be most welcome. I would like to hear from the developers if they have already figured out how much simpler will the embedded part be, if the embedded FPGA version will be significantly smaller, and thus cheaper. Maybe this could be the way of having Open PDA kits for linux geeks out there? Depending on the answers, maybe it could be easier to do, even though it is smaller than the PC market. Care to spend a few brain cycles on this possibility? Another thing which comes to my mind is: We have computer chips using a socket, so that we can replace the CPU without changing the motherboard. Would it be possible to do the same with the chip, having two parts, a base daughter board, and either a slot in which we can put either the FPGA or the ASIC (future upgrade!!), or if it is not possible to fit the chip in a slot-like format, make a granddaughter board with the chip. IMO it could be more attractive upgrade-wise, even if each part (board and chip) are individually more expensive. This way I would buy my base card with FPGA, then buy the ASIC upgrade when it comes by, and afterwards upgrade my base board to the video capture one. And everyone would be happy :) On Tuesday 24 May 2005 20:01, Dennis SCP wrote: > Timothy Miller heeft op dinsdag, 24 mei 2005 om 18:01 > > (Europe/Amsterdam) het volgende geschreven: > > > > Discardable premium But I think the > > > > sweetspot remains just below the 200 mark. > > > > > > 200euro sounds good for a 3s4000 based FPGA card > > > though. > > > > The FPGA itself costs at least $150! > > Wow > > > > That's limited to the developer / hobbyist > > > market though - 200 euros (�138 for me) would get me > > > something that'll run DOOM3 nice and smoothly with the > > > ultra-quality settings on, if I go to ATI or NVidia. > > > > With $150 already taken, and the rest of the parts costing as much as > > another $150, that gives us a net loss of $100. If you can figure out > > how to make that business model work, you can get the Nobel prise. > > Looks like you've been reading Catch 22 lately. :) > > Well, this changes my perspective completely. > I thought it would be $ 100 for 10 000 ASIC cards and $ 200 for 10 000 > FPGA cards. > > Ramping up FPGA production to try to push the price down from 500 to > 350 is not going to make you expand into general linux market so I > think the FPGA will remain an expensive geek toy at least for the first > rev of the card no matter how many you'll produce. No one is going to > stretch their budget that far for dreams which may not come true. The > exceptions will be the coders who think they can make it real > themselves. > > Yes, trying to make a cheap ASIC card seems the only viable mass-market > for now. Dual-link port can only significantly help sales if you're the > first affordable card supporting it as you're able to sell to unix (or > even Windows) using specialists who want a big screen without any need > for games. Gamers will be shopping elsewhere, anyway. > > With this news: > http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/05/05/24/ > 1744205.shtml?tid=136&tid=8&tid=10&tid=137 > I think theora and SVG will eventually be running on a Cell equipped > PCI Express daughter card, this may quickly reduce the potential for > FPGA as a generic powerboost card for linux users. I now fear that FPGA > will take the same route as DSP chips (Atari Falcon allowed > experimentation, Apple almost bought one from Philips but soon realized > PowerPC had caught up) and not become common at all. > > _______________________________________________ > Open-graphics mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics > List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com) _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
