> >
> > The freely usable I/O pins attached to a huge FPGA are the *ONLY* reason
> > I'm following this project.
I too am very much interested in this particular feature. However I also
wish to have as many FOSS h/w available and cost effective h/w programming
platform available to as many people as possible.
>
> I agree. OGD is supposed to be a GENERAL project board. Obviously,
> it has hardware specialized for video, but similar boards have nothing
> BUT general I/Os on them. Many uses of OGD will not use the video
> hardware or memory at all, while others will use stock video logic
> only as a convenient readout on some cheap CRT.
I see 4 kinds of users for OGD.
a) In colleges and universities as an introduction to h/w programming
practicals and letting students play with it. Such people will have
relatively low speed signals, such as displaying LEDS, LCD etc
The requirement here is, less complexity for interface.
(TTL kind of signal level, easy std connector etc etc).
Regarding pricing they expect the least possible as mostly
they will be required in bulk (univ)or the costumers will be cash crunched
students
b) Hobbist, who would like to use it for a medium speed and low speed
h/w projects, where typical IDE speed would do. Here too as project
could be just an experimental one, medium complexity is expected
I put an IDE kind of connector in this category.
This kind of user is ready to pay a reasonable price, still not so
high.
c) FOSS developers, complex university projects and industry usage
where maximum performace is expected out of OGD. They expect
the maximum speed possible for interface and maximum PINs too.
They are OK with pricing as long as it serves their purpose and is
considerably less than the competitive product in market.
GnuRadio is one such project which demands max speed.
A USB2.0 phy for EHCI host/dev , Fast Ethernet phy etc etc
falls in this category
d) Certain FOSS developers or university researchers who are not
much interested in external interface, due to either or both of 2 reasons
i) The interface of interest is just DVI which is already provided
by OGD
ii) The application of interest is just high speed computation, which
doesnt depend on any external interface.
eg: encryption, video/audio h/w encoder/decoder etc etc.
The a) and b) kind can be grouped as one cosidering that IDE speeds
are min supported... But this needs futher discussion.
Assuming the target of OGD is to reach maximum costumers with
pricing suiting for each, I feel we should target it in following way.
a) OGD should have mandatory support for medium speed applications
with cheap and std connector such as IDE (or the best in this
category).
b) OGD should have optional support for max possible speed with
whichever std connector even if it is hell expensive. The pricing
can be different for this.
c) Costumers who buy a) should be later able solder b) type connector
later if needed. But b) type should exist for those who are willing
to pay more.
So the aim should be to find the best candidates for both of these
categories. I mean best possible interfaces.
In short there should be atleast one variant of OGD that supports the
maximum performance in terms of speed and num of PINS.
One reason we see very less, successful open source h/w projects are
because of following reasons
a) There are no inexpensive platforms such as OGD where one can
easily test and develop hardware solutions. So no one really
takes interest.
b) Even if someone develops open-cores there is no easyway for
someone to test if it really works. This includes the bug fixes
that happens through this peer reviews. So bug free good
open-cores are rare.
c) Due to reason a) new commers to h/w prog are rare unless he get
a free chance in his company or university. In other words
most h/w developers are h/w developers by profession not just
due to interest.
d) Because there are no enough penetration, the open-source
demand for FOSS hardware tools are limited. Hence only
one icarus-verilog exist as a possible limited candidate for
FOSS h/w tool for synthesis.
If OGD could solve/mitigate the above problems, (as I see it would, if properly
targetted), OGD is not going to be just for OGC development.
It would be revolutionary in terms the way world is going to
see FOSS h/w development. If it becomes compelling one day someone
like Tim or Monty of Xiph is going to make a competent FOSS
verilog synthesising tool. I see brilliant future for OGD.
I wish that we realise the need to target these interfaces as not
just a by-product of OGC development, but as an equaly important
component for survival of OGC and other FOSS h/w projects of future.
Thats all from me regarding efficacy of OGD and importance of
a properly thought out technically/strategically superior interface.
-thanks and regards
dspmind
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