On 3/3/06, Tiago Mikhael Pastorello Freire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I am not a FPGA dev, but I am silently lurking the list and following the > development, eagerly awaiting the first products come out of this project. > I would be willing to spend a few bucks on a FPGA board, just to 'support the > cause', even if it's not going to be that useful to me. > kowing nothing about the costs involved, I would be somewhat comfortable with > a figure of up to US$ 600, but would be willing to stretch up to to US$ 1000. Thank you. > Of course, to sweeten up this pill it would be really interesting to > eventually have the card being useable as a video card of course, but also to > let it be useable for other things, like accellerating encryption, running > arm code, maybe a hardware-accelerated jvm? All of those are possible. There are already ARM cores you could use. And hardware-accelerated JVM would be more like a CPU that directly executes byte-code, which would be neat. (And by directly, I've thought about it, and you may want a layer of microcode.) > I know coding these things is out > of the scope of this project, but if the board can be eventually put to some > practical use, which can actually accelerate something, it would be nice. Anything that helps the project is not outside of the scope of the project. If OGD-specific traffic were to explode to the point that it was too much for OGA developers, we'd spawn another list. But this is definitely important stuff. Perhaps a few people are thinking, "But this isn't graphics!" But the only reason I started with graphics is because I've designed graphics chips before. I really want LOTS of different types of open hardware. > If the project goes well, and i am sure there are many open source enthusiasts > hoping for it, I believe this might eventually happen. > > I don't know how hard would it be for a non-coder to be a 'bug-hunter user', > much like open-source power user doesn't code, but files bugs to the > developers. Maybe someone could carify me? That would make you an 'official tester.' :) Somehow, you would acquire a board, and as some OGD-based project (such as OGA) releases code (and bitfiles for your convenience), you would load them onto the card and... well, do whatever comes to mind that would test features. Of course, at that point, we'd have to have a partially working GPU and some drivers, but we'll need people doing this job eventually. When you encounter a problem discuss it with others here and get them working on a resolution. > Another thing is that an exchange program could be made for people interested > in helping the project: I would buy the FPGA and then exchange it for an ASIC > card, or send it back to you to receive the whole cost of the FPGA as rebates > to buy cheaper ASIC cards. you would then be able to sell a refurbished FPGA > card... I'll have to think about what would be good to do. I would only want to give a special deal to OGP developers. Perhaps what would be good is to give, to each person who actually bought their own OGD board to work on the project, some number of OGC cards. What's more, we could entrust some of them to resell the cards, and they can pocket some profit off the top of that. There's lots of things. Ultimately, the real reward I'd like to give the major contributors to this project is to grow Traversal to the point that I can hire them. But then again, I'd also like to give them all flying cars and robot maids. They may have to have some patience on that. :) _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
