On 11 Nov 2007, at 06:27, Terry Hancock wrote:
Timothy Normand Miller wrote:
http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=18902
Chaos, I tell ya. I love it. :)
I haven't read enough to know how far along they are, if they have a
working board, where they got their PCI controller from, etc.
"We've currently almost definately finished the schematic."
The signature on the schematic, BTW, is Michael Meeuwisse. We know him
from the recent discussion on documentation. :-) And "Project VGA" has
been mentioned on this list before, IIRC.
Yep, that's me allright.
Ironically, for a project motivated largely by impatience with OGP,
though, it appears OGP will beat them to market on an FPGA-based
card. :-)
<snip>
Plus, I think what they're trying to do is to create an *FPGA* card
that
is priced reasonably to use as a "consumer" video card. Which would
mean
it has to be a pretty cheap design. That's interesting in itself,
because I just might be able to afford that, while much as I admire
OGD1, I know it's out of my reach.
Extending that thought to the
marketplace it means that many people will be able to use an OH FPGA
card to do HDL hacking who wouldn't be reached by OGD1 alone, which in
turn means more people who know HDL, and that helps both projects.
I think somebody at osnews summarised it nicely; "The OGD1 is great,
but here's a quick something for now while we wait, because I think
it's cool". And also as you say, more people with FPGA hardware
results in hopefully more people being able to contribute to both
projects.
OTOH, it's not very much "competition", because people who can afford
OGD1 and have much more ambitious goals, will certainly be
interested in
that much more capable board.
For the record; OGD1 makes me drool.
The world's big enough for two so highly-differentiated open hardware
development boards. So all in all, I think it's a lot more pluses than
minuses.
Technically, of course, they are not an "Open Hardware" project yet,
because they are using CC-NC-SA-3.0" which is a non-free license. But
they suggest that that will probably change. On the other hand,
technically we haven't yet defined what "Open Hardware" means. I'm
pretty sure CC's NC clause is right out, though. OTOH, it does make
sense as a safety position before deciding on a license. ;-)
IANAL and not a business person either, but I just wanted to make
sure that there isn't a smart-ass out there who starts producing my
design and selling it, without giving me (and thus, the project) a
penny. With GPL or some-sort, I think they might be able to actually
do that, so I tagged CC-NC-SA-3.0 on it for now.
The components alone cost about US$232, according to the BoM (and
converting from EU€). I'd guess you'd have to at least double that to
estimate the cost of the board, so it's not really cheap enough to hit
the above mark. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of OGD1.
I can't help the rather annoying dollar rate at the moment I'm
afraid, but do note that this figure is for an abundance of
components for two cards, and that it goes down a lot if you start
producing cards on a larger scale.
Cheers,
Terry
Another point what I'd like to make is that my recent 'interest' in
how OGP is going to tackle VGA is largely also self-interest. If I'll
be able to load (at least parts) of the design into my card, I'll be
saving buckets of time. And hopefully vice versa.
Mike
www.wacco.mveas.com - Project VGA
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