Dieter wrote: > Would it be worthwhile to add a "Note: 3S4000 not the smaller 3S400" > in the appropriate places?
No, I think that would be a mistake. What might work is to say something like "with 60,000+ logic units" or whatever -- the relevant statistic that is getting mixed up. > The comments from "fpgaprogrammer (1086859)" appeared to be thoughtful > rather than a knee-jerk reaction. Mm. Yeah, but still not very on-target... > If you're interested in FPGA programming and a novice at it, OGD1 isn't really for novices. > If you're serious about FPGA programming (or just willing to pay > $1500 to $3000) you will definitely want to get a board with a > Virtex or Stratix on board: Do any of these board have the capacity to prototype something like OGA? Are we making a mistake by not just usng one of those? I'm pretty sure there wouldn't have been an OGD1 design if the answer were "yes". > FPGA programming environments still mostly suck. it's a market > impeded by proprietary standards and a whole lot of NP-Hard > algorithms. We're working on it... IIRC, you're quoting him here, and that's a good thing -- he sees the problem with the tools. > my point is that there are a dirth of FPGA boards with better Sadly, a "dearth" means a lack (or small number) of something and "dirth" is not a word; when I'm pretty sure he meant "a large number of"... <sigh> > cost/performance value that could be used to prototype a > graphics rendering FPGA system. Physical hardware isn't the > limiting factor to an open source graphics card; the open source > FPGA 3-D rendering code is the real missing piece. Um, yeah. Hence the OpenGraphics project. What's his complaint again? > In fact, > making a board was probably a distraction for this project because > by the time the firmware is ready for real graphics workloads the > FPGA on-board will be obsolete. Building tools is a distraction from doing the job, then? Better to just use your teeth? > Here's some examples of 3-D engines for FPGA from the 6.111 lab at MIT: > 3-D Pong (using rasterization): > http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/s2006/PROJECT/7/main.html [mit.edu] > > Ray Tracing: > http://web.mit.edu/6.111/www/s2007/PROJECTS/5/main.html [mit.edu] > > There are hundreds of videos and code for FPGA projects up at > http://web.mit.edu/6.111 [mit.edu] (see project appendices for code). > > This one does miss the point a bit, Pretty much completely, I'd say -- these are actually arguments for why you need OGD1. Otherwise, what's he planning to run those 3D engines on? I'd say our problem is a lack of communication. And way too much to communicate all at once. We've (I probably should say "you all have") spent a lot of time understanding the problem and working out a clever solution, not only to the technical obstacles, but also to the economic ones. >>> The lack of "I for one welcome our FPGA overloads" is curious. :-) > Sorry, a large fraction of Slashdot threads include a "I for one welcome our > <foo> overloads" posting. I see, running joke. Makes sense now. ;-D > The overall tone was more negative than I was expecting. Certainly some > complaints are expected, but I was expecting more positive responses, since > a lot of slashdoters are into FLOSS. 1) My prior experience with Slashdot suggests it's all negative, so I wasn't surprised. Maybe I'm biased, but my experience is that people would far rather bitch about proprietary vendors than construct a viable alternative ("It may be better to light a candle, but cursing the darkness is more fun"?) 2) A surprising number of FLOSS advocates are very negative about open hardware -- either dismissive of its importance (Stallman, for example, was very dismissive about it for a long time, though I think he's coming around a bit nowadays) or convinced it's impossible and those of us who think otherwise are just hopelessly naive or don't understand how open source works. <sigh> Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.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)
