On 10/26/2011 06:25 PM, Sébastien Bourdeauducq wrote: > Hi, > > I can see a need for a very cheap Milkymist device. Right now, selling > the Milkymist One is difficult to two groups of people: > 1) open source enthusiasts and developers, who do not want to spend much > money on a tech product (unless there is a Apple logo on it). > 2) VJs. While the Milkymist One sure is competitive when taking into > account the cost of the proprietary software they use at the moment, > they have a strong culture of using this software - which they sometimes > jump into using a pirated copy. The Apple logo also seems to help here. > > I think we should keep promoting and improving the Milkymist One (more > media exposure, development of RC4 hardware features such as DVI/HDMI > compatibility, better software). But I also believe we should work on > lowering one of the main barriers to entry into our project. > > How about trying to make a $99 minimal version? Here is how I see it: > > * Artix-7 XC7A30T FPGA - most probably cheaper than the one we have at > the moment, and even a tad faster. > * HDMI only video output. Direct (read "cheaper") connection to the FPGA > without DAC and people keep asking for it (even though their projectors > are generally VGA, go figure). So that would kill two birds with one stone. > * SDRAM/Flash: to avoid development and maintainance headaches, let's > try to stay compatible with what we have on the current board, unless > big savings can be made. Software would be the same except the FPGA > design which would only undergo minor modifications to target the > Artix-7 instead of the Spartan-6. > * Memory card. Updates are via files on the memory card. > * Video-in based on the ADV7181C (like in M1 RC4). Only composite input > accessible with an external connector. > * Audio: the Artix-7 FPGAs now include ADCs, so we can get away with at > most an op-amp on the board. Only internal microphone.
Are you sure you want to do this? I suspect getting good quality sound from those would be rather hard. A proper sound chip is available for ~1USD though. On the other hand HDMI can be used as digital audio in and out. > * Two USB ports. If the transceivers are expensive, consider using > resistors instead. (This hack worked for me, even though I'm pretty sure > it's not USB compliant) Best would be if the connectors would be OTG compatible. > * Power supply: right now we use a foolproof design whose main goal was > to reduce development time and probability of verification of the Murphy > laws. It can certainly be made cheaper by using a power management IC > (like TPS75003 or such). > * That's all for the PCB! No Ethernet, DMX, etc. Hopefully we'll have > MIDI over USB support. No ethernet is in my opinion a killer. - Lars _______________________________________________ http://lists.milkymist.org/listinfo.cgi/devel-milkymist.org IRC: #milkymist@Freenode
