Werner, Well said.
These two boards (both use the Allwinner A10 SOC) are interesting. And inexpensive. I have no interest in Android, but both of these run Linux. The graphics on Hackberry may pass muster with Qi Hardware's rules. https://www.miniand.com/products/Hackberry%20A10%20Developer%20Board#specifications http://gooseberry.atspace.co.uk/?page_id=13 >From what I have read, Allwinner seems to have their head screwed on right re NDAs and similar. What is the market niche that Ben Nanonote fills? >> reasonably useful physical keyboard (but could be better than Ben) >> pocketable (but prolly does not have to be as small as Ben, which constrains display and keyboard >> enough CPU to do useful work (Ben's 300 MHz is marginal. 1GHz would be lovely) >> enough RAM for useful work (32MB ~barely~ works. But in 2012/2013, 512MB or more is cost effective & more programs run without swapping. >> excellent battery life. minimum 8 hours w/aggressive software management of power >> removable & STANDARD battery >> USB host or USB OTG. Micro USB is OK, need minimum of n=2. Would be nice to have one full size USB. >> minimum of two microSD slots. Or one SD slot, one microSD >> serial interface >> Ethernet. this is an open and standard network interface. >> expansion header to some low-level i/o: NOTE however, low level i/o is NOT main use case. SPI (with enough select lines for 3 devices, I2C, several GPIOs >> wi-fi option (maybe not supported by qi-software build, since this remains controversial at >> selling price that allows sufficient profit to make the product an attractive business. Needs to sell in moderate to high volume. Given $200 good quality 7-inch capacitive touch tablets from major brands, Son of Ben can not be priced higher than the $150 price Ben is now offered at. I'm not sure how many people want an SoB enough to pay $150 plus shipping form China. Raspberry Pi is shipping at $35, supposedly about 200K units so far. They have a sweetheart deal with BRCM, but the Allwinner SOC (faster in most respects) is only $7 in volume. This is doable, assuming a long list of conditional probabilities, including someone designing a clever case that can be 3D printed at first, then converted to injection molded process. This could complement the Milkymist FPGA computing device. But unless something changes in a big way, there is no evidence of sufficient desire or resources to design a new system. Maybe wrapping a case and open software around one of the existing deigns such as HACKBERRY or GOSEBERRY would make sense. Both cost well under $100. --- Ron K. Jeffries On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Werner Almesberger <[email protected]>wrote: > S?bastien Bourdeauducq wrote: > > Let's fix that problem instead. Developing a reference design for a > > proprietary chip is an experience you can have at any semiconductor > > company. > > I think mid-range SoCs are becoming a commodity. As developers > who cherish their independence, the best we can do is to travel > lightly, so that we can pick the chips we can readily use and > don't lose time daydreaming about things we can't have. > > This means, among other things, not to lock ourselves into > proprietary features. It also means to try to do as much of the > work we need done at layers there the subtle but in the end > irrelevant differences between chips don't bother us. > > One may view picking an off-the-shelf SoC as a step back from > the freedom we've obtained with Milkymist, but I think it > would still be a very reasonable move at the present time. > > One issue with an FPGA-centric design, like in Milkymist, is > the extreme slowness of the CPU core. An extremely slow core > means that a lot of "standard" software will have trouble > running satisfyingly. > > An FPGA-centric design can still run circles around anything > else when it comes to certain specific tasks implemented in > "gateware", but for a Nanonote intended as a general-purpose > device, it would be a problematic choice. > > You once suggested one could add a custom ASIC just containing > the CPU core, with the FPGA taking care of peripherals and the > memory interface. I find this a very interesting idea. But we > also have to recognize that we're currenly not in a position to > actually make such a project happen. > > But we can save this idea for later. The work on Milkymist, > past and ongoing (your memory controller, Yann's MMU, Lars' > renewed Linux effort) is not lost. Instead, it closes gaps we > have already suffered from in the past. When the day comes to > try something FPGAs-centric again, perhaps even with a helper > ASIC, having already done these things will greatly accelerate > the development process. It's much easier to climb Mt. Everest > when you start from a camp at 7000 m than from sea level. > > Meanwhile, we still haven't fully tapped the potential of the > Nanonote concept. Doing that calls for a more evolutionary > than a revolutionary approach. If a chip maker were to have a > sufficiently common interest with us in making this happen that > they could sponsor such an effort, I wouldn't rebuff them too > hastily. > > - Werner > > _______________________________________________ > Qi Hardware Discussion List > Mail to list (members only): [email protected] > Subscribe or Unsubscribe: > http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion >
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