I based my specualtion on the built-in PC motherboard on the reality that getting consistently reliable low latency I/O between the sampling HW and the DSP processing with widely variable end user PC configurations continues to be a thorn in the side of the Flex-xxxx series radios. Can it be done, certainly, as many have done so. But bringing the "back end" DSP processing HW into the radio box itself gives them much more control over the latency sensitive pieces of the system. The external UI and audio presentation tasks are comparatively easier to do on an array of widely varying end user PC HW that is out there. And that in turn drives my speculation that the box may very well be running Linux, that too gives Flex greater control over the OS environment that end user Windows environments simply don't. But unlike the 5000C, I don't envision the "radio box" itself being driven directy with a KVM much of the time (though it could be). Instead it will be the user's existing PC and possibly tablet/phones that will be the UI front end for a large percentage of users most of the time. BTW it wouldn't surprise me that the UI piece will be built on HTML 5, thus making that piece of it cross platform as well.. My price point prediction has nothing to do with actual manufacturing costs, but is instead based entirely on the end user marketable "value" of this new HW vs. its likely closest RF performance competitors, i.e. FT-5000, TS-990 (presumably), fully loaded K-3 system, Orion II with RX-366. The good news we only have to guess and speculate for another few days, on Friday we will then know.. Duane N9DG
--- On Mon, 5/14/12, Bill Dailey <docdai...@gmail.com> wrote: From: Bill Dailey <docdai...@gmail.com> Subject: [Flexradio] Game changing WAS To: "Flex Radio" <flexradio@flex-radio.biz> Date: Monday, May 14, 2012, 1:36 PM I absolutely don't think it will have a computer on board. That kills simplicity and with the way computer hardware changes would be an upgrade nightmare. That is why nobody bought the 5000C in my opinion (and cost).. which leads me to cost... I do not think it will be significantly (nearly twice) more than the Flex-5000. I think it is reasonable to assume it will cost more although it may no because of the decreased hardware cost. Now the FPGA programming is another story and if they want to recover some of that dev cost it may be more expensive although from what I gather all that cost was taken care opf in the development of the serx-16... again that is a guess but I think that was fully funded. -- Doc Bill Dailey KXØO _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
