Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Device With Open CPU Out of Beta Soon
lekernel writes "After years of passionate and engaging development, the video synthesizer from the Milkymist project is expected to go out of beta in August. Dubbed 'Milkymist One,' it features as central component a system-on-chip made exclusively of IP cores licensed under the open source principles, and is aimed at use by a general audience of video performance artists, clubs and musicians. It is one of the first consumer electronics products putting forward open source semiconductor IP, open PCB design and open source software at the same time. The full source code is available for download from Github, and a few hardware kits are available from specialized electronics distributors."
Now I can patch my CPU. Oh...
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's only available from specialized electronic distributors never mainstream distributors. Why? Because mainstream distributors only buy from mainstream suppliers unfortunately.
yea ok I will admit this is the first time I have seen an open source CPU, but that is becuase the rest of us would have grabbed a fpga and not wasted a bunch of time.
I will also admit that this is cool as shit after calling it a waste of time, its a bit of both I guess
What makes this great (and unusual) is that there's an entire SoC in that FPGA, not just the CPU core. And it's all Open, including the graphics.
Just slapping "OPEN!" on something doesn't make me wanna buy. For $500 I get a device that (someday when the software gets written) will process standard def video? And output VGA? Really? In 2011?
Yes it is nice that everything is implemented in a FPGA and totally open. Perhaps someone will run with it and use these building blocks to make something interesting. But as long as an FPGA is the target it will never compete. Compare and contrast these features with what $25 will get you in an ARM. You can see by going back a few days here on Slashdot. Although there ain't no way in hell that project will get to market at $25 quan 1 either, academics have no notion what it costs to actually bring a product to market... but it won't be $500.
Democrat delenda est
Professional DMX connectors have 5 pin connectors, not 3 pin.
Judging from what the screenshots look like, the "video art" it produces looks a lot like Winamp circa 1998. I'm part of the target audience for this thing and it looks pretty useless for making video. But if you shine some lights on it, it looks kinda cool I guess. If you tell people about the open source CPU it gets even cooler.
I doubt you have any idea what you're talking about.
It's actually a great looking device for musicians like myself. Built in MIDI & DMX512 ports.
Nice attempt at trolling open source projects.
It's actually a great looking device for musicians like myself.
I doubt that. It's a $500 dev kit. Any tool you need for making music can be had from private companies with superior specs for less cash. Even if not, you could make a superior product by using an ASIC from a private company rather than a FPGA. If you buy one, it will be because you like the notion of it being open, not because it's technically superior to existing products.
I'm not particularly happy about my chances of legally
reusing code that starts like this:
// COPYRIGHT NOTICE
// Copyright 2006 (c) Lattice Semiconductor Corporation
// ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
// This confidential and proprietary software may be used only as authorised by
// a licensing agreement from Lattice Semiconductor Corporation.
// The entire notice above must be reproduced on all authorized copies and
// copies may only be made to the extent permitted by a licensing agreement from
// Lattice Semiconductor Corporation.
//
// Lattice Semiconductor Corporation TEL : 1-800-Lattice (USA and Canada)
// 5555 NE Moore Court 408-826-6000 (other locations)
// Hillsboro, OR 97124 web : http://www.latticesemi.com/
// U.S.A email: techsupport@latticesemi.com
is the highly proprietary FPGA technology used to implement the CPU. FPGA partition, place and route (ppr) is some of most proprietary software on the planet, slathered in trade secrets and patents. The chips themselves are worse. Think of them as a type of processor (after all an FPGA is just a bit cruncher) with a secret instruction set and compiler (ppr). Xlinix (major FPGA company) want potential customers to sign an NDA simply to have their salespeople say more than "we sell FPGAs".
If the Free Software community is to use FPGA's, as more than just a curiosity, first task is to design/build its own silicon and write its own toolchain. Then they come up against the proprietary nature of semiconductor manufacturing.
I'm not belittling the Milkymist project, as what I describe above is a separate project. It's a huge project, essentially a reimplementation of 50 years of semiconductor progress, ultimately linked to the (seminal) desktop manufacturing projects that some have started. Imagine RepRap mk42 with semiconducting, conducting and insulating inks, printing circuits at the micro-scale.
-- disclosure: I manufacture Milkymist One -- If it's a dev kit, it's the most stunningly beautiful dev kit I know. Have you seen the pictures? http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Milkymist_One_pictures Technical superiority is very hard to judge, our goal is to make it super easy to use (basically just turn on), and then allow for anybody to dive deeper and deeper into it, all the way to the free hardware acceleration in the fpga. Tutorials needs to be written, videos made, etc. I will take some time. But please accept for the 'dev kit' feedback: From day 1 of this project, we didn't want it to be a dev kit. All we care about is make very easy to use, beautiful, long lasting and fun products.
Really? Maybe you can tell me where to get a MIDI controlled audio/video synthesizer hardware solution off-the-shelf for under $500?
I bet someone told Don Buchla and Bob Moog that there was no need to build their silly little gizmos because hey, you can get any instrument you want down at your local music store. I can't believe you made such an idiotic statement, artor3.
You really don't know what you're talking about. Go start with an ASIC and build a MIDI-controlled audio/video synth for under $500. You'd spend more than $500 in time before you even started putting together the hardware.
Would you have any idea how to put together a box like this one that would be an appropriate tool for musicians/video artists? Would you have any clue as to what the requirements of the artists would be? Well, the people who are putting together the device described in this article have clearly given it some thought. And even as a "Dev-kit" it's a great tool. Shit, most of Cycling '74's products are "dev-kits" when it comes right down to it.
I think you owe everyone reading this tonight an apology, artor3, for making such an arrogant, dunderheaded comment. Oh, and then there's this:
Maybe you'd like to tell us about the "existing products" that would do what this device does that sell for $500?
I want that apology, right now mister.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thanks! (I work on Milkymist One) You can follow the project at http://twitter.com/milkymistvj
In any case, unless there's something I'm completely missing, it looks like the milkymist guys were not supposed to share the code that I pulled that header from:
Apparently, according to section 12 of the license, some of their tools will spit out code that is redistributable under an open source license, and if you use their tools to do that, then you can share the output. The license for that is in appendix C of that document, but it applies to "Software that identifies itself as licensed under the Lattice Semiconductor Corporation Open Source License Agreement."
Did you see any such self-identification as open source in that header file? Me neither.
The hardware looks good, but the business case is shaky. I guess I'm not the target audience because I can't figure out what this box is for, even though I looked at Flickernoise. The build instructions are more complex than ones for Linux :-)
Hardware-wise, of course, you can make anything you want, but is it cost-effective? One could make a video synthesizer out of any old laptop with a VGA output. You don't need a high fidelity audio input if all you want is to convert it to squiggly lines. I'm sure a DJ can play audio *and* video all from his trusty MacBook Pro, and there will be plenty of CPU cycles free.
I personally revisit ideas of universal devices every other month, and usually I reject them. The reason is that each and every customer is going to use the thing in one function only. This means that he'd be paying for hardware that he doesn't need. There are still reasons to do it this way, primarily manufacturing reasons, but the customer doesn't see a universal board as something useful. I don't even mention "open source" here; as laudable as it might be, it's not something that you print on the box in large yellow letters.
With regard to synthesized CPUs, I had my share of work done with MicroBlaze, and while it works you don't really want to use it as your main CPU. It makes sense only in small embedded systems, where RAM is fixed and limited. Such systems, in turn, are most useful not as universal computers but as appliances. Still, FPGA is often an expensive resource. Avnet sells XC6SLX45 for about $70 apiece. This, in a CPU, will buy you a lot of computing power. I don't know if *this* product is better off with an FPGA or without (or maybe with a smaller one, or a CPLD...) but as the size of the FPGA increases it gets more and more expensive. On the other hand, it helps fight obsolescence of parts.
Of course, them being lawyers, this discussion will probably be closed by the time they respond, but if not, I'll post the response here.
to: lic_admn@latticesemi.com
Dear sir or madam:
It has recently come to my attention that a public source code repository contains LatticeMico32 processor RTL files that have a Lattice copyright notice that claims the files are "confidential and proprietary software". For example, see:
https://github.com/milkymist/milkymist/blob/master/cores/lm32/rtl/lm32_icache.v
In conversation with the developers, they claim that section 11 of this license applies to those files:
https://github.com/milkymist/milkymist/blob/master/LICENSE.LATTICE
However, they have offered no reasoning as to why they believe section 11 applies. The headers of the files in question do not claim they are licensed according to any sort of open-source exception; quite the opposite.
The LatticeMico32 looks interesting for my own project; please advise if these sources really can be freely distributed under section 11 of this license, whether it is Appendix A or Appendix B that applies to that redistribution, and whether I should update the file headers to reflect that fact upon redistribution.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Best regards,
xxxxxxxxx
The people who stand the most to gain from this are the same who gained the most from Linux --
* IBM
* Oracle (MySQL)
* Every other large company that needed an easy way to implement a small product (e.g., LinkSys, a.k.a. Cisco)
BTW, try getting any Linux open source code from IBM, you know, the stuff they are obligated to make public.
I know this is going to be a flamebait. But before you flame me, consider the following: I'm researcher and get paid for what I do. I've released quite a few codes as open source and invented a bunch of algorithms which are not patented and used in many applications (think email spam filter, face recognition, etc.). And I've worked in industry and academia. For almost two decades. So I know both open and closed source.
First off, ideas have value. As in Dollar value. Take NVIDIA for instance - they don't have a semiconductor fab, so they send their chip layout to a place like TSMC or Global Foundry or Samsung or any other place to have their files turned into chips. These places are like modern printing presses. If their mask, vhdl or layout information were open source they wouldn't be able to reap the benefit from their investment into building the next generation of chips. Or as a more extreme case, take ARM. They design processor cores and license the microarchitecture to other (possibly fabless) design companies such as Apple which, in turn, tweak the design, add more stuff to it, and then ship it to the foundries. In other words, all the good stuff is in the plans, much less in the actual hardware.
So, designing an open source CPU is probably not going to work. Why not? Well, unlike with software, there's a massive barrier to entry. Talk Millions of Dollars rather than a few hundred to buy a laptop and install some version of GCC on it. Few users can afford this. This pretty much kills the model where many users take advantage of a good idea and share it to make it better. Yes, there are good ideological reasons but most people don't do things for ideology (note the emphasis on most). They do them for fun, profit, fame, convenience, or some other less noble goal.
As for the piece of hardware itself, hmmm, not sure why I would want to buy an overpriced and function limited and incompatible device.
But hasn't an open source consumer device already been released? http://meeblip.noisepages.com/
Years of work, special purpose hardware, a price tag higher than an entire PC, and all it does is generate screen-saver like video wallpaper in sync with audio?
If you're building technology for a rave, build something that makes the track spots follow the dancers. Something the dancers can play with. A Kinect might make that work.
Honestly, outside of the fact that it's in an acrylic box and lacks a breadboard, it looks just like every other decent quality dev kit I've seen. That's not a bad thing, by the way. While some companies do put out crappy kits, the good ones are a lot of fun to use, and can do all sorts of great stuff. They include tutorials, and are easy to use. I'm sure the Milkymist is the same. But surely it could be made cheaper by moving from open cores on an FPGA to a tighter, less configurable design.
Haha, wow, flame much? Step back. Breathe. Maybe take a night's rest. Then come back and act like a person, rather than a screaming child.
When you do, consider:
1) Claiming that I'd invest $500 in time to design a better product from scratch is, frankly, absurd. I'd spend a million dollars trying to design a car from scratch, but that doesn't mean I should be willing to pay a million to buy an open source car.
2) Claiming that I don't know the consumer's requirements is, again, irrelevant. Continuing with Slashdot's favorite car analogies, I may not know the requirements for an off road vehicle, but I do know that people aren't going to spend extra on one with a customizable engine unless they're the sort who'll want to customize their engine. Likewise, most musicians aren't going to want to muck around with HDL, so they're not going to spend extra on a device to let them.
3) You put scare quotes around "dev kit" as if to say that this device isn't one. I direct you to the quote at the very top of the linked page: "Before the software is ready for this more general public usage, we sell developer kits to pioneers who can stand a few software problems and embedded devices enthusiasts who would enjoy developing on this open source platform." Emphasis mine, of course.
4) Existing solutions that cost under $500 would include loading some FOSS audiovisualizer software onto the computer that, as a member of the first world, you already own, and then buying some PCI cards or USB adapters to get the desired ports. That is what VJs do, you know. They seem to have been getting by just fine without this $500 box. And if you think this box can replace a VJ's entire setup, then it is you who don't really understand what they do.
Seriously though, sleep on it before responding. Odds are you won't care in the morning.
-- disclosure: I work on Milkymist One -- The only comparable product from proprietary hardware companies is the Edirol CG8, which has inferior specs in most regards and is sold for a lot more (about 6 times the price of Milkymist One).
Try the UltraSPARC II instead, which is released under GPL, not some licence-proliferating legalese that's not actually open at all.
Its looks have nothing to do with it being a dev kit. Sure, the thing looks awesome, but it's still just a dev kit. The fact you need tutorials to just get the thing to do something strongly hints at it being a dev kit. What would you call it?
I didn't care to begin with. It just upsets me when people shit on other peoples' work for no other reason than "we already have proprietary solutions, so why do we need open source?" and then complain about it being "only a devkit" because their work isn't finished.
And they weren't "scare quotes", I was quoting you.
But reading my comment from last night... I was in high dudgeon, wasn't I? OK, I'll be the one who apologizes.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But only if those particular files are "generated" by a copy. They seem to be available at Lattice for registered users. I can't download them; perhaps you have a cookie set.
Well then congratulations and let me say that the name Milkymist sounds a little like you skeeted all over the fucking place.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
By the way, I will present the device tomorrow in Amsterdam: http://nimk.nl/eng/calendar/pixxxel-milkymist
Now you keep saying rude shit like "That's your problem." "Get your mind off section 11." "Still your problem."
In short, you have been quite rude and snide on multiple occasions. AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T EXPLAINED WHY IT'S APPENDIX C OF THE LICENSE THAT APPLIES, AND NOT THE NON-OPEN-SOURCE PART.
But let's get past that.
The only "open source" parts of the license are described in Appendixes A-C. Appendix A and B don't apply, so it must be appendix C. By the text of the appendix itself, that only applies to certain files:
So for this to work as you claim it did, what must have happened is that you must have (a) registered to get the software (which I'm not going to do and which you steadfastly refused to believe must be done to get the software for the longest time); (b) run their (proprietary?) program that puts together the SOC (which I don't see in your tarball and I apparently can't run without getting it from Lattice); and (c) THAT PROGRAM must have "output" those files by simply copying them from their initial install place to the output.
IF all that happened (if those files are considered "output" of their proprietary tool) THEN I can believe that you can legitimately call them open source and redistribute them.
But THEY don't explain that and YOU didn't explain that either, and the header on the file certainly doesn't indicate that it was run through their tool, or that their open source license applies, and neither does anything else in the tarball that I see. It is not a "generated" file in the normal sense of the word, so if that is how it becomes open source, I think you could have done a much better job addressing that.
Of course, neither fixing your documentation to explain why the license applies nor explaining it nicely could possibly be as much fun as simply berating people who don't stand a chance of being able to understand how you got there from the limited information you provided. It's assholes like you who give open source a bad name.
Interestingly, the OGD1 board produced by the Open Graphics Project is a significantly more powerful device. The problem is that very few OGD1 boards were produces, due to lack of funding.