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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."
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
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.
Indeed, hardly unusual. At the very beginning of opencores.org, which was certainly around a decade ago, there was a project of this sort. "ORsoc" ran Linux. The CPU was an Opencores design named OR1200, with a completely custom instruction set and a fork of GCC/glibc to support it. Everything was open source: the peripherals, the CPU, the video drivers, even the USB and Ethernet cores.
That SoC worked on FPGAs, but there were also ASICs, and I think it even turned up in some commercial products.
I suspect that this project is probably reusing quite a few components from Opencores. That Wishbone bus looks awfully familiar...
You're an immobile computer, remember?
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.
All wrong :-) It has no metal shielding because it is so well designed. We absolutely went to an EMI test lab to be able to classify it under CE and FCC regulation. Under FCC regulation, Milkymist One is a non-intential radiator and thus does not require an FCC ID. It is enough that the manufacturer verifies that it is in fact meeting the requirements of a non-intentional radiator. The entire test lab report (31 pages) is online
http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/File:Reichl_milkymist_one_tests_11000301.pdf
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.