RISC-V and Linux Foundations Partner to Promote Open Source CPU (techrepublic.com)

"The Linux Foundation and RISC-V Foundation announced yesterday a joint collaboration project to promote open source development and commercial adoption of the RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA)," reports TechRepublic: Though some devices that integrate RISC-V will use real-time operating systems rather than Linux, the use of Linux in development will be instrumental as existing tools are being extended to support the RISC-V ISA when developing software on traditional computers. "This joint collaboration with the Linux Foundation will enable the RISC-V Foundation to offer more robust support and educational tools for the active RISC-V community, and enable operating systems, hardware implementations and development tools to scale faster," said Rick O'Connor, executive director of the RISC-V Foundation, in a press release.

In many ways, RISC-V is a hardware equivalent to the open source principles that guide the Linux project, as the ISA is open source, is not subject to patent encumbrances, and is available under the BSD license. [L]icensing fees for Arm or MIPS ISAs -- both of which are fundamentally RISC in principle -- can be avoided by using RISC-V.... As alternatives like Alpha, SuperH, MIPS, and even Intel's own Itanium processors have fallen by the wayside, organizations using those ISAs in their products have had difficult adjustment periods transitioning away, while patent encumbrances largely prevent third parties from continuing development or providing drop-in replacements for those technologies. RISC-V's open nature prevents these issues, as it is possible for any organization to extend or customize their own implementation, and any organization can produce their own RISC-V processors.
Manufacturers like how RISC-V CPUs aren't restricted to a single manufacturer, according to the article, which points out that NVIDIA and Western Digital have both announced plans to use RISC-V in some upcoming products.

RISC-V is also "gaining popularity in Internet of Things, low-power, and embedded applications," and Western Digital even plans to ultimately transition its annual consumption of processors -- one billion cores per yer -- to RISC-V.

Comments

So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's fabbing these things and where can I buy them? How about an ATX board I can plug these things into?

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

I have only seen them on wheel of fortune. Still researching where to get one. I have a large number of simulations to run and I canâ(TM)t find a device powerful and strong enough to handle the calculations. Itâ(TM)s like we may as well be using a pencil and a notebook for some of these models

Re:So, do tell

[110010001000]

TSMC will fab them for you.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping the trade wars escalate and China starts selling A11 clone chips in something like a Huawei 4G tablet that I can even make phone calls with. ARM64 is fairly mature at this point, unlike this RISC garbage... and fuck Apple for censoring Alex Jones.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Alex Jones for profiting off fear mongering.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

You would certaibly need the software to make any sense of the thing. I am looking for the current model. New fabs are welcome on the roadmap but arenâ(TM)t a priority at this moment.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Alex Jones should be sodomized with a branding iron for his disinformation campaign. Look at all the poor retarded Republican halfwits he's caused to destroy their professional lives supporting his ridiculous faggot shit?

It's like Luckyo advocating eating more plastic. Someone hang that faggot.

Re:So, do tell

[ShanghaiBill]

TSMC will fab them for you.

Western Digital plans to use RISC-V processors in their storage products starting next year. Most likely they will be fabbed by TSMC.

It is not clear if these RISC-V chips will be available to other companies or to the general public.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Thatâ(TM)s funny hee her

Re:So, do tell

[AmiMoJo]

You can buy RISC-V boards but they are very expensive.

The thing is it's just a CPU core. You still need peripherals, e.g. memory/PCIe/SATA/USB/network controllers and a GPU. So for producing an open computing platform it's not really got much of an advantage over ARM. You are replacing one small part of the system with one that is licence free but also less optimized and mature than ARM, which is already extremely cheap and well supported.

It's great if you need an embedded CPU core for your FPGA project or something, but we are not really much closer to a fully open computing platform. Maybe it could find use as a secure, more trusted co-processor of some kind.

Re:So, do tell

[110010001000]

Why wouldn't it be available? It is available to anyone. You need to come up with the money for the fab.

Re:So, do tell

[ShanghaiBill]

Why wouldn't it be available?

Because Western Digital is in the storage business, not the chip business.

It is available to anyone.

No it isn't. Open Source doesn't work that way. For instance, if I install Linux on my computer, that doesn't mean I have to give you my computer.

Western Digital is under no obligation to distribute their chips to anyone, nor do they have any obligation to share the innovations done to turn a Verilog design into working silicon.

Re: So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep your Alex Jones sex fantasies to yourself.

Re:So, do tell

[alvinrod]

If you need a lot of ARM chips, or want to be able to do some customization to the architecture (which I believe requires a separate license) eventually the volume cost of using RISC-V is going to be cheaper. This is even a bigger driver if you're trying to produce some component yourself that's designed to be extremely low cost as the additional fees to ARM will become a substantial portion of the cost. It's the same as it was with Windows where no one really noticed the extra cost when computers were hideously expensive themselves, but once companies were able to delivery extremely cheap entry level computers Microsoft had to adjust because the Windows tax became obvious.

Re:So, do tell

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, it's mostly of interest to companies that can make use if the core directly, rather than for hackers or consumers looking for a fully open processor.

Re:So, do tell

[mikael]

That would be insane - an SSD disk drive with a built in GPU / compute engine. That would get close to the "take the CPU to the data" approach for big data processing.

Re:So, do tell

[ShanghaiBill]

These chips are available to anyone who wants a fab to make them

It is not that simple. You can't just take a pile of Verilog source, even code that runs fine on an FPGA, and slap it onto real silicon. There is a huge amount of work fitting the design to the process. Of course, you could just make a metalized gate array, but that will give you little advantage over just sticking with a core on an FPGA.

there's no secret sauce there.

Actually, going from a raw design to a working state of the art chip involves plenty of "secret sauce".

Re:So, do tell

[spth]

Low-end boards are not that expensive. The HiFive1 are just 59 $ in single-unit quantitities. Philipp

Re:So, do tell

[ShanghaiBill]

That would be insane - an SSD disk drive with a built in GPU / compute engine.

RISC-V does not have an integrated GPU, nor does it even have SIMD vector instructions. Things may change in the future, but for now it is in no way a "compute engine".

It is ideal for low power embedded systems ... like drive controllers.

Re:So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

So how come RISC-V is making such a splash when there's not even a cheapo SoC built around it yet? Surely the Amlogics and Allwinners of the world would've got there already given how there's similarly cheapo IP blocks for most of the bits and bobs (aside from the GPU) that the customer gets in a typical ARM-based SoC.

Also I heard the RISC-V instruction set is fragmented as designed, to the point where there little chance of binary interoperability between Linux on two distinct spins of RISC-V. True or false?

Re:So, do tell

[Aighearach]

Yes, it is very clear.

No, they will not be available to other companies, or to the general public.

This article, about the Linux Foundation partnering with RISC-V to encourage creation of chips available to the general public. Western Digital was mentioned because they're an example of what is being done already.

If those things were the same, they would not have even mentioned them both.

Re:So, do tell

[Aighearach]

an SSD drive mostly only needs a fancy multiplexer. The computational part could be done on a SOT-26 package micro otherwise.

That's why the economics lean so heavily on them doing it themselves; what they need is about the cheapest possible embedded processor with that pin count. Not having to license a design means they push the costs down to the theoretical minimum.

Re:So, do tell

[gtall]

Ditto. If anyone wants to see part of the difference, contrast ASIC designs with FPGA designs. You have to do a lot more work for ASIC and you need chip design experience. There is also a lot that goes into any SoC that isn't part of the ISA. RISC-V is just the ISA, that's it.

Re: So, do tell

[zemanel]

Many componies have closed source riscV implementations that they sell. Because, although the ISA is open source, the guys that write verilog, do the verification, make the physical layout still eat regularly, pay mortgages and have kids studying. RiscV, the ISA, is open source which is awsome because people have a community maintained compiler but they'll still need to do the hardwork or buy closed source solutions. Any optimized cores will never be freely open because that involves a considerable investment. This is not software.

Re:So, do tell

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think there are any consumer grade ones that are being manufactured yet. I've only seen fpga based dev boards. It's expensive to get such a low volume chip manufactured.

The cheapest dev board available is $60 (currently OOS): https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15026
Here's a faster $119 one: https://dev.sifive.com/freedom-soc/evaluate/fpga/

Despite the hype surrounding RISC-V, it's basically just a free/open processor that's comparable to a MIPS design, without the IP licensing costs. It's likely going to be used for embedded products first (like WD's announcement), and may move up to displace MIPS cores in something like China's homegrown CPU over the next few years. Or it could just peter out.

Re:So, do tell

[ChrisMaple]

If you have the Verilog and a working FPGA, a standard cell ASIC is pretty straightforward, assuming that good design practice was used for the source. For a given level of performance and a given process node, standard cell will have better timing margins.

AMI used to offer FPGA to standard cell conversion as a service.

Re:So, do tell

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

It is not that simple. You can't just take a pile of Verilog source, even code that runs fine on an FPGA, and slap it onto real silicon. There is a huge amount of work fitting the design to the process. Of course, you could just make a metalized gate array, but that will give you little advantage over just sticking with a core on an FPGA.

Just place-and-route alone can be a pain in the rear, let alone functional verification, design for test, synthesis, etc.

Re:So, do tell

[110010001000]

What does this have to do with Western Digital? They don't own the chip! NVIDIA is also using the design.

Re:So, do tell

[110010001000]

I think I misunderstood. You are talking about Western Digital's implementation. We are talking about RISC-V in general.

Re:So, do tell

[_merlin]

Only the CPU core itself is open source. You'll need a memory controller, cache controller, PCI-e bridge, and a lot of other stuff to make a working CPU. The RISC-V people will be happy to sell you this stuff under a proprietary license.

Re:So, do tell

[pezezin]

AMD already sells a GPU with an integrated SSD: https://www.amd.com/en/product...

Now we need an open source FAB.

[Anonymous Coward]

Preferably sized and priced like a 3D printer.
Or at least something that one's local maker space can afford.
Or, if all else fails, a big fab offering one-off or small series to private people.

Otherwise, while it's a really nice thing to have, that has my full support,
it doesn't have much of an impact regarding freedom, for the average person out there.

Does anyone know of anybody working towards that goal?

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[drinkypoo]

Does anyone know of anybody working towards that goal?

Here's an even better question, is it actually a realistic goal? If a modern fab fails, people around it will die. What happens if your desktop fab fails?

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[mermeid007]

That might suck but no worse to be less bad than you not having tried one at all. Are these to be underclocked?

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[ShanghaiBill]

If a modern fab fails, people around it will die.

What? What possible fab failure could cause people to die? Sure, a stepper could be a nanometer out of alignment, or a half-step UV photolithography lens could be slightly out of focus, but neither of these is lethal.

What happens if your desktop fab fails?

Get a new wafer and another bottle of etchant? Fabbing can be done at home, and there are hobbyists that do it. If a 100 micrometer step size is good enough, and you have time and money to burn, then why not?

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never done it, just like George Bush isn't your INCEL buddy just because he wore glasses you ridiculous old cooter.

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[ChrisMaple]

MOSIS. https://www.mosis.com/

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[pezezin]

Do you realice how complex and expensive a modern semiconductor fab is? You are never going to see one in your local maker space.

Re:Now we need an open source FAB.

[drinkypoo]

What? What possible fab failure could cause people to die?

Silane leak. We've never had one because we use double-walled pipes and leak detectors. Peripherally-related rant: We could do the same thing for oil pipelines, and utterly prevent spills, but we don't because that would cut into oil executive yacht purchases.

It's not safe to have normal people owning and operating chip fabs, because humans are insufficiently responsible. Just look at 3d printers, how many people are using a negative-pressure cabinet with carbon filters on the exhaust to capture their worst emissions? Statistically nobody.

Another liar caught, throw on the Luckyo pile

[Anonymous Coward]

AG Matthew Whitaker Knew of Fraud Allegations at Florida Company but Continued to Promote It !!! - https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/matthew-whitaker-fraud-allegations-world-patent-marketing.html

Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

The controllers on their graphics cards are RISC-V. Now they're considering implementing their compute cores as well since the compilers are good enough.

Assuming this trajectory keeps up for the next couple of years, nothing short of a Mill Computing level breakthrough will stop RISC-V from replacing ARM and x86. There's just little to no value in paying for ISA IP when the fabs are doing all the real hard work anyhow.

Re:Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Combine Nvidia's awesome and transparent approach to Free Software with the Open architecture of RISC-V and you are really talking Open with a capital "O"! This only solidifies Nvidia's embrace of the Free Software movement. Afterall, no GPU manufacturer has embraced Free Software more than Nvidia! Or not.

Actually Nvidia is full of shit and doesn't play nice with the Free Software community at all. If Nvidia uses RISC-V then it's the only documented piece of software or hardware that they use. In general it takes intense reverse engineering and dedication to write a half-ass Free Software driver for Nvidia. Nvidia is forever on my shit list.

Re:Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[gtall]

So with RISC-V, I need to create all the other stuff that goes into an ARM SoC. I presume that grows on trees? For one thing, you'd have to get the parties pushing RISC-V to settle on I/O standards between all those other widgets on an SoC, as well as the widgets themselves. So keep dreaming of pink unicorns, they're out there somewhere.

Re:Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny, but your arguments almost exactly mirror the sentiments in 1992 of why Linux would never succeed. We were told by brainiacs like you that the odds for Linux success were insurmountable, and the roadblocks, and technological issues were far too formidable for mere mortals to overcome.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Talk to the hand because the head ain't listening.

Re:Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[KonoWatakushi]

The controllers on their graphics cards are RISC-V. Now they're considering implementing their compute cores as well since the compilers are good enough.

Assuming this trajectory keeps up for the next couple of years, nothing short of a Mill Computing level breakthrough will stop RISC-V from replacing ARM and x86. There's just little to no value in paying for ISA IP when the fabs are doing all the real hard work anyhow.

I’m just curious how long we will remain in the dark ages because of Imaginary Property. Many are skeptical of the Mill, but suppose it pans out; how would that innovation benefit people in this lifetime? We’d now have a wonderful new proprietary architecture that no one will touch, because there isn’t a second source. So it will remain confined to niches until the patents run out and someone implements the ideas anew, which may only repeat the cycle with a minor variation. Without an open model, I fear the Mill will be doomed to obscurity.

The RISC-V ecosystem has demonstrated rapid progress with community efforts, and while the architecture is more attractive than ARM and x86, it is basically a nice yet open conventional ISA which suffers from the same fundamental drawbacks. Even before entering the nightmare of speculative execution exploits, the hardware security mechanisms have long been lacking. Current in-order RISC-V cores are extremely compact, making them attractive for embedded and many-core applications. However, OoO will reduce security even further, and the performance it offers comes at great expense in complexity, area, and power, sacrificing much of the benefit.

The Mill aims to deliver DSP efficiency and cost on general purpose workloads, and is invulnerable to those exploits and many others. One might argue that the Mill performance advantage is a luxury, but the greatly enhanced security characteristics of a Mill are not; they are basic functionality which is desperately needed by general purpose CPUs. While the Mill is a fascinating novel architecture, the most compelling aspect may be the security model, which will enable efficient microkernels and much greater isolation in applications.

Re:Nvidia had RISC-V on their GPUs for years.

[drinkypoo]

So with RISC-V, I need to create all the other stuff that goes into an ARM SoC. I presume that grows on trees? For one thing, you'd have to get the parties pushing RISC-V to settle on I/O standards between all those other widgets on an SoC,

They already have done so. There are typical interconnects used between cores and other logic blocks, because this is already how chips are designed by the people who design them. They create blocks which they can glue together to form complete designs.

IoT?

[TechyImmigrant]

>"gaining popularity in Internet of Things, low-power, and embedded applications,"

Because it's a slow CPU architecture.

Re:IoT?

[AmiMoJo]

Relatively slow but also low transistor count and therefore decently low power. Also free to embed in your ASIC as Western Digital is doing.

BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

No benefit for the end-user.

Re:BSD

[cas2000]

in fact there are a lot of potential negatives for the end-user, including:

  * insecurity by obscurity

  * fragmentation and incompatibility - i.e. vendor lock-in

  * customised back doors

these problems would be mitigated if the license required sharing via a GPL-like license (GPL v3, to prevent the patent loophole)

The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sharing the source. Linux uses the GPL license, which emphasizes the users right to the code. The BSD license emphasizes "free stuff for developers". That's a wildly different approach. If RISC-V has no way of making its proponents give back improvements, it is dead in the water.

Re: The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmmm letâ(TM)s see. What would be more useful both in the short medium and long term? Googled neural nets and obtuse mapping? Or RISC-V? Obvious answer. Which one has a readable price tag? Obvious answer

Re: The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that any RISC-V implementation worth using will be patent encumbered because "I got mine". Corporations are psychopaths. If you don't force them to share their improvements, they won't. To kleptocrats, the BSD license is a bright attractive light.

Re: The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[mikael]

Unfortunately, many of those patents for performance enhancing features using out-of-order execution were based on a single research paper. That was implemented in one CPU vendor design, then cross-patented to other CPU vendors. RISC-V has the advantage that it doesn't have those vulnerabilities baked in and built upon.

Re:The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[Anonymous Coward]

The most congent observation one can make is that the BSD license killed BSD.

Linux owes it's success to the GPL. Technologies being equal, if the licenses had been reversed, it would be BSD crowing about its success. Instead BSD cries in its beer.

Re: The fundamental principle isn't cost-avoidance

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL-BSD debate has little to do with patent protection.

GPLv2 does not have patent protection with the Apache 2.0 BSD-style licence does. The MIT licence does not have it while the GPLv3 does have it. copyleft != patent protection.

word: validity

FPGA? (Re:Now we need an open source FAB.)

[blindseer]

Might not need a fab but it would help to have FPGAs that are cheap enough and fast enough to make usable computers for people to use.

There's some pretty powerful development boards out there that can be turned into a usable general purpose PC if given the right programming, software, and maybe some help with off the shelf on GPUs or such. Just being able to drive a few USB ports for display (DisplayLink USB to HDMI chip comes to mind), storage, keyboard, mouse, etc. can go a long way. Compile a Linux kernel and some other open source software for it, and there's a lot that can be done.

There would have to be an instruction set built to fit on FPGAs that enough people can afford to play with. Get it this far and perhaps there would be enough interest in time for a fab to produce a lower cost processor as a drop in replacement.

Re:FPGA? (Re:Now we need an open source FAB.)

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some pretty powerful development boards out there that can be turned into a usable general purpose PC if given the right programming,

Like NSA backdoor, Chinese keyloggers, and an always-on introductory account for Facebook.

I want this in my laptop.

[michaelcole]

It is so time for this.

Re:Is "Linux Foundation" anything but the enemy?

[Anonymous Coward]

But there was that pesky 'BSD License", always pointing out the difference between 'Open' and Free.

"BSD" Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

"BSD", as some idiot quoted it, is NOT a "License", it's a *Copyright*.
There is a huge difference there. Get it right.

The BSD style Copyright is now best represented by, and deployed as, the following...

https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html
https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/share/misc/license.template?rev=HEAD
https://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html

With additional discussion here...
http://landley.net/toybox/license.html
https://urchin.earth.li/~twic/The_Amazing_Disappearing_BSD_License.html

You should also know that the next major release
of FreeBSD 12.0 will be out in 1.5 weeks :-)
You can liveboot the RC3 sampler from USB today.

Re:"BSD" Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Except several of the URLs you've provided call the page "license.html", thus undermining your point. Whatever it was.

Re:"BSD" Copyright

[JonMaddogHall]

"BSD", as some idiot quoted it, is NOT a "License", it's a *Copyright*. There is a huge difference there. Get it right.

The BSD style Copyright is now best represented by, and deployed as, the following...

https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src... https://www.freebsd.org/copyri...

With additional discussion here... http://landley.net/toybox/lice... https://urchin.earth.li/~twic/...

You should also know that the next major release of FreeBSD 12.0 will be out in 1.5 weeks :-) You can liveboot the RC3 sampler from USB today.

Copyright is a legal concept emblazoned in the United States Constitution and in many other countries around the world. To make a lot of legal stuff as simple as possible, it means "if you write the code, you own it and have the right to say what happens to it". Since you are the owner, you now have to do something to allow usage by someone else. That "something" is the license. BSD is a license, not a copyright. BSD always was more permissive than most other licenses, and over the years it removed the few requirements that it had, until now the "0BSD" license is almost indistinguishable from "Public Domain" software. However, it is best to put a license somewhere in your code stream, just to let the people who want to use your code that they can and under what circumstances.

open source ISA, not CPU.

[Gravis Zero]

It should be noted that RISC-V is an Instruction Set Architecture and not a specific CPU. There are both open and closed implementations of it but they all match a specification. It's like UNIX, there is no single implementation of UNIX but there is a specification of what a UNIX provides.

I want one of these

[DaMattster]

For my laptop and desktop!

Re:I want one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

I want one of these in my homosexual sex robot controlling the anal sphincter!

Is that actually a serious question?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds too silly to even reply...

First of all, "people around it will die" ... Like, the whole city? ...
Secondly, why are you implying that the desktop fab would be anything like a huge factory? Obviously it would require vast innovations and very different methods to achieve that. When you're casting metal at home, you're not using massive deadly machines either, are you?
And finally, if something is dangerous, then you learn to handle it! Why is everyone such a pussy nowadays? We drive at 120km/h, using literally endless explosions of poison. We use fire and deadly electricity, and poisonous materials in our electronics and for cooking... Hell, people could swallow a whole bag of salt, or eat too old chicken or drink 30 liters of water in one go, and kill themselves with just that!? That is not a reason for not doing it. You approach it carefully, you learn, you get good at it, and you DEAL WITH IT. And either you don't let morons touch it, if you're a fan of overpopulation, wars and starvation. Or you expect people to use their brains, and let the problem solve itself. (Provided you don't have moron breeders around you.)

Large feature size is nearly useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of my point was, that you need the same tiny feature sizes of big modern fabs, for home-made chips to become actually usable replacements for large computer chips.

That means vast advancements in chip manufacturing, to make it smaller, and build home devices that are so precise. That's what I was looking for.

"Yer terminated phucker..."

[Anonymous Coward]

https://science.slashdot.org/c... quote Linda Hamilton @ Terminator 1's TERMINATION.

APK

P.S.=> YOU did that to yourself (encountering an invention of my own called CYBERIANTIGER)... apk

Re: "Yer terminated phucker..."

[Anonymous Coward]

By "Cyberian Tiger", you mean your spambot, which you use to circumvent Slashdot's moderation system to ensure that your spam is always visible to anyone reading at 0 or above. You use your spambot to repeatedly make harassing posts and start threads about users like ZIP, c6gunner, and Ash-Fox. You have no qualms about harassing anyone or making the most vile of statements, including wishing the horrors of the Holocaust on people you dislike. You are a truly nasty person, who is utterly incapable of admitting his problems, let alone correcting them. You once compared yourself to a dalek, exterminating cybermen in Doctor Who. This was actually a fitting comparison because Terry Nation created the daleks as an allegory for the Nazis. You are a truly hateful person who shares many beliefs in common with the Nazis, so it's only fitting you would make such a comparison of yourself. You are a truly nasty person. Fuck you APK.

Need single board equiv, like Raspberry PI

[Lady Galadriel]

One of the things holding RISC-V back, is a single board computer, usable as a simple desktop. Something like a Raspberry PI, with;

- at least dual core CPU, potentially with a quad core option
- reasonable amount of memory, 1GB or more, (or DIMM slots)
- multiple USB ports
- storage, (SATA, SDXC or fast USB port for external storage)
- network, (WiFi, Ethernet, or a fast USB port for network dongles)
- video, (or PCIe slot for video card)
- Some expansion, (like PCIe, or more than 1 USB port that is a funnel of I/O bandwidth...)

This would let people test out software, and run through debuging instructions. Ideally it would have both 32 bit and 64 bit instruction sets, but starting with a 32 bit only might be acceptable in the short term.

I personally want to see a simple RISC-V 64 bit single board computer like above. Maybe it does not have to be a full blown motherboard with normal features, (like sound, and several PCIe slots), but if it's usable it would let me test out software. Then I can submit bug reports for compiler issues, and OS related quirks or out right bugs.

Fuck you APK

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a different AC, the one who wrote a bot to impersonate you. I sincerely apologized for doing so, and outright condemned the harassment of SuperKendall and Raymorris. While I impersonated you, I apologized and ceased doing so, and I most certainly have not harassed SuperKendall or Raymorris.

You said you wouldn't start shit with me if I left you alone, since I post anonymously. Yet here I caught you trying to start shit with me. You LIED and I caught you. Your word is no good.

As for bots, you wrote a bot that you call "Cyberian Tiger" for the purpose of spamming when you get modded down. Your spambot has posted far more junk comments than mine ever did, and you know it. You have extreme contempt for the owner of Slashdot, which is why you brag about actively circumventing his lameness filters, limits on anonymous posting, and the moderation system. You posted off-topic spam in one article after another, starting threads to harass people like ZIP, c6gunner, and Ash-Fox. You've probably done it to others, but those are the ones I've seen. You've been doing this for damn near two decades, getting banned from ArsTechnica, harassing Thor Schrock, and now being an asshole on Slashdot.

I made a mistake, which I regret and apologized for. You, however, have been doing this for two fucking decades.

I said I'd stop impersonating you, and I have. I've kept my word. You said you wouldn't start shit with me. You LIED.

I made two mistakes, first running a spambot, then taking you at your word when you had no intention of keeping it. Despite your lies, I'll keep my word and not run the spambot again. I will demonstrate more integrity than you have here.

I apologized to you in good faith. How dare you turn around and use that to attack random people, then gloat about it. You are the scum of the earth. I made two big mistakes; you, however, are a nasty person who is rotten to the core. If your parents are decent people as you say, I wonder how they raised such a total piece of shit such as yourself. Fuck off, you lying motherfucker. You should be locked away and incarcerated for the rest of your life because you're a menace to society. Your software is shit, just like you. Fuck you.

No, CyberianTiger overran YOUR bot

[Anonymous Coward]

No, CyberianTiger overran YOUR bot - that's ALL it needed to do, in defense of myself, vs. you also trying to DOWNMOD HIDE where I defended myself (vs. YOUR SPAMBOT YOU ADMITTED YOU WROTE TO TRY DEFAME ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... & IT FAILED vs. MY PROGRAM)

* YOU LOSE.

(Unbelievable - I put out a program that not only speeds folks up 2 ways but also PROTECTS them vs. a myriad of THREATS ONLINE & you TRY vainly to make ME the "bad buy" here? Please - psycho SCUMBAG, for your own sake?? Seek mental help, loony boy...)

APK

P.S.=> It's all "your kind" & YOU know how to do - lose... apk

Re: No, CyberianTiger overran YOUR bot

[Anonymous Coward]

"Cyberian Tiger" is a spambot. End of story.

Massive feature sizes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see them offering anything below 0.13 *micro*meters feature size.
With that, a decent CPU would be 1m^2 and probably run in the kilohertz range or something.

I merely pointed out truth/fact... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & you proved YOU wrote a bot to IMPERSONATE & DEFAME ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... there & in your reply now - weak.

* I overran that PUNY "bot" of yours SOLELY to DEFEND MYSELF & my program DID perfectly, overriding your BOGUS DOWNMODS you abused trying to HIDE my defending myself with FACTS (not lies like YOU spouted).

DOZEN's of REGISTERED /.ers DISAGREE w/ you https://linux.slashdot.org/com... as you STALK ME by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts (all enumerated there as FACT/TRUTH/PROOF vs. your BULLSHIT Jealous "Lil' Jowie", you DO-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well", lol!)

APK

P.S.=> Your 1s mistake was being BORN - YOUR SECOND MISTAKE was TRYING (& failing) TO "take me on" - you lose (all you've ever KNOWN how to do is that - lose, lmao)... apk

Re: I merely pointed out truth/fact... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

You got caught lying. You admitted to using a spambot of your own. You aren't enough of a man to admit the truth.

They are BRED insufficiently responsible.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is predominantly a US-American thing.
In most of the world, risks are just accepted, and nothing special. People aren't pussies.
And in the most "developed" parts of Europe, people are simply expected to not be morons. They can't blame others for their carelessness.
Only in the USA do people feel entitled to act like completely brain-dead morons, and have everything around them wrapped in retard padding, and sue everyone who doesn't do it.

That is your own problem, that you need to fix, instead of making excuses. I recommend 1. not caving and bending over to basically p.c. babies, 2. have judges tell them, that if they are careless morons, then that's the life lesson that they deserve, and 2. that they hopefully learn from this, for the next time.
Oh, and accept that death is not a bad thing per se. Not everything has to survive. Certainly not planetary pathogenic pests like humankind. Let natural selection do its job. Humans are easily replaced. Just make a few more babies. Population is too old anyway.

Re:They are BRED insufficiently responsible.

[drinkypoo]

Oh, and accept that death is not a bad thing per se.

Death due to some lame's desktop chip fab is a bad thing by any reasonable measurement. It won't just kill the schmuck who fails at operating it, but also his neighbors. I don't care if people autoeuthanize, but I do care if my neighbor's fuckup kills me

No YOU were caught lying (eating too, lol)... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

No YOU were caught lying (eating YOUR WORDS too, lol) https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & I only wrote what DEFENDED ME perfectly vs. YOUR BOT that was out there 1st per you admitting it https://science.slashdot.org/c...

APK

P.S.=> You have issues - why don't you direct your energies into creating a GOOD tool users like & praise as I have instead of STALKING ME constantly by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous as you do? apk

How'd EATING YOUR WORDS taste? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

How'd EATING YOUR WORDS taste? https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & you're the liar w/ proof vs. your FALSE ACCUSATION...

APK

P.S.=> Don't EVER doubt me OR my nigh infallible memory - or you get BLOWN AWAY by APK... apk

How does it compare to others?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just started playing around with the ESP2866, which uses an 80MHz Tensilica L106 RISC MCU and integrates 4MB flash and a WiFi interface into a part available for under $2 in quantity.

I bought one that's on an Arduino-compatible board with a USB plug for $20 from my local electronics store, but only because I didn't want to wait a week or two for a $5 one to come in the mail - I'm building a controller for my new xmas light display, which is using almost 100m of WS2812b LED tape at 60 LEDs/m (almost 1.5kW if every LED is on full white!)

standards

[sad_]

don't know much about the risc-v ecosystem, but lets hope it doesn't turn into the same clusterfuck as ARM.