I keep track of what my kids watch fairly closely. I wish the ads were more regulated. I don't want to have to explain genital herpes, erectile dysfunction, unprotected sexual intercouse or any of the other nastiness in those ads to my 7 year old just because we were watching "Mythbusters". The time for that stuff will come soon enough (sigh).
Xscale was one of the better product lines from a small hardware developer perspective - good docs, good cast of supporting tools, resonably inexpensive parts that could do a lot. Now it's going to Marvell, whose tight assedness about documentation and NDAs makes even Broadcom look like a bunch of free-love hippies. sigh...
While we're fantasizing, how about standardized AC voltage, frequency, connector, and safety approvals worldwide.
The big attraction of wall warts to a mfg. is that they remove having to deal with all of the plugs, voltages, and approvals and push it off on someone else.
If a mfg. just had to do one approval and one SKU, I suspect a lot of wall warts would start to disappear.
Toxoplasmosis is just a scam invented by women to keep from having to scoop cat crap:-) I figure I've had to scoop about 8 years worth of cat feces (2 cats x 4 years) because of it.
I agree with the parent 100% - the whole thing boils down to a few simple ideas:
1) someone has to manage and plan 2) discipline (see #1) 3) adhere to and document defined interfaces 4) get the s/w guys going on a simulator as fast as you can
Maybe not the next gen, but maybe the one after it.
It's all well and good in a research lab, but a lot has to happen before this mystery technology gets rolled out into a mainstream fab. Not knowing much about it (the linked article was really uninformative) you would have to look at how much equipment is necessary for these extra steps, how many more steps does it add to the wafer fab process, what immediate yield impact it has, and are there any long term effects, does it impact the design rules you work under, etc.
After the research gets presented, if it's really anything to get excited about I would expect someone like EE Times to have an artcle with enough detail to at least figure out roughly what they're doing.
The problem with OMAP and a lot of other TI stuff is that they either flat out say they won't support small developers (what, you only want 1000 units? don't waste my time) or they put really large prices on things like mpeg encoder libraries ($25K - just so we don't have to deal with the little guys who can't pony up). Other vendors do a much better job of supporting the little guys.
Compare the parts based on market segment - i.e. the Intel PXA series parts (not the network proce$$or stuff) and the Alchemy. IIRC, Intel tops out at 600 MHz and AMD at 500 right now. The peripheral mixes are similar, although AMD supports DDR on their newer parts and Intel doesn't. Power consumption at a given MHz favored AMD last time I compared.
As a small customer AMD is a lot easier to deal with than Intel - a bunch of stuff Intel has you can't get unless you're Nokia or Samsung.
I wish you guys would have submitted your Au1x00 patches back to ecos! I wanted to use redboot on something we're doing, but wound up using u-boot instead, just because I didn't have time to get all the scaffolding in place for redboot.
heh, newb - FED displays have been vaporware for a lot longer than that. I remember seeing pronouncements coming out of SID (society for information display) conferences about these in the late 80's/ early 90's.
When someone can make enough (ie more than one) that review units actually get out (not just at a show) then wake me up.
I'm really doubtful that the specs listed can be achieved in a Spartan-3 FPGA, particularly the DDR at 200 Mhz should be a real trick. Anyone who's looked at the monkey business required to get 133/266 working would red flag this one from the start. I'm also very suspicious of the AGP 4X number...
I've been seeing announcements of the next hot display thing coming out of SID for 15 years. I think people were starting to tout OLED and flexible displays and electronic ink about 10 years ago, and they're just now really gaining any momentum. Anybody remember FEDs?
For some reason it takes an incredibly long time for these technologies to reach what I'd call mainstream volumes - maybe because CRT and TFT LCD have such a head start.
Re:but how do you know it's fixed?
on
Debugging
·
· Score: 1
this is covered under the heading of 'make it fail', IIRC under one of the subheadings.
Re:Hardware *Debugging*?
on
Debugging
·
· Score: 3, Informative
there's a distinction (in real life) and in the book between troubleshooting something that's supposed to work (think TV repair) and debugging something that's never been made before (hardware design).
Troubleshooting lends itself more to scripted debugging, and "real debugging" is a bit more free-form
Slashdot Mirror
I keep track of what my kids watch fairly closely. I wish the ads
were more regulated. I don't want to have to explain genital
herpes, erectile dysfunction, unprotected sexual intercouse or any
of the other nastiness in those ads to my 7 year old just because
we were watching "Mythbusters". The time for that stuff will come
soon enough (sigh).
And the first thing a gfx card does with the +12V rail is make a lower
voltage out of it - be it 1V, 1.2V, 1.5V, 1.8V, 2.5V, etc.
Xscale was one of the better product lines from a small hardware
developer perspective - good docs, good cast of supporting tools,
resonably inexpensive parts that could do a lot. Now it's going to
Marvell, whose tight assedness about documentation and NDAs makes
even Broadcom look like a bunch of free-love hippies. sigh...
Art Swift as CEO of Transmeta? What's next, Joe Cool as
CEO of Intel?
While we're fantasizing, how about standardized AC voltage,
frequency, connector, and safety approvals worldwide.
The big attraction of wall warts to a mfg. is that they
remove having to deal with all of the plugs, voltages, and
approvals and push it off on someone else.
If a mfg. just had to do one approval and one SKU, I
suspect a lot of wall warts would start to disappear.
Yeah, great idea - use the crappiest connector known to man to power
all of your electronics.
Toxoplasmosis is just a scam invented by women to keep :-) I figure I've had to
from having to scoop cat crap
scoop about 8 years worth of cat feces (2 cats x 4 years)
because of it.
I agree with the parent 100% - the whole thing boils
down to a few simple ideas:
1) someone has to manage and plan
2) discipline (see #1)
3) adhere to and document defined interfaces
4) get the s/w guys going on a simulator as fast as you can
Maybe not the next gen, but maybe the one after it.
It's all well and good in a research lab, but a lot has to happen before this
mystery technology gets rolled out into a mainstream fab. Not knowing much about
it (the linked article was really uninformative) you would have to look at how
much equipment is necessary for these extra steps, how many more steps does it
add to the wafer fab process, what immediate yield impact it has, and are there
any long term effects, does it impact the design rules you work under, etc.
After the research gets presented, if it's really anything to get excited about
I would expect someone like EE Times to have an artcle with enough detail to
at least figure out roughly what they're doing.
The problem with OMAP and a lot of other TI stuff is that they either flat out say they won't support small developers (what, you only want 1000 units? don't waste my time) or they put really large prices on things like mpeg encoder libraries ($25K - just so we don't have to deal with the little guys who can't pony up). Other vendors do a much better job of supporting the little guys.
Hogwash.
Compare the parts based on market segment - i.e.
the Intel PXA series parts (not the network
proce$$or stuff) and the Alchemy. IIRC, Intel
tops out at 600 MHz and AMD at 500 right now.
The peripheral mixes are similar, although AMD
supports DDR on their newer parts and Intel
doesn't. Power consumption at a given MHz
favored AMD last time I compared.
As a small customer AMD is a lot easier to deal
with than Intel - a bunch of stuff Intel has
you can't get unless you're Nokia or Samsung.
yes
s /a u1000/
http://www.linux-mips.org/cvsweb/linux/arch/mip
AFAIK, Alchemy semiconductor developed this stuff
themselves - it had nothing to do with Transmeta. AMD bought Alchemy a few years ago.
Alchemy sold the Au1000 and I believe 1100 and 1500
themselves. The 1550 came out roughly a year ago,
and the 1200 is brand spanking new.
I wish you guys would have submitted your Au1x00
patches back to ecos! I wanted to use redboot
on something we're doing, but wound up using
u-boot instead, just because I didn't have time
to get all the scaffolding in place for redboot.
heh, newb - FED displays have been vaporware
for a lot longer than that. I remember seeing
pronouncements coming out of SID (society for
information display) conferences about these
in the late 80's/ early 90's.
When someone can make enough (ie more than one)
that review units actually get out (not just at
a show) then wake me up.
I'm really doubtful that the specs listed can
be achieved in a Spartan-3 FPGA, particularly
the DDR at 200 Mhz should be a real trick.
Anyone who's looked at the monkey business
required to get 133/266 working would red flag
this one from the start. I'm also very suspicious
of the AGP 4X number...
What is O'Reilly up to having a conference
about capacitors?
http://www.secc.co.jp/pdf/os_e/download/E55.pdf
One of the things I like about OpenBSD is their policy of not accepting things with half-assed licensing into their base distribution.
I've been seeing announcements of the next hot
display thing coming out of SID for 15 years.
I think people were starting to tout OLED
and flexible displays and electronic ink
about 10 years ago, and they're just now
really gaining any momentum. Anybody remember
FEDs?
For some reason it takes an incredibly long time
for these technologies to reach what I'd call
mainstream volumes - maybe because CRT and
TFT LCD have such a head start.
this is covered under the heading of 'make it
fail', IIRC under one of the subheadings.
there's a distinction (in real life) and
in the book between troubleshooting something
that's supposed to work (think TV repair) and
debugging something that's never been made
before (hardware design).
Troubleshooting lends itself more to scripted
debugging, and "real debugging" is a bit more
free-form
I've read it and it's a good book, but I would
just borrow it from the library and then print
out the poster to remember the 'rules'.
There's not enough meat to keep it on my
precious shelf space.
don't forget to protect against nature's most
destructive force - 3 year old boys on a sugar
buzz.
I believe technically most of that area of
east-central Illinois is a swamp. It sure
felt that way in summer.
Strangely enough, there is a related rule:
When a heavy metal band makes up a name, umlauts
are allowed to be added to normally unaccented
words