All my higher level training has been on the job, I trained first in Electronics, then took a post grad in marketing, moving from control systems engineering though to semiconductor marketing and now do public relations for Electronics and Telecoms clients.
Based on my experince,I'd grab all the different strands of experince and qualifications you can, through formal and informal learning. The cross fertilisation between the different skills you have is bound to be of value to somone! Yes a plan is great, but don't over specialise too soon, if ever! You never know when the cosy niche you rule will disappear!
By the way, when I was 16, I was absolutely, without doubt, joining the navy....
Spot on, think about embedded computing apps not desktops.
Usually plugging away at one task, but occasionally need to do something different, given the choice of increaseing board space, having hardware powered when not needed, installing a faster more powerful micro just to do that one intermittent task using the FPGA as a co pro or even as the processor (Plenty of IP cores around that can run embedded apps.) can make a lot of sense.
For example how about encryption? gather data over weeks working as a slow dumb 4 or 8 bit micro, get ready to send, switch fpga from data gather and compress functions to highly parallel encryption, send data securely, back to gathering in serial processing type mode. Not a real app yet AFIK, just thinking
If you can write in C type languages you can design on FPGAs.
A Handel-C (C with extensions for parallelism and timming models etc.) to FPGA, development environment called DK1 was released by a UK company Celoxicaearlier this year.
There's an eval download for DK1 on their site.
In the ultimate analysis wars are fought for economic reasons, to gain resources; land, oil acess to transport routes. During times of war or near war weapons development is accelerated resulting in technological leaps, which filter into civilian and industrial use and can be seen to to provide economic boosts.
However these advances in technology,have now made us too efficent at killing, the development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction made it possible to anhilate millions of consumers at a time. This is not economically viable either for the agressor or the defender as after conquest you need a market for your revived economy.
Therfore inspite of the cost of developing space weapons, it is likely to make economic sense in the long run as it will drive development and minimise the loss of consumers.
Slashdot Mirror
All my higher level training has been on the job, I trained first in Electronics, then took a post grad in marketing, moving from control systems engineering though to semiconductor marketing and now do public relations for Electronics and Telecoms clients.
Based on my experince,I'd grab all the different strands of experince and qualifications you can, through formal and informal learning. The cross fertilisation between the different skills you have is bound to be of value to somone! Yes a plan is great, but don't over specialise too soon, if ever! You never know when the cosy niche you rule will disappear!
By the way, when I was 16, I was absolutely, without doubt, joining the navy....
Perhaps one of the embedded Linux distributions might help, they often have demo versions already tailored to run stripped down and "headless" etc.
This review of LynuxWorks' BlueCat Linux discusses some utilities ('mkrootfs' , 'mkkernel' and 'mkboot')that might help.
Spot on, think about embedded computing apps not desktops.
Usually plugging away at one task, but occasionally need to do something different, given the choice of increaseing board space, having hardware powered when not needed, installing a faster more powerful micro just to do that one intermittent task using the FPGA as a co pro or even as the processor (Plenty of IP cores around that can run embedded apps.) can make a lot of sense.
For example how about encryption? gather data over weeks working as a slow dumb 4 or 8 bit micro, get ready to send, switch fpga from data gather and compress functions to highly parallel encryption, send data securely, back to gathering in serial processing type mode.
Not a real app yet AFIK, just thinking
If you can write in C type languages you can design on FPGAs.
A Handel-C (C with extensions for parallelism and timming models etc.) to FPGA, development environment called DK1 was released by a UK company Celoxicaearlier this year.
There's an eval download for DK1 on their site.
In the ultimate analysis wars are fought for economic reasons, to gain resources; land, oil acess to transport routes. During times of war or near war weapons development is accelerated resulting in technological leaps, which filter into civilian and industrial use and can be seen to to provide economic boosts.
However these advances in technology,have now made us too efficent at killing, the development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction made it possible to anhilate millions of consumers at a time. This is not economically viable either for the agressor or the defender as after conquest you need a market for your revived economy.Therfore inspite of the cost of developing space weapons, it is likely to make economic sense in the long run as it will drive development and minimise the loss of consumers.
Hmmm do I sound too cynical?