me: you familiar with Altera? Andrew: the chipmaker? me: yeah Andrew: what abaout them? me: someone was telling me about how they can provide chips for very cheap computers me: for third world use me: just wanted to see if you knew anything about it me: he's giving me a long explanation in our IRC Andrew: hes wrong Andrew: short answer - that is what these srots of chips do, but they are unsuitable for personal computers me: no, he's talking about a subset of their chips me: reprogrammable chips Andrew: they only make fpgas Andrew: fpgas are for automation, embdedded electronics, etc Andrew: altera makes some models that are suitable for prototyping cpus, but they are ridiculously expensive ($5k+) and the development time oyu would spend making software for them would be very large Andrew: there is a reaosn all other low cost pc implementors go with off the shelf models like atom, snapdragon, arm, qualcomm Andrew: fpgas are for research and low-power devices that would benefit from flash reprogrammability like automation devices Andrew: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_system me: [19:17] <Waker> Let me introduce you to a corporation called Altera. [19:18] <Waker> Big friends of mine in high places make FPGAdevelopment boards, okay. [19:18] <Waker> They're fit for student and hobbyist use. [19:18] <Waker> These boards can become whatever you damn want them to be. [19:18] <Waker> You program them in a language called Verilog whichdescribes how the logic works internally and basically how the circuitswork. [19:18] <Waker> tl;dr Reprogrammable chips. [19:18] <@BarrettBrown> with you so far [19:19] <Waker> Now, there's two options. [19:19] <Waker> The standard development boards. [19:19] <Waker> Altera DE1's, DE2's, and Stratix variants which offerlots of logic gates and up to 8MB of RAM. [19:19] <Waker> Or further.
19:19] <Waker> The standard development boards. [19:19] <Waker> Altera DE1's, DE2's, and Stratix variants which offerlots of logic gates and up to 8MB of RAM. [19:19] <Waker> Or further. [19:19] <Waker> If added to. [19:20] <Waker> These can be used to make a System-on-a-chip design. [19:20] <Waker> to be distributed in casings. [19:20] <Waker> To the country. [19:20] <Waker> With added expansion of the 40-pin headers on board,we can upgrade the boards to our liking and run other things on them. [19:21] <Waker> These are manufactured by TerASIC. [19:21] <Waker> Who can probably cut you a deal at $120. [19:21] <Waker> Or less. [19:21] <Waker> If you know who to go through. [19:21] <@BarrettBrown> particularly if I can offer them a great deal ofpositive publicity in exchange, which I can [19:21] <Waker> And next, for portable devices. [19:21] <Waker> Yes. [19:21] <Waker> For portable devices we have something that looks likea USB flash stick. [19:22] <Waker> The BeMicro. me: I'm checking out with my sysops Andrew: http://www.buyaltera.com/scripts/partsearch.dll?Cat=2556262&PV-5=22897&PV-5=22898&PV-5=21079 Andrew: stratix price list Andrew: note the $6k mean Andrew: http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=google#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=verilog+operating+system&cp=21&qe=dmVyaWxvZyBvcGVyYXRpbmcgc3lz&qesig=ks7jTs4Uf8qZFv5vFdDuqQ&pkc=AFgZ2tlOveVuux7DHOH2L9Dte1iGoz7lgMDcceAEU3kIfQ_jbapIieGKS4ek7D83JbZxxsPfX0NHPMBOvVdaYXyfKYIIt0_Yvg&pf=p&sclient=psy&aq=0v&aqi=&aql=&oq=verilog+operating+sys&pbx=1&fp=64053a76658fab7c Andrew: google search for the existence of kernels cross compiled to verilog Andrew: notice the 0 results Andrew: this is a complete fantasy, this guy has no idea what he;s talking about Andrew: I worked for Hearts doing embedded prototyping Andrew: hearst Andrew: again, this is not what these chips are for - altera seels cheap spgas and CPU grade fpgas, but they donts sell both and no one else does, and you lack the resources to develop a general purpose software stack for them anyway Andrew: again, there's a reason the olpc, eee, etc - dont use these supposedly cheap magic chips me: what's the reason? Andrew: it is dramatically cheaper from both a hardware and software perspective to build systems on low-power off the shelf cpus like atom & arm over fpgas Andrew: ask your buddy to show you a single example of an existing general purpose computer built on an altera product, or a link to a page that provides a general purpose unix environment on an fpga Andrew: I will chop off my dick & mail it to him if he can me: have you checked out the document yet? Andrew: yeah me: any thoughts? Andrew: what do you want to know about it? Andrew: they're notes about ways to distribute information me: if the technical stuff thus far strikes you as reasonable me: stuff about p2p, for instance me: let me make sure I gave you the right one me: yeah, this one me: http://www.typewith.me/qdjqeFFu8O me: you'll notice there are a lot of notes there me: involving specific communications techniques me: just wanted to see if anything there looks wrong me: or if there are better solutions listed there Andrew: yes, its very difficult to read in one large stream of conciousness paragraph Andrew: there may be technicaly errors, its hard to tell me: yeah, that will be taken care of me: okay, I'll ask someone who can handle it Andrew: its very vague and disorganized; I cant get a good idea of exactly what sot of system the i2p part, eg, is describing me: okay, that's good right there Andrew: so I cant reasonably say if there are holes or if its feasiable me: okay Andrew: certainly, these words exist and do things me: after I get it into better shape I'll ask you again Andrew: but this is completely useless as a technical document to another person capable of settings somethign up Andrew: if thats the purpose me: I know, these are just notes from various people me: its function is to serve as partial raw material for a guide like the other two we put out me: which I guess you haven't seen Andrew: if you handed me this document and asked me to build something, i would be confused Andrew: is that what you want to know? me: no me: this is just notes me: from many people me: within those notes, you'll find various assertions made me: this one is a bit clearer: http://typewith.me/owA6rmGfP6 Andrew: this looks like basically the same document without the section I cited above as being unclear me: it's partly the samew me: you may notice that it includes some different into me: nevermind, I got it covered me: thanks anyway