Which Altera to buy?

Yes, this seems to have a PHY by TI, DP83848. The interface lists MII, RMII and SNI.

You mean like SPI, I2C, async serial, etc, etc, etc...

You mean like SPI, I2C, async serial, etc, etc, etc...

One *big* advantage to using something standard is that other devices can talk to it, not just your designs. If you get into a tough spot you can even get low cost debuggers for any of these other protocols.

To what end?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman
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I don't know of any of those other than by their names used in various technical specs I've read over time. If they work like the one I'm proposing, then what's the big deal? The protocol I would define would include a 16-bit word for the target sub- unit, a 16-bit word for the payload length, and then the payload.

I am writing my own debugger.

I am a Christian. I desire to create a hardware and software stack from the ground up, one focused upon an offering of sharing and love, rather than of profits, sales goals, and proprietary hardware locks.

I would also like to create the tools to produce the semiconductor products as well, which I plan to do after I get my CPU designed. I will design the layout and routing tools, and move toward manufacturing.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

I'm not sure what you are proposing. Sounds more like you are describing a software protocol. If you want to do your own thing fine, but there are times when compatibility can be useful and reinventing the wheel is seldom an advantage.

I'm not talking about a software debugger. I'm talking about a debugger for your interface. Call it a scope then.

The fact that it is going to be open source doesn't remove it from the world of markets. What need is this satisfying? Clearly you expect others to use it. Have you made any efforts to see what others want from such devices?

What if you build it and nobody comes because you built something no one wants?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

I don't understand how what I'm doing is reinventing the wheel if I am merely hooking up a few pins and using 0s and 1s in data interchange on a fixed clock. It sounds like I'm applying the most fundamental concepts of data interchange available in FPGA programming.

From my point of view, employing some proprietary communications hardware and/or its software protocols of peculiar format, ones which may even require the data I would pass from one unit to another be re- formatted in some protocol-required way for transmission, and then de- coded upon receipt, seems be the more undesirable path.

I am writing a debugger which will cover these things. Whatever is going on inside the FPGA will be able to be ported out through the Ethernet into the debugger based on various register settings. I will write the debugger to understand the hardware it relates to, providing even graphical images of the data communication.

From what I have seen, efforts to get the Ethernet protocol up and running should be simple and straight-forward enough. We'll see though. I'm prepared to spend as much time as it takes, posting my code so people can help me if I'm doing something incorrectly. I can also always fall back on the default connections which exist on the Altera dev board until I get it debugged. Once it's written, however, it will be available for all from that point forward. Any port of the verilog code to other devices should be doable through that TI chip.

It is not open source. It's in the Public Domain. I have created a license model which indicates that our responsibilities tie back to God, and not to our legal system, that my wishes are that the software remains open, and that, just as God gave us this world and instructed us on how to use it, allowing us to choose for ourselves, and warning us of the consequences if we use it in a manner contrary to His instruction, and how we are all accountable unto Him for how we use it, and how we treat one another, and for everything involved with our lives, so are we also accountable unto Him for how we honor other people's wishes with regards to offerings which stem from Him in the first place.

Jesus Christ gave me the knowledge and skills I possess. I did not garner them on my own. I was endowed at birth with whatever abilities I possess. And the opportunities I've had in my life, may of which I've flatly squandered due to my own ignorance and stupidity, still all of these were a gift from Him unto me. And I now acknowledge that, and I cite that explicitly in my license.

When people take my offering and use it for other ends, they are doing it to Him, and not just me, and, per His instruction (Revelation 22:10-12), I will let Him take full account of all such movements.

It is a common mis-perception that Christians operate alone in this world. We are not alone. God is with us, living inside of our heart, our minds, continually. This is true of all born again Christians. And all such efforts given over unto God from that inner place of the changed heart, these are all known unto God, and it is He who then moves in this world, moving us to and fro, moving others to and fro, drawing us from within toward His ends as per His plans and purposes (John 3:3,6-8).

Yet, if nobody comes because I built something no one wants, then I will, at the end of my time upon this Earth, stand before God and say, "I spent the last N years of my life doing everything I could for You, by name, asking for help, finding nobody to assist me, nobody to use the offerings I created using the skills and talents You gave me, yet I persisted because from within my heart I was doing it for You."

It is enough to live this way for the Lord.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

So what is guiding your technical decisions in designing this processor? For example, why 40 bits? Isn't that going to make some features of the 386 difficult or impossible to implement?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

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40-bits takes you to 1 Terabyte. If more is needed later, the LibSF 386-x48 can be created.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

So you have a requirement for 1 TB of address space. What are your other requirements, but more importantly, what is driving those requirements?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

I have no particular hardware requirements except that from the ground up it be a love offering unto the Lord. I have a background in x86 space from before I was a Christian, and I'm taking that knowledge forward, coupled with the things I've wanted or wished for in x86 space throughout my career.

Ultimately I desire to have a CPU, all motherboard resources, any BIOS or firmware, the kernel, operating system, and all end-user software, be created from the LibSF offerings, with all of it being given unto the world without restriction, as a foundation or base upon which to build.

I would like to be able to work with 14nm process technologies, and create CPUs that would outperform anything that exists ... but it's not the place the Lord has me. I am Rick C. Hodgin from Indiana. No riches. No skills in such things. I am waiting for others to come forward and offer up those things which they have in a similar way so that we can walk together, arm in arm, for the Lord. I believe very strongly that we could give unto the world as good or better as anything else that's out there because we'd be serving the Lord, listening to Him, doing what we do for Him, not taking shortcuts, not being pressed for quarterly fiscal deadlines, but rather being able to do it right because it's our best we desire to give.

It's up to Him though. I've been working on this project for over

28 months. I haven't found anyone to help me yet, though several people have been interested at various times, none of them had the necessary C/C++ coding skills to contribute. I've contacted Christian universities, posted on forums, etc. But, I am hopeful. :-)

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

I'm not familiar with LibSF. I assume you don't mean, "Libsf is a stack fingerprinting library" which I found on the web.

That's the part I don't understand. Here you say you are, "listening to Him", but how does that turn into defining a CPU? Why/how is the CPU you are designing any better for "Him" or anyone else than any other CPU you might design?

Maybe if you find a way to express the motivation and the guiding principles so that others can understand.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

It's not important.

It relates back to the nature of the offer, as it comes from the inner drive of love and the offering of the things we posses given back unto Him by our heart's desire.

They're there.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

Really? The technical decisions arise from a drive of love? That's hard to put in a requirements document.

When you can express them in ways most people can understand and appreciate I expect you will find a few people who will join you.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

There is also the point that the chips, especially the premium ones, include more than just logic elements - somewhere you will also be paying for hard core processors, fast transceivers, multi-port RAM, more I/O, etc. And different architectures have different ideas about what a logic element actually /is/. These sorts of things mean that a price-per-LE is only a simplistic comparison - although it is probably the best single figure that could be used here.

But I expect that the main reason for the price margin is economy of scale - far more low-end FPGAs are produced than high-end ones, making production and testing costs very different.

Reply to
David Brown

I would recommend you use an FTDI USB chip instead of RS232 - it is easier, /much/ faster, and can connect to modern PC's that seldom have RS232 ports. An FTDI 4232H chip will give you up to 4 UARTs (or 2 UARTs and 2 SPI/I2C/JTAG) with something like 12 MBaud transmission rates.

Reply to
David Brown

Don't kid yourself. Yes, there will be some additional cost for I/O and the hard cores and even the more advanced LUT designs. I can assure you that "economy of scale" is not really the issue for any but the biggest devices. But that is largely in the noise when looking at a 60x range of cost per LUT. The high end is charging what the market will bear just as is true in nearly any market with constantly renewed products.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

The people who come to this project will do so from within. It will be the same drive which moves me, which moves them -- an indwelling of His Holy Spirit, and a change, a desire to do the things we do, in whatever industry we're in, for Him.

Some (most) will never be able to understand the drive there, nor see the value/gain in giving and sharing knowledge, sacrificing intellectual property rights so our fellow man might be able to create a better thing upon our prior work, etc.

It is the nature of the division between born- again, and not born-again. It is why we need Jesus Christ, for without a faith in Him, a pursuit of Truth in our life, the flesh-based blindness prevents us from moving as we should.

Jesus changes everything about a person's life. He fundamentally rewires everything about a person, from the inner thoughts to the inner drives. He is pervasive, and complete, and He opens our eyes to see the things we were blind to before.

I urge you to seek Him, Rick. He will forgive you too, and change your life. Forever.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

I'm not questioning the drive. I'm asking how this effort is being led. I don't see where the decisions are coming from. For a project like this to succeed there has to be a basis from which the technical decisions are made. If it is all by the seat of your pants, that's fine, but it will be hard to find others who are willing to follow your lead.

I think I understand this better now. Thanks.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

I have had long-term goals:

(1) Visual FreePro and its compiler framework (2) Exodus 32-bit x86-based operating system (3) Armodus 32-bit ARM-based OS. (4) Exodus 64-bit. (5) Armodus 64-bit

And various other related system and user apps.

I have only discovered in the last month that I have some natural understanding of hardware. Until this Oppie-1 project, I had always viewed hardware as some distant and nebulous thing. But now that I see I have this knowledge and ability, much to my surprise I might add, I am moving in this way.

It's absolutely floored me to be honest. When I began to learn Verilog, and write things, and it all made sense, I literally walked around my house in disbelief saying out loud, "No way!"

And in the weeks since I've looled at how the various hardware interconnects, and it's like this veil has been lifted and I can see the hardware ends.

The path before me is now a combined path:

(1) LibSF 386-x40 comprised of (2) Exodus OS, (3) Visual FreePro, and its general IDE supporting a C-like compiler, and (4) Other user apps

Best regards, Ricl C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

You can read my original goals here:

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Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

Don't be so surprised - a basic understanding of digital logic is not actually very difficult. I was about 12 or 13 when I learned about boolean logic, registers, ALUs and processor design. If you are comfortable with binary, logic operations, and assembly code (on any cpu), then digital logic design is mostly pretty simple.

There is an "ah-ha!" moment for software programmers when they first look at Verilog, VHDL, or other HDL's, when they realise you are mostly describing a lot of things that happen in parallel, rather than mostly describing a lot of things that happen serially, but you seem to have passed that.

What is not simple, of course, is actually making something useful and working - figuring out what you need, how to make appropriate structures, how to manage everything, how to make the design efficient in size and space, how to avoid races, how to fit together existing pieces, etc. And even when you know what you are doing here, there is massive amounts of work involved.

I am not trying to discourage you here - I am just saying that you shouldn't think you have some "natural aptitude" here (nor am I saying that you /don't/ have a natural aptitude - but if you do, it is not yet apparent). You are a reasonably intelligent person, with good enough mathematical skills and plenty of experience at assembly programming, and lots of determination and motivation - I would have been very surprised if you had /not/ got the hang of Verilog fairly quickly.

Reply to
David Brown

David,

Jesus loves you. And I love you. Seek Him.

Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin

Reply to
Rick C. Hodgin

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