- arm-netbook - Mailman test

HAK_MTL 2019 documentary
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 02 Oct '19

02 Oct '19

https://vipmovies.to/watch/x2UL5u/hak_mtl-2019 57 minutes in. had completely forgotten about hopeconf2016 -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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need help finding EU Citizens to help with NLNet Funding proposals
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 30 Sep '19

30 Sep '19

https://git.libre-riscv.org/?p=crowdsupply.git;a=blob;f=updates/020_2019aug… I now have *seven* NLNet Funding proposals in and I urgently need four EU Citizens to be part of each project. Whether you actually do anything is entirely up to you. The way it works is that NLNet has been funded by thr EU Horizon 2020 Programme. Thus they need at least one member of the team to be an EU Citizen. They do not have to be *resident* in the EU, just gave an EU address. This includes the UK fir the next month. The important thing to note is that this is not a contract, it is a Memorandum of Understanding. There are no penalties and no committment. If you can help please do get in touch, I will need to be able to say "yes" on each project over the next 3 weeks. If you know someone.who can help please do ask around. Thx. L. -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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slashdot article submitted about NLNet Grants for Libre-RISCV SoC
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 29 Sep '19

29 Sep '19

https://slashdot.org/submission/10462238/libre-risc-v-3d-cpugpu-applying-fo… please do upvote... l.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] [Libre-silicon-devel] NLNet Funding Proposals for the Libre RISC-V SoC: call for participation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 25 Sep '19

25 Sep '19

On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 1:06 PM Staf Verhaegen <staf(a)fibraservi.eu> wrote: > Have yo guys looked at the pipeline feature of Wishbone B4 ? What is missing there to make streaming possible ? hagen mentioned (offlist) that the broadcast mode of wishbone b4 could indeed be used. he'd like to do a write-up / proposal and i am happy to help him review it. l.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] NLNet Funding Proposals for the Libre RISC-V SoC: call for participation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 24 Sep '19

24 Sep '19

On Tuesday, September 24, 2019, Staf Verhaegen <staf(a)fibraservi.eu> wrote: OK, let me mention I have for my Retro-uC currently nmigen Wishbone code. Great! > > I use it to make an arbiter between JTAG and the CPU cores on the design > (Z80, MOS6502 and Motorola 68000) that can do a read/write for each cycle. > Plan is top commit code to my gitlab repo after ORConf. > Dan from ZipCPU would say that I still have to formally verify the code > though... . Yes. Ah it just occurred to me to get in touch with him again, see if he would like to help with the formal proofs proposal. Looks like you might get your "wish" after all, David :) L. > greets, > Staf. > > -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Re: [Arm-netbook] [Libre-silicon-devel] NLNet Funding Proposals for the Libre RISC-V SoC: call for participation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 24 Sep '19

24 Sep '19

On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 9:55 AM Hagen SANKOWSKI <hsank(a)posteo.de> wrote: > The main difference between AMBI AXI and Wishbone is the streaming > capability. AXI can stream data, just with repetition stages, without > handshake signals. So, it would be easier and more sustainable to > bring-up Wishbone to the next level by standardize a similar streaming > feature. And yes, there are a lot of cores which using AMBA AXI which > had to be partly re-written for Wishbone. But currently, there is no > alternative, or as the German chancellor Merkel likes to say: > "alternativlos". With added streaming feature to Wishbone, we would get > an alternative full-featured SoC Bus and Designers could fix their bad > AMBA AXI bus interfaces.. great: this sounds like a perfect *additional* Research Project which someone [else] could put in a request for funding. once it is available, we can look at converting the code over to use it, and converting any peripherals to use it. or, if someone [else] wants to include the Libre RISC-V SoC peripheral set as a possible suite of examples to convert (which would help justify a budget of EUR 50,000) they are welcome to do so. the relevance of the streaming capability is that we need an I2S Audio Bus. i can help with a write-up: unfortunately i am hitting an _additional_ limit of EUR 250,000 per person for overall projects submitted, so cannot be the one to submit it. l.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] [Libre-silicon-devel] NLNet Funding Proposals for the Libre RISC-V SoC: call for participation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 24 Sep '19

24 Sep '19

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 9:48 AM David Lanzendörfer <leviathan(a)libresilicon.com> wrote: > > Hi Luke > In order to be truly libre, you've got to remove AXI from the RISC-V > implementation and replace it with TileLink or another bus, which isn't > patented by a company. > Also I would strongly discourage you from using ARM patented solutions, > this might most certainly come back in the future to hunt you. appreciated, david: the main issue that we have is, with implementing a GPU and VPU and CPU all in one, it's going to be unavoidable to run into 3D patents, Video patents, you name it, we'll be hitting it. from ICubeCorp alone - one company that i know of for certain created a similar "Hybrid" CPU/GPU/VPU, we'll be hitting up to *seventeen* patents: https://patents.google.com/?q=ICubeCorp&oq=ICubeCorp broadcom's videocore IV, which is based on the ARC core (bought by synopsys), likewise has a whole stack of patents: ARC's primary business was - is - licensing identical to ARM except embedded and not as high-profile, with specialisation in Video SIMD instructions. to even *try* to avoid these is just completely pointless: the entire design would be so hamstrung as to be utterly commercially useless, and, worse than that, we'd be taking on far more work and would completely miss the goal as a result, missing out on additional funding opportunities that would enable us to actually get to first silicon. in short: if we're adding AXI to the list of patents to avoid, because we take on the additional responsibility of avoiding patents, we also have to add the entire MASSIVE list of other patents in Video Acceleration, 3D Acceleration, processor core design, and so on, and it's just completely impractical. some alternative strategies present themselves: (1) if a customer (licensee) is presented with a patent demand, we can look at prior art and arrange for the patent to be invalidated. we have nothing to lose. enough of these being successful will cause large patent holders to freak out and back the hell off. (2) join a patent pool. like the linux foundation, except for hardware. the newly-formed Open 3D Graphics Alliance is a good place to start from, here. (3) get to first silicon, get chips sold, get investment, *then* fund a new ASIC design that avoids all known patents. bottom line: we have to be realistic, and pick the best technology for the job. TileLink, with its low level of adoption, Is Not It (and using chisel3 is not an option for this processor). Wishbone, whilst we may need some wb2axi bridges in order to avoid having to do major rewrites, just doesn't cut it as far as complex multi-way routing is concerned. l.

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NLNet Funding Proposals for the Libre RISC-V SoC: call for participation
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 23 Sep '19

23 Sep '19

[please do remove all but libre-riscv-dev when replying, thx] https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_proposals/ A series of funding proposals, each for EUR 50,000, have been submitted to NLNet. These are for charitable donations and may be given to either individuals or to Universities (not to Corporations) for completion of an allotted milestone. The basic idea is to think through and plan for commercial completion all of the tasks that will make the Libre RISC-V SoC a success. It's a lot! We have the following: - a second Vulkan 3D driver, which will be a port of AMDVLK. similar to swiftshader, for the Libre RISCV SoC, except taking into account the Vectorisation, predication and custom accelerated opcodes. - a video acceleration initiative: with NEON assembler being up to the job of decoding 720p video on recent ARM64 processors, the idea is to design instructions that will do the job and then follow through getting the code upstream. - two related proposals which, in combination, will result in an actual 180nm ASIC being taped out at TSMC. - a formal mathematical proof of the hardware design, proving inviolate guarantees of its correctness. this because although auditing the code is possible, it is both laborious, error prone, and could be compromised. mathematical proofs may be run by anyone and are inviolate. - an augmentation of gcc to support the processor’s parallel and vectorisation capabilities. Yes, really: 180nm ASICs only cost around EUR 600 per square millimetre, and with around 20 or so mm^2 it is completely within the realm of possibility for an NLNet Grant to fund a test ASIC. With each square millimetre being around 40,000 gates in 180nm, that's around 800,000 gates, which is enormous. We would then have a proven ASIC, and moving up to 40nm or below, which would require around the USD 2m mark, is a far less risky proposition. The irony is that whilst these funding proposals are quite easy to write, we also need to find people willing to do the work! In particular, we need at least one EU Citizen per project. They do not have to be permanently resident in the EU, they do however need an EU residence. Yes this includes the UK at the time of writing. This is an extremely important strategic project that puts you - software libre developers - in the driving seat of modern technology instead of picking up the reverse engineering crumbs that fall from the Corporate table with at least a 2 year delay. If you would like to help and actually receive donations (directly transferred) from NLNet for doing so, please do contact me directly or on libre-riscv-dev. L. -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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STM32MP1
by Paul Boddie 22 Sep '19

22 Sep '19

Hello, I saw that Olimex were getting excited about a ST Microelectronics SoC that, at least in some forms, might be an interesting EOMA-related candidate, too: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2019/09/03/stm32mp1-nice-candidate-for-new-ind… https://olimex.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/stm32mp1-olinuxino-development-upda… Here's the actual product site (with the now "normal" nagging about cookies, all enabled by default, and even spurious whining about my browser being "out of date"): https://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32mp1-series.html As noted by Olimex, there's a variant (STM32MP157) with a "3D GPU". According to the datasheet, this is a Vivante solution. Some people might be worried about the main CPU specification, though: 650MHz dual-core Cortex-A7. There's this interesting all-in-one module available, too: https://octavosystems.com/octavo_products/osd32mp15x/ Olimex were a bit "sniffy" about this, mentioning the 512MB RAM of the available modules, but it looks like future ones will have 1GB RAM. Anyway, I hope this is interesting to someone out there. Paul

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How are things?
by zap 12 Sep '19

12 Sep '19

I saw your 70th update. It's good to know at least that you can roll some out finally. Right? Do you know when Risc-V processors made for laptops will be out. If so, when one is produced you could possibly reverse engineer one for the eoma68 (standard) libre laptop

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PINE64 foundation beat us both to making a laptop
by David Niklas 06 Sep '19

06 Sep '19

No intent to discourage, but rather to encourage, as it's opensource AFAIK and have researched. https://www.pine64.org/2019/07/05/july-update-all-about-the-pinebook-pro/ Powered by an RK3399. I think the ROCK64 board: https://www.pine64.org/devices/single-board-computers/rock64/ I'm unsure how much RAM the laptop has as the article is very sparse on details. I did try and search for the information. Likewise for the information on camera, screen, and anything other then the USB-C connector which appears to be brought out along with some form of EMMC flash and it has a 10,000mAh battery. It's rather chintzy looking, though. And that is why I'm making my own. That's the power of OSS/FLOSS! Sincerely, David

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Re: [Arm-netbook] PINE64 foundation beat us both to making a laptop
by aexlfowley＠web.de 25 Aug '19

25 Aug '19

On Fri Aug 2 06:37:03 BST 2019, EfraimVagner <EfraimVagner at protonmail.com> wrote: >As for the hardware, it has no open schematics at all, as far as I know. https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Main_Page#Pinebook_Schematics_an… https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/1080P_Pinebook_Main_Page#Pinebook_Schemat…

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Arduino, ARM microcontrollers, and analog
by David Niklas 24 Aug '19

24 Aug '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Hello list, Recently I and luke exchanged a set of emails on the above topic and luke suggested to bring the discussion on list. I originally sent it off list to avoid adding more off topic discussion, but luke advised that: "It's very diverse, and concerns the *development* of laptops - and hardware." So, here's the refresher (I'm not going to quote all of it because it's not worth it to you or anyone). There's still room for much discussion on the subject. luke, if my attempted condensed form does not capture your intentions perfectly be sure to send my terminal SIG666 and scream loudly. ;-) > As a direct result of Trump's tariffs I find myself needing to buy > myself a few uCs now instead of later [1]. > The problem is, though I do know a lot about electricity I know > relatively little about integrated circuits. I've got a long road ahead > filled with lots of reading to get there. > > If you have any other suggestions, I'm also listening. Luke pointed out that "pricing on things like STM32Fs is so low, it's not worth worrying about." I answered, "Call me pathetic, but 25% is still 25% no matter the starting cost. There's also the concern that if the uC demand reduces then the price will rise as the companies strive to make up for lost profits and then demand will further drop... and development will stall..." Luke recommended the STM32F lineup supported by lubopencm3, which I already had my eyes on, and said that the AVR lineup was yucky. Since then I discovered that there is a third choice of uCs. They use the LX6 32bit microprocessor at 160-240MHz, which is pretty fast. Here's wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32 Lots of links to docs here: http://esp32.net/ Git hub has lots of code: https://github.com/espressif Official docs: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/ What's strange about them is that they have not released the ISA docs yet for the LX6 core in spite of GCC 5.2 supporting it. GCC 7 and 8 support is experimental. https://github.com/espressif/crosstool-NG/pull/2 https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6477 https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=293 I did double check that this is still the case: https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11908 My intentions in purchasing are two fold: I'll probably be using a uC for a keyboard on my own laptop, and I had hoped to build an Opensource oscilloscope/logic analyzer several years from now. This is not to mention the usefulness which uCs can be in general. Luke pointed out, "that's a different matter: that's pretty hard-core ADC territory. 100mhz and above, with 16-bit accuracy and above: realistically, only Analog Devices covers that ground, and a standard low-cost uC would not in any way be able to cope with the amount of data generated." That exact use case has a large following (179 articles on hackaday alone): https://hackaday.com/tag/oscilloscope/ And here's a really cool project using SDRAM: https://hackaday.com/2016/07/19/hackaday-prize-entry-the-cheapest-logic-ana… Here are some "professional" ones. ATXMEGA32A4U uC powered: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920064946/xminilab-portable-oscillosco… https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920064946/xprotolab-portable Here are some not using uCs: Xilinx spartan3A FPGA: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/751733865/smartscope-reinventing-the-o… Luke kindly pointed out that this is FPGA powered: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/201461162/unoprologic2-ultra-low-cost-… MIPS arch (has higher clocks then your typical uC): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oscope/mutliplatform-multi-os-oscillos… Lastly and I've no idea what powers this one, even after reading the datasheet's summery: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/342199468/openscope-instrumentation-fo… If you've got anything to add, as always, thank you, David > [1]: I get it, tariffs work for steel, but not so well for computers, as > bunnie explains it's a much much more dangerous game: > https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/business/us-steel-mill/ > https://www.nasdaq.com/article/nucor-to-build-135-billion-steel-plate-mill-… > https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5349 > I read that they would affect SBCs on linuxgizmos and guessed they'd > affect uCs before too long also: > http://linuxgizmos.com/introduction-to-catalog-of-125-linux-hacker-boards/ > What's really strange is that he's targeting the maker community vs. > only the big companies like ASUS, i.e. he's not set a small quantity > limit on the tariffs (though big companies would probably try to > maneuver into such an exception). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAl1hr+gACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP+HnQ/9HGJyyzrS+VBsbd/AE4vLkB0ZghN5n7hCBPDpZkc8eTRV0TTE51XOHygO G1RqhPGu23mQqBuTH1LupEAAsHK6kKUGbZoDl0TgMSXq2vx4T0rzx1bbPRWFeXIz ny2m+SRqx0twYOUc3EE2fauL/StJ3hfm3wkmbBjribaFrdgS/b0XQVhZ0tzuN9Lh WG+UUZSrAcyrQAbCHiE23Kcka3r9WG0PHR/mtqFkLis3kjDZxiXTxauuGySmAE5G LMFMihUIvmTYf4rMseBkIZgCvMDdkPo9ZMA0vU0ROJkObmqBzCvsSeqQGn2SQRRr 1XjxHMegHOXdXkNjdQv95obkN69wVw65AIRhBL++gYFn3Tn/DAYs7cwlhSgb8Jw+ +QcE8f9xXGa/aMmwq4+u4CKoLmOfvI+Ph/YszUIyOXYXyY1+I52SaMfWQsWiy0/e BCFk9rZnCOAaVQHRP2PciivZLM9EIm4a4saP7vrh/G57QvdPKEnduNsV9TTJom99 Hbn19qhXwlRD3iKilOWzo2yuGXJ2pnQ0WWli0QGrMrcGJdZWu13YjHhTAU2vF6LW RyfWQKKiaK34WqJ0iOWPo0tvAI6N6jzB8oP5+1PbapxBrZSc9lQjM3lfMy16/nyI LhPoWY2dR4K7oXCbitoux108LT052ZUwrUyzjS1DrcOLR69HKNM= =zxaR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Fixing the fex file once and for all
by David Niklas 22 Jul '19

22 Jul '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Dear luke, Although I can't find the post, I do remember you writing about the fex file and how hard it is to modify it. I've encountered some similar problems when programming and I've always thought of doing things like Donald Ervin Knuth recommended. That would be, I would use literate programming. I've not read the official paper through because I did not know it was available (and I did not buy the book which I did know about). As it is, when I went looking for you for some information on the subject I found more then I had expected for you. A paper: http://www.literateprogramming.com/knuthweb.pdf Website: http://www.literateprogramming.com/ Criticism: http://akkartik.name/post/literate-programming The criticism shows how this method can be taken to an extreme and be a complete waste of everyones time. Hope it helps, David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAl0v5yIACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP8cLBAA6ujfFmCm6sFq73l5WLf3L1GTABduglRrkUj5LwhnyTFhII/fiTy+mNLS d6CkKSuJp3iu/wizYy4Pyb/EIt6n8D4dG6Vq7nGTQWIABS/4KW6n5c2iIFmQajXK /LkRkCdFvMJHF9Ok1XutvCNTFQm5EBh1RdZQ2buERLkOJpjcfGWRo4SztouQzhpW AK0ekRRxqolQOuS1hKeRG+rUb6hnGj+aMQcpYVcMFIKmzNGsOAVsA2Hkxyc5m6ZB Yn1sU7IQ/zia9nirfoeOZWA70/iSpWUn13UeU7m84Mw3NPoJ8utsL5zqJ1PtiITG 8PXOH1FIQZhdqpqvOb+h79KdGs1U4EAHEMIYHoSGXdsK74foyBcN+maKK0E0gMGS Cb5f7RtC2t8tNZ+0pthcwOlOUYqtoiWyIOeWCX1lReknzVcdO4rgOUu45WK2amCC RCb+O5w6Tvptq6RFH0BJypI1SbgVRi5n8S3dKSPlXFfVecsdPU91vUERpqlFpGRH qWFNfNsLH9MgKg3LNceN+Rm2SRqnwKpxQFoFv/eeeBiH6EpOXrJgPKWzsV8CUtBo 8iFqMMvXccNWyHnyXiUB5lT+ysBMV6UdD+7njRLc+aPWG4ngkbqkZ0Wevdh3qC8g QaWpdjMDCfZ8uou+yVk6b1vh92lT/9H0S58QE49JHkok83VpxyU= =9fnZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Ubuntu as a moral ideology applied to "Guilds"
by J.L. 17 Jul '19

17 Jul '19

In the vaguest-broadest historical sense, guild means a loose hierarchal collective identifing with one category of labour (the craft), who make potentially predictable aspects of the craft less unpredictable through exposition and memorization. Trust pre-requires any "cathedral" such as a "guild" to not abusively attempt to solipsistically shape reality by shaping the perception of reality, such as by investing in predictions disporportionately with certainty in those predictions merely as an expression of desire for those prediction's to be true. Ubuntu roughly translates to "a state caused by social justice called personhood" represents a practice of protecting the differences of others as well as yourself through intentionally detached means, essentially giving attention to whether others are who they want to be and seeking to keep them who they want to be even while fighting them. At scale, that equates to maximizing agency (or choices on who or what to be agent of). Ubuntu fits in the semantics where I placed the keyword 'abusively' or where one might believe in 'solipsism'. A "cathedral" such as a "guild" indubitably makes bets which shape reality solely by shaping the perception of reality, whether one literally believes in solipsism or figuratively believes people build according to what any "cathedral" facilitates their visualization of. Thus, one might claim ubuntu obligates a "cathedral" such as a "guild" to describe reality in a way maximally motivating to the most extremely detached interests. The following video (licensed creative commons) at one point uses agile as an example, while describing in detail (without explicitly mentioning the word) how give ubuntu to others from the most socially abstract (a leadership) position in the terran civilization (earth): (if the author had heard about ubuntu, they would probably agree with ubuntu) https://invidio.us/watch?v=VaWNQjFtGD0 Note some grammatical nuances: 1 i say socially abstract rather than leadership, to support the notion of invisible unstructured entirely anonymous influence over a "standalone complex"; socially abstract describes the state of mind and epistemological faculties rather than any particular identity, such as how the (what I'd call) 'temporal identity' of 'the laughing man' is controlled by ideas rather than a person. 2 i say terran civilization to include all intelligent or potentially intelligent species on any terra-class planet, rather than any more limited more common category 3 ubuntu traditionally recognizes animal species as having the potential to achieve more ubuntu than humans on occasion, therefore calling the state humanity contradicts the nature of ubuntu in a fundamental way for no relationship has more potential for detachment than beings physically (not merely cognitively) in capable of communicating the same language. The following video attempts to describe ubuntu explicitly. The author very prolifically documents popular ideologies commonly referred to as "philosophy" particularly "greek philosophy", which should give them some accreditation to judge the merits of ubuntu. The author currently lives in west africa, which should accredit their ability to accurately research african philosophy. https://invidio.us/watch?v=E_naFb_kdCQ I would definitely like to get in contact with the author to ask them about licensing all their awesome contributions the internet's commonwealth of information, as creative commons. To any one interested, I still have interest in updating the rhombus-tech wiki including the tables summarizing the scale and freeness of known major open source projects. I still have interest in PocketCHIP's hardware (though the backing company failed/collapsed), though I believe heavily in urbit's OS architecture so I want to focus my effort in studying urbit with the intention to perhaps one day have hardware such as EOMA (novice) or PocketCHIP (hacker) form a bottom-up libre computer boot to an urbit userland with as minimal middleware as possible. I need to learn/develop-in-mind the standards (or, one might say, the most ubuntu way) first, then make progress in that direction. In short, I want as certain about where I want to go as possible, prior to taking steps in any direction. Please don't discount me for my absence : P Side-note: I've joined the U.S. Navy (not a fan of the U.S. military, yet hope to make a difference) -- CC0

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co can see IP without paying through the roof, how nice of ARM.
by David Niklas 17 Jul '19

17 Jul '19

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Fwd: Funding ideas
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 15 Jul '19

15 Jul '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- Date: Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 4:51 PM Subject: Funding ideas To: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl(a)lkcl.net> Hey. Sad to say I had little progress on my "Why EOMA for crypto" article/promo campaign but at least I have some ideas to share. 1. Education What is a good susbtance for education? Something open and available. You can't teach and study the making of computers on closed Intel hardware and software. You can use open platforms like OLPC or Minix but most of them have a drawback - they are either purely academic/educational, or unpopular/unsuccessful in the wild. With EOMA and Libre RISC you (as an educational institution) can have both: something that is open down to the bone and can be a great learning substance for studens, _and_ something that is a real commercial product in the wild. The idea is to grow partnerships with schools/unis/academia (and possibly win some grants). For EOMA there are potential strategic benefits - it will be very hard to kill something that generation(s) have studied in schools/unis. If your random geek neighbor can fix or upgrade your device I'd call it a win. 2. OSS funding platforms Recently I ran across some OSS funding movements emerging in the crypto space. One is called Gitcoin. It is a general bounty platform for funding open source. Recently they had quite a lot of overlap with Ethereum https://gitcoin.co/blog/radical-results-gitcoins-25k-match/ Another one is GitHub - they recently integrated a sponsorship system that allows to fund individual developers. Repository admins can now increase visibility of funding options for their open source projects via the FUNDING.yml file, which currently supports GitHub Sponsorship, Patreon, Open Collective, Ko-Fi, Tidelift, Community Bridge, as well as custom URLs. https://help.github.com/en/categories/supporting-the-open-source-community-… https://help.github.com/en/articles/displaying-a-sponsor-button-in-your-rep… I'm sure there are other such platforms. The common thing is they all look how to match donors with workers. 3. Grants from specific crypto treasuries Zcash Foundation grants is just one example. This is obviously not general and is Zcash specific. Since the focus is Zcash, I guess they might need clear understanding what will Zcash gain - in our case this is a non backdoored, fully auditable, cheap device that allows one to run a light crypto wallet and that you can easily carry around. Example funded initiative: https://zengo.com/zcash-foundation-funds-research-project-by-kzen/ The above idea applies to any cryptocommunity that might be interested in cheap and trusted computing device. It also applies to Decred - we now have a platform where anybody can pitch an idea to stakeholders, run a vote and possibly get funded. Like 10 or 20 initiatives have already been funded. They were all specific to Decred, but I hope that the understanding of importance of hardware will grow and stakeholders would approve some joint funding for decent projects like EOMA. 4. Meta: reuse existing research The problem is not new. This guide has collected various approaches and case studies: https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand Feel free to share this to anyone who might advance these ideas.

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OT: Food for thought
by David Niklas 10 Jul '19

10 Jul '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Dear luke, list, As both luke and I are interested in chip fabrication I'm dropping this email with a link to a story on a SW tool that is designed to help improve designs based on how exactly a foundries process works. Luke, the wording in this article looks very carefully chosen in places. I'm totally in the dark as to why; e.g. "...the platform that analyzes yields enables secure collaboration between the foundry and customer." It's not free software so it might be interesting to try to find something similar offered by the community. Or maybe we'll have to roll our own eventually. https://www.anandtech.com/show/14613/synopsys-to-accelerate-samsungs-7nm-ra… David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAl0fkxQACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP9+tw//QiPvROIL3w1015q4PQY/P5yuWW0udlHNG6gO2PZH5uG5mUwaAyOuf3tC zX1MMK+dLdYfsXDDh7su8XLNObuEZC7GCeTq+16qwUdPwbtgy2m4LxbInPOvOE5Q FWnpaluD0RFgBtUDnFEhQcewTsI4xNgbj669NRikrEYysUxxSsIOcRShbFgWIXgi D4swIshef1Nh7Bc0Rl8FAgY0sWGxHSuTPiaFVce/DFSWIJ/b82PCVyJPWNvAjai+ VjX6IwKTADHaeNQzYAL84kuYXUg4cs3xTJ4kLbLfpgBKHrx+EgJcIPcinyc4+d9b 2nd6yvN/+0QQW+OSv1a3Fc+nvZXKAOvBW3VVIsfD50qFE2Lc7OZG5GbUSe2u/wvy +USS5dgzmZkQTGn66Plq51Hwsle2462hH1GIliyR3okZ+G+FWGAlRU4EHZy1GUVN jJgNojjbBX0nEJUzJS66rPQL/WLIlOdzhS4GvGrr4DA6wLm7ZRFbDBEFcFcbHKVw uPaC6HPeXDxFX82HbwrwbOOoVEwCQHUUbQloRC1N8rcDZqeZUfFnfXnazsFhb8gs 10p62JzcEFezCprMfpJj8d3ZsCF9Hezx59BOfExP0ddw8iJJlz1wbkY7vhOjnyb+ xaIDjrA9EE7dmlZ7IpeKoEHoX2K2WOnF3CEJHJVyuy4X0BMiMao= =bCLy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Fwd: [eoma68 update] report back from factory on HDMI
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 04 Jul '19

04 Jul '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl(a)lkcl.net> Date: Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 8:16 AM Subject: [eoma68 update] report back from factory on HDMI Mike's staff began the PCB assembly of the run of 100, and had to stop at 36. 20 were ok: 16 of them, the HDMI connector refused to fit. The reason: the CNC machining on the edge of the PCB has not been done accurately enough: it's simply too ragged. The staff did some experimentation, cleaning up some of the edges in the cut-out with an xacto-knife: this did the trick, even though it is shaving something like 0.01mm off the ragged edge of the PCB. The left and right edges do not matter too much, however where the HDMI connector comes in close, it definitely does. Mike is going to talk to the PCB factory to see if there is anything that they can do in future, however with 1,000 PCBs already manufactured, the safest thing to do is probably to *hand-trim* that PCB edge, removing the burrs, on all 1,000 PCBs. Again, to reiterate, because I am still seeing evidence of "complaints" out there, from people who believe this should be easy: these are absolutely ridiculously tiny components and tolerances, and the budget on which it's being done is equally as frugal. 0.05mm on the edge of a PCB. 0.2 mm wide pins, with 0.2mm clearance between them. A "normal" Single-Board Computer product from any other well-funded Corporation would use large (Type A) HDMI, top-mounted, with plenty of tolerances and no need for the PCB edge to be accurately milled. Again, to reiterate: we do not know what will need to be solved next. Therefore, a production date simply cannot be provided, and that really is the end of the matter. Or, the answer is: the production date is "the production time plus the unknown time to solve unknown and unknowable future issues". Mike is sending me the 20 "good" PCBs so that I can test them here, to see if they are okay. The staff will continue with the rest by shaving the burrs on the PCB on every single one of the remaining 80 with an xacto-knife, before putting them through the production line. It is looking like I will need to do the testing of all 100 of this preliminary production run, here, at my home, in Taiwan.

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india shakti core to be available as a SBC
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 03 Jul '19

03 Jul '19

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/07/03/016227/indias-first-cpus-are-r… this is amazing, i'm so delighted for them.

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eoma68 a20 card production
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 30 Jun '19

30 Jun '19

(joshua appreciate you're busy with teardown, let's make this one short) Mike got back to me, his engineer completed the review of the BOM, and we managed to work out all of the information that had been lost by Mike's long standing manager quitting with no notice. The BOM still had components in it from the RTC, Ethernet and ONFI NAND, and we had had to change 10uF 0805 to a pair of 0603 4.7uF - all 12 or so of them - when there was that shortage caused by Apple, last year. All of this was *supposed* to be documented as part of the pre-production runs that cost USD 2500 a shot, so that the longer runs are far less risky because a short trial run is supposed to prepare the engineers for the longer one. We cannot keep doing that, it takes 2 to three months each time, so we have to take the risk and go straight to QTY 100. This is just how it is. Patience is required. Success happens by solving each unknown and unknowable issue that comes up. However, it would be appreciated if people would accept that this is not something that cannot be predicted, neither what might happen next nor how long it will take. Continuously asking "when is shipping going to happen" the answer is, always and will always be: until we have actual finished product ready to put into the hands of the shipping agents, we don't know and we can't know. It really is as simple as that. L. -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Intel's at it again
by David Niklas 11 Jun '19

11 Jun '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Intel's at it again: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14467/intel-launches-the-nuc-compute-element… Yes, I already commented. Oddly, for the first time in my life on AT, I had to actually re-write my comment because the system thought it was spam. So luke, I'm your personal spam bot. ;) David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAlz1Oi4ACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP97fQ//deXcKeUqYSZqwPTElIv7Fys9d+aEgoNycE/eakef4fVW1BKOUMCOM7JR CDW1zoZUtg3JM122yEo/osi+d044xrNuLkPuVd0cvuLJez1PSn+VHLGJGeS3ET29 z93A0jD6GWoFKyaDOzNjqKdBo7J0ryuJn1IN58QuKpsYPh3uvBd3CTt6lbqkhp49 DlDQ0baU3dfTWm6lS/YQKIkoSq10hH29uQxrvwz0JpdILfoFssiyugGMtN6eg9fW zt2VrotoOnnu03r9mATphZYxJyayOL7Gh5bmQ8cLGLEkshvoU+bxQ+Uy0Qtuhnkx 8BRgdV6BDt9fwI4yD+Eawl6yoqLxl6fFlxMxo5sBEe0haqK5+90MvXWYESE+4WXh 0+qAsAfEIG2zoH9uQJFu2QXGIAjVeK/chRgCTqnpFxr8h3dJ/MqjU7Hy9dyFa9tw Iq998tMTWJ6QovxJtDMZNhr/Kba8yFncqRCSVPoBbq/jHsXhhcwOZD7TxPZbfFel op8VEQmeZWjbhI67uGM2W4CSzsCprhohKvcIqwH9ntdItebtVnFWcDiehlIpdOlO 77Bi9v7apuI3+uRAzuTrLHtkpMCJuzOOg6Sh9RyTxP23z2wBSduB5v+qkwZduINd 3PL1hcLB5nc4lF7Ug/tK6s/++jBb3QiyHVmiL1OtuNMllt7J/A0= =TAak -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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please do help upvote libre riscv soc slashdot story
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 28 May '19

28 May '19

https://slashdot.org/submission/9750302/nlnet-funds-development-of-a-libre-… Please do upvote that story Update here https://www.crowdsupply.com/libre-risc-v/m-class/updates/first-nlnet-grant-… -- --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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OT: Trademark abuse of FLOSS project.
by David Niklas 25 May '19

25 May '19

They say it only happens to closed source SW (5min read): https://retropie.org.uk/2018/07/retropie-usa-trademark-resolved/ David

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EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: 2.7.5 Cards Under Way, NLnet, and Intel Compute Card
by Paul Boddie 06 May '19

06 May '19

Hello, Thanks once again for another update on the progress being made with the different boards: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/2-7-5-cards-under-… It must be frustrating to encounter production issues (with the Micro Desktop), but I imagine that such things are only avoidable with enough experience of the relevant processes. I suppose that the only way to deal with them is to take the lesson along for next time, pretty much as is noted in the update. Meanwhile, it sounds like the computer cards are waiting for components before being assembled, so we should remain hopeful that their production is more straightforward. It will be interesting to read the next update, certainly. Paul

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