16 Dec
2004
16 Dec
'04
10:15 a.m.
Hello,
yes, building free hardware as very specific topic and if we ant to be
consequent to paradigm of freedom there are a lot of details that should be
taken into consideration. Indeed, this should not discourage anyone.. There
are efforts here in Belgrade, aslo and there a re DSP processing borad, ADC/DAC
board, mic preamp, headphone amp mostly completed. If there is anyone
interested in that please let me know. We wrote paper about those efforts and
if there is anyone interested maybe we can send a copy of that paper in which
there is description of that effort.
Best wishes,
Vedran Vucic
Quoting Winfried Ritsch <ritsch(a)iem.at>at>:
Hello,
just info for storytellers: (since the themme is open source hardware and
rme )
stoneages ago i made an open source hardwarecard, called MAAS (see
http://iem.kug.ac.at/ritsch/hardware/maas/main.html )
So I made a four layer dsp-card for use with ,many ption including
standalone,
but the main problem was bugs in the dspcore (pci interface) and so on.
I was a kind of followup of a project of elector, a german electronic
magazine, where also a first SPDIf was a project (i think using an fpga),
where rme followed witheir first RME card ;-) and I ended up with writing
the first kernel-driver for rme-hammerfall, since their product was better
and more costless than the open source hardware (if i calculate the assembly
work as money), even if i had the the work writing the linux-kernel driver, i
needed for my project.
Doing a study project (and open source hardware) and a product for
distribution is quite another thing and a big step, so open source hardware
is a different than software, since somebody has to build it and this is
work. But anyhow, I like the idea... maybe somebody want continue to do the
MAAS, nowadays this should be much cheaper....
mfg winfried ritsch
Am Mittwoch, 15. Dezember 2004 22:03 schrieb Fernando Lopez-Lezcano:
I'm not so sure PCI would be the best answer for a project like this
one, and that was the point of the question. I would be concerned about
the tools. Xilinx arrays will probably need closed source and expensive
software.
What I was thinking about was this:
- 1394 chip (off the shelf, no programming)
- (high speed?) ucontroller (off the shelf, use one that has open
source tools for programming it).
- line drivers for spdif and/or ADAT (driven from the ucontroller)
- DA/AD chips (driven from the ucontroller)
So, this approach would reduce the problem to hardware interconnection
of logic parts (rather easy) and firmware for the ucontroller (hard).
The question would be, it this doable with available ucontrollers that
have open source compiler toolchains?
-- Fernando
--
--
- ao.Univ.Prof. DI Winfried Ritsch
- ritsch(a)iem.at - http://iem.at/ritsch
- Institut fuer Elektronische Musik und Akustik
- University of Music and Dramatic Art Graz
- Tel. ++43-316-389-3510 (3170) Fax ++43-316-389-3171
- PGP-ID 69617A69 (see keyserver http://wwwkeys.at.gpg.net/)
--
On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 11:24, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On 15 Dec 2004 10:29:38 -0800, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano
>
> <nando(a)ccrma.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2004-12-14 at 09:46, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > > On 14 Dec 2004 10:03:31 +0100, Andreas Kuckartz <A.Kuckartz(a)ping.de>
wrote:
> > > > Lee Revell wrote:
> > > > > Christ, what the fuck country do you live in? Don't you
> > > > > understand the concept of people having bills to pay? Or do
you
> > > > > just assume the RME guys are independenly wealthy and just
design
> > > > > sound cards for fun?
> > > >
> > > > Interestingly some people seem to be existing who are working on
> > > > Linux for fun. Also there is a concept known as "Open Source
> > > > Hardware" which was mentioned here before.
> > >
> > > Actually, it was Lee and I (I think) who were the main proponents of
> > > the Open Source Sound Card idea. Funny how that works out at times.
> > >
> > > My current thought is that there aren't enough people interested in
> > > doing it. Maybe I'm wrong?
> >
> > Maybe, maybe not. One quick question I have been meaning to ask. Would
> > it be possible to completely drive the card with firmware? What I
mean,
> > can all the packet processing be
handled by an onboard processor in
the
soundcard? No gate arrays? What I picture is
of-the-shelf components
only... [*]
I believe this is (more or less) completely possible. Let's use two
of the recently maligned RME's products as an example - the HDSP 9652
and the Hammerfall Light. (Hey - imagine that?! I chose the two cards
I own!) ;-)
[MUNCH]
With the price of Xilinx chips coming down all the time, and with
functionality going up, I see a small card with one large FPGA, a
small eeprom to enable a PCI enterface in the chip, and some
transceivers for ADAT and/or s/pdif. I am just guessing that even in
small volumes this can probably be built for under $300/card. (That's
a total guess.)
The nice thing about this, in my mind, is that when Xilinx comes
out with each new generation you can imagine putting a bigger Xilinx
chip on the same card and programming more interesting things, like
hardware mixers. This is rally all RME did between the Hammerfall and
HDSP line. (I'm being purposely simplistic here.)
There are certainly HUGE challenges for a group of folks like us
doing this. Verilog (or VHDL) design, which I don't do, compiling that
code into something that programs the Xilinx chips (Symplicity?)
assembly, testing, etc., but none of it is unsurmountable. It just
takes some vision and, unfortunately, some money unless we can get
access to some Open Source tools or, possibly, commercial tools
through some friendly company.
Doing this as a 1394-based external unit is really interesting, but
is more complicated. Maybe PCI is the best for now.