Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 25 Oct 1998 18:30:57 +0000 | From | Jamie Lokier <> | Subject | Re: Motherboard design specifically for Linux |
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On Thu, Oct 22, 1998 at 09:53:49AM +0200, jens@pinguin.conetix.de wrote: > The trouble with designing hardware in contrast to writing software is that > there are no compilers (i.e. chip production plants) available for free on > the internet.
When the GNU project was started, the knowledge required to create something like Linux was rather hard core. But now a lot of people know their way around, and it doesn't seem so esoteric any more.
The central people working on Linux still have a great deal of valuable knowledge and experience that the rest of us respect, but the basic information needed to join in is becoming more and more accessible.
Today, fast custom hardware is expensive to produce. One problem is the costs of producing multi-layer PCBs, chips in factories etc. But in my opinion, the most significant problem is: the knowledge required to build something like a high-speed computer motherboard, or a modern processor, is still rather hard core. The need for an expensive, hard core infrastructure follows from this. Try building a 400MHz digital circuit sometime, you will know what I mean.
I think that will change in time. Manufacturing of devices will become cheaper and more accessible as "roll your own" technology is developed. The knowledge required will become less esoteric, and also more widely known. In short, you'll be able to throw something together in your living room that requires a whole cooperating industry today.
For now, try FPGAs. They're large enough to hold small processors and motherboard glue logic (tie a few together) and fast enough for things like PCI and Gigabit Ethernet (barely). Prices vary.
Sadly all the useful mainstream architectures are not publically documented, so there's no way to write a complete Free (GNU semantics) tool chain. However you can target the input that the FPGA vendor tools accept, many of which are free with limitations.
I look forward to the day someone writes a hardware backend for GCC.
But most exciting for me is the day "roll your own" hardware technology is readily accessible to me. With a good manual :-)
-- Jamie
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