> People often don't realize how important it was to OSS that it was preceded by decades of easy access to programming tools and resources meant for absolute beginners.
> OSS needs FPGAs, and FPGAs need what programming had back in the 1980s: an on-ramp.
Man this looks really cool. Am excite. https://www.blinklight.io/blog/2017-03-31/
@coolstar @argumatronic @KitRedgrave
What distro were you using? Because day to day running Linux I can't say I've seen it take any more effort to maintain than a Windows install.
@sotonohito @argumatronic @KitRedgrave I was using Linux Mint 17.1 (after trying and not quite liking some other distros), and even that seemed like it took quite a bit of effort to maintain
@coolstar @argumatronic @KitRedgrave
I'm curious, what did you have to do? I'm just wondering what you need that I don't. Cuz for my home use all I've ever done was let it automatically update.
@sotonohito @argumatronic @KitRedgrave one of the things I found incredibly difficult to do on Linux was set up a WiFi access point while connected to a WiFi network. Had to compile kernel modules and use a custom patched hostapd with a 2nd WiFi NIC to only get 2.4 Ghz on Linux. Meanwhile, Windows can do this with one click on my Atheros wifi card, with only 1 card...
@coolstar @argumatronic @KitRedgrave Ah, yeah I don't do much wifi at home.
I knew there were wifi problems several years ago, didn't know there were still problems. Blah
@parataxis i hadn't, this looks cool. i am especially interested in the pedagogical element of the blinklight project and hoping to use with my children if it goes well enough. awoooo.
@argumatronic this is incredibly up my alley (i went to school for digital design and work as a sysadmin). existing (proprietary, at least) EDA tooling is garbage. existing HDLs are a difficult conceptual model to wrap your brain around. debugging things with a 200MHz clock is not for the faint of heart. it is currently both the easiest it's been and also impossible to start.
but we need to do better, lest general purpose computing be relegated to corporations.
@argumatronic Hey, my Dad has an array of gates. In a field. I don't think they're programmable though 🙁 (he has a farm)
@ocean but does he have logic goats on his farm?
@argumatronic Haha 😂 No, goats are completely illogical.
@ocean i already like you
@argumatronic Haha thanks. You had me at "pedagogical" :grin:
@argumatronic and of course the Haskell 😄
@argumatronic I'm sorry, that's terrible 😊 Blinkenlight does sound very interesting.
@argumatronic *WHOOPS EXTERNALLY*
@argumatronic FOSS FPGA community is definitely in part inspired by "I'm so f***ing sick of the shitty vendor environments that I'm taking matters into my own hands".
But it's getting easier all the time. Maybe I'm biased w/ how (2010-2012) it used to be harder, but I take issue with the author just shrugging FOSS achievements off as "no comparison".
Also, @parataxis beat me to it, but migen is almost exclusively what I use now.
@cr1901 huh. I did not have that takeaway at all when I read it @argumatronic @parataxis
@five Now that I've had time to reflect... something bothers me about that blog post that I honestly can't pin down. Some thoughts:
1. I agree hardware is DEF not as accessible as software.
2. A simulator like blinklight is prob a good starting point.
3. Re: "When computers first" paragraph, FPGAs expose you to implementation details that are abstracted away from programming environments.
4. In the 70's a single person could build a competitive in marketplace computer. Not true today
@five (Okay, 4. isn't quite true, but it's difficult mainly because "the hardware/bus specs that modern hardware uses to talk got a lot more complicated in exchange for user convenience".)
@argumatronic I have an openmojo board that I've never figured out what to do with. Got any good project ideas?
@argumatronic !!!!!!!!!
@argumatronic You're solving pretty much the same problem my Kestrel Computer Project aims to solve, albeit perhaps targeted at a different audience. :)
@argumatronic @KitRedgrave to be honest, I stopped using Linux as a main OS simply due to the amount of effort it takes to do certain tasks on it, and the amount of maintenance required...
although that being said; I do run coreboot with an OSS tianocore payload on my netbook