On Wednesday 19 March 2003 11:40 am, Andrew Berg wrote:
> (long list later:) so we'll have to
> add one.  Unfortunately, compared with version 59 of our washing
> machine computer, we're way over on cost.
>
> > With that I think you could have a winner for people who think
> > outside of the box.
>
> Let's really think outside the box for a minute:  A processor in a
> XILINX with a SRAM memory controller (simple), some flash (simple)
> and a 100Mbit ethernet adapter (not too bad).  The flash contains
> just enough to make it boot from a tftp server:  Fetch down a
> HAL/VM, and then a Squeak image. For video/mouse/keyboard/?sound?,
> let's throw an old wintel box at it with Linux and X via the
> network.  8MB of SRAM is pretty affordable these days, 64 not
> unreasonable.
>
> For v.2, we could perhaps add USB or FireWire and SATA for HD
> support.

Actually, I wasn't thinking about doing I/O from the new processor. 
There's a number of single-chip SOC (system on a chip) parts with all 
those controllers onboard. And they include a Pentium to control 
them, as well. You would want a fast bus between the FPGA and the 
SOC, though.

There seem to be a number of PCI cards with memory and FPGAs, though I 
haven't researched it too deeply. Whether you could find one that was 
big enough and easy enough to plug into an existing system for 
experimentation, I don't know.

-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE