[ColorForth] toy workstation (off-topic, delete now!)

[Jack Johnson <fragment@xxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Myron Plichota wrote:
> One solution would be to open-source the hardware similar to the GNU Public 
> License. If someone came along and decided to second source a clone, so much 
> the better if we could buy it from them cheaper than we could do it 
> ourselves. Also, if our base design provided an SDRAM interface and someone 
> enhanced it to RamBus for example, we would be entitled to full disclosure of 
> the details under the license terms. All the while, we have access to the 
> original design files and their descendents and are free to pursue our 
> options at any time and for any reason. I know this runs counter to the IP 
> business model held dear to many silicon design houses, but so be it.

For the curious, there have been numerous projects done in this vein:

http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/pc532/faq.html
http://www.research.compaq.com/SRC/iag/info/new-hard.html
http://member.nifty.ne.jp/toyozou/palmpc/release_English.html
http://www.openhardware.net
http://www.opencores.org/mission.shtml

There are a ton of others.  Wirth created the Ceres workstations just for
his Oberon System, and I think it's documented in his first Oberon book.

What really seems to hit these projects hard is the time to
implementation for people with minimal resources.  It's also touches on 
the Space Shuttle problem; by the time you get it spec'd out and built
it's 5 years old, and now there are new bits and pieces that would make it
faster/cheaper/etc.

(Though, if you had ludicrous MIPS when you were done, maybe people
wouldn't mind.  ;)

Sorry for being off-topic yet again,

-Jack

------------------------

To Unsubscribe from this list, send mail to Mdaemon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with:
unsubscribe ColorForth
as the first and only line within the message body
Problems   -   List-Admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Main ColorForth site   -   http://www.colorforth.com