RE: what ho?
- To: "MISC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <MISC>, "'Penio Penev'" <penev@xxxxxxx>
- Subject: RE: what ho?
- From: "M. Edward Borasky" <znmeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 07:58:15 -0800
- Cc: misc <MISC>
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From: Penio Penev[SMTP:penev@venezia.rockefeller.edu]
Sent: 06 March, 1997 20:32
To: MISC@pisa.rockefeller.edu
Cc: misc
Subject: Re: what ho?
On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Eugene Leitl wrote:
> Anybody noticed TI's new TMS C6x family (at http://www.ti.com )?
> At $96 in large quantities, it's a lot bang for the buck. It's not a
> minimalistic design, but it's there, and it's supported. And 1 MBit
> on-die core plus 1.2 GOPs is a nice thing to have for under $100.
Remember, that F21 could be $1-2 in 25K lots, so $100 buys you a lot of
F21s. Right, Jeff?
[ F21 / C6x comparisons deleted ]
Not to mention, that the F21 die is 3/4 empty and I bet that Chuck is
working on putting memory there, which will raise the throughput at least
twice -- to the true 400 MIPs. Jeff, is that right?
--
Penio Penev <Penev@pisa.Rockefeller.edu> 1-212-327-7423
You forgot to mention one *major* difference: Texas Instruments is a major vendor who will ship large quantities of C6x chips on a credible schedule. As far as I'm concerned, the F21 is still vaporware; the few resources that were working on it were reallocated to the I21 because that's where the financing was. And the I21 is available only packaged in a TV / Internet interface that is not user programmable. Even to a hobbyist such as myself, such things matter. For my application, computer music, were I to start building today, I would be forced to choose between a P21 and some homebrew D/A hardware or a DSP chip that might be slower, and might not have Forth, but that probably would have the D/A hardware bundled on an evaluation board. Or I could spend a *lot* of money and get a refurbished 486/DX4 and a conventional sound card. I don't want to spend the money for the 486/sound card, and I don't want to build *any* hardware other than soldering phono jacks on audio cables. So where does that leave me? With a DSP board controlled by a serial line from my HP100LX; the control code would be in Forth but the DSP code would probably be in assembler.