Re: Funding

["Lloyd R. Prentice" <pai@xxxxxxxx>]

Wow! The creativity and generosity welling up from this list is
inspiring.

At risk of misinterpreting someone's views, let me try to synthesize the
suggestions to date.

Dan Rinnert invokes the first law of Forth: Keep it simple. He suggests:

>a fee-based
>monthly eMail newsletter, for $10/$20/$30/whatever per year.  If Jeff could
>include a status report, and others submit ideas and how-to's and so forth,
>this could be a useful resource as both a funding source and an evangelising
>tool.  No squabbles over ownership since contributors are purchasing a
>product (the newsletter) and not buying shares of the company or anything. 
>If someone would volunteer to put together and distribute the newsletter to
>subscribers, costs are very minimal and the majority of money collected would
>go straight into the "High Tech Fund". 


Vic Plichota seconds the motion and further advocates:

> the T-shirt idea.

Vic also likes the open source model for technical contributions by
supporters.

Mark Tillotson throws some valuable concrete resources into the pot, but
suggests that it is essential that the F21 go through at least one more
fab round: 

>I would like to second the motion that we interested parties
>on the MISC list get more involved.  I also do not have much
>money to contribute to the effort, but I would be very willing
>to spend time and creative energy in a collaborative venture.
>I am a mechanical designer and amateur programmer with z80
>assembler and forth skills.  I also have many friends at the
>company I work for whom I may be able to talk into
>contributing in some way (http://www.ctf.com).  One tool which
>I have access to is an electron microscope which might be
>useful in verifying a chips physical characteristics. Another
>is a CNC mill for making prototype cases, robotic parts etc.
>Others on this list probably have their own special skills and
>abilities, which they could bring to this project.  Why don't
>we all try to list these so that Jeff and others will know
>what resources they can call on?  If Jeff can find ways in
>which we can all work together, we may yet find a way of
>making his F21 dream a reality.

>In regard to the matter of money:  While Jeff and we readers
>of the MISC list may see the current performance of the F21d
>as validating the chip, others will probably have difficulty
>seeing beyond the fact that it can only execute one
>instruction per word. Therefore, there will probably need to
>be another fab run in order to convince others that F21 is a
>viable chip for use in their products.

Luis Commins wonders whether a newsletter would generate enough money.
He also
stressed that his contribution was a "no strings attached" way of giving
something back to Jeff.

Francois-Rene Rideau stresses the value of mind share; feels that a tee
shirt is a good way to help achieve it. 

>The T-shirt idea reminds me of a speech by a guy from AdaCore Technology
>(maker of the free software GNU ADA compiler, www.gnat.com) at the french
>free software conference "Autour du Libre 1999" this january.
>He told us that in the free software model, the value of a company
>is not in its intellectual property (EVIL),
>but in its *technological advance* and its *mindshare*,
>that is, in its *human capital*, rather than in *priviledges*.
>Looks like a much more human-friendly business model than
>intellectual property, to me.
>As an example of successful mindshare, the conferencer explained that
>people developing Java at Sun didn't pay their lunches,
>whose cost was covered by the sale of Java T-shirts!!!

Francois-Rene also proposes a very intriguing way of developing support
for the F21:

>I am convinced that the free information approach applies to hardware design
>as well as to software development: ultimately, design labs would license
>their designs under free information license (à la GPL), and which labs
>gets the dough from the users (directly or indirectly, through integrators
>and makers) are those who attract and keep mindshare by their continued
>technological advance.

>Perhaps the people to contact would be system integrators who *use*
>embedded processors: *they* are the ones who would benefit from a
>business model without intellectual property. It would provide them
>with security against makers of proprietary chips.

His post included a number of other provocative ideas and questions,
including:

>PS: on a more technical matter, although I do appreciate
>Chuck Moore's work on optimizing processes by challenging specs
>and using parts beyond "safe", well-charted, linear digital behavior areas,
>why not just publishing "slow" parts that share the same logical behavior,
>but staying within specs, and taking advantage of standard
>(and perhaps faster) processes? 

Lonnie Reed has an important question about the next F21 fab run: 

>I was wondering how much it costs, to fab an f21. It looks like $1k per chip
>for 25 chips = $25k. How much for say 100 chips? How many does it take before
>prices begin to drop? 

Lonnie is interested in: 

>making a "PC" out
>of a handful of f21 series chips. i would like a machine like the C64 or
>something, that had a specific hardware layout, instead of PC's where you
>have to write code to support many different hardwares. If the machine
>design is "static" it seems like you can squeeze more out of the hardware
>as people write software for it. 


 Tim Hendtlass likes the fee-based newsletter idea and would like:

>a simple way to send over
>a contibution - without stuffing around getting checks in US$.


Myron Plichota resubmitted a generous offer to develop a PCB for testing
F21. He needs additional technical information, however.

Vic Plichota urges that all money contributed to the F21 development
effort:

>be used to further F21 development,
>in whatever way is called-for as circumstances dictate

M. Simon also resubmitted an offer to develop a test PCF for F21.

Graeme Dunbar likes the newsletter idea because: 

>It is something appropriate 
>to the cause and makes good use of the resources available. 

He further contributed on outstanding idea:

>I know some user supported enterprises operate a debit card type 
>scheme. For example the lojban group (public domain offshoot of 
>the Loglan Institute) accept donations and in return subscribers 
>can request goods over a period of time up to that value. Many 
>small family history groups operate in a similar way where 
>donations are used to support the coordinators photocopying, 
>postage and phone charges. 

Soeren Tiedemann seems to have captured the spirit of the list:

>" JEFF, WE NEED YOU, the world would be so sad
>without your war stories and your intellectual power.! "

>I think... (the) list of things to recognize or think about is mostly
>complete. Everyone can build his own opinion. Let's communicate and work
>together.

*************

I apologize if I've misrepresented or omitted any important ideas or
views.

In my view, some important issues have been brought out here:

1) Several people offered resources to create a test PCB for F21. 

Questions: What's needed to make it happen? What's the most expedient
way to thoroughly test and characterize the current chip?

2) Two people noted the importance of proceeding through the next fab
run.

Questions: How much will it cost? Is it feasible to increase the size of
the yield to bring per/chip cost down? If so, is there a way to
"pre-sell" the chips to reduce the risk?

3) Lonnie Reed suggested an interesting application for F21. It seems to
me that it is in everybody's interest to have a simple, versatile,
perhaps "open source," reference platform for F21, including all
hardware and sufficient software to build a diversity of applications. 

Questions: What's the most expedient way to make this happen? Can such a
platform be a viable product to help fund on-going development of F21
and MISC technology? Is Francois-Rene's idea of approaching systems
integrators practical? How could it be implemented?

4) Two ideas emerged to help with short-term funding: 1) a fee-based
newsletter; 2) a tee-shirt. 

Questions: Can these generate enough money to make a difference? How
would they be implemented? Can other such "products" be developed and
marketed through Jeff's store or other channels?

***********

At the moment, I see in my mind a tree. The roots are the effort that
Jeff has expended to date and the support that people on this list and
elsewhere are able to provide. The trunk is a fully functioning F21 on a
reference platform with good support software. The branches and leaves
are hundreds... thousands of possible applications.

I think it's fair to say that this tree will bear no fruit until the
trunk is strong. The fruit will come to Jeff in the form of chip sales
and/or royalties and ancillary revenue from software, support and
consulting. It will come to people on the list from the satisfaction of
helping to make a contribution to a valuable new technology, enhancement
of personal technology skills, and as valuable new market opportunities
for applications and consulting, and perhaps... just the fun of playing
with the F21.

The basic question: Can this small group, with Jeff leading, bring into
being sufficient resources to make the trunk stand tall?

Best wishes,

Lloyd R. Prentice