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Many people claim to want an open-source chip, but end up balking at its price tag, this is exactly why Raptor Engineering's Talos failed. [1] I've pretty much
by filereaper 9y ago
Many people claim to want an open-source chip, but end up balking at its price tag, this is exactly why Raptor Engineering's Talos failed. [1]
I've pretty much given up hope on a non-x86 based chip hitting our desktops, the closest to reach will be ARM.
The economies of scale aren't there, I pretty much end up rolling my eyes at each of these articles.
[1] https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php https://www.raptorengineering.com/TALOS/prerelease.php
- nickik 9y agoThe hole point of a free ISA is that many different people can produce them so that it will reach a economy of scale and chip producers will face competition making dirving down price. Its not garantied to work but its a worty target.
- jeffdavis 9y agoFree is about freedom, not price.
- TheAceOfHearts 9y agoSo, freedom is only for the rich?
- gaius 9y agoIn business there is no "cheap" or "expensive". There is only "worth the money" or "not".
- jeffdavis 9y agoFreedom is sometimes efficient enough that it costs nothing to have freedom. Other times, there are real or artificial barriers that mean freedom has a cost. In those cases, someone has to bear the cost or forego freedom.
- comex 9y agoThat's not the point; the context of the post you replied to was people that "claim to want an open-source chip, but end up balking at its price tag".
- jeffdavis 9y agoExactly, freedom isn't always the cheapest or most efficient.
- microtherion 9y agoWith more producers, you get more competition, but LESS economy of scale, and for a product like this (with demand being limited initially), this was already a critical concern.
- Nomentatus 9y agoA point re manufacturing. Still, you get far more economy of scale than a proprietary niche product would have, plus excellent economy of scale re most chip design - where the real expenses are. Runs will be big enough to get most of the manufacturing benefits from scale.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- abeyer 9y agoYou have a point, but I think there is a reasonable midpoint that Talos missed altogether. RISC-V's move towards RPi/Arduino style mini-systems lets them get a market going at a price point that has some chance to get some uptake early, and hopefully grow from there. Talos seemed amazing, and I was always fond of the ppc/power architecture and wished for something more modern than an old G5 mac, but $7k for a desktop is just more than even most early adopters are willing to do.
- orionblastar 9y agoThat was the Apple Lisa's folly. It cost too much than most early adopters wanted to pay. The PPC was a good brand but Intel out innovated them making faster x86 chips cheaper than PPC makers could. Apple had to move to Intel to compete with Intel PCs running Windows or Linux. Amiga still uses PPC but they are expensive. Arm chips are so cheap to make that there is the $5 Raspberry PI Zero cheapest computer on a chip tech. Risc-V would have to be priced like the Arm chips are, or else there would be no benefit to use them unless you like paying more for an open source chip that is free as in freedom and more expensive.
- wand3r 9y agoI am curious as a total novice why chips and why now? As you said ARM is cheap. For price to performance I don't see why there aren't multi-motherboards coming out. Someone made a 10 raspberry pi MoBo which if it is cost effective would be easier than a cluster. I think it would be awesome if that was scaleable but I am sure there is a reason. It would be cool and save space making a cluster out of 4 of those boards rather than 40 rPis
- yellowapple 9y agoTalos failed because Raptor tried to sell a high-end server in desktop clothing when the market called for maybe a PowerBook at most. They needed to start smaller with something lower-power.