5 ms·

One long-term project I’m planning is actually a fully open source desktop computing platform. While originally meant as a learning project, I realized a few ye

by samtho 3y ago

One long-term project I’m planning is actually a fully open source desktop computing platform. While originally meant as a learning project, I realized a few years ago Ben Eater[0] has done this in a way far superior to anything I could create myself, so I started focusing on very basic hardware, beginning with power supplies. My goal ultimately is to select a processor that is as close to open source as possible, design a motherboard around it, make it fast enough to be suitable for general purpose uses, design a PSU, daughter boards (hot swap SATA backplane, I/O ports), a few PCIe x16 lanes, and ultimately a custom graphics card. Designing the motherboard is surprisingly easy, the way PCIe is setup makes routing high speed connections fairly straightforward, and most I/O chips are just some sort of bus input and the interface output. The hardest part is finding the ICs that actually have good documentation not locked behind an NDA, or have good alternatives as one of my criteria is that every chip I select must have a pin-for-pin drop in replacement available. 6gbs SATA is the hardest one to source. I suspect this problem only will compound if I ever get to creating a graphics card. [0]: https://eater.net/ https://eater.net/

jamesmunns 3y ago
This is something I'm also working on, but using off the shelf hardware for now and working on the OS first[0]. I'm going for something lower spec and portable for now, mostly because there are a fair number of relatively well documented RISC-V processors these days (the single core, 1 GHz C906 CPU inside the SoC probably technically counts as open source!), where it seems feasible to write drivers. I'm not sure it would be a wonderful "full desktop" solution (it's close to the original Pi Zero in terms of performance), but I hope to target larger chips as the OS gets more mature. The i.MX8 they mention in the research paper is actually one of the ones I've considered, it's also used by the MNT Reform (definitely worth a look if you haven't seen it before, and are designing your own larger scale computer!), and the Librem 5 (which I got after many years of waiting, and don't have a ton of use for right now). I actually would like to eventually play around with treating all the "hardware bits" inside of the computer, like the wifi chip, graphics card, etc., more like a distributed system than black boxes, but this generally comes down to writing a lot of the firmware myself (luckily this is a hobby/research project, so "non viable" solutions are still on the table). The more immediate goal for me is something portable, and comparable to a palm pilot/blackberry in terms of performance and capabilities. The current hardware will likely have an ESP32C3 for wifi (32-bit RISC-V), the main D1 CPU (64-bit RISC-V), and an RP2040 (32-bit Arm Cortex-M) for keyboard and IO, so I'll be able to test out some of my "network of tiny computers that make one small computer" ideas. [0]: https://onevariable.com/blog/mnemos-moment-1/ https://onevariable.com/blog/mnemos-moment-1/
- samtho 3y ago
  I love this concept and is why my current designs are littered with E-keyed M.2 ports and the only real I/O is on my board are USB-C and a few USB-As. The advantage is that I can supplement built-in peripherals with USB devices until I build them.
colineartheta 3y ago
Does the Talos II not fit this already?
- LoganDark 3y ago
  Who wants to spend tens of thousands of dollars for that?
  - samtho 3y ago
    Right, I’m not quite sure where it fits within the market. It’s quite pricey for pro-sumer and not enterprise-y enough for larger companies to buy into it.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      It's about the fastest system you can get if you want open hardware. There are people willing to pay a premium for that. It's obviously not going to find a mass market at that price. But maybe they'll make enough money to develop a lower-priced one that can reach more customers.
      - colineartheta 3y ago
        My understanding is their “Blackbird” model is meant to be the lower priced model, though Raptor acknowledges the whole line was never going to be mass market; rather, a well made and open computer for those who want full custody over a “modern”/current desktop or server platform.
      - LoganDark 3y ago
        > There are people willing to pay a premium for that. I wish this existed in the laptop space, where I can't even buy what I want. But the Talos II exists, where you can get 4 threads per core for the low price of... oh, just $8,000. That's almost one and a half MacBooks!

by samtho 3y ago

jamesmunns 3y ago

This is something I'm also working on, but using off the shelf hardware for now and working on the OS first[0]. I'm going for something lower spec and portable for now, mostly because there are a fair number of relatively well documented RISC-V processors these days (the single core, 1 GHz C906 CPU inside the SoC probably technically counts as open source!), where it seems feasible to write drivers. I'm not sure it would be a wonderful "full desktop" solution (it's close to the original Pi Zero in terms of performance), but I hope to target larger chips as the OS gets more mature. The i.MX8 they mention in the research paper is actually one of the ones I've considered, it's also used by the MNT Reform (definitely worth a look if you haven't seen it before, and are designing your own larger scale computer!), and the Librem 5 (which I got after many years of waiting, and don't have a ton of use for right now). I actually would like to eventually play around with treating all the "hardware bits" inside of the computer, like the wifi chip, graphics card, etc., more like a distributed system than black boxes, but this generally comes down to writing a lot of the firmware myself (luckily this is a hobby/research project, so "non viable" solutions are still on the table). The more immediate goal for me is something portable, and comparable to a palm pilot/blackberry in terms of performance and capabilities. The current hardware will likely have an ESP32C3 for wifi (32-bit RISC-V), the main D1 CPU (64-bit RISC-V), and an RP2040 (32-bit Arm Cortex-M) for keyboard and IO, so I'll be able to test out some of my "network of tiny computers that make one small computer" ideas. [0]: https://onevariable.com/blog/mnemos-moment-1/ https://onevariable.com/blog/mnemos-moment-1/

samtho 3y ago
I love this concept and is why my current designs are littered with E-keyed M.2 ports and the only real I/O is on my board are USB-C and a few USB-As. The advantage is that I can supplement built-in peripherals with USB devices until I build them.

colineartheta 3y ago

Does the Talos II not fit this already?

LoganDark 3y ago
Who wants to spend tens of thousands of dollars for that?
- samtho 3y ago
  Right, I’m not quite sure where it fits within the market. It’s quite pricey for pro-sumer and not enterprise-y enough for larger companies to buy into it.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    It's about the fastest system you can get if you want open hardware. There are people willing to pay a premium for that. It's obviously not going to find a mass market at that price. But maybe they'll make enough money to develop a lower-priced one that can reach more customers.
    - colineartheta 3y ago
      My understanding is their “Blackbird” model is meant to be the lower priced model, though Raptor acknowledges the whole line was never going to be mass market; rather, a well made and open computer for those who want full custody over a “modern”/current desktop or server platform.
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      > There are people willing to pay a premium for that. I wish this existed in the laptop space, where I can't even buy what I want. But the Talos II exists, where you can get 4 threads per core for the low price of... oh, just $8,000. That's almost one and a half MacBooks!