[f-cpu] F-CPU Project : what's going on

[whygee@xxxxxxxxx]

Hello !

While the discussions about CPU features restarted,
I was trying to rebuild or cleanup the web estate.
I'm taking the lead on many fronts, and I welcome
help from other volunteers, I just ask them to be
dedicated and long-term focused :-)


The seul.org mailing list :

I recovered the admin rights and cleaned up the subscribers list.
It was cut in half, from almost 150 to a bit more than 70.
The recent census indicates that we are 24 active/valid users,
which is better than I thought :-)

The SNR is getting better in my inbox after many manipulations.
I still get error messages and bounces from redirected addresses
that I can't link to the original mailing list address.
For example I keep getting bounces from mail.chem.itb.ac.id,
I have no way to know which of the 50 unconfirmed addresses
redirects there.

Some websites that host several subscribers sometimes complain,
because there are too many bounces on one closed/inactive account,
and it discard messages that legitimate users should receive.
For example, users of free.fr are encouraged to use a different address,
"just in case", to be sure that they get everything.

A few times, I considered closing, or moving, the mailing list, but it
is the real center of the project and we wouldn't get
anywhere without this community. After all, 24 people are still
subscribed after maybe 12 years of inactivity, so they must be
dedicated :-) Deleting the list would kill the project...

Other groups, lists or whatever might appear, to redirect
specific discussions. Of example, I just created
https://www.facebook.com/FreedomCPU to reach other people.
I'll have to find a solution for F-GPU, if there is any.


For the website :

The f-cpu.org domain name is renewed often,
at this moment it is valid until 2021.
f-cpu.com has expired looong ago and it's now cybersquatted.

f-cpu.org redirects to f-cpu.seul.org.
As some probably already know, the accounts that
seul.org generously provided are frozen, after their
server at MIT got hacked. So the starting page
for f-cpu.org is an old, frozen and broken site
which contains historic files.

I'll point the DNS to a different host.
I recently rented a new server for this purpose but
I just got an offer for a host in Switzerland,
I will decide soon, when I'll have contents to upload.

I also steward other more or less related domain names :

 - opengraphics.org, a project managed by
     Timothy Normand Miller and redirected to a different
     server, frozen as well. With the Nyuzi, a GPU
     core under development, it will restart as well,
     and I'm helping a tiny bit with the web stuff.
     We might as well share :-)

 - f-gpu.org : I got the domain name and that's where
     I'll upload development notes, files, resources etc.
     for the design of the boards. Like yasep.org, it will
     be rather brittle but that's where actual things will
     happen. When a feature becomes stable, f-cpu.org is
     updated accordingly.

Iznogood told that his french page is broken but not dead :
http://iznogood-factory.org/pub/fcpu/indexfcpu.html
Hopefully we'll harmonise all this.


The contents

Ideally, f-cpu.org will contain curated archives
and the latest stable specifications (the F-CPU manual)
as well as links to the active subprojects and other resources.
It would be pretty static, though having a "tribune"/board
(in PHP) would be awesome :-)

Just to get started, I converted the old F-CPU logo to a clean,
hand-written, and compact SVG file. It is not 100% accurate
but the original file was not very precise. So at least
now all future logos will be identical.

The bulk of hacking and development will take place on f-gpu.org.
It will use the HTML5 interface of yasep.org, which needs to
be reviewed from the ground up. All the interface guts are described
and explained at ygwm.org to improve maintenance and reuse.
I must reorganise many files and update the coding style,
it will then become CPU-agnostic and hopefully new CPUs
could share the same interface. Can you imagine heterogenous
multicore simulation in your web browser? :-)


License

I have adopted the GNU Affero GPL v3.
It is compatible with our existing code but it is even more "free",
with the "network clause". This is both stronger and easier for
everybody, since an implementation only needs to provide a link
to its source code. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html
I will use this license for everything, including documentation
and VHDL code, because all the files will be provided online.


Architecture

When enough tools become stable enough, I'll continue working
on FC0, though I should change the name of the new version because
it's not focused on ASIC, but on FPGA.
I will target the latest Microsemi chips : Igloo2/SmartFusion2
http://www.microsemi.com/products/fpga-soc/soc-fpga/smartfusion2#product-tables
I'll start with a small TQFP144 Igloo2 (cheap and easy to solder)
while preparing a board with a M2S050 (the largest that is supported
by the gratis tools, with plenty of gates, RAM and 2* 36-bits SECDED 
DDR3 channels).

All the target-dependent features will be abstracted or available as
portable VHDL code, for simulation and use on other targets.
For example, I currently have several boards with AFS1500 FPGAs
that should have enough features to test some architectural features.
It will be slower and the RAM is smaller but we should start somewhere,
and as much as possible, from what we already have. So there it is.

Other platforms are possible, proposals are welcome, but think about
"are others able to do what I do with no entry barrier ?"


F-GPU

the "Fun Gaming Platform Unit" is a Hardware Integrated Development 
Environment.
It is agnostic of any host computer and provides us with a uniform 
platform
to develop F-CPU and even other microprocessor cores. The hardware could
be retargeted for other applications, the example of a gaming console is
just to stimulate ideas.

F-GPU is made of two PCB :
 - the host PCB controls most I/Os, power, network...
 - the guest PCB is a replaceable module with a high performance FPGA 
and RAM.
It is not going to be super cheap like a portable game console but
it should have these properties :
 - be very easy to hack, build, clone, with easily available parts
   (multiple sources if possible) and a PCB that can be hand-soldered.
   Well, the guest module can be expensive, but for cheaper 
alternatives,
    a less powerful FPGA or chip can be used instead. With less 
performance.
 - connect an RJ45 Ethernet cable between the unit and your computer,
   and voilà ! you have a web interface to develop, simulate, emulate,
   debug, reflash and otherwise control the host FPGA.


Contributors

Help is welcome !

Discussions about features will not be fruitful because we had
a pretty decent base in y2k. It is the result of many, many discussions
that have been settled. The system is far from frozen so
it will evolve, as we try to use F-CPU for new applications
and discover its shortcomings. But I try to avoid feature creep.

However, practical help is worth more than 2 cents.
You can help with betatesting and translations to your language.
I usually write the french and english versions but german and spanish
are welcome, to name only the couple of languages with enough 
volunteers.

On the software side, there is a need for compiler gurus, library 
writers,
kernel wizards...

On the hardware side, if you have actual experience designing, laying 
out
and soldering PCB for FG484 BGA chips, contact me ! I can do some nice
boards already but BGA is still out of my league.

If you have direct contacts with FPGA or ASIC companies,
please contact them, we'll need their help.



Summary


We had an architecture in 2002 but the lack of suitable free tools,
experience, means and organisation led to a lot of fatigue and we ran in 
circles.
Many people of this list now have good practical experience and I'm
reorganising things based on my experience with my "toy CPU".
Let's now work on the development/implementation tools (embodied in
the F-GPU), and the really important architectural questions will
appear little by little. This way, we will not only have a CPU,
but also all the tools needed to develop our own systems,
with as few hassless and barriers as possible.

Have a nice week everybody !

yg
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