Re: gEDA-user: Free Dog meetings at MIT starting this September!

["Samuel A. Falvo II" <sam.falvo@falvotech.com>]

On Monday 23 August 2004 08:41 am, Dave McGuire wrote:
> > Hmm...does a 208-pin FPGA count as wide-pitch?  How about a 128-pin
> > PQFP
> > (which is what the MIPS CPU comes in)?  How about a BGA?
>
>    No, I'm talking about something like SOIC.  Man, those pins are
> just *not that small*.  Let's be realistic here.

I am being realistic.  My kit was a home-brew computer, something on the 
order of complexity of a Commodore 64.  But to implement the custom 
video logic, I was looking for an FPGA-based solution.  The smallest 
FPGA I could find that still fit my needs has 208 pins.

>    So you're advocating using crap tools to assemble circuitry?  If

No.  I'm advocating this: when you're trying to get into the kit-building 
business, you must design your circuit around who your customers are 
going to be.  I already have a full-time job; I don't need to spend the 
remaining waking hours of my already copious time answering technical 
support calls on how they need to, after spending $150 to $200 on a kit, 
invest another $150 to $200 in a good soldering iron.

Like I said, the overwhelming majority of the customers who are 
interested in the Kestrel NEVER built an electronic circuit before.  
Never!  They don't even have breadboards.

> you're really talking to people who have never picked up a soldering
> iron before, then I fear for our profession.  Most of these people
> will give up in frustration with fried components and lifted pads.

David, with a comment like that, I must question where you've been all 
these years.  The homebrew kit industry all but died along with the 
introduction of SMT -- it's not a coincidence as to why.

>    You know, the philosophy of using the right tool for the job is not
> obsolete.

You seem to have this idea in my head that I'm ass-backwards.  Please 
stop.  I've explained no less than three times now that these decisions 
are based purely on a BUSINESS-level decision-making process.  Maybe not 
as bluntly as that, but I was hoping that you might put 2 and 2 together 
by now.  I apologize if I seem frustrated, but I am.  I hate repeating 
myself.

If I don't design my kits around the needs of my customers, nobody will 
buy them.  Ergo, I'm essentially out of business.  It doesn't take a 
rocket scientist to figure this out.

>    Don't fear SMT.  SMT is good. :-)

Again, I don't fear SMT.  Those $22 superscalar MIPS processors are 
awfully appealing to me, and as long as I build for myself exclusively, 
the idea of using $100 FPGA chips isn't that bad to me (seeing as how 
it'll probably replace at least that much cost in combined board space 
and discrete components anyhow).

--
Samuel A. Falvo II