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Re: What is greenarrays up to lately?

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On 3/18/2015 7:44 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> writes:
>> [Schmartboard] Thanks Paul, found it now, but it seems just a chip, I
>> was expecting a minimum working system.
>
> Yeah, there's just the GA eval board for that.  Rickman had an interest
> in making a simpler dev board product, but I think there was not enough
> interest to make it worth his while.  If you want to buy a lot of them
> then you and he should talk ;-).

Now I understand what he was complaining about.  Yes, the Schmartboard 
device is just the chip mounted on a board, not even a very good mount 
as they don't really provide for decoupling capacitance.  I think it was 
a compromise between a general purposes carrier for the package size of 
the GA144 and something actually like an eval board.  Thing is I have 
never seen another device in that package so I suspect Schmart doesn't 
sell many of these without a GA144.  They should have at least added caps.


>> This is why I wrongly assumed that this word set would have been
>> somewhere as a GA1 - just as simple core in SW.
>> Anybody could then link as many as necessary and run it - look at it,
>
> It isn't all that simple.  Besides just interpreting the instruction
> set, you probably want debugging and monitoring capabilities to trace
> what's happening in the cores, you have to simulate the communication
> on-chip and off, and you probably want to be able to perturb the timings
> of individual cores in order to check for or debug the usual race
> conditions and other timing faults.  Overall it's a nontrivial amount of
> programming.  It's been done a few times in various languages.
> Arrayforth is the one I know of that's in Forth, though the dialect is
> apparently Colorforth.
>
>> at least this would be my approach, simulated in a free Forth like VFX.
>
> VFX isn't free, unless you count the limited evaluation version.  It's
> very full featured and high performance though, more so than any of the
> free Forths.  There are some other Forths that are free, though less
> fancy than VFX.

If I understand what he is asking, I think his approach might actually 
work.  The GA144 has 144 async nodes.  So making them async in software 
should be entirely suitable.  Comms would be programmed just as it works 
on the chip, write to another node and stop the simulating until the 
word is read.

I guess the idea of single stepping gets a bit messy when the processors 
are async.  Still, that is all in the existing simulator in a limited 
extent.


>> During simulation speed is not necessary.
>
> The GA144 with all nodes going at once is stupendously fast, like 1000
> GHz adding everything up.  If your simulation is 1000x slower you're
> doing pretty good.  That drastically affects how useful it is.  You
> probably want to use a multicore PC running a parallel simulation,
> complicating the software even more.  I don't know if Arrayforth Softsim
> attempts this.

Reminds me of an airplane engine I heard about near the end of the 
propeller days.  It had a separate turbocharger on each cylinder.  The 
total horsepower generated by all the turbos was more than the power 
delivered to the prop!  The GA144 is a bit like that.  Lots of MIPS, but 
they can't be harnessed quite so literally.  So I look at it like I do 
hardware.  I don't care if a gate is only toggling at 0.1% of it's max 
rate.  I care if it is doing the job I need it to do.

Don't call the F18s CPUs.  Call them logic and maybe people will quit 
worrying about keeping them running at full tilt.


>> How many people on here:
>>      Have bought a chip or a system
>>      Have done some applications or tests with it
>>      Are using it in a design?
>> Is this product commercially viable and why and in which application?
>
> I know a few people here have bought the GA144 or its predecessor, the
> 40 core Seaforth chip, and done things with them, including the hearing
> aid that Rick mentioned, plus various research projects.  I don't know
> of any products with it that have actually reached the point of being
> manufactured and sold, but some have reached various stages of
> development and demos.

It is entirely possible that there are GA144s being sold in products. 
If there is an NDA GA can't tell us.  A company selling a product might 
not want anyone to know what is inside.  If I were using the GA144 in a 
product, I wouldn't want anyone to know.  GA is not a very sturdy 
company and the customer might have concerns about the longevity, lol


> The GA144's commercial viability I guess can only be shown by products
> around it being shipped and we can't say that has happened til it
> happens.  A few of us have tried to figure out ways to use it, but found
> it had too many annoying limitations for the apps that we thought of.
> It seems like a "version 1" product that is very interesting and has
> cool ideas, but is not really there yet.  There has been mention of a
> 32-bit version in the works, that may be more usable.

I'm not holding my breath that the 32 bit version will be better unless 
they listen to the complains of what is wrong with it.  I have not seen 
an indication that anyone really recognizes the problems with the GA144. 
  Personally, I don't think the 18 bit word size was one of them.

-- 

Rick

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What is greenarrays up to lately? polymorph self <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2015-03-11 21:54 -0700
  Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-15 14:08 -0700
    Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-15 19:10 -0700
      Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? polymorph self <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2015-03-16 21:58 -0700
        Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-17 12:19 -0700
          Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-17 13:24 -0700
    Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-03-16 18:03 +0000
    Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-03-16 19:42 +0000
      Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-17 16:26 -0400
        Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-03-19 11:24 +0000
          Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 00:12 -0400
            Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-03-21 23:03 +0000
              Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-21 21:14 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-22 00:38 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-22 18:35 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 16:18 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-23 01:06 +0100
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-22 22:20 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-23 08:02 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-23 16:13 -0400
                Offer + Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-04-08 09:51 +0100
                Re: Offer + Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-04-10 00:47 -0400
    Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-17 16:24 -0400
      Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-17 13:57 -0700
        Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-17 14:36 -0700
          Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-17 16:36 -0700
            Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Dennis Ruffer <daruffer@gmail.com> - 2015-03-18 07:00 -0700
            Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-18 15:54 -0700
              Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-18 19:27 -0400
              Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-18 16:44 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-18 20:24 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-19 07:22 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-03-19 22:20 +0000
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-20 00:14 +0100
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-20 08:24 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-20 15:30 +0000
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-20 08:49 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-20 09:04 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-20 20:32 +0100
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 12:31 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-20 19:44 +0100
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-20 08:20 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 00:22 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 03:07 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-20 08:41 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 12:49 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2015-03-21 13:29 +0000
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 12:43 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-20 09:48 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-19 07:34 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-19 13:23 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 00:51 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-20 21:05 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-21 04:04 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-21 09:16 -0700
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-21 14:02 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 00:39 -0400
                Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-03-19 07:15 -0700
          Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-03-18 00:09 -0700
            Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-18 00:23 -0700
            Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? lynx <rinkasu@kaze.void.null> - 2015-03-19 23:40 +0000
        Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-17 23:16 -0400
    Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-03-18 11:05 +0000
  Re: What is greenarrays up to lately? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-03-22 22:38 -0400

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