I might just be the only one who cares about this, but I am excited to see it come to market nonetheless. For those out of the loop, RISC-V is a fully open source microprocessor core that just so...
I might just be the only one who cares about this, but I am excited to see it come to market nonetheless. For those out of the loop, RISC-V is a fully open source microprocessor core that just so happens to be pretty darn fast. This is nowhere near the first time we’ve seen commercial offerings based on it, but it’s one of the most potentially exciting ones for a number of reasons. Most notably, it includes WiFi and Bluetooth and it’s likely to be extremely cheap. If you’re lost about why they keep talking about ESP32 and ESP8266, it’s because there is a tremendous amount of support for them that make them great platforms for the Maker crowd.
While I'm hardly a maker, I'm hoping to see at least a raspberry-pi-equivalent RISC-V computer in the next decade. The entire software stack has been opened, hopefully hardware is next.
While I'm hardly a maker, I'm hoping to see at least a raspberry-pi-equivalent RISC-V computer in the next decade.
The entire software stack has been opened, hopefully hardware is next.
For hardware it's a bit unclear what you get from "open" since you aren't going to be making your own chips. Most important is that it's cheap, well documented, and popular enough that the part...
For hardware it's a bit unclear what you get from "open" since you aren't going to be making your own chips. Most important is that it's cheap, well documented, and popular enough that the part will continue to be sold for a long time. I don't know how much ARM royalties really matter?
Admittedly I also want to make digital instruments. My dream is to make a completely open source OP-1. Or at least a powerful standalone hardware MIDI sequencer But it’s not something that I have...
Admittedly I also want to make digital instruments. My dream is to make a completely open source OP-1. Or at least a powerful standalone hardware MIDI sequencer But it’s not something that I have put a lot of time into yet.
Fundamentally, open hardware enables top to bottom auditing, and easier driver creation. Any reason that is an advantage for open software software applies just as well to open hardware, just that...
Fundamentally, open hardware enables top to bottom auditing, and easier driver creation. Any reason that is an advantage for open software software applies just as well to open hardware, just that the base requirement to build is a bit higher.
An open wifi chip, for example, won't be dependent on the goodwill of the manufacturer to be used with any/every possible OS. There's the librerouter project laying that base, and having that drastically lowers barrier to entry for new entrants to that market.
They've been releasing lower-level embedded stuff recently, so wouldn't surprise me. One of the main reasons they went with ARM in the first place was for easy, cheap access. A popular and...
They've been releasing lower-level embedded stuff recently, so wouldn't surprise me.
One of the main reasons they went with ARM in the first place was for easy, cheap access. A popular and powerful enough RISC-V would suit that need even better.
From what I've read, RISC-V does actually scale up very well, but as I understand it, it doesn't have very good energy efficiency at the higher-performance levels. The reason why the Raspberry Pi...
From what I've read, RISC-V does actually scale up very well, but as I understand it, it doesn't have very good energy efficiency at the higher-performance levels. The reason why the Raspberry Pi computers can get away with the mixture of low price and power is because there has already been a lot of market investment in the chips powering them, which makes them very cheap to buy.
But who knows what the future will bring? I would like to imagine that the Pico was a 'practice run' in designing their own silicon so they can eventually bring out a homebrewed RISC-V based Pi-replacement. The biggest roadblocks I can see is that, as far as I am aware, there is no quality open-source versions of some important peripherals like 3D-accellerated graphics and WiFi.
I'm confident that we'll see a 'desktop' quality RISC-V based system some time in the relatively near future no matter what. I honestly didn't even think of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to be the ones to bring it to us, but if they do I'm sure it will be great!
I'm wondering if it makes sense for something like a game controller. (Actually for a musical instrument.) I'm concerned about the latency when combined with whatever the desktop operating system...
I'm wondering if it makes sense for something like a game controller. (Actually for a musical instrument.) I'm concerned about the latency when combined with whatever the desktop operating system is doing on the other end.
I experimented with MIDI over USB with my last prototype, thanks to Teensy's nice support for it. It seemed okay for a controller sitting on a desk, where wires aren't an issue. But I'd like to...
I experimented with MIDI over USB with my last prototype, thanks to Teensy's nice support for it. It seemed okay for a controller sitting on a desk, where wires aren't an issue.
But I'd like to make the next project wearable and I'm wondering if switching to an ESP32 would simplify it.
I have not, but I figure that it’s a good place to start that can make your project fairly straightforward. Right now I am actually in the process of designing a 3D printed boat from scratch that...
I have not, but I figure that it’s a good place to start that can make your project fairly straightforward. Right now I am actually in the process of designing a 3D printed boat from scratch that I will eventually make remote controlled. But it’s mostly just to gain experience with design tools. I don’t actually have much experience with building electronics projects in general, at least insofar as making anything novel or useful.
Not an expert...but... 160 MHz is 3x faster than my first PC. That first PC had far less latency than most input/output today. USB, wireless, and LCD killed responsiveness.
Not an expert...but...
160 MHz is 3x faster than my first PC. That first PC had far less latency than most input/output today. USB, wireless, and LCD killed responsiveness.
Since it's for playing music, I'm interested in the latency between pressing a button and when sound is played, so video latency doesn't enter into it. But audio latency is often slow on desktop...
Since it's for playing music, I'm interested in the latency between pressing a button and when sound is played, so video latency doesn't enter into it. But audio latency is often slow on desktop OS's too.
One thing that's nice about working with a microprocessor is that you have complete control over the timing and can do low-latency stuff easily. However, there are a lot of nice software synthesizers that require a real OS.
Same general concept applies, interrupt based input will work best. That said, here's a nice guide for lowering linux audio latency: https://juho.tykkala.fi/Pulseaudio-and-latency Followup: Just...
Same general concept applies, interrupt based input will work best. That said, here's a nice guide for lowering linux audio latency:
I might just be the only one who cares about this, but I am excited to see it come to market nonetheless. For those out of the loop, RISC-V is a fully open source microprocessor core that just so happens to be pretty darn fast. This is nowhere near the first time we’ve seen commercial offerings based on it, but it’s one of the most potentially exciting ones for a number of reasons. Most notably, it includes WiFi and Bluetooth and it’s likely to be extremely cheap. If you’re lost about why they keep talking about ESP32 and ESP8266, it’s because there is a tremendous amount of support for them that make them great platforms for the Maker crowd.
While I'm hardly a maker, I'm hoping to see at least a raspberry-pi-equivalent RISC-V computer in the next decade.
The entire software stack has been opened, hopefully hardware is next.
For hardware it's a bit unclear what you get from "open" since you aren't going to be making your own chips. Most important is that it's cheap, well documented, and popular enough that the part will continue to be sold for a long time. I don't know how much ARM royalties really matter?
I had no idea you were also a hardware hacker. Is there no tech that is beyond your reach?
Admittedly I also want to make digital instruments. My dream is to make a completely open source OP-1. Or at least a powerful standalone hardware MIDI sequencer But it’s not something that I have put a lot of time into yet.
It has a critical flaw of not being made by me. 😺
Fundamentally, open hardware enables top to bottom auditing, and easier driver creation. Any reason that is an advantage for open software software applies just as well to open hardware, just that the base requirement to build is a bit higher.
An open wifi chip, for example, won't be dependent on the goodwill of the manufacturer to be used with any/every possible OS. There's the librerouter project laying that base, and having that drastically lowers barrier to entry for new entrants to that market.
They've been releasing lower-level embedded stuff recently, so wouldn't surprise me.
One of the main reasons they went with ARM in the first place was for easy, cheap access. A popular and powerful enough RISC-V would suit that need even better.
From what I've read, RISC-V does actually scale up very well, but as I understand it, it doesn't have very good energy efficiency at the higher-performance levels. The reason why the Raspberry Pi computers can get away with the mixture of low price and power is because there has already been a lot of market investment in the chips powering them, which makes them very cheap to buy.
But who knows what the future will bring? I would like to imagine that the Pico was a 'practice run' in designing their own silicon so they can eventually bring out a homebrewed RISC-V based Pi-replacement. The biggest roadblocks I can see is that, as far as I am aware, there is no quality open-source versions of some important peripherals like 3D-accellerated graphics and WiFi.
I'm confident that we'll see a 'desktop' quality RISC-V based system some time in the relatively near future no matter what. I honestly didn't even think of the Raspberry Pi Foundation to be the ones to bring it to us, but if they do I'm sure it will be great!
I'm wondering if it makes sense for something like a game controller. (Actually for a musical instrument.) I'm concerned about the latency when combined with whatever the desktop operating system is doing on the other end.
I experimented with MIDI over USB with my last prototype, thanks to Teensy's nice support for it. It seemed okay for a controller sitting on a desk, where wires aren't an issue.
But I'd like to make the next project wearable and I'm wondering if switching to an ESP32 would simplify it.
I'll just leave this here.
Have you tried this? What hardware projects have people built?
I have not, but I figure that it’s a good place to start that can make your project fairly straightforward. Right now I am actually in the process of designing a 3D printed boat from scratch that I will eventually make remote controlled. But it’s mostly just to gain experience with design tools. I don’t actually have much experience with building electronics projects in general, at least insofar as making anything novel or useful.
Not an expert...but...
160 MHz is 3x faster than my first PC. That first PC had far less latency than most input/output today. USB, wireless, and LCD killed responsiveness.
Since it's for playing music, I'm interested in the latency between pressing a button and when sound is played, so video latency doesn't enter into it. But audio latency is often slow on desktop OS's too.
One thing that's nice about working with a microprocessor is that you have complete control over the timing and can do low-latency stuff easily. However, there are a lot of nice software synthesizers that require a real OS.
Same general concept applies, interrupt based input will work best. That said, here's a nice guide for lowering linux audio latency:
https://juho.tykkala.fi/Pulseaudio-and-latency
Followup:
Just followed that guide on my laptop, went from ~36ms to ~2ms latency.