[Oberon] ProjectOberon on FPGA

[skulski at pas.rochester.edu]

J:

> Seriously though, just to push the boundary a bit more:
> you think you can set up 2 parallel oberon cores for us in an FPGA?

Concerning two cores, why only two? RISC5 is an ideal platform for
multicore designs similar to Parallella.org from or Propeller from
Parallax.com. Check out the specs. IMHO this would be an ideal direction.
However, going there (or anywhere else) would require forming a commercial
company. A loosely coupled band of enthusiasts is unlikely to agree on
this, or on anything else for that matter.

> We can build a mini Beowulf, software wise it should be doable as long as
> we dont get too fancy,

Beowolf was designed for large scale high performance computations. RISC5
is not powerful. It is small and flexible. This kind of soft core would be
great for on-chip designs like I mentioned above.

> Unless of course someone would be so kind to release the Xoberon system
> sources, but I have little hope.
> Just as way of processing 2 streams of data at once.

Our next design is processing thirty two streams at a rate that are
outside reach of any CPU, either hard or soft. Even Parallella would not
be able to keep up. The approach in such a case is to set up the pipeline
loosely named a "bucket brigade". One day I will write a textbook on such
things, but first I need to retire.

> Depending of course how much Bram is available.
> ( you note, I did do some more reading about what you are up to)

The only book that I am aware of is the one by Sadrozinski and Wu. There
are tons of journal articles, but these are hard to comprehend for a non
specialist. In a month or so our grad student will defend a thesis where
he put together a complete system. It should be available on the web.

W.