[Oberon] Risc-5 Instructions statistics

[Walter Gallegos]

jorg,

Commercially, I use BlackBox since old days, in some of my drawers must 
have an original BlackBox Cd, buy many years ago. BlackBox is very 
attractive tool for non software experts or researcher ( as me ) to 
build testing and configuration tools for my hardware in FPGA. In same 
cases linked with proprietary libs written in others languages. This is 
my industrial world.

 >> It's not the pure cost but the FPGA's flexibility that is important 
to the SW researcher.

Here the key, for growing our community, Oberon/RISC5 solution need 
break the barriers of software research and be attractive for the 
industry. Quality and cost are important, this was one of the reasons 
for build my own RiscCore, a Risc-5 customized version in VHDL.

Regards,

Walter


El 19/2/19 a las 10:20, Jörg escribió:
> Walter
>
> I can understand your point of view. You are adding and comparing costs of different HW elements.
> You are creating new HW and obviously are wondering: "what elements should I use to make my HW design as cost effective as possible"
> And yes, it's reasonable to say (form your point of view): why take an expensive FPGA to build a CPU, when there exists a cheap ARM CPU.
> Now: why are you creating new HW in the first place? Most probably because you are not happy with the existing mainstream HW out there.
>
> So, the same might happen to SW developers as well: they might want to build something new, as they are not happy with the existing mainstream SW.
> With mainstream I mean C programing language, gcc and Linux.
> Perhaps you are "just" user of gcc and Linux and never asked yourself what it needs to have gcc generating code for your CPU.
>
> If you want to explore and research new SW paradigms, it all starts with the programming language, the compiler for it and later the operating system.
> Writing a compiler for a CPU is doable but not an easy task. If the SW developer starts comparing costs, he wants to reuse his code as much as possible as this approach is the cheapest for him. Now instead of adapting a compiler to a mainstream CPU, it might be cheaper (for him) to invent a "new CPU" that fits to his compiler.
>
> With FPGA it is reasonably easily possible to build an own CPU. For sure it's less expensive than to build a new ASIC just for you ( When you introduce a new SW element to your programing language (like eg interrupt handlers), you might need to adapt your programming language, your compiler and after all even need new CPU instructions. FPGA allows you to do exactly this. It's not the pure cost but the FPGA's flexibility that is important to the SW researcher.
>
> br
> Jörg
>
> Am 19.02.19, 13:30 schrieb "Oberon im Auftrag von Walter Gallegos" <oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch im Auftrag von waltergallegos at vera.com.uy>:
>
>      Hi Wojtek,
>      
>      I try to post on Oberon list, no success after many days...
>      
>      Yes for me the focus is the special hardware not the micro-controller.
>      In FPGA arena this must be the focus, let me try to explain for what I
>      insist at point.
>      
>      Industry rules have well know constraints.
>      
>      To use a 28 USD chip I need justify that this chip provide the best
>      solution. A basic rule in industry is : a project use FPGA because is
>      the only practical solution if not use a micro-controller.
>      
>      In this context, chose a bigger component adding 6.44 USD (+23%) to the
>      costs when an ARM cost around 3.5 USD could be hard to justify. Beside
>      the cost of a chip is the development cost that in case of ARM is
>      significantly lower because it is a better know component than an FPGA.
>      
>      Combined this cost with Paul numbers I could conclude that in the case
>      of DSP blocks for multiplication adding 23% to the cost of each unit
>      optimize only 0.16% of the software. A questionable conclusion, I agree,
>      but illustrate the type of analysis that we need do.
>      
>      Can be argument that for cases where multiplication is lot much used the
>      software be optimized lot more, but the bottle neck, again based in Paul
>      number, are load and store operations. If a project have lot of math
>      build a dedicated processor ( a fixed state machine ) in hardware. I use
>      this approach all times for DSP as image processing, filtering,
>      convolutions, interpolation, etc.
>      
>      This is the mind switch that many software designers need be to do for
>      work with FPGA. If not they are using a costly all terrain truck as a
>      compact car.
>      
>      I insist because I would like to see a growing community but for that it
>      has to fit into the industry and play by it rules.
>      
>      Feel free to post this in Oberon list.
>      Regards,
>      
>      Walter
>      
>      
>      --
>      Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
>      https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon
>      
>
>
> --
> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems
> https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon

-- 
Walter Daniel Gallegos
Programmable Logic
Consultorí­a, Diseño, Entrenamiento.
walter at waltergallegos.com | www.waltergallegos.com
Tel +598 26 23 44 60 | Cel +598 99 18 58 88
Montevideo, Uruguay

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