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RE: what ho?



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From:  Penio Penev[SMTP:penev@venezia.rockefeller.edu]
Sent:  06 March, 1997 20:32
To:  MISC@pisa.rockefeller.edu
Cc:  misc
Subject:  Re: what ho?

On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Eugene Leitl wrote:

> Anybody noticed TI's new TMS C6x family (at http://www.ti.com )?
> At $96 in large quantities, it's a lot bang for the buck. It's not a 
> minimalistic design, but it's there, and it's supported. And 1 MBit 
> on-die core plus 1.2 GOPs is a nice thing to have for under $100.

Remember, that F21 could be $1-2 in 25K lots, so $100 buys you a lot of
F21s.  Right, Jeff? 

[ F21 / C6x comparisons deleted ]

Not to mention, that the F21 die is 3/4 empty and I bet that Chuck is
working on putting memory there, which will raise the throughput at least
twice -- to the true 400 MIPs.  Jeff, is that right? 

--
Penio Penev <Penev@pisa.Rockefeller.edu> 1-212-327-7423

You forgot to mention one *major* difference: Texas Instruments is a major vendor who will ship large quantities of C6x chips on a credible schedule.  As far as I'm concerned, the F21 is still vaporware; the few resources that were working on it were reallocated to the I21 because that's where the financing was.  And the I21 is available only packaged in a TV / Internet interface that is not user programmable.  Even to a hobbyist such as myself, such things matter.  For my application, computer music, were I to start building today, I would be forced to choose between a P21 and some homebrew D/A hardware or a DSP chip that might be slower, and might not have Forth, but that probably would have the D/A hardware bundled on an evaluation board.  Or I could spend a *lot* of money and get a refurbished 486/DX4 and a conventional sound card.  I don't want to spend the money for the 486/sound card, and I don't want to build *any* hardware other than soldering phono jacks on audio cables.  So where does that leave me?  With a DSP board controlled by a serial line from my HP100LX; the control code would be in Forth but the DSP code would probably be in assembler.