• vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 hours ago

    I wonder if it’s economically plausible to make a FPGA-based all-in-one system. In a “smartphone” box, maybe far weaker than most Android phones, but far less tall in expertise needed to do anything, for a low start to be possible without humongous investment and expected minimal parties. Something graphical Lisp-based as an OS. Perhaps with an interface to use it as a tablet when attached to a bigger box, or a laptop when attached to that box.

    Focusing on having the necessary modules and input-output devices, with the FPGA itself being configured with something simple-enough RISC-V based with tagged memory, for example.

    Like when you need a portable computer with cell connectivity and a battery, and want to have some choice, but are not too attached to specific platforms and popular places.

    It seems that for militaries using FPGA is already an established practice, turns out to be more convenient and even cheaper. And with anything trying to fight big companies, it seems using FPGA will make more sense.

    I mean, Sun Tzu wrote about “when you know your enemy and know yourself”, all that. Knowing myself I’m certain that trying to take on anyone bigger and smarter than me using things on their level of complexity is a failure from the start. Knowing them is beyond my ability in general, but we definitely know that those companies are led by very intelligent people who just won’t make the simpler kind of mistakes. And he also wrote a bit on the “death grounds”, where if you leave a path for retreat, that’s not a death ground. I think paths for retreat like alternative Android versions and such are all intentionally let be, so that you’d not resist too much.

    Or, this is sort of a fewer dream, or bipolar psychosis to be more specific.