@steckerhalter nah, stole it from someone.
@cheesegrits do you have the source/link?
@steckerhalter for the image? No, I stole it from a friend's Facebook post, who stole it from a Twitter post, who...
@steckerhalter thank you.
Like they say, every child is an artist. People just stop being one for ??? reasons.
@cheesegrits so you are an artist?
@eez musician. Same principle. :)
@cheesegrits I agree but please don't say that to my neighbour's kid who plays flute every damn day...
@core_ivegan could be worse, s/he could play the tuba.
@cheesegrits It has taken me, maybe, 20 years to realize that art isn't necessarily just lines on a piece of paper, or splashes of color, or notes on a musical score.
My home-brew computer designs, according to some, is a waste of my time. For others, it's my addiction. But I've come to realize, working on my Kestrel project is as much an artistic expression of myself as any other creative endeavor.
I realized this when I started by #Kestrel3 project. >>
When I first started my Kestrel-1 computer, I wanted a machine that could compete with the Commodore-Amiga computer, but which ran on a 65816 processor at 14 to 16MHz, and which had maybe 4MB of RAM installed.
It never happened. I was not skilled enough to make it happen then. I had much learning to do. But, I had the equivalent of a crude sketch: a working single-board computer that ran at 4MHz on a Radio Shack breadboard, with all of 32KB of RAM and two I/O ports. >>
I deferred my ambitions to the second computer design, a Kestrel-2. But that wasn't to be either. After a lot of hard work, I finally got a *very* crude approximation working on my very first FPGA development board. It used a home-brew video circuit with a home-brew keyboard controller, with a home-brew processor and home-brew SD card interface. It was fully custom, but it actually worked! But still a far, far cry from my end-goal. >>
It was a 16-bit processor (my very first stack-architecture CPU in fact), coupled to 32KB of program memory and 16KB of black-and-white graphics RAM, and ran at 12.5 MHz. But, like its predecessor, I bit off more than I could chew. The CPU wasn't memory-efficient, and I kept running out of memory even when writing its first operating system. The only successful program I was able to run was a home-made slideshow presentation tool. :)
So, time for a Kestrel-3. >>
I wanted a 64-bit RISC-V processor, and a return to the original Kestrel-1 specs otherwise. Long story short, too ambitious still -- I was able to develop my processor, but by the time I finished that, I was pretty well burnt out with the project and just wanted it to end. This "Kestrel-3" ended up becoming my Kestrel-2DX homebrew computer design. It's a Kestrel-2, but with a 64-bit RISC-V processor. >>
As art goes, the Kestrel-2DX was the first time I could actually feel comfortable with my design. Although I still had 32K/16K memory resources, the RISC-V processor ended up being much more memory efficient, and I could actually afford to write *real* programs with it, that did *real* stuff. I felt good, and for the first time, I felt I had a computer that I could be proud of. (The CPU ran at 6 MIPS performance, BTW, half that of the original Kestrel-2; yet, ran about as fast).
@cheesegrits
It's still not my final vision of what I wanted, so I'm once again working to design a true Kestrel Computer Project. The real Kestrel-3 will now target fully open-source hardware (using Lattice iCE40HX-series FPGA boards), use nothing but open-source tools, etc.
I'll retrofit my CPU to work better and easier with the new design, but this time, I'm *NOT* going to try to add graphics and audio and stuff I originally wanted way back then.
>>
The current goal is to just make a Kestrel-1, but with the 64-bit RISC-V. Once that basic environment is working, *then* work on the multimedia capabilities of the computer. Once coupled, then I'll finally have the computer I'd originally set out so many years ago.
And you know what? It still won't be the last of my computer designs. Because, for me, this IS my creative outlet.
>>
The point of this tootstorm is to reinforce that flowchart at the very top. I've learned that art doesn't just "come" to you because you want it. When you look at a pretty picture, you're looking at years and years of frustration and effort that went into refining those skills.
It's taken me over 14 years of effort learning how to work with FPGAs to finally be comfortable with even *failing*. Only when that happens, will you then succeed.
Keep on art-ing! Don't give up!
@cheesegrits define "art"
@cheesegrits is this from you? it's great ๐