C6A816x/AM389x/DM816x

So, TI’s released a new line of processors, and this was mentioned a while back on TIB. (I couldn’t find any references to it on here quickly, though.)

They all add SATA, PCIe, native gigabit ethernet, and dual display support (although there’s only one HDMI transceiver) to the older chips. The C6A816x and DM816x have a DSP, the DM816x has video inputs (it’s a media processing chip), and the C6A816x and AM389x go 1.5 GHz. (DM816x only goes 1 GHz, just like the DM3730 (used on the Beagleboard XM) that it replaces.)

Now, Trevor Johnson found a thread in which TI said that they were working on a lower cost development board for that family, in Mini-ITX form factor, even. However, it won’t be available until 3rd quarter 2011 – so, we’re sitting ducks, waiting for that thing to come out.

This thing is the best candidate, IMO, for a modern RISC OS desktop machine, given that it has native SATA, native ethernet, and PCIe for expansion, though. So, why wait?

I now see that there’s a bounty system on this site. Would the best way to do this be, propose a bounty, and as soon as it hits the (equivalent of) $1995 necessary to buy the official TI dev board, the bounty would be used to buy the board, and it given to a developer? This way, if things happen quickly enough, the port could actually begin before the target hardware is available. (There’s also a cheaper, older DDR2 version, if that helps. Mouser lists the DDR3 version at £1,414.26, and the DDR2 version at £1,263.78. They have the DDR3 version as non-stock, 16 week lead time, the DDR2 version as 1 on order. TI won’t have the DDR3 version in until early May, but they’ll be the quickest and cheapest, it looks like, for that version.)

Would the best way to do this be, propose a bounty, and as soon as it hits the (equivalent of) $1995 necessary to buy the official TI dev board, the bounty would be used to buy the board, and it given to a developer?

That would probably make sense, considering the cost of the board. However just because you’ve got the board it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’ll be a developer available who’s got enough spare time to work on the port. So you might need one (or more) additional bounties to tempt developers to get involved.

Oh, and I forgot to link to the dev board in the TI store: https://estore.ti.com/TMDXEVM8168-DM816xC6A816xAM389x-Evaluation-Module-P2360.aspx

Another thing that this gets us over the OMAP3530 and DM3730 is support for 165 MHz pixel clocks on the HDMI interface – in other words, we can run 1920×1200 @ 60 Hz, with this.

Maybe the board could be part of the bounty?

That is, the board would be RO*O*L’s property, but if a developer gets the port running, they can keep the board? Most likely, by that point, though, the low cost board will be available.

Edit: Somewhere, an O went missing. That O has now been placed in its rightful place…

the board would be ROL’s property

That way, ROL would be able to test aspects of RO SIX on it too ;-)

they can keep the board

Or it could be returned, and replaced by a low-cost board supplied by ROOL.

If someone credible (i.e. someone who has experience in porting RISC OS to a different platform, like e.g. Jeffrey or…maybe…don’t know anybody else…) would like to have a go at porting RISC OS to this new TI platform – and I agree with Eric that the datasheets look a lot like an ideal desktop platform for RISC OS, I think I mentioned it some weeks ago – and would need this rather expensive development board, I would be prepared to sponsor or at least pre-finance (like I did before with the “GCC for RISC OS initiative”) such an effort.

However, without availability of an inexpensive board for the common user and developer, I am not sure if it is such a good idea, I think it is necessary for the future of RISC OS to concentrade on one platform at a time. Unless of course we somehow gain a whole host of new developers interested in porting RISC OS to all those obscure hardware platforms and become the new NetBSD ;-)

Gah, forgot an O. I’ll go back and edit…

In any case, TI has announced the low-cost board, and announced that it would be in Mini-ITX format. Also, my understanding is that the chip’s architecture is fairly close to the OMAP3 family, and therefore much could be reused.

And, as it’s a race between finishing up a port for a platform and the platform platform becoming obsolete, targeting a solid platform – the first of TI’s that looks to be truly good for what we’re doing – before the low cost option comes out would be a good strategy, IMO. (Then again, one could argue that a single-core Cortex-A8 is already obsolete…)

I’ll just go ahead and send this back to the top…

TI have cancelled this project, although “Later next year, there may be Third parties with lower cost modules”. Maybe best not to believe that!

[Edit: Hasn’t this DM8168 module from Z3 cropped up before? And there’s also dm816x.com (registered 06-jun-2011) and denx.]