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Folks Moving right on after some really neat discussion and a little
reflection and some very creative retrospective. My only claim to fame is having produced several Tony – KB9YIG
boards and taken it from creative though to the end user. I thoroughly enjoyed
every minute of it, and have zero regrets. That was a very valuable
lesson when considering what I think we are trying to do here. I also enjoy
keeping in contact the true expert designers of the stuff we are
discussing. Make no mistake I am in awe of the talent this Reflector has put
together. Just go check the subscriber list if you don’t believe me. So far we don’t have a person like Gerald Youngblood who risked
his personal fortunes on a product which we can now buy, and is allowing us
to participate in the creative “future of radio”. Nor do we
have a large group like TAPR which probably sponsors research and development. So
until then collectively we are the producers of this project until someone
takes the risk of making it ‘off the shelf’ . Hopefully this
will have the right combination to make it the future of FPGA. Even though most,
if not all of us are hams, what we are designing has some pretty universal appeal
in a ‘more flexible FPGA development environment’. NOW! Don’t go buying Aria enclosures, they are NOT necessary for this
project. I just happen to like my Aria as a computer enclosure. Apparently Phil
does also. What we decided over the weekend is that we currently have NO enclosure
but MB design will allow for mounting it and project boards in a computer
enclosure. If you are looking ahead, all you have to do at this point is scrounge
an ATX power supply. Or grab an ATX enclosure with power supply off the scrap
heap. Even this is NOT necessary. You won’t need a motherboard to experiment, since When the time comes that we have a motherboard designed and
re-discussed. I will put together a group buy, since this will be a pretty
simple easy to assemble kit. Also the request that the Lionheart be a manufactured unit has been
acknowledged by both Phil_H and Leon since many of us are not SMT assemblers,
and this won’t go anywhere if at least the SMT stuff is mounted. Both
folks have the capabilities of getting either an Alpha or production run
accomplished. Onward and Upward to defining the buss and refining what we need the
Lionheart to be. Thanks Eric |