[Info-vax] Open hardware

[Chris Townley]

On 18/04/2024 19:37, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2024-04-18, John Dallman <jgd at cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> As for RISC-V, who is offering RISC-V 64-bit servers or cloud instances
>> as of now? I count Scaleway, since early March, but they're bare metal
>> servers, *not* Linux ready to run. RISC-V has a lot of hype, somewhat
>> questionable potential, and not very much in service that's suitable for
>> VMS.
>>
> 
> RISC-V only supplies part of the solution. There's only limited utility
> to the CPU architecture being open when the rest of the hardware, GPU,
> onboard memory setup, etc, is still behind heavily restricted datasheets
> and manuals.
> 
> What I would really like to see is a _completely_ open board, including
> GPU and peripheral/memory documentation, with the documentation written
> in enough detail that you could in theory write your own OS from scratch
> without ever having to sign a single NDA or beg for access to some
> restricted documentation.
> 
> Simon.
> 

Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDGV6LTOnk
However Jeff Geerling quotes the company as saying don't buy it!

-- 
Chris