I would like to work on a project to make an FPGA-based computer that could be a serious computer system, i.e. usable for personal information security, programming, graphics, games, sharing code and programs, and communication.
Like an fpga-based laptop? Or what?
Kind of. Something portable and accessible for sure, but big enough to have a keyboard and a screen. I really like the form-factor of the Ello 2M:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/yellow-beak-computer/ello-2mI'm just really sick of the state of computers today. It is getting to the point where you can't even trust the hardware in your computer, you have no idea what is going on with the OS, the barrier to creating software is very high, "programming" these days seems to be slapping poorly written libraries together, the "future" is perceived to be in the "browser" (which is the worse software development environment humans ever came up with), etc. blah blah blah.
Hell, I have been programming assembly since 1983 and I can't even say for sure that my Windows 10 computer has not been compromised in some way. I have no interest in spending all my time "maintaining" my computer. I want to use it, play around, write code, share programs with others without worrying that my computer will be compromised, communicate confidentially, and just feel confident that I can trust my computer.
Also, computers a 1000 times faster than the systems I grew up with, so why is it that they are slower to start-up and I'm still waiting on the computer to do things?? All actions on a computer these days should be freaking *instant* from the user's perspective! I don't need the cursor to animate between characters when I'm typing, enough already!
Hell, my TI-99/4A boots faster (instant on) and is more responsive than my modern 3GHz desktop computer. Seconds after powering on a classic computer you could be programming, and that is *very* powerful! No other systems are like that today, and I can't figure out why we lost that ability. Even the Rpi fails to provide a decent environment (it boots into Linux for crying out loud!) What a pain in the ass. And if you try to kick Linux out and build your own OS on the Rpi, you lose access to the video parts since they are proprietary.
Now that you can't even buy a CPU that does not spy on you, I figure the only way to really get a system that you can trust, that is easy to use, and that does not have all the cruft of the x86 architecture, is to just build the system from the ground up. Not what I would like to be doing for sure, but I thought we (the collective "we" that make up the technology world) would have created better systems by now...
I have some CPU architecture ideas that I would like to experiment with, as well as a basic system design. Some of the basic parts would be an FPGA for the CPU, something reasonable like a Spartan 6 LX16 or LX25. Another FPGA for a graphics subsystem and sound, and maybe something like an ARM for controlling interfaces like storage, USB, network, etc. The CPU would clock around 200MHz, and the whole system would be balanced, i.e. the memory subsystem would be as fast as the CPU, network, storage, etc.
This is nothing over-the-top and would be cheap enough that it would be affordable to justify getting one to mess around with. Anyway, that is the quick rant about it. Any takers? ;-)