

64+2 core Parallella board offered for pledges above $750 on Kickstarter - visionscaper
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adapteva/parallella-a-supercomputer-for-everyone/posts/336213

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jws
There is only so much mindshare that can fit in a headline, but don't forget
that there is also a 28k logic cell FPGA on that ARM processor.

This board has about everything you could want in a hardware hacking board.

• Normal, well supported, ARM processors for the easy stuff. USB and HDMI in
case you want to interact.

• Gigabit ethernet. Most ARM boards you find are 100mbit.

• Sanely programmable array of processors for bulk processing.

• FPGA for heavy hacking. Also very handy for interfacing to devices, let it
handle the low level timing sensitive stuff.

• About 40 GPIO, but since they are connected to the FPGA you can turn them
into higher level interfaces. It appears that the HDMI output is built this
way.

• Community momentum. There are 3400 people behind this already. 5 signed up
while I was spell checking this comment.

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dkhenry
However if I read their block diagrams correctly you can't use the FPGA and
the Epiphany at the same time ( e.g. they use the FPGA to interface with the
Epihpany Core ). Still if they give easy access to reprogram the FPGA they not
only made an awesome Parallel computer, but also the only platform I know of
to easily get into FPGA hacking.

The FPGA is the most under reported part of this project.

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lonetech
The FPGA is indeed doing the glue logic to the Epiphany, but that's only one
of its functions; there's plenty of space left for other jobs, one of which is
HDMI output. They do plan easy access to reprogram the FPGA, but since Xilinx
synthesis tools are only available on x86, you'll also need a PC to make new
FPGA configurations.

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dkhenry
Will we have the source for the module that ships with the board so we can
synth both it and some custom logic to go along with it ?

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adapteva
YES, you will get the source code for the FPGA logic.

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sami36
Most high-profile Kickstarter projects raise 20 % or more of their total
pledges in the last 48 hours. If you check the pledge total trendline on
Kicktraq , you'll see that it aligns pretty close with that number. I disagree
with a previous commenter. They've delivered enough proof as far as their
ability to deliver. The problem is their "old" pitch was targeted towards
developers & there is just not enough of these on Kickstarter to raise 750k,
only yesterday did they fine-tune their selling points & replaced the project
video with one that's more likely to resonate with mainstream users (Ubuntu,
media center, a Rapsberry Pi on roids etc..) I wish them nothing but the best.

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ZenoArrow
It's definitely possible to raise this money. The rate of funding has
increased a lot over the past day or so. Think about it like this, if they
average about $4600 an hour for the next 32 hours they'll make $147200 more,
which will take them over the goal. Watch the funding for an hour or two and
you'll see it's definitely going to be close to making it, just need an extra
push to get there.

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ZenoArrow
Just to follow up on this, if you'd like a visual representation the funding
pattern over the duration of the project, the graph found here will be of
interest: <http://canhekick.it/project/5064d31d8f647c24e5ad60d0>

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dwwoelfel
That's my site!

I set the Parallella project to update every 5 minutes instead of every hour,
but the website serves the project page from a TTL-cache with a 1 hour
expiration.

If you want to see a more up-to-date graph, you can hit up the API:
[http://api.canhekick.it/graph.svg?id=5064d31d8f647c24e5ad60d...](http://api.canhekick.it/graph.svg?id=5064d31d8f647c24e5ad60d0&width=600)

Added in edit: Anyone is welcome to make use of the API in their own
applications. There is documentation[1] and I'm very accessible if you have
unique requirements.

[1] <http://canhekick.it/api-docs>

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abengoam
The site looks great. One piece of feedback: middle-clicking using Chrome a
project name in the home page browses to it in the same page; the expected
behavior is to be open in a separate tab. Other links (such as the ones in the
footer) behave normally.

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dwwoelfel
Thanks! The fix will show up the next time I deploy. Which might be a while --
my revision control discipline on this project isn't as good as it could be.

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abengoam
Sounds good, good luck!

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jivatmanx
What uses would something like this have? What types of tasks are processor
intensive?

Video encoding, speech/face recognition? Computation that normally a GPU would
do?

I bought a 16/core but I'm not sure what I'll use it for other than to run
Linux.

I really hope that someone develops a distributed computing client (for
Folding/Boinc) that would run on this and take advantage of it. Than I would
buy a 64/core

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visionscaper
More and more consumer applications need high computing performance and a
tighter integration of memory and computation. You already mentioned a few
examples yourself.

However, I think that the most interesting thing about this parallel computing
platform is that it's completely open. This will allow a community formed
around it to create new, unthought of, innovative, applications with it.

Edit : improved wording

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johanvdp
I have no doubt they can deliver (the engineering samples do work) but the
target audience is small and until there are multiple working applications.
The concept, general purpose parallel computing, is the way forward. So if you
like to learn and tinker, this is one of the few if not only way to get access
a development board at a very low cost. Backing them does not cost you
anything if the pledge is not successful. If you want to have access to a
cheap development board then back them. I do.

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xradionut
I'd like to see them succeed. The sweet spot I would love to use for this
technology would be portable SDR, just like one of their app notes states.
It's a pain dragging a powerful laptop into the field just to do some rote
signal processing for an radio.

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SamuelKillin
Man, they've been pushing this hard and it looks like it will pay off. They'll
make the 750.

Raising 750k in 30 days is no small feat and is awesome market validation.
This should really help them raise more investment and keep growing.

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alexchamberlain
It's asking a lot to raise $150000 in 33 hours...

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madmaze
True, im afraid its unlikely they will make it. I would really like this
Kickstarter campaign and ultimately this project to succeed, but I believe
they have not delivered sufficient proof that they are capable of delivering
the product they are promising.

If this post manages to stay on the front page, they may get enough traction,
but still unlikely

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visionscaper
Hi Madmaze, why do you think that they have not delivered sufficient proof?

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Vivtek
Huh. They've picked up over $50K as I've been watching. I think they'll make
it, at this point - they're over $700K.

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visionscaper
Yes, this morning when I submitted this thread, funding was around $595K.
Amazing how fast the funding rate picked up!

