(c) yann guidon, 9 fevrier 2000

after Whygee's Sharcpage, now there is :

Whygee's F-CPU page !




          "F-CPU" (don't forget the dash !) means "Freedom CPU" but has also been referenced in this project as "This french CPU" or "The First Chocolate Powered Utopia" or "The First CheesePowered Utopia" :-)

          Analog Devices seems to forget to develop new things, and the F-CPU is now taking off. I am involved in this project for one year and i have contributed for example in the manual, very actively. The organisation of the project is more structured but i'm still a bit hermetic to the new tools, i prefer my vanilla text editor when i write something, so after the 16C3 in berlin i decided to make my own page for this project, just for the heck of it. I'm not alone in this project and i couldn't do it alone anyway, but there is still a lot of things that depend entirely on me : the FC0 core to name the most important thing.
          So, in this page and at this URL, you'll find a lot of babblings, raw ideas that have not yet been organised enough to be included in the manual, or simply : things that have no place in a manual. Of course, this should not be an excuse for not reading it !!!
 


Summary :

          Links
          Public Relations
          We arenot alone
          16C3
          LinuxWorld/LinuxExpo
          Boston
          The "Association F-CPU"
          "F-CPU News"
          The F-CPU logo
         
         


Links :

          The manual can be downloaded at this URL : http://www.mime.up8.edu/~whygee/fcpu_manual.zip. It is now in the HTML format and anybody should be able to read it. Or, more precisely, everybody SHOULD read it before asking anything ;-)

          The official web site is currently at http://f-cpu.tux.org (maintained from Sweden by Mathias), and it is mirrored at http://irc.cs.univ-paris8.fr/ (it's down, at the moment) in France (by Paul) and at http://www.f-cpu.de in Germany (by Sven).

          You can mail me at whygee@m... and i'm pretty sure i'll answer quickly (unless you spam me...). The mailing list is the best place anyway if you have enquiries, questions, remarks, deep thoughts, or whatever you may think and want to share. Or you can join us on IRC at #f-cpu ! (I don't remember the server though, it's in Montpelier...)
 
 

Public Relations :

http://linuxfocus.nevod.ru/English/July1999/article59.html : "The F-CPU Project: Attempting the "even harder" " or the description of the project by one of the original funders (Manuel Benet Navarro). The project has mutated and grown up but the basics are always the same ! (German version here).

Sven reported:
"There´s an article about the F-CPU project in the very German computer magazine "c't" (http://www.heise.de/ct/00/03/022/default.shtml) It says that the project now enters the next phase; the instruction set ist ready and most parts of the implementation were discussed. Last but not least it says that we have a vhdl design team working on it and we're looking for sponsors." Cool, huh ? :-)

(others not referenced to come soon :-D)
 

We are not alone :

          The F-CPU project is probably the only project with this kind of goal. But a lot "open projects" have appeared which depend on electronics and computer architecture : to name a few known there is http://www.6502.org which focuses on this emblematic chip, and http://www.openip.org and http://www.opencores.org. The F-CPU project is independent but we may collaborate with such projects on some occasions, sharing experience, hardware and IP for respective projects.

          The project also gets punctual help from the Chaos Computer Club in Germnay and the APRIL association in France during meetings. We would like to have contacts with other associations as well, in any possible country.

          And, of course,
YOU :-)
 

16C3 :

          The 16th Chaos Communication Congress, held dec. 27-29 in Berlin, went very well, thanks to the heartful and open people that invited me... I have rarely had such a good time !

          I have presented the F-CPU (project and details) during a workshop held on the 28th, 20h. Around 150 curious people have listened to me speaking in english during more than 2 hours ! :-D The HTML file here will give you an idea of the plan. It was not strictly followed but helped me not loosing myself in the details :-) The following file was printed in 15 exemplars and stuck on the walls of the congress place. And don't get mad at me ! I was extremely tired during the congress so there may be some errors. But it was really cool !

          There, i have met several people, we have discussed a lot privately, and some new ideas emerged (TLB management, COMBINE instructions...). I have also promised myself 1) to come back next year 2) to present a first working prototype of the F1 there. Of course, 2) is harder than 1) but that's what make it interesting :-D

          I have taken several photos in Berlin, some will appear here when a scan is available. If you want them faster, buy me a scanner... color and SCSI would be a plus :-)
 

LinuxWorld/LinuxExpo :

          Held in feb. 1-3 2000 in Paris, this trade show also had booths for the FSF/APRIL, AFUL and similar associations (I have even met cool Belgian people :-)) to name a few active organisations. A lot of commercial companies were represented too, and i'm waiting to read the result of the poll that the FSF distributed there, to conclude about their real commitment to the LINUX and GPL philosophy. I was there at the APRIL booth to present the F-CPU project. But actually, i spent most of the time discussing with other people at different booths. It was very interesting, i made a lot of PR, i'll be there next year :-)
 

Boston :

          I have flown to Boston and been there from the 16th to the 26th in january 2000. I met other F-CPUers, namely Nate Downes (his car too), and Rares. Alonzo had a flu. And Rares was late. and for the rest, let the photographs speak :-P It was meant to be vacations far from computers... Btw, Nate, i'm still waiting for a scan of your shots ;-)
 

The "Association F-CPU" :

          Mathias, Paul and me are currently writing the "statuts" of the asociation. It will be declared in a few months (well i know, that's what we said a few months ago). You can read the temptative statuts in french there : statuts_fr.html. An english version should be available soon, too (but don't expect too much...)
 

"F-CPU News" :

          A lot of people can't read everything in the mailing list. Plus, people are not always easy with english. So i started a low-volume, digested and sporadic newsletter about the F-CPU. The first issue is in french, after i met a lot of french people at LinuxExpo. Further issues can be in english as well, probably alterned. Translations, advices, remarks and updates are recommended.
 
If you want to receive the next issues by mail, tell me.
 
          (F) Issue #1, feb. 5, 2000
 

The F-CPU logo :

          The F-CPU needs an official and serious graphic charter. The current F-CPU logos are not really appealing, even though they are currently enough. I propose to make a contest in order to find a far better logo that will remain on the chips for example. Another and parallel contest will choose the counterpart of the "Intel Inside" logo and it can be more artistic and humoristic.

          The challengers will be displayed here. There is no deadline yet but don't wait a minute to search THE idea that will make it to the chip !

 

Here is my personal proposal for a F-CPU logo:

(simple, sober, elegant...)

I have no "teaser" picture yet but it can come at any time.

 

 

Al came to this point...

(heck, his virus was strong....)

 

 

Nicolas Matringe has proposed thisone :

It does not exactly corresponds to what i had in mind but it it visually attractive and shows interesting skills. If we could replace the grey sun by something more "colored" (blue, and something else, because i personally know no blue sun in this galaxy) a little cloud for example would be cool though :-)

 

 

Bruno Bellamy (the comics artist and illustrator) will enter in the contest soon, so you better sharpen your pen now !!!

 

 

insert your own logo here

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ok that's all for today.
And don't forget : RTFM ! :-P