Yokemate of Keyboards
Posts: 4977 from 2009/1/28
From: Delaware, USA
I am not sure why this post became so personal. Perhaps I should apologize again, this time forr my comments directed at Bill McEwen.
As to the idea of making about 100 processor cards for the PegII, yes you're not going to make any real profit. They would cost more than if they were produced in higher numbers and it would be more of a labor of love (or a cooperative community development).
The biggest thing preventing anyone outside of bplan from manufacturing these cards is the lack of documentation. As I've mentioned in previous posts, while Genesi posted a schematic of the PegII motherboard, the schematics don't include the details of the processor cards. Without that information, designing a new (faster) processor card for the PegII would be much more difficult.
On the idea of an 8610 motherboard, I still prefer the MPC8640. The 8640 has a comparable max speed (1250MHz) and a larger cache. Further, as there is a evaluation platform (motherboard from Freescale) for the MPC8641 that works with the 8640, we have a ready example on hand for development. I know Genesi still has a few of these boards (I think Matt may have one) left over from the period when they were contemplating an 8641 motherboard.
The biggest advantage of the 8640 is that it costs less than the 8641 (and many other PPC processors).
A new motherboard might have a larger market than a run of upgrade cards for a motherboard that's no longer in production. Plus, since the design could incorporate PCI-e slots, we would have access to newer expansion cards.
"Never attribute to malice what can more readily explained by incompetence"