[hpsdr] Sasquatch II

[Bob McGwier]

The OMAP3530 (on the Beagleboard) is a serious SoC.  It has OpenGL hardware
support (but the last time I looked, we could get directly at the hardware
because of lack of a driver), it has a very good floating point SIMD engine
(Neon), and good video DSP (16 bit integer TI TMS320c65x part) and myriad
other appendages.  The frame buffer support is pretty good for our needs.
We aren't using this for gaming after all!  It draws more power than the
L137, and costs twice as much as the L137 or thereabouts.  But neither of
these extra costs is onerous unless you want to run the thing on a battery
in which case, the doubling of power is always an issue.  I love the ARM.
This is a late version of the ARM and will run linux quite creditably.
Hambly and I both have our Beagles baying at the moon.

I REALLY want to see this go.  Either of these parts are MUCH more capable
than the dsPIC33 as much as I liked it when it came out and we drifted for
almost two years without forward motion for HPSDR.  The dsPIC33 SDR is
progressing but in the Suitsat 2 group where we are preparing it for launch
to the spacestation.  For our SoC Sasquatch needs,  I feel the TI offerings
are better parts.
Bob


ARRL SDR Working Group Chair
Member: ARRL, AMSAT, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats,
NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC.
"And yes I said, yes I will Yes", Molly Bloom


-----Original Message-----
From: hpsdr-bounces at lists.hpsdr.org [mailto:hpsdr-bounces at lists.hpsdr.org]
On Behalf Of Philip Covington
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 7:53 PM
To: Lyle Johnson
Cc: hpsdr at lists.hpsdr.org
Subject: Re: [hpsdr] Sasquatch II

***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 5:21 PM, Lyle Johnson <kk7p at wavecable.com> wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> Hello!
>
> I'm thinking of restarting the Sasquatch module.
>
> On the one hand, no one else has stepped up to do it after I pulled my
name
> from it about a year ago.
>
> On the other hand, I like embedded DSP, and I hate to see the HPSDR
project
> become PC-dependent.
>
> One candidate would be to simply make an ATLAS adapter for the
Beagleboard.
>  This opens the door to low cost, low power and a Linux development
> environment. I really don't want this thread to devolve into "My OS is
> better than yours' or "my philosophy about open source is purer than
yours."
>
> Another possibility is to use the OMAPL137 processor from TI.  Or skip the
> ARM stuff completely and just use the TMS320C674x DSP.
>
> I've had some email exchanges with Bob and Frank, and they indicate they
> would be supportive of such an effort in the context of porting dttsp to
> this processor.
>
> But there is little point in doing it if there is little to no interest
in
> it once all the hard work is done in the porting effort.
>
> I recognize one can buy small form factor motherboards these days for a
> couple hundred dollars (+/- a hundred) and for those who are most
> comfortable with using an embedded PC< this is an excellent way to go. No
> ATLAS adapter in this case is needed since Ozy already provides a
> USB-to-ATLAS interface for such motherboards.  At some level, Ozy also
> provides this for an OMAP-class processor, but I'd like to eliminate the
> need for Ozy for a self contained system.
>
> Lots of posts lately about how HPSDR things are not always as open as one
> might wish.
>
> Sasquatch is open.
>
> Comments?
>
> 73,
>
> Lyle KK7P
>
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Hi Lyle,

I like the OMAP-L137.  Nice low power, 256BGA.

<http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/omap-l137.pdf>  The ARM is nice to
have around...

Not sure about the Beagleboard... I'll have to look further into it.
If you just use USB or Ethernet for input to the Beagleboard, you
might as well use something like the $79 Atom based mini-ITX boards.

73 Phil N8VB
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