[hpsdr] Proposal for a new Software project.

[Chris Albertson]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Larry Gadallah <lgadallah at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is probably a good point to mention that there is a significant amount
> of pragmatism required in amateur/open-source projects. To make the system
> engineering job even more complicated in an open-source environment, you
> have to produce a solution that:
>
> 1. Arrives quickly enough for a critical mass of technically disinterested
> users to adopt it
> 2. Is able to be refactored/rearchitected without significantly affecting #1
> above
> 3. Provides enough capability to interest technical users who will help to
> evolve it
>
> If it takes too long to produce a technically perfect solution, the bulk of
> the users will have already moved on to some sub-optimal solution in the
> meantime.
>
> It seems to me that in order to even start on a top-down analysis of the
> architecture of this software, a set of use-cases needs to be derived. Based
> on these, the major components of the architecture could be proposed.
>>
-- 

Right about practical matters.  Most open source projects fail.  Maybe
99% never make it past the idea stage.   To work you need a very good
idea and a small goup of people, one person to make a working
prototype.   The amateur SDR software field is already crowded getting
noticed will required some very original ideas.

First off did you all read Frank's FSM briefing?  I think he got the
overall architecture right but made it so complex that it will not get
done.

The 30 second summary is this:  The interface between the parts of the
SDR is a kind of "network router".   In contrast, PowerSDR and most
everything else uses a kind of "pipe" architecture.  FSM is a
combination router/scheduler.  Well actually a pipe is the degenerate
case of "network"

The paraphrase Henry Ford, most of what I see with amateur SDR is just
"A faster horse".  The FSM idea really does allow a way forward and to
do things you can't do with the simpler design.

FSM was based in Erlang.  technically a great idea but no many people
know it.    But I like that it is inherently parallel and very fault
tolerent.  (This is why it's used inside phone switches,  Nokia uses
it a lot)

Have any of you seen Google's "GO".?  It's a new C/C++ like language
that is also inherently parallel and based in message passing.  Being
C-like many people know it already

A network/router SDR woud have ways to attach software or hardware
user interface elements, software DSP elements, digital mode codecs
and radio fron ends.

How many of you are musicians?  If you are, maybe you've seen some
nice "control surfaces"  These would be perfect for controlling an
SDR.  If you've not seen these, they are boxes with unlabled knobs and
slider controls that connect via USB.  Moving a control sends a
message to a computer and can be interpreted to do "anything".  Here
are a few
http://www.korg.com/nanoseries



=====
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California

 1259630572.0