MiSTer FPGA Forum

Are we going to report all Raspberry Pi users for not using it for educational purposes?

You don't get to choose your customers. A dozen years ago, I used to sell step-up transformers for phone cartridges on ebay. Because of my product's low cost and features, I ended up selling way more to customers using them with vintage microphones. I personally never used one with a microphone, but judging from all the great reviews, I guess they worked really well.

And as far as price goes, go look at what a CPS2 board plus multikit costs. The MiSTer is a bargain at even 2-3x the cost.

MiSTer_Kirk wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 5:22 pm

Intended use is as a development platform for EE students

Oh dear. Best report all of us to the DE-10 Morality Police, then.

No, that's not what I meant.
I was referring to previous comments.

I'll step away from this discussion

If the DE10 was created to popularize FPGAs, attract new developers to Quartus, and entice people in general to learn HDL programning... then MiSTer is a dream project for it.

Because even if only a handful of people are/become developers, the rest of the users are a keen audience that provides motivation for devs and a community for everybody.

haven't paid the EDU prices on my DE-10 nano boards (I own 2), I am not a student so I did not feel like abusing the system/pricing. Some actual student with less money than I do actually need the discount, if people keep abusing these eventually those will no longer exist.

I'm sure Terasic / Intel is happy to have shipped more Cyclone Vs thanks to MiSTer.
If nothing else, it's good advertising when pitching FPGAs as a platform for consumer devices.

Intel has zero interest in gaining traction in FPGA consumer space.

This is entirely a corporate play. Get future professionals familiar with and working on Intel FPGA technology now, guess what they are going to be most comfortable with/prefer/request purchase of in their careers? It's a long game.

Indeed, and they can price however they feel, based on the fact that the FPGA chip is much higher-priced than the whole board, and there is a gneral scarcity of semiconductors across many types/industries.

Maybe everybody somehow still gets a profit on volume, and they are happy with sales.
...Or maybe they have an internal discussion and decide that it no longer qualifies for subsidies and the price goes up (particularly in this market).

Not for us to decide; just be aware of what is possible.

I'm pretty confident that FPGA cores will make their way into mainstream AMD CPUs within the next 5-6 years and completely upend the market. The current SOCs will continue to be used for embedded projects, but for everything else...

mathieulh wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:05 pm haven't paid the EDU prices on my DE-10 nano boards (I own 2), I am not a student so I did not feel like abusing the system/pricing. Some actual student with less money than I do actually need the discount, if people keep abusing these eventually those will no longer exist.

I'm sure you have also paid for all those roms on your Mister, PC, Mac, whatever - Right ?
And students are not my concern.

MiSTer_Kirk wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:18 pm I'm sure you have also paid for all those roms on your Mister, PC, Mac, whatever - Right ?

Off course we have!
With blood sweat and tears trying to find them all

grizzly wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:35 pm

MiSTer_Kirk wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 6:18 pm I'm sure you have also paid for all those roms on your Mister, PC, Mac, whatever - Right ?

Off course we have!
With blood sweat and tears trying to find them all

Ain't that the truth

dmckean wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:47 pm I'm pretty confident that FPGA cores will make their way into mainstream AMD CPUs within the next 5-6 years and completely upend the market. The current SOCs will continue to be used for embedded projects, but for everything else...

I agree. There's a few unintuitive reasons as to why FPGAs are going to make it into mainstream PC's and it's not limited to AMD though (despite the recent Xilinx acquisition). Such as quantum resistant cryptography with a flash EPROM FPGA being easier and less resource intensive than quantum resistant cryptography in software (which is either extremely complex or impossible, depending on what researcher you read from). Or replacing some low-speed (and low latency) motherboard ICs which now, thanks to it being an FPGA, is reprogrammable directly rather than "externally" via BIOS updates. Low latency controls can be useful for certain things, but I'm not sure how it will play out in consumer devices, but Zebra uses FPGAs on their label printers frequently because the controller for the CNC (printers are just CNC's afterall) can have a smooth resolution and they can push out firmware updates to reflash the FPGA to continuously improve. there's gotta be some analogy there to the average consumer, but I'm not totally sure what it would be.

Around ten years ago I was using SDI cards (digital video signal for use in broadcast TV) at work and RME multi-channel audio cards, those were also mostly FPGA chips with some interfacing components around them.

dshadoff wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:41 pm Indeed, and they can price however they feel, based on the fact that the FPGA chip is much higher-priced than the whole board, and there is a gneral scarcity of semiconductors across many types/industries.

Maybe everybody somehow still gets a profit on volume, and they are happy with sales.
...Or maybe they have an internal discussion and decide that it no longer qualifies for subsidies and the price goes up (particularly in this market).

Not for us to decide; just be aware of what is possible.

...And so it has happened. That was pretty quick.
Price went up from $135 US to $170 US at Terasic and Mouser (but not yet Digi-key).

dshadoff wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:37 pm Price went up from $135 US to $170 US at Terasic and Mouser (but not yet Digi-key).

Maybe more likely due to current chip shortages than anything else.

Yeah, almost guaranteed this is due to silicon shortages globally.

Hardly matters why it rose... the question is more about whether it continues to rise, and whether it ever comes down again. Certainly supply/demand is the primary factor in that, which is what this thread was talking about all along.

Shame the price went up, but it's still cheaper than the ~250 USD that bigger boards cost

dshadoff wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 3:46 am and whether it ever comes down again

Price bump has been said to be permanent by Terasic. This is, indeed, the first step of what I warned about and have been flamed for.
Not that I am happy to have been right, but well...

Slipard wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:17 pm

dshadoff wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 3:46 am and whether it ever comes down again

Price bump has been said to be permanent by Terasic. This is, indeed, the first step of what I warned about and have been flamed for.
Not that I am happy to have been right, but well...

1. You claimed "too much coverage" may raise the price. There is zero evidence that this is the cause of the price increase.

2. You claimed that the "status was being abused" and that it was somehow "infringing on the license" it was being sold under. Really bizarre. This is what people reacted strongly to.

3. You claimed we are "parasitizing another company through the abuse of their system".

Zero people were "flaming" you for merely suggesting the price would go up. Your recollection of events isn't consistent with simply reading the thread. You came on strong and made ridiculous claims and people responded accordingly to those specific claims I summarized above. If anything, your claims you made were flames against the community.

Is it possible to go back in time to last week and buy a spare one before this price hike?

hope the verge didnt build it themselves,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lmfF0k2UcU

delete this if its offensive

hiddenbyleaves wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:35 am Is it possible to go back in time to last week and buy a spare one before this price hike?

You'll have to contact this guy to find out. Safety is NOT guaranteed!

june 2021 issue of EDGE magazine will also talk about mister

more de10 nano prices increasing incoming lmao

hiddenbyleaves wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:35 am Is it possible to go back in time to last week and buy a spare one before this price hike?

I added it to my cart on digikey when the other sites started raising their prices. Digikey honored the cart price days later

i had a complete bundle in my cart a day before the price hike with a popular US sellers website,
but then a day later they raised the price by $35 while it was in my cart

i understand the inflation for future DE10s, but i was kind of miffed because that site has a ton of those already in stock.
just seemed like a "bottom line" is more important than the customer kind of move.

but, its understandable, its their website and their business. they can run their site how they want

kfreiberg wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:12 pm You'll have to contact this guy to find out. Safety is NOT guaranteed!

He's clearly been back, to the 80s. I mean, just look at that hair, he brought 80s hair back with him. I might email him and ask him if, next time he goes, can he get me a Roland Jupiter 8.

PikWik wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:37 am i had a complete bundle in my cart a day before the price hike with a popular US sellers website,
but then a day later they raised the price by $35 while it was in my cart

i understand the inflation for future DE10s, but i was kind of miffed because that site has a ton of those already in stock.
just seemed like a "bottom line" is more important than the customer kind of move.

but, its understandable, its their website and their business. they can run their site how they want

It's like gas prices when the oil prices rise. They raise those prices SUPER fast, way faster than would even make sense.

I just read the MiSTer coverage in the new issue of The Edge. It was okay, it seems to be written by someone who is a regular user of this message board and someone following the developments as well as the drama. Nothing new for MiSTer fans but we aren't the intended readership.
Whenever the article mentioned the MiST it became misleading, till this day the MiST is alive and kicking as a platform getting new cores by Jotego whenever possible and machines like the ZX Next are released for the MiST as well.
What I missed in general from the article was a mention of entry level FPGA platforms. The MiSTer is clearly the most powerful FPGA solution you can find for multi core retro simulation but it comes at a price point that many people aren't willing to pay just to see if that fancy FPGA thing could be something for them.
On the other hand there are systems like the Sidi that lets you experience everything 8 and 16 Bit and that costs less then half of what you have to pay for a MiSTer and if you are only interested in 8-Bit stuff there is the ZX Uno+ a device in the price range of a Raspberry Pi4.
Many people are interested in trying out FPGA simulation but they only hear about overpriced (and unavailable) Analogue devices and the MiSTer a device they have to tinker with and that costs as much as something like a PS4.