On Mar 15, 2020, tom wrote:
> [...] The biggest technical problem is the
> lack of ASIC northbridge, or rather something to interface the CPU to
> an PCIE bus. Currently the best thing available you can get is an FPGA
> and it is a severe bandwidth bottleneck. It's also super expensive
> getting an FPGA that beefy enough. I don't see RISCV going anywhere
> until this is solved except microcontroller applications.
>
> The second problem is patents that prevent RISCV developers from
> implementing a lot of popular specs and standards. Just as an example
> look at the licensing cost of implementing HDMI vs DisplayPort.

On the one hand, I understand why a "large market audience" device would
need HDMI or DisplayPort or the newest whizbang 256K DNA ("Direct Neural
Attachment") adapter is ... but why does that need to be on a
small-market / hobby computer?

I can only speak for myself, but a reasonably open PC at the $400 mark
would certainly be competitive to dell or hp; even if it were "limited"
in the peripheral interconnect area (assuming, of course, the
motherboard's peripheral layout were well documented and people were
encouraged to make stuff -- see arduino or rpi expansion boards )

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