MiSTer FPGA Forum

Regarding the conversation about abusing the educational pricing, are we not all guilty of that?

No.

We've all bought a DE-10 board at a discounted price

Nope. Paid a premium on ebay to have it all built for me, I only had to setup the sdcard.

and have used it for MiSTer and not its intended use.

What is, "Intended use" ?
I mean, I'm sure most of us aren't using Windows as it's "Intended" use, especially when it comes to disabling telemetry, and services, and using software not deemed "legal" by those who like to shout the most. I don't use the internet as it's "Intended" use, I often visit rom sites looking for roms for my Mister. I don't use my car as it's intended use, I have mine modified, tuned, and run a custom ECU map.

Hackshed_Carl wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:05 am Regarding the conversation about abusing the educational pricing, are we not all guilty of that?
We've all bought a DE-10 board at a discounted price and have used it for MiSTer and not its intended use.
Seems hypocritical to me
---EOF---

Just a minor point, but the educational pricing is different from the retail pricing. Most of us, probably including you, bought it for the full retail price and not the -$30 discount for education uses. I get what you are saying though, that the retail pricing is also a loss-leader pricing. Which is true.

Indeed I know next to nothing about the market for FPGA boards but some prices I did see are pretty much prohibitive to a project like MiSTer. Sure some would still buy in at 10x the current price point but not many. Here's to hoping that a similarly priced successor platform will be available at the inevitable point in time when the DE10 Nano ceases to be viable.

MiSTer_Kirk wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 2:32 pm

Regarding the conversation about abusing the educational pricing, are we not all guilty of that?

No. - Yes. We don't see the discounted price because it's heavily subsidized before it goes on sale

We've all bought a DE-10 board at a discounted price

Nope. Paid a premium on ebay to have it all built for me, I only had to setup the sdcard. - Again, see the note above about the price being subsidized

and have used it for MiSTer and not its intended use.

What is, "Intended use" ?
I mean, I'm sure most of us aren't using Windows as it's "Intended" use, especially when it comes to disabling telemetry, and services, and using software not deemed "legal" by those who like to shout the most. I don't use the internet as it's "Intended" use, I often visit rom sites looking for roms for my Mister. I don't use my car as it's intended use, I have mine modified, tuned, and run a custom ECU map.

Intended use is as a development platform for EE students

Intended use is as a development platform for EE students

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

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