Mystery of chroot / FPGA CPUs

[Andy Green]

Somebody in the thread at some point said:

> Humm, I wonder how the ParalaXx(sp?) 'propeller' would run one of these os's?  
> I'd imagine it has a quite sparse instruction set, but it has 32, 32 bit 
> processors in it, running at about 50mhz each, using microwatts each.  
> Properly harnessed & pipelined, I'd think it could be pretty speedy & its in 
> a 48 or 64 pin dip package!  I'd think the package would make it i/o bound, 
> but I'm just guessing.

I read about those in Circuit Cellar while I was on holiday recently...
from what I understood they are actually simply preprogrammed Altera
Stratix FPGAs

http://www.altera.com/products/devices/stratix/stx-index.jsp

Well nothing wrong with that, but if you're going to pay a premium for a
firm CPU you can get an ARM "macrocell" built into the price

http://www.actel.com/products/fusion/

-Andy