[E3-hacking] Running an IRC bot on the E3 ~ OT

[Jasmine Strong]

On 9 Aug 2008, at 11:35, David Given wrote:
>
> Does the A8 have an FPU? The literature I've found is a bit evasive,
> using phrases like 'floating point capable' but linking to the DSP.

The A8 implementation in OMAP3430 has the VFP (actually, it has the  
Cortex
VFP, which is better than the ARM11 VFP).  So yes.  It also has Neon,  
I think-
which is sort of SSE3-like.

> Is it powerful enough to decode video without using the DSP?

Yes.

> Is there any
> useful open source software that can use the DSP for doing that sort  
> of
> thing?

Not sure.  Probably not (yet ;-) )

> Also, it's a bit of a shame the Beagleboard doesn't have any onboard
> ethernet

Well, you *do* have USB2... but gigabit ethernet would have been nice.

> and a bit more memory (128MB is definitely pushing it) or it'd
> be an fantastic replacement for my home server (currently an elderly
> Shuttle that runs rather warm and loud)...

I agree-  especially as the OMAP3 EMIFF (or whatever they call it now)
supports 1 Gbyte DDR DRAMs...

-J.