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Funded! This project successfully raised its funding goal on October 27, 2012.

Epiphany Documentation Release

Update #4 · Oct 7, 2012 · 15 comments

We promised that we would released our documents if we reached $500,000 by today. We are not going to reach our goal..but we are still going to release the documents openly because at the current trajectory we are not going to meet our $750k base goal (or $3M stretch goal). The release of the docs is a a big scary step for us (point of no return).

Architecture reference manual:

http://www.adapteva.com/support/docs/e3-reference-manual/

Software Reference Manual:

http://www.adapteva.com/support/docs/esdk3-manual/

Adapteva as a company consists of 4 people:(Andreas, Roman, Yaniv, and Shiri) and our reach is going to be limited by the hours in the day. Right now we have about 480 hours left until things blow up.

If you still believe in what we are doing after reading the manuals, please consider taking the time to spread the word any way you can: posting on forums, correcting people on forums, posting on reddit, slashdot, tweeting, fb posting, linkedin posting, analyzing the architecture and writing up analysis, emailing friends and colleagues.

We are currently heads down creating more compelling demos and videos for more people to get excited about our technology.  More updates coming today and tomorrow.

Best regards,

Andreas Olofsson, Adapteva Founder

Comments

    1. Kevin.small

      Creator Kevin McCaughey on October 8, 2012

      $28k overnight - if it accelerates just a bit more it would reach target if this kept up. Fingers crossed this is giving it some momentum. I have also written to Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC tech editor and a couple more website editors. I haven't done Anandtech or Toms yet, but will later.

      With the overnight jump in funding there seems to be more momentum gathering. I can't think of a more deserving project so I hope this succeeds. The common sense and imperative of the idea, plus the sheer fun of programming one of these things has to carry it forward!

    2. Adapteva_220x220.small

      Creator Adapteva on October 7, 2012

      @Sean Thank you! That's awesome!

      @DJ We'll definitely see what we can do! How about putting our crazy logo on a T-shirt? Or would that be a health hazard?-) Right now, we are focusing on spreading the word and getting more backers.

    3. Meinsp.small

      Creator Dj Gilcrease on October 7, 2012

      A large part of the problem is the lack of in between rewards. Add some reward levels that include T-Shirts, posters, Names in support docs, etc.

    4. Fb_profile_picture.small

      Creator Sean Michael Stimac on October 7, 2012

      Ok so I just sent out information on the project to the tech editors at New York Times, LA Times, The Guardian, and CNN - asking them to write a story on it. I also posted about the project in the Ubuntu and Linux groups on Facebook (reach of more than 350,000). Over the next few days, I will be posting about it in more of the Linux groups on LinkedIn and will be contacting the Tech Editors at any other media outlet I can think of.

    5. Fb_profile_picture.small

      Creator Sean Michael Stimac on October 7, 2012

      I'm hoping that this project gets funded. I've been commenting on Facebook (only about 500 friends) and I posted about it in the Open Source group on linkedin. I don't have media contacts, if I did I would use them. Any other ideas of what we can do to get the word out?

      Thanks for the documentation.

    6. Kevin.small

      Creator Kevin McCaughey on October 7, 2012

      I'm presuming you've already talked to Anand's and Toms?

    7. Kevin.small

      Creator Kevin McCaughey on October 7, 2012

      Well I have just mailed two people at the BBC and four more sites - will get a list of some more tomorrow :) Techradar.com, The Register, The Inquirer, Tech Crunch, RWweb are just a couple off the top of my head. If the BBC take it up that would be great (Click).

    8. Missing_small

      Creator Tiberius Teng on October 7, 2012

      Thanks for the documentation! Although the chip performance is not really comparable with similiar cost GPUs (quite understandable in current situation) but I do like the architecture and really can't wait to play with it ...

      And you're on Slashdot! Things would become quite interesting ...

    9. Adapteva_220x220.small

      Creator Adapteva on October 7, 2012

      @Kevin Thanks for the encouraging words!! In terms of the programming, let's not scare people though:-) Assembly is definitely supported for the brave souls that still do it, but C/C++/OpenCL is the recommended flow for most. On the campaign front thanks for the advice, do you have a list of the sites that you think we should target?

    10. Kevin.small

      Creator Kevin McCaughey on October 7, 2012

      It's a beauty by the way - just looking through the manuals and drooling. Would be such a good excuse to write assembler again...

      This idea really should fly - it's a cracking project, first class!

    11. Kevin.small

      Creator Kevin McCaughey on October 7, 2012

      Don't lose hope guys! I think if you don't hit the goal this time round you should try generating a bit better publicity and give it another whirl once you know it is being talked about. I have posted and tweeted as best I can.

      I only heard about this project by accident, and I already use kickstarter! None of the tech websites I visit have covered it. Either they turned you down or maybe you don't have a long enough list of these sites? I would have expected this project to be big news in the tech papers - but I didn't see it at all. There are at least 100 sites that I would have thought would run something like this.

      I hope that someone steps in and you make it. I would love to see this take off and I would have thought *every* programmer would love to have one of these on his or her desk!

    12. Missing_small

      Creator Liad Weinberger on October 7, 2012

      @Adapteva, what do you mean by "things blow up"? Are you refering to the Parallella project alone or is there a deeper meaning to this statement?

    13. Yunan.small

      Creator Michel on October 7, 2012

      Adapteva,
      Thanks for the documentation. I just glance at it. I'll read in in depth after installing the Eclipse IDE in my Eclipse dev env.
      I'm still interested in crowd funding your idea so let me know if you propose your business for a capital growth plan in some (web) crowd funding platform (available to European/French investors/pledgers).
      Michel

    14. Icon_hires512.small

      Creator Rolf-Dieter Klein on October 7, 2012

      Thanks wonderful documentation.

    15. Sax_prof_2.small

      Creator pwrdwnsys on October 7, 2012

      Adapteva - thank you for releasing the documentation. I think that this is a great step and a real tangible commitment from the company to the backers community despite not reaching the half million mark. I'm really looking forward to seeing the new demo material your team have been working on.

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    SUPPORTER REWARD: You will get project updates along the way and get to reserve a user name on the parallella.org community portal before the rest of the world. Every dollar helps us in our goal to create a parallel computing platform accessible to everyone.

    Estimated delivery: Nov 2012
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    FAN REWARD: You get everything in the SUPPORTER REWARD and you get a black T-Shirt with a Parallella slogan on it 'OR' The book "An Introduction to Parallel Programming" to be written by the Adapteva team.(your choice) The book will be provided in PDF form and will include source code examples of parallel programs that use OpenCL, OpenMP, Erlang, and MPI.

    Estimated delivery: Feb 2013
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    STUDENT REWARD: You get everything in the SUPPORTER REWARD and receive a black T-Shirt with a Parallella slogan on it 'AND' The book "An Introduction to Parallel Programming" to be written by the Adapteva team. The book will be provided in PDF form and will include source code examples of parallel programs that use OpenCL, OpenMP, Erlang, and MPI.

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    MAKER: You get everything in the SUPPORTER reward and an Epiphany-III based Parallella board loaded with the development software needed to create your own innovative projects.(International order should add $20 to the pledge amount). We can't wait to see what you come up with.

    Estimated delivery: May 2013
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    PAIR: You get everything in the SUPPORTER reward and a pair of Epiphany-III based Parallella boards (2 ARM cores and 16 Epiphany cores on each board) so that you can create complete distributed encoding/decoding, compression/decompression, receiver/transmitter type applications without having to borrow an extra board from other pledgers. Both boards come loaded with the development software needed to create your own innovative projects. (International order should add $20 to the pledge amount).

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    64-CORE: You get everything in the SUPPORTER reward and a 64-core Epiphany-IV based Parallella board (2 ARM cores and 64 Epiphany cores) if we reach our stretch goal of $3M. If we don't reach our stretch goal but meet our minimum funding goal, you will receive a pair of Epiphany III boards (2 ARM cores and 16 Epiphany cores). Both boards come loaded with the development software needed to create your own innovative projects. (International order should add $20 to the pledge amount).

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    MINI-CLOUD: This package arrives as a ready to use "cluster in a box" and includes four Epiphany-III based parallella boards (a total of 72 CPUs), a gigabit switch, cat cables, and the power supply adapters. If we reach our $3M stretch goal, then it will be possible to choose two 64-core Epiphany-IV based boards instead of four Epiphany-III based boards. (International order should add $20 to the pledge amount).

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