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Comment by plg | Hacker News Reader

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In this case, I'm guessing targeting a solid portable hardware ecosystem at a development board. The chip on here is slow enough it would be a slog for any kind of day to day use... but if you're testing drivers for something or evaluating RISC-V for some remote use case, a battery powered laptop is a little more convenient than toting around a power supply and dev board + enclosure.

I'm guessing the sales numbers will be extremely small—some people who get excited about RISC-V and would consider buying this don't know how slow it is in comparison to even the cheapest Arm SBCs right now.

>don't know how slow it is in comparison to even the cheapest Arm SBCs right now.

I own a VisionFive 2 with this SoC.

CPU sits between rpi3 and rpi4 performance.

GPU is easily 3x that of rpi4. I/O speeds are similar to rpi5.

This is not anywhere as slow as you're making it to be. And certainly it isn't slower than the cheapest ARM SBCs.

But yes, you can get a much faster rpi5 and it is cheaper.

Current RISC-V SBCs and laptops are for enthusiasts and developers, who know full well what they're getting.

Next iteration will be faster. The next, faster still.

At this point it feels more like a marketing stunt for framework than a legitimate product. Lots of people expect this to be a proper laptop experience in the ballpark of arm or x86, just because of the form factor. I am imagining a bunch of people buying the upgrade kit with the vague idea that it will be in line with some “open” or “libre” goals, but will be severely disappointed at the experience.

Marketing for who? The few thousand people who care?

And they have a clear disclaimer it's a dev-focused board; if you expect a "proper laptop experience" then that's on you the basic description of the product.

"Targeted towards developers, tinkerers, and early adopters, this platform allows exploration and development within the RISC-V ecosystem. [..] This is very much a developer-focused board to help accelerate maturing the software ecosystem around RISC-V, so we recommend waiting for future RISC-V products if you’re looking for a consumer-ready experience."

I’m reacting much more to the initial launch ideo from framework [1] and the hype around it than the product page. I’m glad to see they are calling it out so well at this stage.

[1]: https://youtu.be/iMwepyyaj8I?si=AFGEK6He-VWlKQQ9

I do not think we need to resort to calling it a marketing stunt. It is for developers and early adopters. This will make a nice device for that. Being able to reuse the rest of the platform is pretty great.

They explain very clearly in the previous linked blogpost [1] in OP. Some snippets

> There is excellent philosophical alignment between RISC-V and Framework. Both are built on the idea that an open ecosystem is more powerful than the sum of its parts... x86 ... is used in the processors for each Framework Laptop ... The x86 ISA was invented by Intel, extended on by AMD, and is proprietary, with Intel and AMD being effectively the only two companies able to use and create processors around it. ... What makes RISC-V unique is that it is an entirely open architecture, which means that anyone can extend on it and create their own processors that use it without paying a fee. RISC-V International is the collaborative organization that exists to help develop the standard and define common versions to ensure cross-compatibility of hardware and software. There are hundreds of companies now developing cores and chips around RISC-V, but most of these have been hidden away in embedded applications....

> All of this is what makes RISC-V unique from an ecosystem enablement perspective. The actual technology is equally interesting. The base instruction set of RISC-V is simple and streamlined, while there are a number of extensions enabling high performance and specialized compute. This means that RISC-V cores can be developed for anything from tiny control CPUs embedded inside a sensor (the Fingerprint Reader we’ve used in Framework Laptops since 2021 actually has a RISC-V core!) to monstrous multi-hundred-core server processors. The DeepComputing RISC-V Mainboard uses a JH7110 processor from StarFive which has four U74 RISC-V cores from SiFive. SiFive is the company that developed CPU cores using the RISC-V ISA, StarFive is the processor designer that integrated those CPU cores with other peripherals, DeepComputing created a Mainboard leveraging that processor, and Framework makes laptops that can use the Mainboard. The power of an open ecosystem!

[1] https://frame.work/ca/en/blog/introducing-a-new-risc-v-mainb...

because that's why we went to the moon, why not?

We went to the moon because we were losing an arms race and the moon got the population onboard with spending 1% of the gdp on it.

So the takeaway is that spending funds on an arms race is pretty unpopular, but it turns out that people think cool shit is cool and worth it?

The takeaway is that the Space Race was just another front of the Cold War and the Military Industrial Complex got a blank check so long as they could win it. The fact it also captivated peoples' imaginations was a nice side effect.

And they blew up a rocket with people in it [1] in the process, which made everyone there rethink the whole thing from a project planning and design perspective, that it became a blueprint[2] of how to do a successful project

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 [2]: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/197200...

It seems to have no practical purpose. I assume someone funded it to keep RISC-V in the spotlight.

I believe it was actually designed by the chip manufacturer, not originally by framework. The website says “In partnership with DeepComputing” but I remember an interview where they described it coming mostly from the other company.

the "partnership" from what I understood is that DeepComputing asked a bunch of questions that framework answered (and provided advice) since although the specs for how to make a compatible board were published, this was the first time someone was sinking the time in to do it.

How does it have no practical purpose? It is a RISC-V developer platform. It allows you to develop and test on RISC-V.

We already have plenty of those, including some that use the exact same SoC.

But not in Framework laptop form factor. Until now, that is.

True, and some will say that this enables people who are testing RISC-V code to more easily move the device around on their desk, or take it on vacation with them. But that's such a narrow use case, I suspect there's more to the story.

Got to start somewhere.

With this done, the next generation will be easier (and much faster).

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