M-Labs
 | |
| Manufacturer | Sharism at Work Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Type | Video synthesizer |
| Release date | December 27, 2010 (early developer kit) |
| Introductory price | 380 EUR (early developer kit) |
| Operating system | RTEMS, Linux |
| CPU | LatticeMico32 in a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA |
| Memory | 128MB DDR SDRAM |
| Storage | 32MB built-in NOR flash, memory card |
| Display | SVGA up to 140MHz pixel clock (1280x1024) |
| Input | USB keyboard and mouse |
| Camera | External (CVBS digitizer) |
| Connectivity | DMX512, MIDI, OpenSoundControl, AC97 audio, Ethernet, RC-5 infrared, USB, GPIO |
| Power | 5W |
| Dimensions | 150 x 125 x 30 mm |
The Milkymist project is an informal organization of people and companies who develop, manufacture and sell a comprehensive open source solution for the live synthesis of interactive visual effects for VJs. The project goes great lengths to apply the open source principles at every level possible, and is best known for the Milkymist system-on-chip (SoC) which is among the first commercialized open source hardware system-on-chip designs written in a hardware description language.
As a result, several Milkymist technologies have been reused in applications unrelated to video synthesis. For example, NASA's Communication Navigation and Networking Reconfigurable Testbed (CoNNeCT) experiment uses the memory controller that was originally developed for the Milkymist system-on-chip and published under the GNU GPL.
The project was presented at several open source and hacker conferences such as the Chaos Communication Congress, FOSDEM and Libre Software Meeting. It was also featured on the Make Magazine blog and included in their "ultimate open source hardware gift guide 2010".