@lore @quilnux@mastodon.fulltermprivacy.com @Phil I remember why I knew about SHARC and that's VLIW and relatively open documentation.

TMS320 DSPs eventually evolved, perhaps devolved, to OMAP. It's powerful but so is the NDA for documentation. It also was used by military in various forms. One was used in radar so I guess it is out of the question.

Qualcomm Hexagon is impressive but NDAs make it look like an iPhone for development. Yeah it's practically trash.

Aside from asking your friendly local military for the Doom Slayers of DSPs they no longer use, I would recommend an FPGA.

Of FPGAs I would say Lattice iCE as they seem to be one of the only dependable FPGAs that can work with open source. I have a couple from a foreign company that are all but useless.

A lot of talk for not a lot of help. How much DSP is needed? I'd honestly recommend an FPGA to work with as it can be obtained. Expense is rather surprising compared to DSP evaluation boards.

The OMAP DSPs were used on inexpensive quadcopters and the Beagle Bone Black. Those might be the least expensive and easiest to obtain. The OMAP DSPs were used in smartphones too so it should be a decent choice. SBCs could potentially be used for a very inexpensive testbed. It's just finding the instant on RTOS versions used in various environments.