It would be nice if MIPS produced a nice 64 bit development board.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson
They have quite a bit more support in FOSS than Cavium's Octeon processor boards. Which are also cool:
http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON-III_CN7XXX.html
CHERI project modifies open-source BERI core on Terasic device:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/
Note: Barely gets more open and extensible than that outside RISC-V, etc. Those don't run FreeBSD, IIRC.
So, MIPS is far from dead even if MIPS32's limitations sucked. :)
The easy to obtain cheap Cavium is the erlite-3 but it has the most non standard usb which means you are pretty much stuck with a tiny amount of storage.
Soft cores are a bit slow, although have seen CHERI running and it is cool. (Risc-V runs NetBSD, at least partial port, not FreeBSD yet).
So there is no useful easily obtained dev device for under $200 (although Imagination did seem helpful on twitter on helping get stuff).
"Soft cores are a bit slow, although have seen CHERI running and it is cool."
You can put it on an Achronix to get around 1.4GHz potential speed. They're only $10,000. So much more reasonable than an ASIC with same specs!
http://www.achronix.com/products/speedster22ihd.html
Mortgage your house and buy one now before they get acquired. ;)
When it comes to development boards, we are working to expand the Creator family to include more options at the high- and low-end.
For those asking if MIPS is dead, my sincere answer is a loud no. We've had a record quarter in shipments, registered over 800m devices last year using the architecture (which represents a 10% increase YoY, by the way).
Regards, Alex.
Meanwhile, people might have to play with soft-cores such as Plasma and Cambrige's MIPS64 BERI core. FreeBSD already runs on BERI, so that should help. Full cores are still way cheaper to license than ARM, too. ARM pricing is horrific and is about the ecosystem more than the CPU performance/cost.
Qemu is pretty annoying for development - it tends to emulate obsolete hardware and it is the drivers that takes time; we already have general architecture support, it is real hardware that is useful. Also qemu is not generally bug for bug compatible and it is slow. It is ok if you are paying someone, but giving away hardware is better to incentivize people who are doing something for free.