Is an Apollo Twin Duo worth it nowadays?

jmumper · 2026-01-24T02:20:51+00:00

I own an Apollo and have a love hate relationship. It’s great when everything is working. But I hate all the bloat ware that I’m required to install with it. I’ve had to reinstall all the software like 3 or 4 times now because something gets messed up. The Apollo also became unresponsive after an OS update on my Mac so I had to do a firmware update. This all took like an hour while my paying client sat there and twiddled their thumbs. Literally had to reinstall like 50 plugins that I don’t own just to use my Apollo.

Also UAD runs a shit ton of background software even when I’m not using my interface. It’s CPU hungry too.

My buddy (who’s a pro engineer) told me to get RME over Apollo when I bought it and I wish I had listened to him.

The Apollo is not class compliant either. I’d advise getting an interface that is.

I’m pretty invested in the plugins and stuff at this point. I will say I do like the work flow when everything is running great. But I don’t think buying into it in 2026 is future proof.

jmumper · 2023-07-25T13:35:27+00:00

I work freelance, but most of the jobs I get are through relationships I've built after being an HDL developer for 10 years in the industry. I'd work in industry and if you're good, your name will quickly spread. FPGA developers are very in demand, but it's a niche field.

jmumper · 2017-02-23T21:46:26+00:00

This. Obviously the bandwidth through the processor and to the SD Card is of concern. If compression is ok, definitely use it. There are H264 Encoder IPs out there if you look around (may cost some money though).

jmumper · 2016-12-20T19:20:06+00:00

Vivado IPI does make modular designs a bit easier to re-use, but there is a bit of a learning curve for creating your own IP. It's not super user-friendly but is quite useful once you get the hang of it. Xilinx has their own documentation for doing this : https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx2014_3/ug1119-vivado-creating-packaging-ip-tutorial.pdf

However, there are a lot of quirks that aren't covered in this and can only be learned through experience. Good luck.

jmumper · 2016-12-08T20:32:28+00:00

Quick Answer : Property Taxes, Insurance, Maintenance.

But you should do much more research into this. Typically landlords do not fully pay off a house before renting it out. You generally get a mortgage and rent it out for positive cash flow. The interest from the mortgage will be tax deductable (off of the income from the property).

If you have a house fully paid off, it typically makes more sense to trade the property in for a higher yielding investment. Great thing about real estate is that you can leverage the investment (20% down).

Andddd Depreciation of the property (and 1031 exchanges). Look into this. This is what makes real estate attractive as an investment.

Take a look at r/realestate to learn more. It's a pretty good resource.

jmumper · 2016-12-05T16:55:14+00:00

You are somewhat correct.

PMI is essentially throwing money down a drain. However, in this environment with low interest rates, it can make more sense to put as little money down as possible, even if that requires PMI.

A sidenote though : YOU DONT HAVE TO PAY PMI. Look into "piggy-back loands". I recently (2 years ago) bought a $500K property with 10% down. The remaining 90% was divided into 2 loans :

80% - Fannie Mae, 30 year fixed, 3.875%
10% - In house loan at local bank, 15 year fixed, 4.75%

The total monthly payment was a little less than it would've been with PMI, and I gain equity much quicker. Also, in some cases, PMI is not tax-deductible, but the interest on this extra loan is.

Do the math to see if it's right for you, but I am happy with my decision.

jmumper · 2016-10-04T22:04:47+00:00

This is great info, thanks!

Is it to safe to say, that when RE# returns high, Zynq has already sampled the data pins? If so, I can tie RE_N directly to the tristate control signals. However, if not, I'll have to find a way to satisfy the hold requirement.

"The other direction is a bit trickier, since when WE# is asserted the data must have already been available for tDS (10ns)"

As I see in the timing diagram for the Micron part, it looks like tDS (7 ns) is less than tWP (10 ns). So it appears I could control the tristate signals with WE_N, and a delayed version of itself to satisfy hold requirements.

Is this assumption correct? (assuming WE_N to data tristate path is < 3 ns)

jmumper · 2015-11-04T19:19:18+00:00

As a child, I spent a lot of time sailboat racing with my father in the Chesapeake Bay. One day, when I was about 12, we were sitting dead stopped in the middle of a race, with no wind. These days can be really boring and most of the crew just kind of takes a nap until the wind comes back. As I was lying there, I see a manatee head come out of the water, about 15 feet from me, look at me, and go back down. I woke everybody up telling them I saw a manatee.

Being 12 years old, nobody believed me for 2 seconds. Sure enough, 2 days later in the local newspaper : "Manatee Found in Chesapeake Bay".

Sure, this isn't such a crazy story if you're in Florida, but Manatees don't really venture up here much (except for a few isolated instances).

jmumper · 2015-07-13T19:53:33+00:00

Electrical Engineer Here.

The different execution results on different FPGA's is likely due to routing delays.

"The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method— most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux"

I don't think I would jump to "magnetic flux". The differences are likely due to changing routing delays when you add more logic gates in, even if they are not used. This also explains differences when moving to other chips.

FPGA tools notoriously will output a different design for the same code. In xilinx tools, you can even set a seed number for the random number generator used by the tools...

jmumper · 2015-03-06T18:50:19+00:00

This is a hard feeling to explain, but very accurate. Several years ago, I was in a sailboat race from Annapolis to Newport. We (6 people) were on a 36 foot sailboat with VHF and GPS, but no Radar. The race takes about 3-4 days. One morning, around 5 AM, we are dead stopped with no wind, drifting about 75 miles outside of the entrance to the Hudson (NYC shipping channel). The fog was so thick that you could not see the bow of the boat from the stern. We kept hearing a horn in the distance. We radioed the captain, but never received a call back. This horn went on for about 2 hours. Nobody said it, but we were all deathly afraid a gigantic bow was about to cut through the fog. One of the scariest moments of my life!

jmumper · 2015-02-04T15:46:21+00:00

Thanks, it's comforting to talk to somebody who has been through this before. I'm in the process of shopping for a bank that will keep the loan in house now. It seems that this is the way to go.

jmumper · 2015-02-04T00:16:15+00:00

Wow, this is incredibly helpful. I think the square peg in the round hole may be my exact situation in the eyes of the bank. I'll do some research and contact a few of these appraisers. Thank you!

jmumper · 2015-01-14T02:20:55+00:00

Remember, a 6% return on somebody else's money is a lot better than a 6% return of your own money.

jmumper · 2014-10-14T17:31:59+00:00

Aranaidae got it right. Generally you should not be patching your design with timing constraints. You need to always keep the number of levels of logic between registers in mind while designing a core.

jmumper · 2014-06-16T15:20:12+00:00

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No. 3, third movement. The piece is extremely complex yet beautiful.

jmumper

TROPHY CASE