The project develops a stand-alone device in a small form factor that is capable of rendering MilkDrop-esque visuals effects in real time, with a high level of interaction with many sensors and using live audio and video streams as a base.
Open source components and design tools have been developed or used as much as possible. A system-on-chip implemented in a FPGA has been chosen for meeting this goal at the IP core level.
The flexibility of the FPGA enables advanced users to modify the design, and also permits compact integration of many interfaces (MIDI, OSC, DMX512, analog sensors, video inputs), making Milkymist™ a platform of choice for the mobile VJ.
The design is also highly modular and documented, making the code easy to re-use in other open source system-on-chips.
Resources
The blog is regularly updated with the latest project news.
The wiki contains, among other things, a "getting started" guide for the ML401, and a list of contributions you might be interested in.
The "devel" mailing list for general discussions about development.
The Milkymist SoC architecture
While a lot of system-on-chip (SoC) designs put a strong emphasis on compliance with established standards, Milkymist favors simplicity and technical superiority over compliance. Most of the IP cores and bus architectures have been designed from scratch, on the grounds of their bare minimum technical requirements. Still, the documentation for them can be found in the downloads section. Furthermore, the standard WISHBONE bus has been used where it would enable IP re-use without causing technical problems. To get an idea of how the SoC is built, here is a block diagram of the architecture used on the ML401 board.
For more information, you can check out the conference slides and other documentation.