arm-netbook

arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk

1082 discussions

Re: [Arm-netbook] Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Dear luke, I was thinking of your problem with needing to drive 128 gates from 1. <disclaimer> There comes a time in life where people, or rather I, must demonstrate to the world just how stupid I really am. And there comes a time in life where people like you rebuke my idea in the foolish expectation that it will *never* be proposed again. :) I am going to propose a solution that works on paper. I have NO experience with logic programming, architecture, or chip design of any sort. What I propose causes a major increase in complexity, while keeping the amount of transistors roughly the same, and maintaining the speed and power efficiency you desired. <\disclaimer> I have no idea how well my idea will scale, with respect to the amount of driven gates. But I have throughly researched it as best as I can. You can find a nice table, which I can only partially understand here: https://courseware.ee.calpoly.edu/~dbraun/courses/ee307/F99/01_10/01_Franco… It will explain how many gates you can drive from one with respect to the maximum and minimum current that the gates accept and output. The capacitance and resistance of the gates and wires may prove somewhat more difficult to ascertain. Attached are 2 images (No, ASCII art would not have worked here). One shows a set of NAND gates with an ordinary layout. I chose NAND gates because NAND is one of two universal gates. The second image shows a modified version of the first. It uses a recursive layout of NAND gates enabling a tree like effect. These were both drawn while riding in a car so don't expect perfection. Also, my scanner got both sides of the paper on one page (technically, image), which was annoying. So I cleaned the images up a bit. I'm excited about my idea, however pitiful it is. Tell me what you think! Thanks luke, David

1 0

Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 09 Feb '19

09 Feb '19

Is the CDC 6600 and it's successors an open source CPU? The way luke talks about the CDC 6600, it is totally available for inspection, unless you're looking for the more obscure parts where you just have to know someone. If so, I'd be interested in finding out more. Experimenting with your own CPU using plain old off-the-shelf parts is rather interesting. Yes, I have heard of the youtube guy who made a CPU called Megaprocessor. I often think that we lost a lot of genius due to the closed source nature of modern processors. Not to mention the methods of creating these CPU designs. Concerning luke's need to drive 128 gates from 1. You could probably operate more gates at once if you used a MOSFET instead of a normal transistor for your driving gate (I have no idea if or how that would work in silicon though). Thanks!

2 1

Modular U-Boot - FOSDEM presentation
by Jeffrey Sites 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

I don't recall seeing a reference to this already, nor a resolution to the open question of how to enable U-Boot for different EOMA68 configurations, so I figured it may be useful to someone to review the applicability of a talk given at the recent FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/porting_u_boot_to_a_modular_device/ I hope this is helpful to someone! Happy Hacking

2 1

EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: New Factory Equipment, New Grant Proposal
by Paul Boddie 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

Hello, Good to see another update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/new-factory-equipm… I hope Mike is bearing up in the face of his recent difficulties. With regard to your funding proposal [1], I see that you wish to revive the other computer cards, and this brought to mind a couple of things I saw recently. One of them was the StereoPi crowdfunding campaign: https://www.crowdsupply.com/virt2real/stereopi The relevant aspect of this is the use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module as the core of the solution. Previously, the Compute Module was rather "unobtainium", shall we say, but given that Adafruit and the like seem to actually have the latest models in stock, I guess that they are being made and sold to real people. Although things like the StereoPi have developers as their audience, and so it doesn't really bother people that bare boards and edge connectors are the basis of modularity, it would be nice to be able to pitch EOMA68 (and related profile) products for these kinds of things. But these kinds of campaigns do help to demonstrate the case for EOMA68 and modular computing. Another thing that I noticed was in perusing the Dingoonity forums, where there is a fairly active forum about Ingenic-based handheld devices: https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/ As the URL indicates, a lot of them seem to be based on the JZ4760, but there was a curious remark about the JZ4770 used in the GCW Zero: "There's no GCW Zero clone. H350 is its presumed internal name. The factory illegally sold prototypes from the initial test runs. Apparently the factory is hogging the last JZ4770 SoCs in existence. So don't expect a third party to jump in and start manufacturing a compatible device." https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/gcw-zero-14324/msg1841… Of course, the JZ4770 is the Vivante-based product variant, alongside the JZ4780 (PowerVR-based) and JZ4775 (no GPU). The latter two are still featured on Ingenic's Web site and are presumably active products. Hopefully, there are no availability issues, although one may wonder whether the JZ4760 might be a fallback if there is a glut of those (as evidenced by the continual stream of handhelds) and a shortage of the others. Again, EOMA68 would be a good way of enabling products for this market. People seem to end up chasing discontinued products and settling for random imports, often being disappointed with some aspect of them or other, plus the software is not exactly responsibly produced, either. Paul [1] http://rhombus-tech.net/nlnet_2018/

3 4

2.7.5 production
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

hi folks, so, mike's uncle died in december, and his mother is recovering from surgery in hospital. we'll be doing the 100 test production run after chinese new year. l.

3 4

Libre "New Art"
by Jean Flamelle 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

I believe the term software should get avoided when talking about libre development styles, in lieu of the patent requirement definition "new art" or "a new artifact for all history". Likewise I've substituted out "best" for '"Most Effective"..."for"...', so-as not to claim absolute morality. Memetics infrastructure, implies an infrastructure for generating serialized morality for complexifying interpersonal interactions. We cannot promise a series of guidelines thereof because we can't nor should subsidize the moral requirements of the world. http://rhombus-tech.net/proposed_best_practices/ P.S. Tip: The page still won't automatically update with the source. I very much want to continue updating this page. We could theoretically compile quite some interesting data. I also want to keep writing http://rhombus-tech.net/Economics/ . -- CC0

1 0

Free the (Intel) FSP?
by Richard Wilbur 15 Dec '18

15 Dec '18

This looked interesting--like Intel is starting to feel pressure from RISC-V, et cetera. Regardless, I'm still very interested in security, efficiency, configurability, and other aspects of libre design of RISC-V. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Open-Source-FSP-L…

1 0

What do 1,000 EOMA68-A20 PCBs look like?
by Paul Boddie 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

Hello, Nice to see the progress being made in the recent update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/what-do-1-000-eoma… It's a shame that you have to redo your Parabola bootstrapping. I experimented with bootstrapping Parabola on MIPS a few months ago using two different approaches - (1) try and cross-compile packages, (2) try and native build in another environment - and it was rather frustrating either way. Ultimately, I didn't regard it as a great way to spend my time. Paul

13 32

Free culture
by Jean Flamelle 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

Biases as well as lack thereof distinguish individuals. Whatever one believes might get muted by what one cannot choose to not receive exposure. Colloquially "free to speak; free to not listen". This existential health issue related to FLOSS in my opinion should take priority over the information security issue. -- CC0

1 0

Re: [Arm-netbook] Reframing The Holy War
by Jean Flamelle 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Don't forget free CULTURE. Too much focus on illusions of grander security, minimizing the minimal black swans, then we forget we want a clean mental environment furthermore to have as well as give meaningful challenges with outcomes expressing the spirits of the souls experiencing the prerequisite difficulty and more. We want diversity AND isolation to have a creative society. That requires redundancy, which requires excluding exclusive proprieties. Libre Propriety.

8 16

← Newer
1
...
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
...
109
Older →

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

arm-netbook