@danderson@hachyderm.io
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

danderson

@danderson@hachyderm.io

Software developer by day, other kinds of nerd the rest of the time. ADHD says current hobbies are 3D printers, building CNC machines, old computers in space, and general shitposting on whatever grabs my interest.

Nazis, TERFs, other terrible people: please go away, there's nothing for you here.

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danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Reading a book about an old computer, and it's a very cozy vibe. Before getting properly started, it needs to explain what a silicon transistor is, because it's very newfangled and the reader may not be aware of the knock-on benefits of the NPN topology in silicon, compared to the more traditional germanium devices.

Also, section titles that sound like shitposts:

A. JUSTIFICATION FOR LARGE COMPUTERS

danderson, (edited )
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

It's super interesting reading these older books, because there are the recognizable bones of modern computers but none of the vocabulary had solidified yet.

The book describes that peripheral processors can communicate with the central processor by means of an "exchange jump", a one-way signal that causes the CPU to halt its current program and begin a new one.

The author seems to be describing the concept of interrupts? I'm not sure yet, maybe exchange jumps have subtle differences, but...

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

... oh, right! The CDC 6600 was also the first superscalar processor! The author has to introduce the notion that a processor has many replicated "functional units", and that multiple instructions may be simultaneously executed by different functional units. Also featured, a block diagram featuring the dreaded "scoreboard" unit that is the bane of introductory computer architecture classes.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

There is no such thing as RAM yet either. It's "Central Storage", because what else would you call the storage assigned to the Central Processor?

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

The "Instruction Stack" is another piece of WIP vocabulary. It remembers the last 7 instructions loaded from storage, such that an instruction fetch can be skipped for things such as short loops.

So yeah there's your CPU instruction cache. Might be the first commercial i-cache? Wikipedia credits the System/360 Model 85 for the first d-cache, but the 6600's instruction stack is definitely a small i-cache...

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Address decoder? Bus arbiter? Tag bits? Oh, you mean the STUNT BOX!

These are much cooler names, why can't computers have STUNT BOXES again

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

I also love that, afaict, the name is never explained. Yes, central memory control circuitry is called the STUNT BOX. Yes it is always fully uppercase when written. There will be no further questions.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Internet says it might come from the world of early teletypes? Feast on this amazing brochure introduction!

A factual story! In advertising! Imagine that.

https://www.smecc.org/teleprinters/28stuntbox001.pdf

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@astrid I raced your posts! https://hachyderm.io/@danderson/112492873737578283 has a link to the Teletype Model 28 brochure about the stunt box, and it's an incredible piece of publishing. I love it, I want stunt boxes on everything.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@astrid All those fancy expensive keyboards that have configurable layers and macros, why is every single one of them not touting their stunt box and multiple reconfigurable stunt bars?!

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

> A principal usage of Extended Core Storage involves “swapping” of programs or data between the Central Storage and ECS.

And there's the invention of swap space! And for extra points the book shows the ECS can be connected to multiple processors at once, so it's... I dunno, sort of swap space, sort of shared L2 cache, sort of networked RAM? I can't think of an obvious direct analog in today machines.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

"Two identical Multiply Units are included in the 6600 Central Processor. While this is small extravagance, ..."

Meanwhile, the CPU I'm using to write this has... a complicated microarchitecture but broadly speaking 100-160 multipliers? I think?

jacob, (edited ) to random
@jacob@jacobian.org avatar

edit: this use to be a link to a fake story about MS buying Valve. It was fake. https://mastodon.social/@ThePlant/112486469559854730

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@jacob oh so this is how I stop playing videogames that aren't nethack, okay then.

Hopefully that remains a rumor, because fucksake.

swetland, to random
@swetland@chaos.social avatar

So, been trying duckduckgo for search for a few days, and it's been, well, okay-ish... until this evening when all my queries spin for a while and then result in:

Sorry, we ran into an error displaying these results. Click here to try again.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@swetland according to the Internet bing is/was down. And ddg gets most of its output from there

danderson, (edited ) to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Wow firefox makes it hard to add custom search engines. If you're using google and want it to default to the quietly launched "web results only no AI shit" view:

Open about:config, set the pref "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" to true. You may have to create the pref, or it may exist and be false.

Open about:preferences#search, scroll to bottom, you can now add a search engine (that's what the pref above does)

Add engine for https://www.google.com/q=%s&udm=14, save, make default.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Alternatively you could add the extension someone published to the addon store 20 hours ago that allegedly does this but whose source code link doesn't seem to be a firefox addon and also has 0 installs.

Or you could visit http://tenbluelinks.org/ and install the search engine that way, but be aware the site sets itself as an auto-update source for said engine and so could silently update itself to something unexpected later.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

(note I have no reason to believe tenbluelinks has malicious intent, I just don't know who runs it and who might own or pwn the domain in future and get the ability to siphon search results)

(also please don't suggest kagi, while I would gladly pay for a decent search engine kagi is more than a little fash and also drinking the AI koolaid as fast as it can be dispensed)

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@julian I don't know of anything egregious. They're also breathlessly running into AI and trying to make a thing that answers questions instead of trying to be the best index of the web, and that's a shame. They also get most results from Bing, but again that's pretty par for the course for smaller engines.

So 🤷 if you can turn off the AI dross, or you like the AI dross, seems plausibly okay?

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@julian Oh and I guess given how things went with chrome and edge, I get a little bit of a sinking feeling when a company decides it wants to have both a browser and a search engine, and it represents another split in focus from trying to be the best possible search engine. I understand why they're doing it, but it suggests some misalignment with what I (think I) value personally.

If I could pay a subscription in lieu of ads... I might consider their search, maybe. Dunno.

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

I've also been pointed to https://udm14.com/ , which after loading the site you can right-click the URL bar and add a "udm14" search engine, which you can then make the default. At time of writing this, I've verified that the OpenSearch engine definition (https://udm14.com/search.xml) sends queries straight to google with no intermediary, and also does not come with an auto-update configuration that might silently change that later.

robpike, to random
@robpike@hachyderm.io avatar

My occasional reminder that I once used a ROM burner that, upon power-up, announced on its bright red LED display: "RELF-TEST PASSED".

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@robpike okay well that's going right into the next homebrew nonsense I make

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Me, a deeply unserious person: "you just can't get the good ferrite mixes any more"

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

Last few days: okay sure an eeprom is the best way to implement this without a programmable microcontroller, but what if logic gates

Today: okay so logic gates is annoying but doable, however consider this: core rope memory

It's extremely silly and pointless, but it's okay therapy tbh

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@sgf Yeah diode ROM was the other silly plan! Another was trying to figure out some kind of one-hot decoding with a 4:16 demux, combined with some open drain drivers... But I think that ends up being more chips than other options no matter what

danderson,
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

@sgf ... or rather, to make the chip count reduction work, I end up needing to sprinkle diodes into things... And now I've reinvented diode ROM with extra steps 😅

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