(expensive, but) mnt pocket-reform (arm 7" mini-laptop) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 10:07:52 pm
content: it'shere

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 08:26:52 am
content: Advertized as "MNT Pocket ReformA newer, smaller, lighter, more-affordable, seven-inch mini Reform laptop that remains fully open sourceA Perfectly Sized, Versatile, On-the-Go PlatformOften on the go? Whether you need to take notes at work or in the classroom, write your novel in a cafe, or journal on the bus, Pocket Reform’s super compact, ortholinear mechanical keyboard has you covered. It’s quite inconvenient to use a full-sized laptop while commuting on a crowded bus or train, yet getting work done on a phone can be nigh impossible. Pocket Reform is a handy in-between device for using your time in transit efficiently without taking up too much space or drawing too much attention."Found on Reddit, full of rumors and comments.At some point, I will need something to replace my old (2005) Japanese PDA, which is still locked to the Linux Kernel 2.6.24

author: djsb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 09:52:13 am
content: Is your old PDA a Zaurus? I have an SL-C3100 that I turn on now and then. I'm also keeping an eye on the Pocket-reform.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 12:51:10 pm
content: Quote from: djsb on May 09, 2023, 09:52:13 amC1000, running Linux k2.6.24 and custom arm5-rootfs.It's daily used with a usb-to-lan and serial adapter.One year ago I made a Newton-like PDA, with a custom usb-defio 5" LCD, and a Allwinner Arm mobo.Well, it's ... "usable", but you need to plug in an external keyboard.Not a shell design but rather a monoblock design

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 09:11:55 pm
content: But does it run ChatGPT?

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 10:40:52 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 09, 2023, 09:11:55 pmwhat?

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 11:03:13 pm
content: sdcc, gcc, lcc and gnat are there, anyway

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 11:17:00 pm
content: I'd potentially be interested if it was $150, but $1k-$1500 is insane, a Macbook Air is cheaper than that and a lot less clunky looking although granted not quite as small. There are also some 10" laptops that are pretty small.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 11:30:54 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 09, 2023, 11:17:00 pmmy USB-defio 5" LCD cost 180 euros for 2 prototypes.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 11:42:27 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 09, 2023, 11:30:54 pmI don't know what that is but it's expected that a prototype would cost more. Certainly you can get high quality 5-7" displays fairly cheaply, they're made in huge quantities for smartphones. Take a smartphone, add a custom OS, keyboard and IO and build it into a laptop form factor and you have pretty much what this is. Personally I'll just buy a laptop that's a tad larger so I can actually type comfortably on it.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 12:18:28 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 09, 2023, 11:42:27 pmprobably it's the same for the mnt pocket-reform vs apple book air:mnt pocket-reform, made in small quantities -> not optimal ratio features/moneyapple book air, made in huge quantities -> better ratio features/money (plus, macos is a bonus)mnt pocket-reform: fully open hardware and fully open source

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 12:55:09 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 09, 2023, 10:40:52 pmIt shall be the new "but does it run Doom?" meme.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 01:35:33 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 10, 2023, 12:18:28 amSure, but what does it do that a $500 or less netbook doesn't? The Macbook was largely for contrast, being a high end machine with a reputation for high price, this does't look high end at all, it looks like a cheap Chinese gadget. The fact that it's fully open source is an interesting novelty but so what? How many people are going to modify the design and build one themselves and to what end? I just don't see much advantage over a commercial offering. To me open source hardware is interesting because either A) It's cheaper than any comparable COTS product that offers similar funtionalty, or B) It does something unique or offers a unique feature set or flexibility that I actually want that I can't just go buy. This thing is a kit car that costs more than a real sports car.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 05:50:21 am
content: Thr trouble with these sort of devices is that they aren't x86. That means that the vast majority of pre-compiled linux or windows software simply cannot run on them, yes a lot of linux software might technically have source code available to compile for thisalternative platform, but not easily or pleasantly. I whole heartedly approve of creating open hardware systems, but when such projects want to be of practical use for everyday computing (with the exception ofcourse of embedded use where you're putting cutom software on it to do some semi-realtime task, and not interacting with it like you do with a PC) the first thing they need to address is compatibility to make themselvesas useful as possible. Someone needs to develop an open source open hardware setup for x86 that can run a normal Linux distro, just as you would on a full size mass manufactured laptop or desktop.I'll definitely say the small form factor makes this in some ways more a competitor to tablets/smartphones than to laptops, but still, compatibility for x86 is what is really needed. People want computer systems to run the same software packages they are already using.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 05:56:26 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2023, 01:35:33 amwhich netbooks? x86?sure, mass made for the mass, which was fine in the late 80s and early 90s because other platforms (e.g. HP 715, SGI Indigo, ... (and I am not quoting BIG irons but rather ... the cheapest, which were 2x expensive than a PC)) were too expensive, and Intel, AMD, IBM, and Microsoft made a lot of money on IBM desktop PCs and IBM PC-laptop, but x86 && PC_BIOSMUST diebecause they are the crappiest things on the planet nowadays in 2023.If we keep buying those things just because they're cheaper... we'll never get rid of themQuote from: james_s on May 10, 2023, 01:35:33 amApple M1 AirbookLinux on Apple M1 is technically a hack, done by reverse engineering, Apple does not offer anything: no documentation, no help, and legally they may get up tomorrow and put something in the firmware that only accepts signed OSes (like Sony did with Linux on their PlayStation3, PPC64/Cell), which means bye-bye Linux, only MacOS is welcome.I invested 2K euros in an M1 Airbook mostly for Finalcat, so it's a dedicated machine that I wouldn't for sure want to hack (especially at the hw level), if anything, I also appreciate it because the batteries last 20 hours and this is the second reason why I bought it.Sharp C1K, C3KLinux on my Zaurus is a different story... it's full of mods, and SHARP offered some support, documentation, schematics (under reservation agreement), and patches for kernel 2.4. At the time it made a huge difference and it's the reason why I invested 400 euros in my C1K rather than in a PSION 5 (which has a better keyboard, anyway). I've done everything with it and I carry it around everywhere, from plane trips to bicycle trips where it works as a device that logs the GPS coordinates of the routes I take.The problem here is: Vanilla kernels need tons of patches, no modern kernels really work decently for a PDA. Too many primary features like battery management and sleep are missing. So, you are doomed with an old 2.6.24 kernel, which means you cannot run modern rootfs, unless you modify glibc & C which need modern features. It could technically be done, and probably I will.my Newtown-like PDAI designed my Newtown-like PDA to be the next-gen because I don't like the new "Walker" Japanese line of pocket computers. I don't even like the Gemini toy because it's a stone designed to work only with Android (besides the fact that it costs too much, and it's more a smartphone than a pocket computer).I made it around an Allwinner SoC, which is not too bad. Sure, it has thermal problems, and sure the firmware has tons of bugs, but I fixed most of them, and GNU/Linux runs decently enough on a piece of hardware that is very cheap (~60 euros for the ARM Mobo is not too much).Unfortunately, I'm not good at PDA modeling and suck at Solidworks. And the "deferred mode" of the LCD I designed doesn't work as it should driver side of the kernel. It's only fine with fb-term (graphical vt220 terminal on direct fb) because it doesn't generate too much traffic on USB callbacks, but it starts to suck as soon as you want to run x11 applications. I don't know if this project will have a future, in the meantime I work on it from time to time.Plus, it's not a clamshell design. This means ... like with Newtown, you have to carry a keyboard with you. It's okay when you're in your lab. It's a problem when you travel.Worse, the touchscreen driver doesn't work properly because it's too noisy, still I don't understand what I did wrong, but forget about the on-screen virtual keyboard, which isn't like a physical keyboard anyway.Olimex Teres1My Teres1 has the same "OpenSource/Hardware friendly" philosophy, it just sucks because it's made on a crappy ARM SoC that Olimex doesn't want to update, and they told a lot of bullshit about the possibility of making MIPS mobos in the future ... which is why I took that laptop. Forget it, won't happen, and the keyboard sucks. 300 euros wasted on a @%U%#$ toy, I know.Quotepotentially it could open the door to similar products, ever better, ever more open, and perhaps based on RISC-V.The price of getting rid of x86: it's priceless, just pride

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 06:07:42 am
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on May 10, 2023, 05:50:21 amSure, it's the fault of like-minded people that we still have *** in 2023 **** machines that boot up in real mode, in segmented memory, expecting to find a 512-byte MBR that tells them how to switch into protected mode and then into long mode.compatibility for x86

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 07:16:43 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 10, 2023, 06:07:42 amWho cares how it boots up? Once it gets into the operating system all of that is totally irrelevant. The reason x86 matters (in some cases) is the huge library of x86 software. A computer is useless without software, and if the software one wants to use requires x86 then compatibility is a big deal. Why should anyone that is not developing operating system code care the slightest bit about a system having to deal with a bunch of legacy stuff at boot time? It's totally transparent.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 07:20:05 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 10, 2023, 05:56:26 amI don't even understand why you'd want to get rid of them. I literally give zero shits how the BIOS in my system works or what the CPU architecture is, provided it boots up reliably and runs the software I want it to run. What difference does it make if it's 1983 or 2023 or 2053? If it works it works, and compatibility is king and cheaper is a huge benefit, I see zero reason to pay more for ideological reasons.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 07:54:09 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2023, 07:16:43 amI do! For example, the Soekris BIOS is full of bugs, and you guess who has to fix them?Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2023, 07:16:43 amLOL

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 08:06:12 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2023, 07:20:05 amHow utterly depressing is computing because of people like youthen they also come to complain that intel/amd puts shit in the bios and they're spied on (libreboot? coreboot?), and no one wants to put their hand in that and it goes on for years.worse still, then you still have to deal with a series of brain-dead hardware designers who assume that if a design is good enough for the next 5 minutes it will be good enough for the next 10 years.(you all, IBM designers)

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 05:25:04 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 10, 2023, 08:06:12 amWhy? Can you articulate why any of this matters? Why should I, as a user, care? I turn on my computer, it boots up, it runs the software I need, it's stable and doesn't crash (much), what exactly is the problem? I don't find computing depressing, what is depressing about it? In fact I think it's fantastic, for a mere few hundred bucks we can have computing power that rivals the fastest supercomputers of the 80s that fit in the palm of our hand, mere mortals can afford terabytes of storage and gigabytes of RAM, computers are more powerful and more affordable than at any time in history, that's not depressing, that's amazing! Computers are tools, even as a technical person I don't really care how they work inside beyond a passing curiosity, 99.9% of computer users don't have a clue how a computer works and couldn't give a shit less. I'm typing this on a 12 year old laptop that works just fine, why shouldn't I assume this design that was good enough 12 years ago will be good enough 12 years into the future? Personal computers are a mature commodity now, it's not 1985 anymore, we don't need to upgrade every 6 months to be able to run current software and I'm thankful for that.So explain it like I'm 5, what, precisely is the problem with x86 hardware from the perspective of an ordinary person that has a goal of using software to accomplish a given task? Let's say I want to use Photoshop, play some music, browse the web, watch youtube and write a few emails. What's the issue?

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 01:31:20 pm
content: LOL, just realized my new FC hard drives use 4096-byte per sector while the stupid FC-to-pATA adapter says the PC_BIOS (of my Soekris Net5501) needs all pretend to have 512-byte sectors because for decades dead-brain programmers have always assumed they can't be any other length.As a result, nothing works just out of the box until - once again, I fix itI want to buy a time machine to live 30 - better 50 - years in the future

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 02:10:43 pm
content: if someone is interested in my Newtown-like PDA, feel free to contact me in private (PM).

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 02:24:38 am
content: My support for x86 is only in terms of ensuring software compatibility once the PC is logged in, quite how it boots up to reach that state is neither here nor there, so long as it does not do so using some evil "secure" boot system designed to prevent those users who want to from installing any linux distro of their choice.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 09:25:41 am
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on May 12, 2023, 02:24:38 amThis is exactly the reason why I said computer science in 2023 is utterly depressing: because we know x86 is a very narrow-minded architecture brought with itself, but who cares? Just let's go on buying it because it's so crazy cheap.- - -I'm an MS-DOS v{4,5,6.22} veteran and I have seen each and every generation of PCs from a developer's perspective!Both Microsoft { DOS, Windows } and intel {8051, 8088, x86 } limited my education to the point that I think the world would have been better off if Intel had gone bust right away bankrupt, giving way to CPU designers with their brains instead of their asses.Their first 8086 in real mode had a rather strange memory addressing scheme which allowed a single memory locationto be addressed in *** up to 4096 different ways ***. Note their idiocy here, 4096 { segment:offset } aliases would have been so much simpler if the segment part were strictly higher-order bits of a 32-bit address.limited RAM to 64Kbyte segments (the MS-DOS .com files were of this kind), max 1 MB physically addressableforced programmers to deal with two different sizes of pointersx86 calling conventions are not standardized, leaving devs with the mess of { __cdecl, __stdcall, __fastcall, ... }In real mode, there are no "general purpose registers", there are dedicated registers, and the insanely low number is nothing but a horrible performance killer (2)the { segment:offset } addressing was/is an attempt to stay compatible to some extent with the CP/M worldvery inefficient style of development on the lowest CISC level instead of an efficient load/store methodology (1)That happened due to a simple design decision by Intel at the Machine instruction level instead of at the upper levels of compatibility with something (8085) that was already dying.Oh, and8085sucks! Especially when you compare it with68hc11!And when you compare80{0,1}86with680{0,2}0... the 68k family has a 32bit linear addressing space and a clear path to 4 GB, so going to a 32-bit processor makes it easier to access more than 64K, the 8086 is a 16-bit architecture which was designed to be a step up from the 8-bit 8080, and I see no reason Intel should have leaped directly from an 8-bit to a 32-bit one.Oh, and8080sucks a lot when you compare it withz80.Oh, and what about "intel RISC?" thei960? it's pure horrible garbage! Those like me who have had to work on RAID controllers know that it's a nightmare to program.* * *Intel is very bad at designing CPUs, insanely great at making aggressive marketing with tons of bullshit and low-price offers, and they don't go bankrupt thanks to idiots like us (including me, as I am working with a Soektris Net5501, x86-based) who keep buying their garbageSoit's our fault.edit:(1) theMOVSBinstructionCode:if (DF isEqualTo 0) *(byte*)DI++ = *(byte*)SI++;else *(byte*)DI-- = *(byte*)SI--;single instruction doing a load, a store, and two adds or subtracts controlled by a flag input(2) Compared to RISC and 68k(3), the perceived "inelegance" of x86 registers mostly comes from the misconception that the registers of an 8086 are "general-purpose" registers: although it's a very bad design, that's not correct, each of x86-register has a "special purpose" and if you don't stick to their purposes, you are going to have a bad time.(3) the 68000 has 4 kinds of registers: 8 data registers ( {D0..D7}, all 32bit), 7 address-pointer registers ( {A0..A6}, all 32bit), the stack pointer (SP=A7, 32bit), CPU-and-ALU-status register.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 12:08:49 pm
content: Now those like me who want to support non-x86 machines need to deal with PCI boards.(I am not considering PCI express, I am only considering PCI, from v1.0 to v2.2).... what's the problem you may wonder, PCI should be "architecture independent by design"well ... that's exactly the problem: in theoryyes, in practiceno!As soon as you want to plug in a RAID board into the PCI slot of an {HPPA, PowerPC, POWER, MIPS, ARM, SH4, SPARC} computer, you find thatthe board has a ROMthe board ROM contains x86 code(1)the x86 code is required to configure and initialize the board controller (which is usually an industrial CPU={PPC4xx, i960 } with RAM, ROM, and dedicated hardware, plus a dual port ram to communicate to the PCI)the x86 code is written as "PC-BIOS extension", so it's all in "x86 real mode"my Mallanox cards, my Adaptec cards, my Avid cards, my Matrox cards... I have many cards that work like this and if you want to use them with GNU/Linux in a non-x86 computer you have to reverse engineer the damn x86 code in that damned ROM to get what value goes into which register on the chip and in what order, plus other bus-mastering details.Last time I emailedAlan Coxto get some good advice from him, he wrote me that it's such bad hacking that no one wants to do it, which is why many controllers are simply left in a semi-functional state and never work on RISC workstations.edit:(1) if you'rereally lucky, you might find OF-compatible alternative ROMs, thus containing OF scripts instead of x86 code. Usually { VGA-card, RAID-1 } card for { PowerMac, SparcStation }

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 12:24:20 pm
content: plus, PCI should be "architecture independent by design", but in practice, you also have to deal with architecture-specific aperture to PCI_IO_port and PCI_MEM_port.So it's software + hardware series of incompatibilities that happen because the vendors don't meet the PCI/PCIe spec since their profit is already OK if they just do the minimum to make their cards strictly x86 compatible.Usually, a lot of PCI and even PCIe boards are designed with x86 in mind and won't work with other architectures, for example, because they impose 64-bit access only and refuse to slip into two transactions as they should.Or, worse still because they force specific-memory addresses in their DMA engine, and these addresses are not programmable and only work with PC memory layout.Is this why you can't properly see a modern PCIe GPU working with { RPI CM4, PowerMac-G5, ... }It's because x86 rules everything and people just don't care about anything else.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 10:19:04 pm
content: This is some kind of bizarre ideological crusade, there is no valid technical reason to have such a strong view on computer architecture. No ordinary person cares how a computer works under the hood and even most technical people only care in so far as they need to know in order to successfully develop software. All that really matters is Cost, performance, reliability, and compatibility with the software you want to run and support of any peripherals you want to use, these latter two points being the most important. There's a reason x86 absolutely dominates every area of computing except for mobile where low power consumption is paramount and closed ecosystems eliminate the need to worry about compatibility. Computers are nothing but tools, they exist to run software and all the technical elegance in the world is useless if it doesn't run the software that somebody needs to use. ARM, SPARC, PowerPC, x86, etc, as long as the software you need is compiled to work on it, you'd never know what was inside the box if nobody told you.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 10:28:28 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 12, 2023, 09:25:41 amExactly, let's go on buying it because it's crazy cheap, and it works. You still haven't articulated WHY this is bad, unless perhaps you just pine for the early days of personal computers when there were numerous different competing architectures, nothing was standardized and some actually had tangible advantages and disadvantages. Now it doesn't matter, things have converged and matured, Linux is Linux is Linux and runs on practically every architecture on the planet. Maybe you want to throw away extra money but I think that being as cheap as possible is a great thing, provided that it works properly. I don't think computer science is depressing at all, on the contrary it's as exciting and more accessible than it has ever been. When I was growing up a computer cost a fortune and most people were not fortunate enough to own one. Now you can get a computer for $10 that outperforms a $40k Sun workstation of the 90s. I can assure you that 30-50 years in the future computers will be even more cheap, ubiquitous and mundane than they are today, and even fewer people will care how they work.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2023, 02:01:52 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 12, 2023, 10:19:04 pmusually, those who talk to me obsessively about software compatibility, today that there are good open source apps, are the ones who have GB of cracked software on their hard drives+= legal reasonsQuote from: james_s on May 12, 2023, 10:19:04 pmSure, so let's still design CPUs that ensure CP/M compatibility, it will take us to MarsDoes it sound stupid? ridiculous? Well, ProfessorAndrew Tanenbaumpointed out more than 20 years ago, that's precisely what Intel has been doing for decades since the compatibility you're talking about is with 8085.8085 << 8086if people like you were in the minority and started wanting to understand something about computers, it would be clear that IBM POWER10 has already proven to be superior in terms of design, scalability (even vs XEON-x86), and power consumption, as well as the ARM Apple M1 and M2 have already proven to be much more efficient than x86.do you want to be pragmatic to get the masses to get rid of x86?give themA solid OpenSource OS: { GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, GNU/Haiku, ... } are good candidates herelot of peripherals, { GPU, RAID, Gigacards, ...}, so here it is why I am "re-purposing" x86-boards on non-x86 machinesSolid OpenSource and OpenHardware support, so the same source can be recompiled on different platforms with less troubleOutstanding battery management on mobile devicesOutstanding multicore facilities management and on both hw and sw sidesWhat's one of the things that matters to you the most when you're around on a battery-powered mobile device?Bingo, when on x86 laptops you have less than 8 hours, with the same battery you can operate for 20 hours on an Apple M1 laptop.What's one of the things that matters to you the most when you need massively parallel computing?Bingo, strong and reliable memory models to run your stuff on as many cores as possible, and when an intel XEON has already demonstrated to be a bandwagon full of limitations, POWER9 and ARM64-Ampera can run up to 128 cores with a quarter of the problems you have with XEONSo,I hope people like you disappear with the end of x86, and there's a lot of hope even with RISC-V for the new generation who grew up on bread and raspberryPI instead of that x86 crap I grew up on.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2023, 09:09:07 pm
content: You sound angry.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 10:57:57 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 13, 2023, 09:09:07 pmEven on YouTube, there is a dude fighting with GPUs and other "made with PC in mind" peripherals since he would like to use them with his RPI-CM4, and ... they just don't work.Nobody - not even engineers at AMD (at least, those who are allowed to speak) - knows whybut if you look at comments, there is always someone - "hey, ok? why are you doing so? that GPU perfectly works in my PeeeeCeeee, and my PeeeeeCeeeee costs a quarter of effort and money of your setup" -

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:00:16 am
content: Talking about GPUs ... I have to understand how much "open" is this onesome have nothing but binary blobs, and you end up using them as not-accelerated framebuffer.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 06:01:35 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 13, 2023, 02:01:52 amIf there was a massive library of currently relevant CP/M software in use then no, it doesn't sound stupid at all to design CPUs that offer CP/M compatibility, it sounds like common sense. As it turns out though, that isn't the landscape we have, there is not currently relevant CP/M software, there IS however a massive library of relevant x86 software, so it absolutely makes sense to design x86 compatible processors and *shock* that is precisely what the market is doing. CP/M is far more advanced than the computer technology that took us to the moon so I have no doubt that it would be perfectly capable of getting us to Mars, as would any of the other far more modern architectures. You might be surprised at the sort of primitive CPUs that still find use in satellites and spacecraft as radiation hardened parts. Nobody cares what the CPU architecture is provided it does the job and runs the software they want to run.Forget consumers for a moment because most of them already ARE using ARM CPUs in their smartphones and tablets, and look at professionals. Solidworks which my friend's business uses requires Windows on x86. Photoshop now supports M1 but until Apple switched it required x86. Altium Designer, requires Windows on x86, If you want to develop for FPGAs you have Vivado, ISE, Quartus, and whatever the Lattice toolset is called, requires x86. These are just a few examples but they are defacto industry standards that are in use all over, and if you want to sell workstations they have to support this stuff. Over 90% of personal computers in the entire world run Windows on x86 processors, I see absolutely no reason to move away from x86 for most of these applications, it's the most well supported by far, and it works, and it's cheap. You still haven't explained what's wrong with x86 other than "it's been around a long time", yeah well so has the wheel and the lever, hammers, circular saws and screwdrivers. I'm not ideological about my tools, I use what works and I don't care what is going on inside the box. Why should I?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 06:07:55 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 14, 2023, 10:57:57 amI agree completely. The devices are designed, marketed and tested for systems that make up 90% of the market, ie x86 Windows PCs. Why don't they work on other systems? Because nobody bothered to make sure they would do so, nobody has tested them on that hardware, it's not a supported configuration. So yes, "why are you doing so" is the question I'd ask too. Why would you make life difficult by trying to use an untested and unsupported configuration that costs more and doesn't work when you can easily buy a system that it is fully supported and will just work out of the box? And when your unsupported hardware doesn't work, why would you complain about it? It's not a supported configuration.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 07:51:58 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 14, 2023, 10:57:57 amI understand your concern, but it's hard to blame companies for making stuff that actually sells and makes money. And sure they almost all make shortcuts regarding full compliance with standards, just barely making it for the markets they target. That most of the designers of said hardware don't even know why it doesn't work outside of what's been targeted is no surprise either, you can't battle on all fronts. I find that frustrating too, but I don't really know how that could be otherwise.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:57:17 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 14, 2023, 07:51:58 pmExactly, they don't know why it works because they haven't investigated. They haven't investigated because they aren't being paid to troubleshoot why an unsupported configuration doesn't work. Most of us involved in developing products don't do it for fun, we do it for a paycheck, and if my boss doesn't want me spending company time testing on a platform we don't claim to support then I'm not going to do it. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but if it's not something we claim to support then I don't care, it's hard enough just making sure something works properly with the supported configurations. Want some other platform supported? Make a business case for doing so.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2023, 07:57:26 pm
content: (Why Intel x86 will DIE sooner than you think!)

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2023, 08:19:36 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 25, 2023, 07:57:26 pmLOL it's a year later and x86 is still by far the most popular desktop platform. Your hatred for it and the fact that you wish it would die doesn't mean it will. Have you noticed that nobody else here shares your strange hatred of the architecture? Most people simply don't care.https://www.counterpointresearch.com/arm-based-pcs-to-nearly-double-market-share-by-2027/ARM is predicted to double market share by 2027, reaching 25%. x86 still well over 60% still at that point, it's not going anywhere.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 25, 2023, 09:37:07 pm
content: "in the future, it will be different, everyone will be running free GNU on their RISC computer [...]" (Tanenbaum)mnt pocket-reform pre-ordered, review coming soon.PM me if I forget to update this thread.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 12:16:22 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 14, 2023, 06:01:35 pmI totally agree. And yet you insist that architecture should be x86.QuoteThat's weird. Just a few hours ago I was reading messages where you took the exact opposite point of view, that the number of professionals using such tools (or in that case IIRC it was about assembly language and debuggers) is so small that they are irrelevant and they can use whatever they want but it doesn't affect the real computer market.I don't think you are arguing honestly, but just a troll.Also, point of order, your honour:"Photoshop now supports M1 but until Apple switched it required x86."Photoshop has been around for 36 years and I was using it myself in the 1980s. It was running on x86 Macs for only 15 of those years.In fact less, as CS3 with Intel Mac compatibility was released only in April 2007, 15 months after the first mass-production Intel Macs, and almost two years after the Apple Developer Transition Kit (with a Pentium 4) was made available to all registered developers in June 2005 (Adobe probably could get them quite a bit earlier).Prior to x86, Photoshop of course for the first seven years ran only on the M68k, and then for a dozen years on PowerPC. It was ported to PowerPC (Mac) and x86 (Windows) at around the same time in 1993-1994.Adobe got Photoshop for Arm Macs out in March 2021, only four months after the first machines went on sale -- a much better effort from them.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 12:37:49 am
content: I would expect much more porting efforts due to changes in the OS API rather than changes of the underlying CPU ISA, unless the software is written in assembly or using a non-standard language.Now the transition from 68k to PowerPC was probably more difficult, as it was not uncommon back in the days to resort to various tricks and assembly to get acceptable performance.These days, unless you're writing an OS, the ISA doesn't matter much as far as porting software goes.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 02:28:22 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 26, 2023, 12:37:49 amFor generic software written in standard C/C++ or similar, I agree.It's a bit different for media processing software where you want to take as much advantage as possible of whatever SIMD instructions the ISA has -- which is not at all standardised. Even on x86, SSE, AVX, AVX512 are rather different from each other -- not just a register size difference.Or is it all farmed off to the GPU using OpenCL/CUDA these days? I dunno.I do know that the FFmpeg list has had a thread the last week or two with support for RISC-V V extension 1.0 being upstreamed.I expect machines with SVE or RVV and either long registers or else lots of small CPU cores, each with a vector unit, will take a lot of GPGPU work off GPUs in the coming years. They are just so much more tightly integrated with normal scalar code. Both SVE and RVV have the features needed to efficiently run SIMT code using one vector lane per "thread"/"CUDA core" and one CPU core per "warp"/"wavefront". 512-2048 bit vector registers match typical GPU warp sizes. Per-lane predication allows you to implement divergent/convergent control flow.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 06:50:59 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 26, 2023, 12:37:49 amdon't forget "my-c". Currently, it only targets MIPS5++So, for me, the ISA matters a lot for- cryptographic extension- writing an HL language(1)(2)- ICE support(1) things likethisare insane, anyway insanely interesting, just don't do it (again)!(2) take advantage of sane and well-made memory barriers, at most supported by specific ISA points, at the limit I'm fine with the fact that in the ISA a special class of load/store is foreseen, rather than letting some botched implementation solutions - then called "weak memory barrier" - put a patch on it

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 07:26:18 am
content: Then, talking about bizarre, what's the point of putting Minix inside an intel On-chip Management Engine?QuoteAn Open Letter to Intel, Dr. Tanenbaum.Allwinner does something similar and with a rather buggy OR-core to manage their ARM SoC(1).But at least it's documented, you know it's there, and you can entirely disable it!(1) e.g. I patched u-boot to disable the OR-core in my NeoPI platform

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 07:47:41 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on May 26, 2023, 06:50:59 amYes of course, if you're maintaining your own language and developing very low-level stuff, then surely it matters.Anyway, x86 will die, eventually.As I said in another thread, what has made Intel will eventually kill it. That's the rule.Not saying it's gonna happen tomorrow, but it will happen.And the market will do all it can to prevent Intel from transitioning to something else. Again, that's the rule.So, curious to see how it will all unfold.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 07:58:26 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 26, 2023, 12:16:22 amI don't actually. I have a handful of ARM based platforms I actively use and they work just fine because they support the software I want to run on them, my employer issued laptop is M1 based and again it works fine for me because it runs all the software I need to do my job. Nowhere have I insisted that everything should be x86, I have only pointed out why x86 is and will likely remain dominant in many markets for a long time and I defend it against ridiculous claims of it being worthless garbage because obviously it works just fine. I personally have a need for at least SOME x86 machines because I want compatibility with the software, however if somebody builds a machine with some totally different CPU architecture that can seamlessly run x86 software via a compatibility layer I'm totally fine with that too, because ultimately it's the software compatibility I care about, along with low cost and reasonable performance. How it works under the hood makes no difference to me, if you can make a 6502, Z80 , Sparc, ARM, whatever run my software acceptably well then great.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2023, 08:09:27 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 26, 2023, 12:16:22 amNo I'm not just trolling.I forgot about Photoshop on 68k, ironically I have a whole stack of 68k Macs and have used Photoshop on them, however they are ancient, and I suppose I could have said versions of Photoshop made in the last ~20 years which is what absolutely everyone using Photoshop professionally is going to be using, required x86, and even now it will not run on any random platform, it requires either Windows x86, or Mac x86 or M1, there are no other choices that I'm aware of. M68k is pretty much irrelevant since no remotely current supported version works on that.I also don't see what is opposite about my other statement. The number of people writing BIOS, debuggers or other very low level stuff is extremely small and is irrelevant compared to the number of people using software in professional environments. I've worked in the software industry for close to 25 years now and the VAST majority of productivity software I have ever touched in a professional capacity required either Windows or Mac.