Re: Hugh's Forth in HLA, was [Re: the future of x86]

[Nathan Baker]

"Rod Pemberton" <do_no...@nospicedham.notemailnotz.cmm> wrote in message
news:k3jrq8$euv$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
>
> Unless I'm mistaken, that means Hugh's statements falls under this CLAX
> policy:
>
> "However, in the greater sense, any technical topic which would
> be of general interest to the group is acceptable."
>

Agreed.

>
> Isn't this is like the sixth time I've pointed out how ludicrously worded
> the official CLAX policy is? I know I keep posting fun of it, about once
> or
> twice per year. Officially, it allows nothing, but is worded so poorly as
> to allow everything, at the discretion of the moderator's.
>

Are you volunteering to re-write the policy? If so, then have at it.

> BTW, Nathan tends to get "prickly" about non-purely x86 discussions, if
> you
> hadn't noticed. I.e., while anyone hardly touched upon anything Forth, it
> still riled him up. Or, was that for HLA ... ?
>

No. The "red flags" were *your* response to Hugh's post and Wolfgang's
response to Hugh's post. I just "naturally" grabbed for the fire
extinguisher (knowing the history of anti-HLA rummblings around these
parts). ;)

>
> TSC

No.
Sometimes, to "drive a yellow taxi" requires an agency to check on things.
Naturally, I have no idea how far in-depth that goes.
Sometimes, one has 'several' too many sips from the hard-cider jug.
Sometimes, I really do feel like I live the life of a character from a
Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy novel.

Anyway, since I am once again posting OFF-TOPIC, you will notice that I have
cross-posted to ALA and set followups to there.

Nathan.

[Rod Pemberton]

"Nathan Baker" <nathan...@nospicedham.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:SbudnYYEF-6xisPN...@giganews.com...

> "Rod Pemberton" <do_no...@nospicedham.notemailnotz.cmm> wrote in
> message
> news:k3jrq8$euv$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
> >

On CLAX, you said:

> I very much doubt that anyone will ever add 64-bit support to HLA. In
> fact, Randy recently stated that his next software project involves
> stripping all the "assembly" aspects from HLA to create a script-style
> language in the same vein as Python, Lua, Ruby and such.
>

I haven't seen a post from Randall in five or so years. Could you tell me
where he posted that? Was that on CLAX or somewhere else?

If he's going to do that, he'd definately want to know how to implement a
threaded-code interpreter, in early Forth-style. Although somewhat
difficult to get information on in non-Forth terms, it's a very effective
interpreter design. I've been thinking about re-using my Forth interpreter
without the Forth language.

His statements definately lends some credence to what I said on CLAX
recently, and a few years ago on ALA.

Me recently on comp.lang.asm.x86:
RP> IMO (FYI, negative), HLA is a botched up version of C with Pascal style
RP> parts. It's a high level language. It's not assembly.

Me a few years ago on alt.lang.asm:
RP> In summary, the primary constraint of HLA as a teaching tool has
RP> resulted in an obtuse syntax which obstructs integration of HLA
RP> into any single high level language such as C or Pascal. Therefore,
RP> HLA is useless outside academia since it fails to solve any real world
RP> problem of high level languages. Have I got that correct?

> No. The "red flags" were *your* response to Hugh's post and Wolfgang's
> response to Hugh's post. I just "naturally" grabbed for the fire
> extinguisher (knowing the history of anti-HLA rummblings around these
> parts). ;)
>

On CLAX? With Chuck? Before you and Frank took control? No way.

After you and Frank took control? That seems highly unlikely too ...

I think the discussions you remember was right here on alt.lang.asm circa
2006 and 2007.

Randall Hyde's incessant pro-HLA posts, versus everyone else including
the notorious Betov and his RosAsm.

> > TSC
>
> No.
> Sometimes, to "drive a yellow taxi" requires an agency to check on things.
> Naturally, I have no idea how far in-depth that goes.

Wait, there are two taxi drivers on CLAX? You and Hugh? ;-)
I won't take that literally unless you say so ...

Fingerprints as a condition of employment are typically for:
1) securities and banking industries
2) secret and top secret government clearances
3) law enforcement positions

Of course, for non-employment situations, any agency with the authority to
arrest, and sometimes detain, can do so.


Rod Pemberton

[Robert Redelmeier]

[Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]
Hugh Aguilar <hughag...@nospicedham.yahoo.com> wrote in part:
>> Hugh Aguilar <hughaguila...@nospicedham.yahoo.com> writes:
>> >Does the future involve 64-bit processors or multiple
>> >32-bit processors? Right now, 64-bit programs don't reach
>> >very many people, as 64-bit computers are not very common.

> Maybe I am somewhat behind the times.
>
> I wasn't thinking about servers though --- I was thinking
> more along the lines of common computer users. Also, laptops.


May I politely suggest you are asking the wrong question?

As others have posted, x86-64bit hardware is common, verging on
inescapable. Software is a whole separate question. In view of
the large software library, 32bit support will be around for a
very long time -- at least as long as 16bit is/was -- since the
necessity and advantages of 64 bit (addr.space) are less often
compelling than 32 bit vs 16 bit.

A better question is x86 versus ARM . Many people are abandoning
laptops in favor of smartphones and tablets as their primary
computing device; stronger than their migration from desktops to
laptops. Portibility is a decisive advantage and there are others.

While there likely will be a server / bigbox future for x86 for
the foreseeable future, user computers and the important economies of
scale they bring will shift to ARM unless x86 mfrs (Intel, AMD) can
bring their electric power consumption down very substantially.

I have a very nice Intel Atom D525 system, but it draws 21W .
I also have an Raspberry Pi (ARM) that draws about 4W . Sure,
the Atom is much faster, but the RPi is fast enough to handle the
most CPU intensive task for most users (MPEG4 decompression).

If Intel and/or AMD can scale x86 back to ARM power consumption,
then they will have a chance at the mobile market, and we asm
coders will have our work cut out to maximize performance (likely
with very different x86 optimization guides).


-- Robert

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Sep 23, 6:51 am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:
>    [Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]

> Hugh Aguilar <hughaguila...@nospicedham.yahoo.com> wrote in part:

You may be right that the x86 has a diminished future. I remember when
the PowerPC came out that it was significantly better than the 80486.
Many people said that CISC was a dead-end and that the x86 was
circling the drain, and the future belonged to RISC. Then the Pentium
came out and killed the PowerPC. Apparently the PowerPC never attained
critical-mass in regard to mass usage, and hence there wasn't enough
money available to pay for the R&D on developing a better PowerPC that
could compete with the Pentium. AFAIK however, there is nothing wrong
with the PowerPC architecture that would prevent faster and faster
versions from coming out. The argument is still true that RISC is
better than CISC. The x86 devotes a lot of resources to recompiling
CISC code into RISC code at run-time --- it would really be more
efficient to do this at compile-time.

The ARM certainly has critical-mass, so maybe there will be
increasingly fast versions of the ARM coming out that eventually make
it a reasonable choice for laptops. I agree though that the 64-bit x86
has a pretty solid hold on the big-computer market. If you need more
than 4GB of memory, that is pretty much the only choice (there is the
DEC Alpha, but it seems to be nowhere near critical-mass). The ARM
seems like an unlikely choice for laptops however, considering that it
is designed for micro-controllers. The whole point of those register
banks is to boost the speed of ISRs, and this is a micro-controller
issue. The ARM might yet take over the laptop market though! Power
consumption is certainly an issue --- it is really hard to find an AC
plug-in for a laptop --- my laptop would be a lot more useful to me if
I could just rely on the battery all day and only plug it in at night
to recharge.

If the ARM did become an option for low-power laptops, would they
necessarily run Linux? AFAIK, Microsoft is committed to the x86. For
that matter, isn't Linux gaining a lot of traction for servers running
on 64-bit x86? Does Windows have a future?

BTW, on a related note --- Vista has recently crashed on my laptop.
Now it just hangs in the log-in screen. I don't know how to fix this.
I restored the registery to prior to the last two installs that I did
(Java and Adobe), but that didn't help. I ran System Mechanic, but
that didn't help. Right now I'm running in Safe Mode and I don't know
how to solve the problem. This happened on my old laptop too, and I
couldn't solve it --- I just turned the computer into a pure-Linux box
and bought this laptop for running Windows. If I can't fix the problem
I'll install Menuet on top of Windows and buy yet another laptop to
run Windows. I don't want to reinstall Windows because that will wipe
out my Linux partition --- AFAIK, a Windows install always wipes out
every other OS and takes over the entire hard drive. I'm getting
really ticked off at Microsoft --- they make a ton of money, and they
continue to deliver garbage! How long can this go on?

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Sep 23, 6:51 am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:

> If Intel and/or AMD can scale x86 back to ARM power consumption,
> then they will have a chance at the mobile market, and we asm
> coders will have our work cut out to maximize performance (likely
> with very different x86 optimization guides).

Is there a significant difference between the power consumption of the
32-bit and 64-bit x86? Maybe in the future laptops will be 32-bit to
boost battery life and desktop-computers will be 64-bit to boost
performance. This is the scenario that I was thinking of when I first
posted my question. You may be right though that the ARM will take
over the laptop market and the 32-bit x86 will just get phased out
altogether, leaving 64-bit x86 for the desktop-computers and the
performance-oriented laptops.

One good thing about the ARM moving into the laptop market, would be
that the same development tools (and the same developers) would be
able to move back and forth between the micro-controller and laptop
worlds. The ARM would become the ubiquitous platform everywhere --- as
Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."

[Nathan]

On Sep 23, 4:11 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@notemailnotz.cmm>
wrote:

>
> > I very much doubt that anyone will ever add 64-bit support to HLA.  In
> > fact, Randy recently stated that his next software project involves
> > stripping all the "assembly" aspects from HLA to create a script-style
> > language in the same vein as Python, Lua, Ruby and such.
>
> I haven't seen a post from Randall in five or so years.  Could you tell me
> where he posted that?  Was that on CLAX or somewhere else?
>

Somewhere else: aoaprogramming group on Yahoo.

>
> > No.  The "red flags" were *your* response to Hugh's post and Wolfgang's
> > response to Hugh's post.  I just "naturally" grabbed for the fire
> > extinguisher (knowing the history of anti-HLA rummblings around these
> > parts). ;)
>
> On CLAX?  With Chuck?  Before you and Frank took control?  No way.
>
> After you and Frank took control?  That seems highly unlikely too ...
>
> I think the discussions you remember was right here on alt.lang.asm circa
> 2006 and 2007.
>

Yes, I was thinking of ALA when I said "around these parts" ...
meaning: in this same corner (vicinity) of UseNet.

>
> Fingerprints as a condition of employment are typically for:
> 1) securities and banking industries
> 2) secret and top secret government clearances
> 3) law enforcement positions
>

4) hazardous materials

I have discovered that certain industries provide compelling
entertainment for us bored autodidacts. Research satisfies the inner
sleuth.

Nathan.

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Sep 23, 10:13 pm, Nathan <nathancba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 23, 4:11 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@notemailnotz.cmm>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > > I very much doubt that anyone will ever add 64-bit support to HLA.  In
> > > fact, Randy recently stated that his next software project involves
> > > stripping all the "assembly" aspects from HLA to create a script-style
> > > language in the same vein as Python, Lua, Ruby and such.
>
> > I haven't seen a post from Randall in five or so years.  Could you tell me
> > where he posted that?  Was that on CLAX or somewhere else?
>
> Somewhere else:  aoaprogramming group on Yahoo.

I heard that he is working on an HLL language as described above.

He also said, however, that he is going to release an upgraded version
of HLA pretty soon --- I don't know what the upgrade will involve ---
64-bit support seems too much to hope for.

> > Fingerprints as a condition of employment are typically for:
> > 1) securities and banking industries
> > 2) secret and top secret government clearances
> > 3) law enforcement positions
>
> 4) hazardous materials

Working with children under the age of 12 --- cab drivers have to get
fingerprinted and go through a background check to transport children
without a guardian along. This is most likely true of any job that
involves being alone with other people's children.

I don't transport children. I don't do vouchers at all anymore --- I
can't stand those welfare recipients --- "welfarocrats" is my coined
term for them.

[Rod Pemberton]

"Hugh Aguilar" <hughag...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cf66d94a-c31e-45d6...@rg9g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

> On Sep 23, 10:13 pm, Nathan <nathancba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sep 23, 4:11 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@notemailnotz.cmm>
> > wrote:
> > > Fingerprints as a condition of employment are typically for:
> > > 1) securities and banking industries
> > > 2) secret and top secret government clearances
> > > 3) law enforcement positions
>
> > 4) hazardous materials
>

They're typically needed for a concealed weapons permit too... In the
context of a job, that'd probably be under 3) or other security work.

I was aware of licensing - but not the fingerprinting - for demolition,
pyrotechnics, fireworks, ammunition, etc. It seems those, or some of them,
require fingerprints too. If we start looking, we might find a whole bunch
of jobs that require them. I can see the government wanting them for
certain jobs in the chemical industry, or nuclear industry.

It's possible they may even require fingerprints for a few jobs in the food
industry. The US food industry processes raw coca leaves on US soil. I bet
you didn't know that. A Federal license is required for a company to import
and process them. AIR, only one US company is licensed for it, and it's the
only company that ever has been licensed. I.e., they've been a US
government guaranteed monopoly for over a century now, since no other
company can get a license. I bet you thought monopolies were illegal under
US law too ... They are ... except when the US governement gets involved.
Yes, the processing of the coca leaves produces exactly the white powder
substance you think it is, and it's being _legally_ produced in the US,
under Federal law, on US soil ... The non-food product from the coca leaves
is sold as food grade anesthetic. The medical product company's which buy
the food grade version of the white powder product must be licensed too.
They convert it from food grade to medical grade for plastic surgery on the
nose (no joke). I.e., it's the same place the illegal version of the
product typically goes! AIR, there were two of them. The food product:
de-chemicalized, coca leaves, are sold to the world's largest beverage
company for their flagship, fizzy, soda-pop, cola product. Another cola
product, which "gives you wings", uses processed leaves from Germany, which
apparently removes less of the otherwise illegal substance ... hence the
saying. Since the leading beverage uses a massive amount of leaves, we're
likely producing massive amounts of legal white powder. No, I have no idea
what they do with the surplus. It might be destroyed or converted to some
other chemicals. If legalized, it'd probably be enough to immediately halt
all imports of the illegal stuff into the US. I.e., a simple change of US
law would end the the Columbian drug wars and the fight with Mexican drug
lords. I'm not for legalizing drugs, but the cost of keeping them illegal
is immense in terms of money, lives, time, and other resources. The funds
could be funding socialized healthcare, feeding our poor, educating our
children. Instead we waste it on locking people up or keeping them out.
It's a fruitless solution.

> Working with children under the age of 12 --- cab drivers have to get
> fingerprinted and go through a background check to transport children
> without a guardian along.

Interesting ... That's most likely a state law.

I wonder if that's true of flight attendants or airplane pilots which land
or fly across the States? The airline industry flies children without their
parents. Public school buses transport without parents too.

> This is most likely true of any job that involves
> being alone with other people's children.

I guess the airline flights and school buses probably don't qualify as
transporting a child "alone" ...


Rod Pemberton

[BGB]

On 9/23/2012 8:51 PM, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
> On Sep 23, 6:51 am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:
>> If Intel and/or AMD can scale x86 back to ARM power consumption,
>> then they will have a chance at the mobile market, and we asm
>> coders will have our work cut out to maximize performance (likely
>> with very different x86 optimization guides).
>
> Is there a significant difference between the power consumption of the
> 32-bit and 64-bit x86? Maybe in the future laptops will be 32-bit to
> boost battery life and desktop-computers will be 64-bit to boost
> performance. This is the scenario that I was thinking of when I first
> posted my question. You may be right though that the ARM will take
> over the laptop market and the 32-bit x86 will just get phased out
> altogether, leaving 64-bit x86 for the desktop-computers and the
> performance-oriented laptops.
>

AFAIK, there is no real significant power-usage difference between
32-bit and 64-bit CPUs.

this is presumably part of why newer versions of the Intel Atom have
64-bit support as well.


much more depends on the code itself, like people would start having to
write more apps that have smaller memory footprints and spend more of
their time sleeping (basically, apps that mostly just sleep and "wake
up" mostly to handle user-input, rather than, say, just spinning in the
main loop at full speed).

for some "lightweight" games, it may be possible to use framerate
limiting to save power, but this doesn't work with games which require
considerably more processing and GPU power (IOW: a person can likely get
good battery life from a sanely written 2D platformer or similar, but
probably not from something more along the lines of Doom3).

> One good thing about the ARM moving into the laptop market, would be
> that the same development tools (and the same developers) would be
> able to move back and forth between the micro-controller and laptop
> worlds. The ARM would become the ubiquitous platform everywhere --- as
> Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."
>

I wouldn't want to see more ARM.
at the ISA level, ARM is messier and nastier than x86.

better would be if x86 moves into being used in more tablets and
cellphones, but this mostly means better scaling back power use, and
allowing more OEM level customization.


better I think would be if 3rd parties could also make their own x86
chips (using the full/modern form) without risk of patent issues.

(at this point, it would mostly be limited to something more 386 or 486
like).

granted, this may not require specific hardware, for example, a
developer could be using RISC style hardware, but run x86 code more via
emulation (more like what Transmeta was doing...).

[Frank Kotler]

Hugh Aguilar wrote:

...

> I'm getting
> really ticked off at Microsoft --- they make a ton of money, and they
> continue to deliver garbage! How long can this go on?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Bill Gates got his start selling BASIC
that wasn't written yet to MITS, and he's been selling software that
wasn't written yet ever since.

We were discussing - can't find the exact message - the likelihood of
128/256 bit registers? I just read a message on the Nasm developer's
list from the maintainer of Vector Pascal, asking about a Nasm upgrade
for Xeon Phi. I googled it, and rather than read the Intel ads, found
this about what's wrong with it:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/7/13/xeon-phi-lacks-binary-compatibility2c-breaks-amd64-conventions.aspx

32 512-bit registers, apparently. Of course, just because Intel released
it doesn't mean it will fly. My observation is that "the market" doesn't
want your shiny new CPU if it won't run our clunky old apps, no matter
how good it is! We shall see... I don't know anything about it, just
thought I'd mention it...

Best,
Frank

[Melzzzzz]

As I see this card tend to compete with GPU cards at parallel computing,
except that it is not GPU. Main problem with it is not as
incompatibility with MMX/SSE/AVX, rather that it's SIMD instruction set
will not be compatible with regular x86 processors. As if one
writes/compiles for Xeon Phi, same program will not run on any other
x86 processor. Given that and that everyone gets GPU card (and
similar capability) for lower price, I don;t see any bright future
for this....

--
drwxr-xr-x 2 bmaxa bmaxa 4096 Sep 23 21:18 .

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Sep 24, 10:23 am, BGB <cr88...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/23/2012 8:51 PM, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
> > One good thing about the ARM moving into the laptop market, would be
> > that the same development tools (and the same developers) would be
> > able to move back and forth between the micro-controller and laptop
> > worlds. The ARM would become the ubiquitous platform everywhere --- as
> > Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."
>
> I wouldn't want to see more ARM.
> at the ISA level, ARM is messier and nastier than x86.

Can you elaborate on the "messier and nastier than x86" comment?

I don't actually program the ARM, but I have read a book on the
assembly language and it looked pretty cool. My impression of the
general concensus among programmers is that the ARM is wonderful ---
that is why it became ubiquitious in the micro-controller world.

Of course, the x86 is ubiquitous in the desktop-computer world and I
don't think it is very wonderful --- apparently many do though.

The ARM was originally designed as a replacement for the 65c02 in the
Acorn with a heavy emphasis on fast interrupt response. It seems to
have pretty much nailed that problem, with a huge block of registers
getting swapped automatically. The PIC24 does something similar, with
4 registers swapped. It is common in micro-controller programs to
spend over 50% of the time in ISRs.

[Robert Wessel]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:16:37 -0700 (PDT), Hugh Aguilar
<hughag...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Sep 24, 10:23 am, BGB <cr88...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 9/23/2012 8:51 PM, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
>> > One good thing about the ARM moving into the laptop market, would be
>> > that the same development tools (and the same developers) would be
>> > able to move back and forth between the micro-controller and laptop
>> > worlds. The ARM would become the ubiquitous platform everywhere --- as
>> > Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."
>>
>> I wouldn't want to see more ARM.
>> at the ISA level, ARM is messier and nastier than x86.
>
>Can you elaborate on the "messier and nastier than x86" comment?
>
>I don't actually program the ARM, but I have read a book on the
>assembly language and it looked pretty cool. My impression of the
>general concensus among programmers is that the ARM is wonderful ---
>that is why it became ubiquitious in the micro-controller world.

Ugh. Nobody, but nobody, who matters cares how nice the ISA is or
isn't. ARM has taken over a huge chunk of the embedded world by
providing CPUs with excellent performance per watt, low die size
requirements, licensing, availability of a multitude of
implementations, excellent toolchain support and easy licensing. Other
than excellent toolchain support, the current x86 world matches none
of those. THE ISA has/had approximately nothing to do with it.

>Of course, the x86 is ubiquitous in the desktop-computer world and I
>don't think it is very wonderful --- apparently many do though.

x86 delivers outstanding performance (in absolute terms, no less) for
an excellent price. Software compatibility is another huge win for
x86. Performance per watt, is not the architecture's strong suit, but
the interesting question is how much of that is due to the ISA as
opposed to the implementations (which for decades have emphasized
performance above all else). Again the ISA matters little. The ISA
encoding, even less.

It will be an interesting few years as x86 pushes down the power
consumption curve, and ARM pushes up the performance curve. Both ISAs
have considerable software and toolchain support, although their
applications largely don't overlap at the moment.

>The ARM was originally designed as a replacement for the 65c02 in the
>Acorn with a heavy emphasis on fast interrupt response. It seems to
>have pretty much nailed that problem, with a huge block of registers
>getting swapped automatically. The PIC24 does something similar, with
>4 registers swapped. It is common in micro-controller programs to
>spend over 50% of the time in ISRs.

Sure, that was an issue for early (and current very small) ARMs. It's
a non-issue at the higher end. The 64 bit ARM ISA does away with most
of that. And the ARM 64 bit ISA is rather radically different than
ARM32 (much more traditional RISC).

[BGB]

On 9/24/2012 11:16 PM, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
> On Sep 24, 10:23 am, BGB <cr88...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 9/23/2012 8:51 PM, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
>>> One good thing about the ARM moving into the laptop market, would be
>>> that the same development tools (and the same developers) would be
>>> able to move back and forth between the micro-controller and laptop
>>> worlds. The ARM would become the ubiquitous platform everywhere --- as
>>> Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."
>>
>> I wouldn't want to see more ARM.
>> at the ISA level, ARM is messier and nastier than x86.
>
> Can you elaborate on the "messier and nastier than x86" comment?
>
> I don't actually program the ARM, but I have read a book on the
> assembly language and it looked pretty cool. My impression of the
> general concensus among programmers is that the ARM is wonderful ---
> that is why it became ubiquitious in the micro-controller world.
>

no...

it is mostly low power usage and the ability of OEMs to customize the
die, because typically ARM chips are fabricated by the OEM rather than
by ARM. in contrast, Intel or AMD will sell a pre-made chip.


however, the ISA (especially Thumb and Thumb2) is a bit-twiddly mess,
IMO considerably worse than x86.

because, despite its kludges, x86 at least has a vaguely consistent set
of rules for encoding instructions.


nevermind things like the ISA and overall architecture not being
terribly consistent between one ARM chip and another, meaning ASM code
will have to be more aware of the specific ARM chip it is targeting to
know which instructions it can use, ...

these things are a bit worse from a compiler-and-tools perspective, as
well as a "just keep running old software and have it still work"
perspective.

so, there ends up being some need for VMs (and JITs) mostly to allow
apps to be binary compatible between different devices running different
ARM chips.

> Of course, the x86 is ubiquitous in the desktop-computer world and I
> don't think it is very wonderful --- apparently many do though.
>

the x86 ISA is at least "moderately" decent (and, nevermind the prefix
mess, the instruction encoding rules are relatively consistent as well).

performance is also fairly good.

and, at least it isn't featuring significant (not backwards compatible)
architectural changes from one version to the next.

> The ARM was originally designed as a replacement for the 65c02 in the
> Acorn with a heavy emphasis on fast interrupt response. It seems to
> have pretty much nailed that problem, with a huge block of registers
> getting swapped automatically. The PIC24 does something similar, with
> 4 registers swapped. It is common in micro-controller programs to
> spend over 50% of the time in ISRs.
>

can't say, but this is more for small end...


by the time someone is looking at something the scale of a smartphone or
tablet, this is getting much closer to the bigger "laptops and PCs"
use-case, for which ARM seems like a worse offering than x86.

they are an outgrowth of cellphones, but have moved from the use-case of
what cellphones were originally, to being more like that of a computer.
the optimal cost/benefit tradeoffs tend to shift with such a conversion.

some of the other purported "benefits" are actually more due to software:
ARM devices have tended to run very minimal and stripped-down OS's and
software, meaning that the resource requirements are much less.

this could also be done with x86.
however, people are typically going the other way, putting increasingly
heavy-weight OS's and software on ARM devices, meaning that the relative
"benefit" will become less.

the one major thing still in favor of ARM is battery life.


usually, this isn't as much of an issue for PCs or laptops, since they
are usually run plugged into the wall (and AFAICT the main
power-consumers in a laptop tend to be the LCD backlight and HDD anyways).
(there can be a significant gain in battery life mostly by turning down
the screen brightness and setting the HDD to spin down faster).

in netbooks and similar, it is more common to use a Flash SSD drive or
similar, instead of a platter-based HDD, and to use smaller screens with
less need of a big backlight. this also helps.


or such...

[Nathan Baker]

"Robert Redelmeier" <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:k3n3ag$pud$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> [Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]

[set back to cross-post because, yeah it ventures off-topic, but x86'ers
need to face these realities at some point anyway... so why not chat about
it for a bit? In fact, if there is interest, I'd entertain setting-up
alternative UseNet groups]

>
> A better question is x86 versus ARM . Many people are abandoning
> laptops in favor of smartphones and tablets as their primary
> computing device; stronger than their migration from desktops to
> laptops. Portibility is a decisive advantage and there are others.
>

Indeed. I can recommend the newest StraightTalk as a gentle/cheap
introduction. [some of these specs/reviews may be a bit dated]

http://www.lg.com/us/cell-phones/lg-L75C-optimus-zip
http://www.phonearena.com/news/LG-Optimus-Zip-brings-entry-level-Android-to-TracFone_id33178
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5X8JtG99aE
http://www.android.gs/tracfone-lg-optimus-zip-specs-features/

It **almost** represents a full-fledged desktop computer shrunk-down into an
extremely compact form. The Android OS is simply just Google's flavor of
Linux.

And just look at how quickly the world has changed:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/infographic-internet-decade/
http://visual.ly/visual-guide-how-consumers-use-mobile-phones
http://visual.ly/social-media-social-good
http://visual.ly/mobile-trends-q4-2011-mobile-stats
http://visual.ly/generation-text

Of course, we must also be concerned with security/privacy issues:
http://visual.ly/what-our-phones-can-reveal-about-us

Also... Guess what?

One can even access UseNet via their smartphone:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=usenet&c=apps

> While there likely will be a server / bigbox future for x86 for
> the foreseeable future, user computers and the important economies of
> scale they bring will shift to ARM unless x86 mfrs (Intel, AMD) can
> bring their electric power consumption down very substantially.
>
> I have a very nice Intel Atom D525 system, but it draws 21W .

I've seen plenty of 'netbook'-type computers being used. Wouldn't be
surprised if they someday appear in a bubble-wrap at the checkout counter
for just a few dollars.

Nathan.

[BGB]

I have both a smartphone and a tablet, but that doesn't mean I have any
intention on giving up on PCs and laptops.

I actually most prefer using a desktop PC.

>> While there likely will be a server / bigbox future for x86 for
>> the foreseeable future, user computers and the important economies of
>> scale they bring will shift to ARM unless x86 mfrs (Intel, AMD) can
>> bring their electric power consumption down very substantially.
>>
>> I have a very nice Intel Atom D525 system, but it draws 21W .
>
> I've seen plenty of 'netbook'-type computers being used. Wouldn't be
> surprised if they someday appear in a bubble-wrap at the checkout counter
> for just a few dollars.
>

FWIW, the majority of netbooks are still x86-based...


however, they are unlikely to get *that* cheap, mostly as the cost of
materials and manufacture will probably set a lower bound.

I would estimate $50-$100 as probably a reasonable lower bound (in any
near-term sense).


maybe it could be a little cheaper (under $10) if the whole thing just
becomes a single larger SOC epoxied onto a plastic board with an OLED
display and essentially a rubber chicklet keyboard, and alkaline or NiCd
batteries, ...

another factor limiting the lower end is price-elasticity/plasticity:
if the cost goes down sufficiently low, most people wont really care how
much it costs anymore.

the difference between a $900 and $1100 laptop will matter a lot more
than the difference between $55 and $85 netbook, despite the latter
being a relatively larger difference.


or such...

[Robert Redelmeier]

Robert Wessel <robert...@yahoo.com> wrote in part:

> Ugh. Nobody, but nobody, who matters cares how nice the ISA
> is or isn't. ARM has taken over a huge chunk of the embedded
> world by providing CPUs with excellent performance per watt,
> low die size requirements, licensing, availability of a
> multitude of implementations, excellent toolchain support
> and easy licensing. Other than excellent toolchain support,
> the current x86 world matches none of those. THE ISA has/had
> approximately nothing to do with it.

Agreed. Neither programmers nor hardware designers determine
"success" in our mercantile world -- customers do.

Small nit -- MIPs/W is not the important measure, ARM's success has
been based on low absolute power draw while performing "acceptably".
Intel x86 might be better MIPs/W but that is irrelevant since the
Watts are too high for mobile.

> x86 delivers outstanding performance (in absolute terms, no less)
> for an excellent price. Software compatibility is another huge
> win for x86. Performance per watt, is not the architecture's
> strong suit, but the interesting question is how much of that
> is due to the ISA as opposed to the implementations (which for
> decades have emphasized performance above all else). Again the
> ISA matters little. The ISA encoding, even less.
>
> It will be an interesting few years as x86 pushes down the power
> consumption curve, and ARM pushes up the performance curve.
> Both ISAs have considerable software and toolchain support,
> although their applications largely don't overlap at the moment.

The collision will be interesting. I have little doubt ARM
will achieve the required performance (full 1080p H.264 decode)
but some doubt x86 can be scaled that far back efficiently. Yes,
Intel does have the best EE process around, but the Dell x86 tablets
underwhelm in spite of double thickness & weight. I have no doubt
Intel is working on mobile, but they worked hard on the Itanium too.
Success is not guaranteed, nor can be forced, for technical developments.

S'phones/tablets have the potential to cannibalize one half the units
of the laptop/destop market. Developing regions might skip to low-end
s'phones/tablets and use things like the RaspberryPi instead of x86.

The demise of "ugly" x86 has been long-predicted.
ARM has that potential, but is even uglier.

-- Robert

[Rod Pemberton]

"Robert Redelmeier" <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message

news:k4ab57$8si$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> Robert Wessel <robert...@yahoo.com> wrote in part:
> >

> > It will be an interesting few years as x86 pushes down the power
> > consumption curve, and ARM pushes up the performance curve.
> > Both ISAs have considerable software and toolchain support,
> > although their applications largely don't overlap at the moment.
>

I mentioned the same thing almost exactly two years ago.

Unfortunately, it was in an a.l.a. OT thread I initiated. The alt.*
hierarchy has no topicality, but Redelmeier "plonked" me anyway.
So, I guess he didn't read it.

> The collision will be interesting. I have little doubt ARM
> will achieve the required performance (full 1080p H.264 decode)
> but some doubt x86 can be scaled that far back efficiently.

Why?

There is so much there they can remove. It has multiple cpu modes, supports
multiple code sizes: 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, has numerous uneeded features
like virtual memory, processor privilege levels, etc. If x86 was reduced to
pure 32-bit or pure 64-bit without all the specialty features, then it
should be able compete. If not, they can still design it to use fewer
transistors by not using standard logic blocks, i.e., hardcoded design.


Rod Pemberton

[Rod Pemberton]

"Nathan Baker" <nathan...@nospicedham.gmail.com> wrote in message

news:k48h3b$te0$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> "Robert Redelmeier" <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:k3n3ag$pud$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
> > [Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]
>
> [set back to cross-post because, yeah it ventures off-topic, but x86'ers
> need to face these realities at some point anyway... so why not chat about
> it for a bit? In fact, if there is interest, I'd entertain setting-up
> alternative UseNet groups]
>

You're elected.

"Fup2" is not censored ... ? Yes, I know you meant followup-to.

Hey, are you picking the name or are you going to let ... us ... vote on it?
:-)

E.g., comp.lang.asm.arm.

It'll get so many confusing comments about human arms and what they have to
do with assembly... That's perfect. A built in way to annoy newbs. ;-)

New thread?

> Of course, we must also be concerned with security/privacy issues:
> http://visual.ly/what-our-phones-can-reveal-about-us
>

Oh, please don't me started on Big Brother. Sadly, it's _everywhere_ now.
It's at truly scary levels of monitoring.


Rod Pemberton

[Rod Pemberton]

"BGB" <cr8...@nospicedham.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:k490jg$cnt$1...@news.albasani.net...

> On 9/29/2012 11:16 PM, Nathan Baker wrote:
> > "Robert Redelmeier" <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:k3n3ag$pud$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
> >> [Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]

...

> >> While there likely will be a server / bigbox future for x86 for
> >> the foreseeable future, user computers and the important economies of
> >> scale they bring will shift to ARM unless x86 mfrs (Intel, AMD) can
> >> bring their electric power consumption down very substantially.
> >>
> >> I have a very nice Intel Atom D525 system, but it draws 21W .
> >
> > I've seen plenty of 'netbook'-type computers being used. Wouldn't be
> > surprised if they someday appear in a bubble-wrap at the checkout
> > counter for just a few dollars.
> >
>
> FWIW, the majority of netbooks are still x86-based...
>
> however, they are unlikely to get *that* cheap, mostly as the cost of
> materials and manufacture will probably set a lower bound.
>
> I would estimate $50-$100 as probably a reasonable lower bound (in any
> near-term sense).
>
> maybe it could be a little cheaper (under $10) if the whole thing just
> becomes a single larger SOC epoxied onto a plastic board with an OLED
> display and essentially a rubber chicklet keyboard, and alkaline or NiCd
> batteries, ...
>

To make it cheaper, more flexible, more customizable, I'd do something like
the following:

1) no supplied keyboard
2) no supplied screen
3) use the availability of standardized laptop components, like DVD-ROMs,
etc.
4) abuse the availability of USB devices - supply many USB ports for user
supplied keyboard, mouse, or other USB devices or adapters, etc. The user
selects whether they want a $3 keyboard or a $120 keyboard.
5) SOC (system on a chip) - minus microprocessor, video, system memory. The
goal here is to keep the system board the same except for the processor and
system memory.
6) accept older style memory that's still widely available, like DDR2. The
system board will have to be updated periodically for market changes.
7) use an older style processor socket that's still has many processors
still available. The system board will have to be updated periodically for
market changes.
8) install a smaller capacity SSD, e.g. 20GB, for better performance
9) design accepts wall power from standard laptop DC brick power supplies
10) design allows attachment of battery compartments of different sizes and
shapes and types of batteries
11) one battery compartment design should accept standard AA batteries.
This is so the user can use common rechargeables if they wish, instead of
expensive laptop batteries.
12) design allows permanent attachment of various sizes of screens or
touchscreens, or the user can connect to a monitor or computer goggles. The
screens would be new aftermarket designs exclusively for this product.


Ok, some of those ideas may not be that great, but a few are good. I can
see the heavy emphasis on USB devices as being similar to the annoying
numerous cable connected components of the old C64 computers. The idea of
having motherboard design not change because of changes to the memory or
processor connectors is definately good. Of course, that's not entirely
possible. But, many changes can be minimized.


Rod Pemberton

[Bob Masta]

Or the Mac Mini, which looks like a little hotplate studded
with ports. (And it *does* get hot, since it has no fan.)

Best regards,


Bob Masta

DAQARTA v7.00
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Sound Level Meter
Frequency Counter, Pitch Track, Pitch-to-MIDI
FREE Signal Generator, DaqMusic generator
Science with your sound card!

[BGB]

errm, a lot of this would actually make it more expensive...
the single big SOC epoxied onto a board is pretty cheap (this is the
type of construction popular in things like TV remotes and calculators).


traditionally, PCBs are made out of layered fiberglass, but potentially,
plastic-based boards could be cheaper, but would likely have issues with
the temperatures of soldering, meaning that no components could be
soldered onto such a board (a conductive epoxy or similar would be
needed instead of solder, which could cost more than the cost savings of
plastic vs fiberglass). other lower-cost PCBs use cotton-paper, which
has tradeoffs between those of plastic and fiberglass.

OLED has the potential of being somewhat cheaper than LCD, since
in-theory, they could be produced similar to that of printed materials
(you could have big rollers similar to those used for printing out
newspapers and magazines, but instead producing essentially reams of
cheap displays, likely printed on a plastic substrate...).

this would be in contrast to the more expensive practice of printing
traces onto glass and similar required for the construction of LCD
displays, and could also save on cost by not needing a backlight.


most likely, the SOC could be wired up to a SD-card or similar, which
would serve as the HDD (or use hard-mounted Flash chips).


11, pretty much matches what I was thinking, though probably people
would use AAA sized NiCd batteries. another reasonably cheap option
could be hard-mounting a bunch of NiCd button-cells.

although, looking into it, apparently NiMH batteries are cheaper at this
point than NiCd (LiON is still more expensive).

adding a port for removable batteries would likely add cost, so a
cheaper option would probably be to solder the batteries directly to the
MOBO.


so, likely, such a device would look like:
epoxy-mounted SOC, Flash chips, and batteries on one side;
metal contacts for keyboard keys on the other;
keyboard is basically just a later of rubber with contacts on the bottom
(when the rubber key is pushed down, it closes the circuit).

the display is directly connected to the MOBO, likely via a plastic-film
ribbon connector (similar to that of typical laptop displays).

internally, the thing would probably looks about like a TV-remote or
pocket calculator, but with a connected screen.


USB ports may or may not exist, but would likely be rarer, as USB ports
themselves cost money.

>
> Ok, some of those ideas may not be that great, but a few are good. I can
> see the heavy emphasis on USB devices as being similar to the annoying
> numerous cable connected components of the old C64 computers. The idea of
> having motherboard design not change because of changes to the memory or
> processor connectors is definately good. Of course, that's not entirely
> possible. But, many changes can be minimized.
>

this would be for a "flexible" computer, but the topic was for a netbook
under $10.

modular design, however, would not save on manufacturing costs (rather,
it would make it more expensive).


cell-phones come close though, as I have seen cheap cell-phones for
around $25.

in these cases, typically the thing runs mostly on a big SOC, with the
RAM sort of stuck on top of the SOC (usually, the SOC will have a BGA
array on both the top and bottom, so that the SOC can sit there
sandwiched between the RAM and the board).

post-mount, it is common to put a big gob of epoxy around the whole
thing for sake of keeping the SOC firmly mounted onto the board
(otherwise, vibrations could break the BGA mounts and cause it to...
fall off...).

if a heat-sink is needed, it can also be placed on before the SOC is
epoxied, so externally it looks like a rounded black gob with some metal
fins sticking out.


or such...

[Robert Wessel]

On Sun, 30 Sep 2012 20:47:35 +0000 (UTC), Robert Redelmeier
<red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:

>Robert Wessel <robert...@yahoo.com> wrote in part:
>> Ugh. Nobody, but nobody, who matters cares how nice the ISA
>> is or isn't. ARM has taken over a huge chunk of the embedded
>> world by providing CPUs with excellent performance per watt,
>> low die size requirements, licensing, availability of a
>> multitude of implementations, excellent toolchain support
>> and easy licensing. Other than excellent toolchain support,
>> the current x86 world matches none of those. THE ISA has/had
>> approximately nothing to do with it.
>
>Agreed. Neither programmers nor hardware designers determine
>"success" in our mercantile world -- customers do.
>
>Small nit -- MIPs/W is not the important measure, ARM's success has
>been based on low absolute power draw while performing "acceptably".
>Intel x86 might be better MIPs/W but that is irrelevant since the
>Watts are too high for mobile.

That's not really true in the range where they're meeting (at least
for now). The low end Atoms are slower, but use more power, than the
high end ARMs. The comparison is complicated by the fact that almost
all the ARMs are SOC-ish, while the Atoms are not, so exceptionally
poor chipset support for Atoms has had a much bigger negative impact
on Atom power consumption than anything comparable in the ARM world.
On the flip side, essentially all ARMs have significantly poorer
memory interfaces than x86s, which impacts their performance on memory
intensive workloads.

Higher up the scale, the MIPS/Watt of x86 generally falls off as
performance increases (the 100W server parts are not ten times faster
than the 10W laptop parts), but there's a substantial increase in
absolute performance.

But all three measures, power consumption, performance, and perf/watt
are important, although in varying degrees based on the application.

[wolfgang kern]

Rod Pemberton and others talked about...

>>> It will be an interesting few years as x86 pushes down the power
>>> consumption curve, and ARM pushes up the performance curve.
>>> Both ISAs have considerable software and toolchain support,
>>> although their applications largely don't overlap at the moment.


> I mentioned the same thing almost exactly two years ago.

> Unfortunately, it was in an a.l.a. OT thread I initiated. The alt.*
> hierarchy has no topicality, but Redelmeier "plonked" me anyway.
> So, I guess he didn't read it.
>
>> The collision will be interesting. I have little doubt ARM
>> will achieve the required performance (full 1080p H.264 decode)
>> but some doubt x86 can be scaled that far back efficiently.
>
> Why?

from my point of view there is just a physical limit of either
speed performence or a cost/ability restruction or just a market
share goal, power consumtion vs. performance and some more ...

You'll never can satisfy more than two of all this various demands.

> There is so much there they can remove. It has multiple cpu modes,
> supports
> multiple code sizes: 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, has numerous uneeded features
> like virtual memory, processor privilege levels, etc. If x86 was reduced
> to
> pure 32-bit or pure 64-bit without all the specialty features, then it
> should be able compete. If not, they can still design it to use fewer
> transistors by not using standard logic blocks, i.e., hardcoded design.

Sure AMD and Intel could give up on backwards compatible instruction-
support and as we already see this happend already with the transition
from 32 to 64-bit instruction encoding.

OTOH, me personally wouldn't have to much troubles if the former
octal register encoding became obsolete and might be substituted
by a more logical nibble addressing for 16 registers instead of
this REX/VEX workarounds in the opcodes itself ...

I can't see why we keep onto octal+Rex/Vex when we got a CPU which
got much more opportunities ... Perhaps just one more time a dictate
from Billy the Greedy and nothing else. I could live without M$-shit.
__
wolfgang (former hardware manufacturer 1979..1997)

[Rod Pemberton]

"BGB" <cr8...@nospicedham.hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:k4cs5t$4i1$1...@news.albasani.net...

> On 10/1/2012 1:25 AM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > "BGB" <cr8...@nospicedham.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:k490jg$cnt$1...@news.albasani.net...
> >> On 9/29/2012 11:16 PM, Nathan Baker wrote:
> >>> "Robert Redelmeier" <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote in message
> >>> news:k3n3ag$pud$1...@speranza.aioe.org...
> >>>> [Fup2 set to ALA -- this may be OT for clax86]
...

It may make the total cost more expensive, but not necessarily. The
manufacturer of such a device will only have a price discount on a
component, e.g., memory, if they buy large volumes. If they can only
produce small quantities, then they can't get a discount. Also,
competition for production of interchangeable or replaceable components
should help.

> the single big SOC epoxied onto a board is pretty cheap (this is the
> type of construction popular in things like TV remotes and calculators).
>
>
> traditionally, PCBs are made out of layered fiberglass, but potentially,
> plastic-based boards could be cheaper, but would likely have issues with
> the temperatures of soldering, meaning that no components could be
> soldered onto such a board (a conductive epoxy or similar would be
> needed instead of solder, which could cost more than the cost savings of
> plastic vs fiberglass). other lower-cost PCBs use cotton-paper, which
> has tradeoffs between those of plastic and fiberglass.
>

The PCB is one of the more expensive components in an electronic device. The
cheapest keyboard at my local computer store is $3.49 for PS/2 and $3.99 for
USB. It's going to be difficult to undercut that price with a custom
circuit board for the keyboard. It may undercut that price if a cheap "soft
rubber" keyboard is used, and a keyboard smaller in size than a PC keyboard
(less material). However, it's still a custom part. Custom parts cost more
than non-custom. So, it will have some additional cost. Whether it comes
out as less or more expensive overall is unknown at this point.

Besides the PCB, the display, transformer, or more expensive electronic
chips like a DSP, microprocessor, or memory are also expensive components.
That's why I suggested allowing the customer choose the display. They can
buy a small, cheaper one, or larger, more expensive one, or connect to a
spare or donated monitor.

In the case of the SOC, the SOC itself and either microprocessor or memory
if needed, are expensive components. An SOC without microprocessor becomes
a motherboard chipset. "COTS" components (commercial off-the-shelf) are a
way to reduce cost. E.g., a company I worked for reduced the cost of an
integrated bridge rectifier from around $1 USD to like 4/10,000ths of cent.
They bought rectifier diodes in bulk and used four of them. Now, if you
know anything about reliability, then you know that four components are less
reliable than one. But, the risk of reduced reliability was considered cost
justified. I.e., it could be less expensive to use standard parts instead
of a custom SOC, e.g., an ARM with a FPGA, etc.

That same company I worked for used about four different types of PC boards.
One might've been fiberglass. It broke the same way and had layers of
material, and fibers. Another was a solid, but clear green, plastic like
material. It didn't have layers. It could soften like plastic when heated,
but also could shatter like glass (with alot of force applied). The other
two appeared to be different types of cheap fiberboard. I'm not sure of
their price, but those two were really "cheap" in terms of quality. Just
soldering a component by hand would sometimes lift the trace wiring off of
the circuit board. It was almost like the traces were cut or stamped and
glued on. None of them had multi-layers, with wire traces in-between, like
modern x86 PC motherboards. Their board wiring was all single-sided
(bottom) or double-sided (top and bottom). A more expensive PCB cost as
much as the DSP we used in one product.

> most likely, the SOC could be wired up to a SD-card or similar, which
> would serve as the HDD (or use hard-mounted Flash chips).

If it's too slow, a potential issue with SD, people will be underwhelmed.
Not being so slow requires more money.

> so, likely, such a device would look like:
> epoxy-mounted SOC, Flash chips, and batteries on one side;
> metal contacts for keyboard keys on the other;
> keyboard is basically just a later of rubber with contacts on the bottom
> (when the rubber key is pushed down, it closes the circuit).
>

I'd much rather have ports for a wired keyboard and mouse. Of course, there
might be a standard wireless protocol(s) for wireless keyboard and mice.
Then, you could use any wireless keyboard or mouse with it. At best,
standard PC components are COTS.

> > Ok, some of those ideas may not be that great, but a few are good. I
> > can see the heavy emphasis on USB devices as being similar to the
> > annoying numerous cable connected components of the old C64
> > computers. The idea of having motherboard design not change
> > because of changes to the memory or processor connectors is
> > definately good. Of course, that's not entirely
> > possible. But, many changes can be minimized.
> >
>
> this would be for a "flexible" computer, but the topic was for a netbook
> under $10.
>

Under $10? For a netbook? You can't get a decent calculator for that. How
are you going to get a decent netbook? For a decent calculator, you're
looking at least $50 to $80, and closer to $100 to $150 (USD). Assuming
wholesale is a 50% discount to retail, that's still $25 for a calculator,
not a netbook. Using the "calculator model" of manufacturing, some company
probably could produce a netbook inexpensively, similar in appearance to a
Blackberry: chiclet keypad, small screen, custom chip. Of course, then it
becomes a stripped-down smartphone with a faster processor...

I think a much better idea would be to have someone or a company subsidize
the price of a decent netbook. A charity or non-profit corporation, a
wealthy benefactor or already existing charitable trust, a US government
grant, or some US government program for the needy, or a local business
grants, etc can help pay for the cost. E.g., $90 from "primary" source
(charity) and $20 from "secondary" source (government program) and $10 from
the end-user, would allow for a $120 unit. I think it's realistic if the
end-user is in the US, that they can pay much more than $10, say $100 or
$200, even if they're below US poverty thresholds. Now, if the product is
for parts of Africa, I can understand the $10 goal, but it'd still be a
better outcome if it were subsidized.

> modular design, however, would not save on manufacturing costs
> (rather, it would make it more expensive).
>

It could raise the total cost, but not necessarily. It depends on the
prices of components. That's a function of volume and whether or not the
part is custom. Calculators have long lifespans as compared to computers.
So, a custom chip is less expensive over the life of the product. Standard
COTS components for PCs are pretty cheap. They're high volume. It's
possible a custom components will be more expensive than a COTS solution.
It's also possible the custom components could be less expensive, but that's
less likely, IMO.

> cell-phones come close though, as I have seen cheap cell-phones for
> around $25.
>
> in these cases, typically the thing runs mostly on a big SOC, with the
> RAM sort of stuck on top of the SOC (usually, the SOC will have a BGA
> array on both the top and bottom, so that the SOC can sit there
> sandwiched between the RAM and the board).
>

BGA's are bad news. They don't always stay soldered. Even with heat sinks
they can become unsoldered. Some of them can put out more heat than the
heat sink can handle for the given size of the chip.

Look at the summer temperatures we've had in the US for the past few years.
If it's over 120degF and you accidentally leave it in your car, you'll
probably melt the plastic case and rubber chiclet keyboard... The
temperatures need to be a bit higher to unsolder.


Rod Pemberton

[Nathan]

On Oct 2, 4:51 pm, "Rod Pemberton"

>
> I think a much better idea would be to have someone or a company subsidize
> the price of a decent netbook.  A charity or non-profit corporation, a
> wealthy benefactor or already existing charitable trust, a US government
> grant, or some US government program for the needy, or a local business
> grants, etc can help pay for the cost.  E.g., $90 from "primary" source

You guys really need to "get out more"... read something other than
_just_ UseNet... perhaps cruise Slashdot, Reddit, YCombinator, etc.

Here in the USA, the government already pays the whole cost of either
cellphone or computer for the needy. And cellphones are already
basically free for everyone else because the cell companies make their
money off of the voice/data service contract -- not from phone sales.
Netbooks will become free (for everyone) when Google can force the
user to see advertisements during use.

Nathan.

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown..."

[wolfgang kern]

"Nathan" EvenBit posted:

> I think a much better idea would be to have someone or a company subsidize
> the price of a decent netbook. A charity or non-profit corporation, a
> wealthy benefactor or already existing charitable trust, a US government
> grant, or some US government program for the needy, or a local business
> grants, etc can help pay for the cost. E.g., $90 from "primary" source

|You guys really need to "get out more"... read something other than
|_just_ UseNet... perhaps cruise Slashdot, Reddit, YCombinator, etc.

Yeah, I just try to gather detailed info by reading some monthtly
reports found in some paper-shops like CHIP/Electronics/Techicia beside
the abos from several semiconductor and chip manufactureres.

|Here in the USA, the government already pays the whole cost of either
|cellphone or computer for the needy. And cellphones are already
|basically free for everyone else because the cell companies make their
|money off of the voice/data service contract -- not from phone sales.
|Netbooks will become free (for everyone) when Google can force the
|user to see advertisements during use.

True also here in Austria, the former center of old European Civilsation.
Phone companies grow over night and offer latest brand hardware for free
if you sign a contract for at least two years with em.

So the price for the hardware seem to be already a minor task for mobile
phone companies, their gain may be in the offer of an net-account and all
this (for me new absolutely useless) gimmics like facebook/twitter/ect ..

__
wolfgang

|Nathan.

|"Come gather 'round people
|Wherever you roam
|And admit that the waters
|Around you have grown..."

I once experienced the water joining in my home.
But even I got a real good sense of houmor, I missed the fun in it.

[Rod Pemberton]

"Nathan" <nathan...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b5d0d642-a3ad-4079...@e18g2000yqo.googlegroups.com...

> On Oct 2, 4:51 pm, "Rod Pemberton"
>
> > I think a much better idea would be to have someone or a company
> > subsidize the price of a decent netbook. A charity or non-profit
> > corporation, a wealthy benefactor or already existing charitable trust,
> > a US government grant, or some US government program for the needy,
> > or a local business grants, etc can help pay for the cost. E.g., $90
> > from "primary" source
>
> You guys really need to "get out more"... read something other than
> _just_ UseNet... perhaps cruise Slashdot, Reddit, YCombinator, etc.
>

I dropped clax. This is no longer even technology related ...

Did BGB say which market his idea was for? If so, I missed it.

> Here in the USA, the government already pays the whole cost of either
> cellphone or computer for the needy.

True.

Anyone who has a fulltime job at minimum wage doesn't qualify. So, there
are many poor families that don't qualify as poor enough.

Just because the US government rationalized the poor's need for a cellphone,
doesn't mean they'll rationalize the poor's need for a netbook.

I'm sure many poor are requesting cheap, subsidized transportation, such as
automobiles.

> And cellphones are already basically free for everyone else
> because the cell companies make their money off of the
> voice/data service contract -- not from phone sales.

The continuing service fees are actually a bigger challenge for the poor
than a fixed upfront cost. That requires the poor to have a solid,
sufficient, and regular monthly income stream.

There is also the teenager market. They can't afford too much. In general,
they definately can't afford service fees, or especially the data fees. I'm
sure a middle class family or above pays the purchase and service fees for
their children.

> Netbooks will become free (for everyone) when Google can force
> the user to see advertisements during use.

Do you think that will work? I don't.

I recall free dial-up ad-based Internet. I used it. It was free. It
failed. Adverts are tolerated but not desired. I don't look at or respond
to Google ads. I turn the channel during cable TV commercials too. People
were hacking ad-based Internet services to turn off or block the
advertisements. They'll hack "ad-books" too. (Did I just coin a new term?)
I'm sure that if Google did provide ad-books, there would be many groups
accepting the netbooks just to get the hardware, e.g., libraries, schools,
hackers, ... Then, they'll install a new OS, perhaps even Android ... Free
hardware. Free software. All from Google. You can't beat that! Socialism
at it's finest?


Rod Pemberton

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Oct 4, 10:38 am, "wolfgang kern" <nowh...@never.at> wrote:
> "Nathan" EvenBit posted:

> |Here in the USA, the government already pays the whole cost of either
> |cellphone or computer for the needy.  And cellphones are already
> |basically free for everyone else because the cell companies make their
> |money off of the voice/data service contract -- not from phone sales.
> |Netbooks will become free (for everyone) when Google can force the
> |user to see advertisements during use.
>
> True also here in Austria, the former center of old European Civilsation.
> Phone companies grow over night and offer latest brand hardware for free
> if you sign a contract for at least two years with em.
>
> So the price for the hardware seem to be already a minor task for mobile
> phone companies, their gain may be in the offer of an net-account and all
> this (for me new absolutely useless) gimmics like facebook/twitter/ect ..

You guys are boring me to death!

You have diverted this thread to a discussion of the mass-market, in
which the R&D and even the manufacture of the hardware is such a minor
cost that the hardware is given away for free. The money is made
through service contracts for the customers, or even just from
advertisers (it seems pointless to advertise to poor people as they
don't have any money, but on the other hand, they typically became
poor because of bad financial decisions and they are expected to
continue making bad decisions which makes them ideal targets for
advertising).

The reason this is boring to me is because it has nothing to do with
me. I'm only interested in writing programs myself. I'm never going to
have such a large volume that giving away hardware will become an
option for me. I'm always going to work for small companies that have
1 customer, or 2 or 3 if they are really lucky, and maybe 1 or 2
employees total. My goal is to become the owner of such a company
myself. None of this talk about the mass market has anything to do
with me. Also, unless one of you is the CEO of T-Mobile and hasn't
mentioned this fact to us --- it doesn't have anything to do with you
either. This thread has descended into fantasy: "If I were the king of
the world, the first thing I would do is give everybody a
smartphone..."

BTW: The problem with the world is not that we don't have enough smart
phones, it is that we don't have enough smart people. At this time in
America, smart phones outnumber smart people 3:1 (in Scottsdale AZ it
is 5:1).

[Rod Pemberton]

"Hugh Aguilar" <hughag...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:0f3c1d8a-1717-46b0...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

> On Oct 4, 10:38 am, "wolfgang kern" <nowh...@never.at> wrote:
> > "Nathan" EvenBit posted:
> >

> > [...]

>
> You guys are boring me to death!

Hey, take your pick:

a) When did you post? Oh, eight hours ago... Well, it's always interesting
to hear from a guy after his death. Sigh, RIP Hugh ... RIP.
b) We thought you were only reading c.l.a.x... How can we talk about you
behind your back if you're reading on a.l.a. too? Go away!
c) We're boring? This is from a guy who posts to comp.lang.forth
and drives a taxi...
d) You aren't boring like us? Why are you talking to us?

;-)

> The reason this is boring to me is because it has
> nothing to do with me.

Feeling a bit narcissistic are we?

Dude, you've got another day to go before it's the weekend.

Close your eyes. Relax. Breathe out. Breathe in.

Maybe it's time to put a foam bat in the front seat of the taxi?

The law says your customers still have to pay you for service rendered even
if you assault them the foam bat, yes? Offer a dollar discount per hit,
maybe they won't press charges and you get discounted therapy. ;-)

> I'm only interested in writing programs myself.

Was that "for myself" or "by myself"?

One is narcissistic. One is introverted.

> This thread has descended into fantasy: [...]

Well, the thread is partially in the alt.* (anarchists, lunatics,
terrorists) Usenet hierarchy now.

You can thank Nathan for that. :-)


Rod Pemberton

[Robert Redelmeier]

Hugh Aguilar <hughag...@yahoo.com> wrote in part:

> The reason this is boring to me is because it has nothing
> to do with me. I'm only interested in writing programs myself.

Rather sad to be so easily bored by anything not
immediately personally relevant.

> I'm never going to have such a large volume that giving away
> hardware will become an option for me. I'm always going to
> work for small companies that have 1 customer, or 2 or 3 if
> they are really lucky, and maybe 1 or 2 employees total. My
> goal is to become the owner of such a company myself. None
> of this talk about the mass market has anything to do with me.

I suggest you think deeper. As an ultra-low volume player, you
are pretty much economically forced to accept choices the larger
market has prepared for you: x86 or ARM, MS-Windows or Linux,
etc. Sure you can build custom hardware or software solutions,
but only at higher cost especially if you properly account for
your time. You have to pick your battles, and apply your high
cost customization where it will do the most good.

So we all have to watch the larger market to know what hardware
we are likely to have to program.

> BTW: The problem with the world is not that we don't have
> enough smart phones, it is that we don't have enough smart
> people. At this time in America, smart phones outnumber
> smart people 3:1 (in Scottsdale AZ it is 5:1).

Do not be fooled: in America, people flaunt their wealth and
hide their intelligence. Elsewhere, people do the opposite.

-- Robert

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Oct 5, 8:05 am, Robert Redelmeier <red...@ev1.net.invalid> wrote:
> Hugh Aguilar <hughaguila...@yahoo.com> wrote in part:

> > I'm never going to have such a large volume that giving away
> > hardware will become an option for me. I'm always going to
> > work for small companies that have 1 customer, or 2 or 3 if
> > they are really lucky, and maybe 1 or 2 employees total. My
> > goal is to become the owner of such a company myself. None
> > of this talk about the mass market has anything to do with me.
>
> I suggest you think deeper.  As an ultra-low volume player, you
> are pretty much economically forced to accept choices the larger
> market has prepared for you:  x86 or ARM, MS-Windows or Linux,
> etc.  Sure you can build custom hardware or software solutions,
> but only at higher cost especially if you properly account for
> your time.  You have to pick your battles, and apply your high
> cost customization where it will do the most good.
>
> So we all have to watch the larger market to know what hardware
> we are likely to have to program.

In the micro-controller world, customers buy boards. They don't care
what processor is on the board, just so long as the board does
whatever it is supposed to do.

My Forth-programming employment experience involved writing the
assembler/simulator/compiler at Testra for their MiniForth processor.
The MiniForth was built on a Lattice 1048isp PLD. Testra is a very
small company (2 programmers plus the 2 owners who are brothers), but
they weren't following the crowd! That kind of play is a huge gamble.
You just have to hope that somebody shows up and says: "We are
impressed with what you've done --- here is a suitcase full of cash to
help you vault into the big-time." That doesn't happen very often. It
didn't happen at Testra. I was making so little money that I couldn't
afford rent and had to live in my van. I just quit and moved on. I was
told that I was being "disloyal" by leaving, which doesn't make much
sense in the context of an employer/employee relationship.

I don't know that following the crowd is a better plan though. If you
do that, you are destined to be small-time forever --- a perpetual
also-ran. It is like playing poker. Sometimes you have to just go all-
in. If you timidly bet a small amount every time, your stack of chips
is guaranteed to dwindle down to nothing.

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Oct 4, 10:59 pm, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@notemailnotz.cmm>
wrote:
> "Hugh Aguilar" <hughaguila...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:0f3c1d8a-1717-46b0...@kg10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

> > You guys are boring me to death!
>
> Hey, take your pick:
>
> a) When did you post?  Oh, eight hours ago...  Well, it's always interesting
> to hear from a guy after his death.  Sigh, RIP Hugh ... RIP.
> b) We thought you were only reading c.l.a.x...  How can we talk about you
> behind your back if you're reading on a.l.a. too?  Go away!
> c) We're boring?  This is from a guy who posts to comp.lang.forth
> and drives a taxi...
> d) You aren't boring like us?  Why are you talking to us?
>
> ;-)
>
> > The reason this is boring to me is because it has
> > nothing to do with me.
>
> Feeling a bit narcissistic are we?

I was being fascicious. The point that I was making is that such ultra-
high volume sales that you guys are talking about are way outside the
realm of reality for pretty much everybody.

If I was really as egotistical as people think I am, I would imagine
that I was right on the verge of being super big-time. I don't.

Companies that have huge volume sales aren't really interested in
contributions made by independent programmers working in their garage.
Apple is notorious for snubbing the independents. I remember I bought
a Super Nintendo a long time ago because I hoped to write games for it
(I liked the 65c816 that it used), but then I found out that this is
pretty much impossible --- everything is done in-house. It is possible
to write x86 software for Windows or Linux, but all of that stuff is
given away for free. CompUSA went out of business; there is no market
for shrink-wrapped software, except for games. I really doubt that
anybody is making any money by writing apps for big-name platforms
such as the iPhone or Windows.

> Maybe it's time to put a foam bat in the front seat of the taxi?
>
> The law says your customers still have to pay you for service rendered even
> if you assault them the foam bat, yes?  Offer a dollar discount per hit,
> maybe they won't press charges and you get discounted therapy.  ;-)

It would be so much fun to whack my customers upside the head
everytime they say something foolish that I would gladly give them a
dollar discount per whack.

If I knock some sense into them though, it seems like they ought to
pay me for the service. For some reason though, people don't generally
see this as a service. On that subject, I don't think that I would
want to give the foam bat to my customers and let them whack me every
time that I said something foolish, even if they agreed to pay an
extra dollar per whack.

Only once can I remember anybody thanking me for telling him that he
was talking foolishness. This was when that cult leader had all of
those billboards up saying that the world was going to end on May 21.
A guy in the poker room was telling all kinds of weird stories about
the cult leader. I said that I agreed that the cult leader was a bad
guy, but that I also thought that all of this guy's stories were just
malicious gossip. I could present evidence that some of that stuff was
definitely not true, and I could point out the general unbelievability
of the rest of it. At first the guy was upset, but then he thought
about it and admitted that he had just gotten all of that stuff off
the internet and had repeated it unquestioningly. Then he thanked me
for making him realize this! I was amazed --- how many people will
ever admit that they are full of b.s.? --- and yet, b.s. is what makes
us human (note that b.s. is an acronym for "belief system").