panda|z | xiangfu: morning! | 03:11 |
---|---|---|
kristianpaul | ha is amazing i couldbuy a 1.2V regulator locally.. | 04:03 |
kristianpaul | perhaps i could use a diode ;) | 04:03 |
wolfspraul | dvdk hey David, still sometimes following here? | 04:05 |
wolfspraul | (he used to read the backlog, so I try :-)) | 04:05 |
wolfspraul | I spent a whole day the other day trying to track down what colorforth and OKAD and those ga144 chips are really about, but couldn't... | 04:05 |
wolfspraul | do you know more? | 04:05 |
wolfspraul | it looks like a refusal to reuse/use any other software, resulting in 'no source code' and in the end just some web pages at colorforth.com ? | 04:06 |
wolfspraul | or is there more? | 04:06 |
wolfspraul | does OKAD run? are there OKAD source codes? | 04:06 |
wolfspraul | are the chip designs for those GA144 chips published? do they exist anywhere but in Chuck's brain? :-) | 04:06 |
wolfspraul | we have to track him down in his cabin in the western midlands somewhere? :-) | 04:07 |
kristianpaul | thinking about the next forth single porpuse computer (after the wikireader?) | 04:07 |
wolfspraul | I was comparing vlsi cad software, came across electric, magic, alliance and toped. and the elusive OKAD... | 04:07 |
kristianpaul | ahmm | 04:07 |
kristianpaul | ok | 04:07 |
wolfspraul | not really, I just want to compare what's around | 04:07 |
kristianpaul | sure sure | 04:07 |
kristianpaul | i'm to new for forth, but i remenber mcus optimized for java :p | 04:11 |
wpwrak | hmm. http://www.ultratechnology.com/okad.htm | 04:11 |
wpwrak | was unhappy with the existing tools. too bulky and don't do what he wants to do. so far, that sounds familiar. | 04:12 |
wpwrak | then he built his own operating system, "OK". with one thing running on it, that OKAD. erm, what was that about the cabin again ? :) | 04:13 |
kristianpaul | come on, give it a chance :) | 04:14 |
kristianpaul | you could had write lilo in forth ;-) | 04:15 |
wolfspraul | Is there someone here who can help xiangfu through the next step of debian bureaucracy? | 04:16 |
wpwrak | at least i didn't "entered the kernel of [it] using a debugger " | 04:16 |
wolfspraul | some packages like fped (and fpgatools) need a 'sponsor', I believe with "DD" rights | 04:16 |
wolfspraul | it's amazing to see how much bureaucracy there is, he he | 04:16 |
kristianpaul | yes | 04:16 |
wolfspraul | that is definitely worse than a lot of small country governments I dealt with | 04:16 |
kristianpaul | DD <- bureaucracy, yeah... :-/ | 04:16 |
wolfspraul | and then they are surprised why the number of bug reports has declined by almost 50% in the last 6 years | 04:16 |
kristianpaul | afaik my debian mentor is a bit away since two yeards ago... let me see what can i do | 04:17 |
wpwrak | i have no clue about debian bureaucracy. i think in this case ignorance is bliss :) | 04:17 |
wolfspraul | bureaucracy | 04:17 |
kristianpaul | perhaps he can join #debian-co and ask :-) | 04:17 |
wolfspraul | the problem with the bureaucrats is that all orgs are self selecting | 04:17 |
kristianpaul | there are two friendly DD there | 04:17 |
wolfspraul | eventually only those types are left that start their computers to find typos | 04:17 |
wolfspraul | http://mentors.debian.net/packages/uploader/xiangfu%40openmobilefree.net | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | I see it quite fatalastic, same as I would deal wtih any US/China/Germany-type bureaucracy | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | then it's fun, no problem | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | how many years are we trying to get fped uploaded now? | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | just one or two | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | pah | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | nothing in the bigger picture of the universe | 04:18 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, Hi | 04:18 |
wolfspraul | people are born, retired, whatever | 04:18 |
qi-bot | [commit] Xiangfu: modules: bga: add 324 footprint (master) http://qi-hw.com/p/kicad-libs/87db425 | 04:19 |
wolfspraul | and fped is in status XYZ... ;-) | 04:19 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, I am create the csg324 chip footprint. but I have problem on the 'row', you can see that in (this^) commit. | 04:19 |
wolfspraul | oops http://www.donarmstrong.com/posts/bug_reporting_rate/ | 04:20 |
wpwrak | wolfspraul: on my ubuntu, fped is available as a package. so the/some result is there | 04:20 |
wolfspraul | good :-) | 04:20 |
wolfspraul | kristianpaul: thanks! | 04:20 |
kristianpaul | #debian-co <--- debian irc servers | 04:21 |
wolfspraul | I believe the link I posted is where the "sponsors" can assert their powers | 04:21 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, fped is real great. once I have the 484 footprint. we you edit ~10 variables . then we get csg324. | 04:21 |
kristianpaul | well he needs ask anyway | 04:21 |
wolfspraul | pabs3: do you know anyone? | 04:21 |
kristianpaul | he if join debian.co i cna try convice DD's | 04:21 |
wolfspraul | we get there | 04:21 |
wolfspraul | btw, after some X years xiangfu has "dm" power now? | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | xiangfu: was it "dm"? | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | WOHOOO! | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | DEEE EMMM | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | that is it | 04:22 |
pabs3 | wolfspraul: know anyone? | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | someone who could help with the 'sponsor' thing? | 04:22 |
wolfspraul | http://mentors.debian.net/packages/uploader/xiangfu%40openmobilefree.net | 04:22 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, it's old package. I have a new version here: 'https://mentors.debian.net/package/fped'. and now I am a DM. so I need a DD upload a new version with one line add (DM-Upload-Allowed: yes) | 04:23 |
xiangfu | then I can upload/update the package by myself. | 04:23 |
wolfspraul | DM! | 04:23 |
kristianpaul | dm is okay for fped | 04:23 |
xiangfu | wolfspraul, yes. it's dm (debian maintainer) | 04:23 |
kristianpaul | but he needs sponsor for fpgatools | 04:23 |
wolfspraul | easier to get a US green card | 04:24 |
kristianpaul | lol ;) | 04:24 |
wolfspraul | it is | 04:24 |
wolfspraul | debian can be proud | 04:24 |
wolfspraul | they are so big they are approaching the bureaucracy of the largest country on earth | 04:24 |
wolfspraul | that must be a sign of victory! | 04:24 |
kristianpaul | universal victory :p | 04:24 |
xiangfu | kristianpaul, fped, it still need a DD upload a new version with one line add (DM-Upload-Allowed: yes) | 04:24 |
pabs3 | xiangfu: FYI, DMUA is deprecated: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/09/msg00008.html | 04:24 |
kristianpaul | xiangfu: aahmmm i tought was un-reviwed... :/ | 04:25 |
pabs3 | kristianpaul: xiangfu has a sponsor for fpgatools already | 04:25 |
wolfspraul | yup | 04:25 |
pabs3 | kristianpaul: http://lists.debian.org/20121009121100.230230@gmx.net | 04:26 |
kristianpaul | ah good ! | 04:26 |
pabs3 | looks like Jan Luebbe <jluebbe@debian.org> sponsored fped | 04:27 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: (row) problem. ah yes, messy. best to move the index outside the table | 04:27 |
wolfspraul | that is a wonderful mail there (new DUMA thing) | 04:28 |
wolfspraul | I stand by my bureaucracy observation | 04:28 |
pabs3 | btw, there is an electronics software packaging team that might be interested in helping: http://wiki.debian.org/PkgElectronics | 04:28 |
wolfspraul | a change in US green card processing could not be any more intricate | 04:28 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, you DO not sleep. it's 1AM Buenos Aires :-) | 04:28 |
wolfspraul | of the 5 "advantages" listed there one is "DM can't give another DM upload rights for his package anymore" | 04:29 |
wolfspraul | that's an advantage? | 04:29 |
wolfspraul | another bottleneck created | 04:29 |
wolfspraul | great :-) | 04:29 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: hehe ;-) | 04:29 |
wolfspraul | the pope himself should sign (and stamp!) a holy letter before any bit moves at all! | 04:29 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, the first/last/inner frames is useless for bga484/324 right? is that for further use? like some BGA don't have balls at center. | 04:30 |
wolfspraul | the stamp is only valid if stamped exactly at midnight every year Easter Sunday | 04:30 |
wolfspraul | makes it safer! | 04:30 |
wpwrak | wolfspraul: removal of one of the remaining loopholes to avoid bureaucracy :) | 04:30 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, (best to move the index outside the table) please give me more advise. :) what about those rname? | 04:30 |
wolfspraul | pabs3: what if a sponsor looses interest, drags his feet or becomes unresponsive? | 04:30 |
wolfspraul | can you 'unsponsor' a package to look for a new sponsor? can there be two sponsors? | 04:31 |
wolfspraul | can a sponsor marry another sponsor? | 04:31 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: there are a few things wrong there ... fixing ... just watch :) | 04:31 |
Action: pabs3 gets bored and goes to watch tv | 04:31 | |
wolfspraul | :-) | 04:31 |
qi-bot | [commit] Werner Almesberger: modules/bga.fpd: make "row" a loop and use the "row" table only for lookups (master) http://qi-hw.com/p/kicad-libs/e5c8bd9 | 04:32 |
wolfspraul | on a serious note, does it matter that Debian's bug activity is 40% less now than it was 6 years ago? | 04:32 |
wolfspraul | maybe it's becoming so mature we should just consider the whole thing as more or less stable... | 04:32 |
wpwrak | this one gets the geometry right. now the Nr-plication of stuff that's needed only once ... | 04:32 |
wpwrak | wolfspraul: yeah, meaningless statistics | 04:33 |
wolfspraul | I was surprised about the magnitude of the decline, although it is quite obvious that the whole scene becomes more and more sleepy | 04:33 |
wolfspraul | wpwrak: how so? | 04:33 |
wolfspraul | people report bugs differently? not at all? there are less bugs? | 04:33 |
wpwrak | time is an insufficient correlator. well, you can use this sort of statistics to plan the disk space for the bug database | 04:33 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, ?row. great. we do need more documents on fped. :-D | 04:34 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: isn't it self-explaining ? ;-)) | 04:34 |
wolfspraul | bugs per second over 8 years is 'insufficient'? | 04:34 |
Action: xiangfu have csg324 footprint now. ready to design some PCB for csg324. | 04:34 | |
wolfspraul | the bug tracker is used less, for sure | 04:34 |
wolfspraul | anyway we won't stop there bigger trends here | 04:35 |
wolfspraul | these | 04:35 |
wolfspraul | I won't go watch TV, but enjoy some sunshine outside :-) | 04:35 |
qi-bot | [commit] Werner Almesberger: modules/bga.fpd: don't draw outline Nr time. Once is plenty. (master) http://qi-hw.com/p/kicad-libs/ef5fb20 | 04:41 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: now the looping is also a bit better. and yes, inner/outer aren't used. not sure what the idea for them was. (bga.fpd comes from adam) | 04:42 |
wolfspraul | so my vlsi cad comparison led me to toped | 04:42 |
wolfspraul | http://www.toped.org.uk | 04:43 |
wolfspraul | will play with that a little | 04:43 |
wolfspraul | maybe I can abuse it as my visual fpga editor :-) | 04:43 |
wpwrak | there are some BGAs that have a "stripe" pattern but then, they usually don't assign column numbers to unused column. there are bgas with a empty square at the center, but then you'd also need to skip "inner" columns. so may be this just wasn't finished. | 04:43 |
wolfspraul | the other tree I looked at were magic and electric, which seemed to be very old (from the 80's) and without much new development | 04:43 |
wolfspraul | and alliance which is newer (some french university), but also it seems recently they stopped developing/funding? | 04:44 |
wpwrak | "very stable" ;-) | 04:44 |
wolfspraul | electric was sponsored by sun but that seems to have stopped around 2009 | 04:44 |
wolfspraul | toped seems like a really new and fresh thing wiht active development (though just 1 or 2 people mainly, I think) | 04:45 |
wolfspraul | so I start there... | 04:45 |
wpwrak | toped looks promising. i wonder if the thing about the scripting language means that you get human-readable data files as well (like it is the case with fped) | 04:53 |
xiangfu | wpwrak, (bgg "inner") ok. I think I will just remove it now. if we needs some bga have a empty square at the center. then we think about it. | 04:53 |
wpwrak | xiangfu: sounds reasonable | 04:54 |
wolfspraul | probably not [human readable] | 04:55 |
wolfspraul | their native file format is some sort of binary database | 04:55 |
wolfspraul | just keep in mind that the size and efficiency of those files is paramount | 04:55 |
wolfspraul | that was the main reason for the switch from GDSII to OASIS in recent years | 04:56 |
wolfspraul | when you are dealing with billions of transistors, 'human readable' may just not be that important | 04:56 |
wolfspraul | http://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/445-dawn-oasis.html | 05:00 |
wpwrak | hmm ... if they're really that large, then binary would make sense | 05:00 |
wolfspraul | nice article about the move from gdsii to oasis | 05:00 |
wolfspraul | it would be nice to have a way to export to a human-readable format or otherwise make the data accessible to line-based tools | 05:03 |
wolfspraul | but that's for that specific purpose then, and for other purposes you need other optimizations | 05:03 |
wolfspraul | it does make a difference whether the file I send around to a manufacturer is 2 GB or 20 GB... | 05:04 |
wpwrak | yeah. if things have to be that big, then that becomes an issue | 05:04 |
qi-bot | [commit] Xiangfu: bga.fpd: remove useless frames (master) http://qi-hw.com/p/kicad-libs/3d3be92 | 09:26 |
dvdk | wolfspraul: when it comes to OKAD, i think there at most a handful of people who know how to operate it. | 10:14 |
dvdk | same with the GA144 "dev-kit" (i.e. colorforth) | 10:15 |
dvdk | I even installed a free (original) version of colorforth under linux, but it's impossible to use. The source-code is mostly in assembler, with a little color-forth code put on top. Very ugly and undocumented (at least the asm part). | 10:16 |
Guest55383 | dvdk: that was roughly what I thought | 10:52 |
Guest55383 | oops, nick... one sec | 10:52 |
wolfspra1l | dvdk: but isn't that a pity? so there is all this talk about how great it is, but then there is nothing really... | 10:55 |
wolfspra1l | there are some strange colorized assembler codes for DOS (!) which may or may not run under early-90's 'Windows'? urgh... | 10:55 |
wolfspra1l | as for OKAD? it exists? or is it just a myth? I still don't get it | 10:55 |
wolfspra1l | 'it' is something as tangible as "source code"? | 10:55 |
wolfspra1l | it seems totally lost, this whole thing. I shall continue with toped unless I feel some boost of enlightenment around OKAD one day :-) | 10:55 |
dvdk | OKAD does in fact exist. You just need some form of autism to being able to operate it. And I don't think that you can buy it, nor that there is much written documentation. | 10:56 |
wolfspra1l | the download of all sources from digitalarrays comes with a disclaimer that their software is only allowed to run on their ga144 chips | 10:56 |
wolfspra1l | another step 20+ years back | 10:56 |
wolfspra1l | and that is supposed to be "public domain"? | 10:56 |
wolfspra1l | man man :-) | 10:56 |
wolfspra1l | they should really all just retire to some cabins in Montana... | 10:57 |
dvdk | ik okad public domain? i know that colorforth is. But okad is like 1 MB of (compressed ) color-forth source, I never saw a copy online. | 10:57 |
wolfspra1l | ah ok | 10:57 |
wolfspra1l | why not? | 10:57 |
wolfspra1l | something strange about this Interweb thing? | 10:57 |
dvdk | did you read this stuff about colorforth http://www.colorforth.com/cf.htm | 10:58 |
wolfspra1l | the ga144 chip was 'designed' in/with OKAD? | 10:58 |
wolfspra1l | yes I read most of the colorforth.com/... pages | 10:58 |
wolfspra1l | that's the most tangible stuff I could find | 10:58 |
dvdk | ah, ok. | 10:58 |
dvdk | so I tried to understand the few colorforth sourcees that come with colorforth. | 10:58 |
dvdk | It even claims to have a FAT export to floppy disk. Which is required to output those mask files okad generates. | 10:59 |
wolfspra1l | I knew I had to ask you to find someone who went deeper into this path of insanity than I would have wanted to :-) | 10:59 |
dvdk | I somewher had some info how it operates. | 10:59 |
wolfspra1l | FAT floppy disks... | 10:59 |
wolfspra1l | is everything OK with those people? | 10:59 |
wolfspra1l | http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/support/download-02a.html | 11:00 |
dvdk | It's like: you have to create an enmpty file of size XXX on the floppy disk using windows, then colorforth's "file output" routine can dump a blob of data there. | 11:00 |
wolfspra1l | "software may only be used with chips manufactured by GreenArrays" | 11:00 |
wolfspra1l | can I dismiss all this stuff as "crazy stuff of some old hippies" and move on and forward with the real world? | 11:00 |
wolfspra1l | or is there more to it? | 11:01 |
dvdk | colorforth even has a (approx 20-line) implementation of a "png export". also it generates a fixed header that amounts to no compression (like a pseudo huffman table, dunno), then dumps the binary data in a way that it looks like a png to an average png reader. | 11:01 |
viric | the forth world | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | any reason why OKAD was never uploaded/published? | 11:02 |
dvdk | If you are a friend of extreme minimalism, than OKAD and CF may be interesting. But you want to build real-world chips, with real registers and cache and mmu etc., that's somewhat incompatible with the OKAD and CF philosophy | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | is all this stuff serious in any way? | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | honestly it strikes me as mostly some form of insanity | 11:02 |
dvdk | wolfspra1l: well, they did design an asynchronous multi-core CPU with it that actually works, so judge yourself :) | 11:02 |
viric | it's a bit like the Amish. | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | well | 11:02 |
dvdk | but that CPU has only like 3 registers and 128 bytes of RAM. | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | what software runs on those chips, and when? | 11:02 |
wolfspra1l | in reality, not as yet another 'grand plan' | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | and who is using them? | 11:03 |
dvdk | these chips implement something like a few color-forth-primitives in hardware. | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | and what's the point/roadmap? | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | sure | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | self-referential as in any good religion, no? :-) | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | a is b because b is a | 11:03 |
wolfspra1l | let's get drunk now | 11:03 |
viric | :) | 11:03 |
dvdk | so looks like forh-code when you write assembly code. they have a color-forth based "IDE" that allows you to input (a subset of) color-forth code that's turned into binary code for the GA144. They even have an emulator etc. | 11:04 |
wolfspra1l | dvdk: come on you are real? what is the real thing one can expect out of this - today or tomorrow? | 11:04 |
wolfspra1l | or it just leads nowhere? | 11:04 |
dvdk | well, self-referential sure. it's like a second evolution that's not using Carbon but Silicon. Kind of an alternate eco-system. | 11:05 |
viric | lots of closed designs around that, though | 11:05 |
wolfspra2l | ok but is that stuff even open source? | 11:05 |
wolfspra2l | the okad 'sources' are not published? | 11:06 |
viric | wolfspra2l: all that philosophy is pre-FSF I think :) | 11:06 |
wolfspra2l | greenarraychips.com software downloads are "unless specifically noted otherwise" only allowed to run on their chips | 11:06 |
wolfspra2l | why would I even bother with the dysfunctions of those guys... and try to find some crazy couple dozen "lines" of source codes that maybe can write FAT floppy sectors? | 11:06 |
wolfspra2l | I don't get it :-) I just don't... | 11:07 |
dvdk | colorforth is, the GA144 is pretty well documented. but programming it feels like programming an FPGA by manually filling LUTs and setting the routing matrix. | 11:07 |
viric | haha | 11:07 |
wolfspra2l | do you have one or programmed it? | 11:07 |
dvdk | (like 123 bytes ram per core is somewhat like a bug logic slice :) | 11:07 |
dvdk | s/123/128/ | 11:07 |
viric | yes | 11:07 |
wolfspra2l | dvdk: what is a good colorforth download url? | 11:08 |
dvdk | no, but I read about guys who did program, I read some programs and I tinkered around with colorforth (http://mosquito.dyndns.tv/opensvn/free/trunk/forth/glcolorforth/) | 11:08 |
viric | http://www.colorforth.com/install.htm '2001 version' | 11:08 |
wolfspra2l | viric: *download* | 11:09 |
wolfspra2l | in that world, there's a lot of *talk* about download, not so many things you can actually download | 11:09 |
Action: wolfspra2l checking david's link... | 11:09 | |
dvdk | no, on linux try my version. chuck's version only runs on bare (old) hardware from floppy, other linux ports have been abandoned | 11:09 |
viric | haha | 11:09 |
whitequark | colorforth... | 11:09 |
whitequark | it seems for me that everyone who uses forth becomes a little bit brain-damaged | 11:09 |
dvdk | so I had to do some hacking to make it compile&link on 64-bit linux. | 11:09 |
whitequark | e.g. TeX | 11:09 |
whitequark | it's absolutely awesome | 11:09 |
whitequark | but so freaking alien | 11:09 |
viric | whitequark: I've used a bit of forth, but got out on time ;) | 11:10 |
dvdk | wolfspra2l: you may want to try to download the official GA144 SDK. That's build around a much newer non-public domain version of colorforth. It even has QWERTY layout and can run from within windodws :) | 11:10 |
dvdk | (but never tried it) | 11:10 |
viric | I've a friend that wrote parts of retroforth... (clisp implementation, among others) | 11:10 |
dvdk | but then I think you'd still waste your time. | 11:11 |
wolfspra2l | "non-public domain" what does that mean? | 11:11 |
viric | dvdk: qwerty support? does it require an XT keyboard? :) | 11:11 |
whitequark | viric: it's an interesting _concept_ indeed. I enjoyed reading about a "functional Forth" implementation | 11:11 |
whitequark | viric: but if you're going to use it in production you're probably insane | 11:11 |
dvdk | wolfspraul: what i wanted to say: colorforth=public domain, GA144 SDK = closed source | 11:11 |
wolfspra2l | ah then why would I bother :-) | 11:11 |
dvdk | but both based on color-forth, where GA144 SDK is much much newer | 11:11 |
viric | whitequark: I always thought of Forth as a language for programming AB8@0;L=K5 <0H8=K | 11:11 |
wolfspra2l | there must be thousands of one-off proprietary this-and-that chips/archs in the world | 11:11 |
wolfspra2l | among those that would be one of the stupidest to explore, most likely | 11:12 |
wolfspra2l | but your link is great, finally | 11:12 |
viric | wolfspra2l: work better for an antropologist, I think | 11:12 |
wolfspra2l | thanks! | 11:12 |
wolfspra2l | those few files look like something real, and I know there is probably not much real in all this | 11:12 |
wolfspra2l | so this must be it! :-) | 11:12 |
whitequark | viric: hehe | 11:13 |
whitequark | you're not too far off, it's used in PostScript printers | 11:13 |
whitequark | as PS is basically forth | 11:13 |
wolfspra2l | dvdk: do you think the ga144 has much future? | 11:13 |
dvdk | wolfspra2l: I wouldn't dismiss thit as stupid. It's just alien to what we're used to deal with. As i said, an alternative eco-system that's incompatible to ours. | 11:13 |
wolfspra2l | yes but wants to be incompatible too | 11:14 |
viric | well, all those stack based things... RPN in calculators, forth, ... even jvm is a similar thing. | 11:14 |
dvdk | wolfspra2l: ask the marsians (or alpha centaurians) about GA144's future | 11:14 |
wolfspra2l | incompatible to anything that exists today or may exist in the future | 11:14 |
wolfspra2l | and that's where it gets strange | 11:15 |
wolfspra2l | so the fact that this tech serves very few/no real people is almost by design | 11:15 |
wolfspra2l | at which point I reserve my right to just not care anymore... | 11:15 |
dvdk | wolfspra2l: a niche is a niche. | 11:15 |
viric | dvdk: there are also the hardware java virtual machines (no more virtual?), or the lisp-on-hardware, ... there are plenty of hw/sw places far from c-programmers. :) | 11:15 |
wolfspra2l | dvdk: yes :-) and that's an extreme one :-) | 11:15 |
dvdk | as I said, think of it as silicon-based life. it just can.t thrive on earth, and ther won't be a place wher it can be a competitor to us carbon-based critters | 11:16 |
wolfspra2l | do you know anyone who has one of those ga144 boards or is programming on it? | 11:17 |
wolfspra2l | are any 'source codes' of such software being published anywhere? | 11:17 |
wolfspra2l | god forbid on something as ... | 11:17 |
wolfspra2l | I hardly dare to say it | 11:17 |
wolfspra2l | ... github | 11:17 |
wolfspra2l | ? :-) | 11:17 |
viric | dvdk: since those chips have been released years ago... there should be some writings about their impact, is there? | 11:17 |
dvdk | yes. not personally. a few on comp.lang.forth usegroup write about it. | 11:17 |
viric | dvdk: remove the dates from comp.lang.forth random posts, and try to guess the decade. | 11:18 |
viric | dvdk, wolfspra2l: http://prog21.dadgum.com/128.html | 11:19 |
wolfspra2l | I would be interested in what software runs on them, and source code of that of course | 11:20 |
wolfspra2l | dvdk: thanks a lot for your insight and source link! | 11:20 |
wolfspra2l | that boosted the level of what is 'real' by about a factor of 10 for me :-) | 11:20 |
viric | I always remember that post, when I see forth reviving again in some room. :) | 11:20 |
dvdk | wolfspra2l: there's a colorforth google-group i just found out. | 11:20 |
wolfspra2l | yes but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't this vibrant OKAD github community somewhere, with dozens of people contributing and taping-out last-gen chips etc. | 11:23 |
wolfspra2l | which of course there isn't, so I'm done :-) | 11:24 |
wolfspra2l | I have a pretty clear idea/imagination of what that OKAD thing actually is/was | 11:25 |
dvdk | viric: no, the original color-forth implements kind of a dvorak-layout that uses only about 30 keys, other functions are activated by cycling layouts. | 11:26 |
dvdk | ah, and it's not ASCII, it's a proprietary 64-char character set that's usually huffman-compressed in chunks of 32-bit words | 11:27 |
dvdk | AFAIR the original version even didn't have separate 'i' and '1' glyphs. why bother when they *look* the same :) | 11:27 |
wolfspra2l | I shall continue with toped... | 11:27 |
dvdk | s/glyphs/charcodes/ | 11:27 |
wolfspra2l | again, thanks a lot for the feedback! that is really hard in that scene to find anything that relates to something real... | 11:27 |
wolfspra2l | it just makes you search harder and harder | 11:27 |
dvdk | no prob. | 11:28 |
dvdk | a lot of people are excitedly waiting for fpgatools to become less vaporwareish | 11:28 |
dvdk | , btw | 11:29 |
viric | dvdk: haha typing machines had 'l' and '1' the same, not 'i' and '1'. :) | 11:33 |
viric | dvdk: why think of another character-number coding, if we already have EBCDIC? | 11:34 |
viric | btw, I always wanted to program the Saturn chips of HP 48, that I heard had 20-bit words with 5-bit nibbles. | 11:35 |
wpwrak | viric: pre-FSF or pre-gnu (those with the horns) ? :) | 11:49 |
viric | I think the gnu with horns was first though, yes. :) | 11:52 |
wolfspra1l | yes fpgatools has a steep curve now | 11:53 |
wolfspra1l | did some more directional wires, vertical and horizontal | 11:53 |
wolfspra1l | now the diagonal ones | 11:53 |
wolfspra1l | then lots more clock routing, bufgmux, and and and | 11:53 |
wolfspra1l | :-) | 11:53 |
wolfspra1l | dvdk: is there software for the ga144 that is open source/published anywhere? | 11:54 |
dvdk | wolfspra1l: do you mean dev-kit or software running *on* the GA144 | 11:54 |
dvdk | here is e.g. a md5 hash algorithm implementation for GA144. | 11:56 |
dvdk | http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/AN001-120510-MD5.pdf | 11:56 |
dvdk | you'll see it's more FPGA-like than CPU-like | 11:56 |
wpwrak | wolfspra1l: colorforth and github ... wouldn't they have their own revision control system, completely alien to anything we know ? and of course, not communicating via TCP/IP. maybe some highly efficient DIY protocol over 300 bps modems, to go with the floppies. | 12:00 |
wpwrak | hmm. an application note. implementing a well-known hash (nothing DIY). i smell heresy :) | 12:02 |
lindi- | wolfspra1l: should blinking_led.c already work? | 12:02 |
viric | wpwrak: what makes you think they use a RCS? | 12:02 |
dvdk | wpwrak: they have no text-file format that you can read, so you can only commit thnem as binary blobs | 12:03 |
dvdk | so that means yes | 12:03 |
dvdk | I also read that htey think about doing version control from within colorforth | 12:03 |
dvdk | wpwrak: about the app-note: don't worry it's the only GA144 app-node of it's kind :) | 12:04 |
wpwrak | i think they learned their lesson from the internet. remember how great and full of freedom it was before big business and governments noticed it ? now that would be a way to make sure those old enemies never even get close :) | 12:05 |
viric | if even nodejs could become popular, I think Forth could achieve something similar, once mastering the art of pastel-color CSS in Helvetica web pages. | 12:05 |
viric | pastel colors and helvetica are the most determining factors to a broad success of a project, I think. :) | 12:08 |
viric | - I feel a bit too nihilist today | 12:08 |
larsc | and I always though blink tags were the way to success. damm, had it wrong all these years, but that may explain why my projects never took off ;) | 12:17 |
wpwrak | larsc: you mean you didn't put enough emphasis on obscurity and the arcane ? | 12:24 |
larsc | wpwrak: I sure did! The projects are hidden 5 paths deep on a obscure domain name. And I think I only gave the link to a handful of people | 12:26 |
larsc | Oh and the page only renders correct with firefox 0.97-0.99 | 12:26 |
wpwrak | you put it on the web ? i keep my stuff on a mailbox, only accessible via direct dial-in. | 12:28 |
wpwrak | download via my own enhanced (incompatible) variant of kermit. | 12:28 |
larsc | _I_ put it on the web, indeed. | 12:29 |
wolfspraul | dvdk: sorry was away and lots of disconnects. do you think it may make sense to try to run the mini-cpu from inside the g144 in an fpga? | 12:43 |
wolfspraul | I think the instruction set is documented - but is it usable for anything at all? | 12:43 |
wolfspraul | I am looking for some small test-'cores' for fpgatools, and a big cpu like lm32/openrisc may still be too much for me at the beginning | 12:44 |
wolfspraul | do you have any experience with that cpu, can you recommend it at least for further study? | 12:44 |
wpwrak | how about making your own mini-cpu ? the basics are very simple. | 12:45 |
wolfspraul | lindi- no, not working yet | 12:46 |
wolfspraul | lots of detours, a little depressing but I try to just steer right through | 12:46 |
wolfspraul | I have to spend more time around the clocking stuff first | 12:46 |
wolfspraul | I'm a little anti-forth here, I guess. if there is something I can reuse, why not reuse it? | 12:46 |
wolfspraul | :-) | 12:47 |
wpwrak | any "real-life" core is likely to be a lot more complex than the minimum you need for demonstration purposes. | 12:47 |
larsc | maybe use the navre core | 12:48 |
wpwrak | of course, the first question should be what this core would actually be expected to do. blink a led ? control a robot ? run linux ? | 12:49 |
larsc | how about 'do something' | 12:50 |
larsc | it doesn't matter that much if the goal is to show that fpgatools is working | 12:50 |
wpwrak | sounds like a case for a core with two registers, maybe 8 bit word size. 8+something instruction size. harvard arch. | 12:53 |
wpwrak | or maybe accumulator plus register array is easier | 12:57 |
wpwrak | add Ri: A = A+Ri | 12:58 |
wolfspraul | anything good about MISC? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_instruction_set_computer ? | 12:58 |
wpwrak | same for and, or, xor. | 12:58 |
wolfspraul | or maybe I search the other way round and look for interesting/new llvm backends, since I don't want to be stuck with something where no sw runs... | 12:59 |
wpwrak | mmh, that would put you into the feature-rich core segment | 12:59 |
wpwrak | if you;re looking for something that just gets "something" done, but you have to program it in assembler, then you can make a super-simplistic architecture | 13:00 |
dvdk | wolfspraul: just coming back from lunch. | 13:15 |
dvdk | wolfspraul: the GA144's mini CPU is an asynchronous design: no clock. don't think this will easily port to an FPGA. | 13:15 |
dvdk | However, there is a core that follows very similar design ideas, developed by a german forther. The B16 core, with a even smaller "b16-mini" version | 13:16 |
dvdk | http://bernd-paysan.de/b16.html | 13:16 |
dvdk | it's GPL. Uses a very similar, highly efficient instruction packing that allows to build large programs with very little instruction RAM | 13:17 |
dvdk | originally this was developed for a real ASIC for the company Bernd was working for, then the FPGA version open-sourced. The documentation describes various ASIC-specific optimizations like replacing registers with latches. | 13:18 |
dvdk | the compiler is written in Gforth, and the assembly code reads like normal forth code (i.e. not color-forth, and much saner) | 13:19 |
dvdk | there is an even simpler Stack-based core called J1, but it's a 32-bit architecture and needs moer instruction RAM: | 13:21 |
dvdk | http://www.excamera.com/sphinx/fpga-j1.html | 13:21 |
dvdk | it's open source, and the forth-written software stack for this thing supports even tcp/ip | 13:21 |
dvdk | this may be easier to work with than B16, architecture is simpler. | 13:22 |
dvdk | no instruction decoder at all, instruction word directly switching RTL data flow | 13:22 |
dvdk | oops, mistake, J1 is also a 16-bit CPU just like B16 | 13:23 |
lekernel | wolfspraul: are you in Germany near the end of the year? | 13:24 |
wolfspraul | great links, thanks! | 13:26 |
wolfspraul | which of those is a good starting point for getting whatever 'other' software to run? | 13:26 |
wolfspraul | why would an asynchronous cpu design not work in an fpga? | 13:27 |
lekernel | because it has plenty of D flip flops and global clock networks which would go unused, resulting in a quite suboptimal design | 13:29 |
lekernel | and the vendor software doesn't have good support for asynchronous stuff | 13:31 |
wpwrak | wolfspraul: what's the objective for implementing a core ? it sounds like a bit of a detour to me, at least as far as gaining knowledge is concerned. | 13:33 |
wolfspraul | oh sure, no worries. I am not doing this now. the point is to guide me a bit through the really large amount of features in the fpga | 13:34 |
wolfspraul | without focus, I can spend years there | 13:34 |
wolfspraul | I am implementing the blinking led now :-) | 13:34 |
wpwrak | (years) hmm, sounds bad ... in an exciting way :) | 13:35 |
larsc | well, software is never done | 13:36 |
larsc | it can only become obsolete | 13:36 |
viric | larsc: luckily gnu hello is maintained to avoid becoming obsolete. | 13:37 |
wolfspraul | as the links from david show there may well be some nice & tiny experimental cores out there | 13:37 |
wpwrak | yeah, the software life-cycle. planning (optional), first prototype, alpha/beta version (repeat as many times as necessary), abandonment. | 13:37 |
wolfspraul | that may be a better first step or focus generator at some point than a larger core | 13:38 |
wolfspraul | may | 13:38 |
wolfspraul | I'm just happy I can read a bit through those cores and think | 13:39 |
roh | morning | 14:14 |
wolfspraul | good morning | 14:14 |
kristianpaul | wolfspraul: small cpu like lattice mico8? | 14:40 |
kristianpaul | morning | 14:40 |
wolfspraul | dvdk: ok I looked briefly at the b16 and j1 pages, will read more tomorrow | 14:48 |
wolfspraul | what is the future of those projects? | 14:48 |
wolfspraul | any plans you know about? | 14:48 |
wolfspraul | or are they basically finished? | 14:48 |
wolfspraul | b16 looks older (2002-2005), j1 more recent (2010). can't immediately tell other differences in stated goal or roadmap (if any) | 14:49 |
wolfspraul | 200 lines of verilog (for the j1) sounds good | 14:50 |
wolfspraul | that gives me plenty of lines to play with (in how they translate into the fpga...), which is all I am looking for right now | 14:50 |
wolfspraul | and there is a url right there on his page, what a relief after the colorforth day :-) | 14:51 |
wolfspraul | http://www.excamera.com/files/j1demo/verilog/j1.v | 14:51 |
dvdk | wolfspraul: b16 is more a CISC processor and J1 more a RISC-style processor | 15:08 |
dvdk | (bernd would disagree, actually b16 is not cisc-like, but compared to the J1 it does more instruction decoding and has lower throughput) | 15:08 |
dvdk | so b16 is more for controller applications, and J1 can do more media processing (like moving data from camera to network interface) | 15:09 |
dvdk | b16 is to J1 like ARM to MIPS | 15:09 |
dvdk | I think both are somehow used commercially: B16 in ASIC (with FPGA version used for rapid prototyping), while J1 is FPGA-only, AFAICS | 15:10 |
dvdk | Both use Gforth-written software for software development (assembler/compiler) | 15:11 |
dvdk | I guess b16 is harder to grok, it's has more optimization quirks that are difficult to follow, while J1 is very straight-forward | 15:11 |
dvdk | If you want to know stuff about ASIC-targetting design, then the B16 documentation / papers will most likely be interesting to read | 15:12 |
kyak | wpwrak: could you please give a brief status of atusb support in kernel? I'm looking to build it as a module (for linux-3.6) and package it for for my distro (using dkms) | 18:54 |
kyak | i'm looking at instructions in ben-wpan/install/INSTALL-PC and wonder if they are still valid | 18:54 |
kyak | for kernel part, that is | 18:54 |
kyak | btw, they are not valid any longer for user space tools. lowpan-tools are now ported to libnl v.3, so libnl1 is no longer needed | 18:55 |
kyak | anyway, user space is not bothering me at all.. i already packages the lowpan-tools.. Now wondering how do it with kernel. My stock kernel has some of the mentioned options as =m, and some are missing | 18:57 |
wpwrak | kyak: i haven't touched it in a very long while. i think more than a year | 18:58 |
kyak | the missing options i guess are provided by patches in qi-kernel.git. Makes me wonder if ti possible at all to avoid rebuilding of stock kernel | 18:58 |
kyak | heh, the "software life cycle" you mentioned earlier :) | 18:59 |
viric | I thought the same :) | 18:59 |
wpwrak | i think xiangfu did some integration for more recent kernels. so that should be in the qi kernel. | 18:59 |
kyak | yeah, i remember he did things for a router with usb.. i wonder how intrusive this integration is | 19:00 |
kyak | i'd like to have atusb.c and atusb.h :) | 19:00 |
kyak | and then simply atusb.ko | 19:01 |
kyak | ok.. thanks anyway | 19:01 |
wpwrak | the integration may merely be tracking of the linux-zigbee work. that provides the WPAN infrastructure. | 19:02 |
hellekin | hola... Can you guys beat that? http://oggstreamer.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/oggstreamer-production-costs-a-rough-estimation/ | 23:55 |
wolfspraul | dvdk perfect, that is very helpful! | 23:58 |
--- Fri Nov 2 2012 | 00:00 |
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