Rust wgpu now has a
-
@amarioguy @mcc @MaddieM4 and yeah if we had our way we'd remove like at least 80% of the functionality modern ISAs have, as security hazards. we realize we're prone to the nostalgia bias here, of course, but CPUs are an unremovable part of attack surface for any computer and we don't think we're being unreasonable in wanting to have even the slightest confidence in their safety
@ireneista @amarioguy @mcc @MaddieM4 DECSYSTEM-10 ISA with hypervisor facilities added and the floating-point facilities removed and offloaded to the GPU/vector math processor
-
This thread is probably meandering and maybe solipsistic. My point is this: My weird background means I can look at this staircase full of missing stairs, identify one step, and go, "I can fix that". But I don't know if there's enough of me to fix multiple steps. I haven't decided what to do from here. Pick a step and fix it anyway? Pick a "fun" project, like the GPU [which face it, even if I finished it chances are not high more than 3 people would ever use it]? Give up and learn electric bass?
@mcc Meanwhile I feel silly for trying to remain fairly high up in the stack. I look at the missing steps and can only think about how not terribly helpful I would be right now trying to like… help with a kernel. Hell I took my eyes off of audio for a while because “the world needs more music theory!”
-
@mcc Meanwhile I feel silly for trying to remain fairly high up in the stack. I look at the missing steps and can only think about how not terribly helpful I would be right now trying to like… help with a kernel. Hell I took my eyes off of audio for a while because “the world needs more music theory!”
@griotspeak Thinking only in a utilitarian way and not contemplating concepts such as joy:
If you're helpful high in the stack, but don't think you'd be helpful low in the stack, wouldn't it make more sense to stay high in the stack, where you're useful?
-
@ireneista @amarioguy @mcc @MaddieM4 DECSYSTEM-10 ISA with hypervisor facilities added and the floating-point facilities removed and offloaded to the GPU/vector math processor
@decay @ireneista @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i don't want to write for the DEC PDP series anymore, I've written enough C
-
@eniko redox is currently capable of handling one channel of mono sound output and i think no support for sound input whatsoever
-
@MaddieM4 @mcc @amarioguy that's very much the spirit in which we're offering our thoughts, we're not trying to say don't use RISC-V. we have a RISC-V machine ourselves that we intend to use to test our compiler when we get to that stage of things.
@ireneista @mcc @amarioguy That is also true. Navigation is complex. Without a north star it's impossible.
-
@mcc yeah. I'm uh, aiming for CPU framebuffer rendering, for exactly those reasons
I mean. The affine textured low res low poly PS1 aesthetic is in right now? At least that's what I tell myself
@mcc anyway yeah you're right we do need a kernel. Something that goes "here's file system, video, sound, and input" and then from there things get a lot more manageable. At least for games
-
@decay @ireneista @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i don't want to write for the DEC PDP series anymore, I've written enough C
@mcc @ireneista @amarioguy @MaddieM4 an extremely fair point
-
@griotspeak Thinking only in a utilitarian way and not contemplating concepts such as joy:
If you're helpful high in the stack, but don't think you'd be helpful low in the stack, wouldn't it make more sense to stay high in the stack, where you're useful?
@mcc It would but I am genuinely not sure how possible that is when so many foundational pieces are being compromised
-
@decay @ireneista @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i don't want to write for the DEC PDP series anymore, I've written enough C
@mcc @decay @ireneista @MaddieM4 part of me does sorta wish that rust wasn't so dependent and reliant on cargo and such...
-
@decay @ireneista @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i don't want to write for the DEC PDP series anymore, I've written enough C
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 we're not suggesting eliminating the MMU, just, like, refactoring a bit so it isn't so many abstraction layers that subvert each other
-
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 we're not suggesting eliminating the MMU, just, like, refactoring a bit so it isn't so many abstraction layers that subvert each other
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 we'd keep hyperthreading, too
we just don't think management engines have any place heh
-
@mcc It would but I am genuinely not sure how possible that is when so many foundational pieces are being compromised
@griotspeak the thing about a high level is *by definition* you can transplant it onto a different low level, once that problem is solved
-
@eniko redox is currently capable of handling one channel of mono sound output and i think no support for sound input whatsoever
-
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 we'd keep hyperthreading, too
we just don't think management engines have any place heh
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 vector units are one of those "sigh .... yes" things, as well. frustrating complexity, but important, and at least it's self-contained.
-
@amarioguy @mcc I mean I feel about modern GPUs and their intentionally prohibitive feature span the way I do about web standards: "that's a nice miracle you destroyed the ecosystem with. Undoing the damage is probably a multi-decade job and none of the normal folk will understand why feature reductions are needed. Won't stop me from patiently pushing in the right direction, though."
@MaddieM4 @amarioguy @mcc i would also consider that this is exactly how things start. a lot of open source pillars started as someone's cool project
-
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 we'd keep hyperthreading, too
we just don't think management engines have any place heh
@ireneista @mcc @decay @MaddieM4 one thing i appreciate about Apple's SEP (despite yes, being from Apple and a closed, black-box so still not gonna say that anyone should just blindly trust it) is that the threat model they went for it was mutual distrust, where both the main CPU and the SEP core distrust each other, so both isolate their memory from each other
for context, both ME/PSP are modeled such that they own the platform entirely afaict, so if you get code exec in the ME or PSP, you own the whole platform, while in Apple's case, owning the SEP these days does not let you own the AP entirely, you still have to overcome most the other normal hurdles and can't just trivially DMA into host memory
that said, imo security processors including the SEP should not be unauditable black boxes at all, there's too much at stake for that to imo be a truly trustworthy system...
-
@mcc @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 vector units are one of those "sigh .... yes" things, as well. frustrating complexity, but important, and at least it's self-contained.
@ireneista @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i suspect vector units are widely underutilized, and thus skippable, especially if you have access to a coprocessor that can run compute shaders. maybe as compilers have got better this (vector units are underutilized) has become less true.
-
RE: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/117338324202161763
@eniko thanks.
and yeah, we need a kernel. one person can't write a kernel. it's not a matter of scope. it's a matter of you have to test more hardware configurations than one person can get in a private residence. we need that kernel handled by an *institution*.
the problem with freedos is if we want to make *games* then probably at some point we want access to sound and video. and if you want your game to render by any method other than CPU-on-framebuffer sound and video become Very Hard.
-
@ireneista @decay @amarioguy @MaddieM4 i suspect vector units are widely underutilized, and thus skippable, especially if you have access to a coprocessor that can run compute shaders. maybe as compilers have got better this (vector units are underutilized) has become less true.
@mcc @ireneista @decay @amarioguy
It has, and for a lot of software with hot loops that are meaningful to accelerate with SIMD, people have manually dictated the vector instructions as necessary. That is a particular feature where a lot of people would not willingly go back. I'd probably be one of those people tbh.
