asciilifeform: the analogue / dsp folx, still occasionally do it.
asciilifeform: it is entirely not the case that 'no one' hand-massages. but the items with 3bil+ transistors, it is rather impractical proposition to do this for.
asciilifeform: these aint dirt on the lens, they're actually where it put the transistors.
asciilifeform: when you see 'tumour mass', that there's autorouter at work.
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: if you ever get hold of a die shot, it is possible to distinguish with naked eye, when 'compiled from rtl' and when 'hand-massage' . practical example of the former : https://s.zeptobars.com/baikal-Si.jpg
asciilifeform: the last x86 product where they bothered to hand-massage transistor, was pentium1
asciilifeform: ( their designs only ever exist as rtl, starting from 'pentium pro' )
asciilifeform: nao i did not walk in and see it used. but would be surprised to learn that it wasn't, the temptation is irresistible , on acct of sheer heft of the risk in the biz☝︎
asciilifeform: they're actually an off-the-shelf item, asciilifeform at one time nearly bought a 2ndhand unit
asciilifeform: it's a quite large box of fpga, programmed in much same way as asciilifeform prototyped fg.
asciilifeform: they published a piece re the prototypetron.
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: i know for a fact that they do.
asciilifeform: ( it is interesting, imho, they ~could~ rearrange the cells , but do not, it requires skilled labour )
asciilifeform: prolly the most valuable vlsi likbez i've found to date, even beats the ancient carver mead schoolbook in some ways☟︎
asciilifeform: ( on top of die shots, transistor recognition, etc )
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: i did short walk through the linked www, believe or not, d00d in fact typed up some of the ancient docs into humanlike text
asciilifeform: y'know, back when there were ~2~ reichs handing out 'phree' ambulances☟︎
asciilifeform: pretty sure erryone in south amer had 'uncle killed by cia'
asciilifeform: ( famously , why was castro so hated by the lizards. cuz broke ranks b/w '2' and '3' )
asciilifeform: 1) attend clintonarvard 2) return to orcistan as 'appointee' 3) feather miaminest for 20y 4) decamp, profit!1
asciilifeform: the kind that is from orcistan to start with☟︎
asciilifeform: old man soros wrecked ru ~entirely via 'gifts' liek this, to the point that still not cleaned up 20y later☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: if the orcs suddenly woke up to this being a bit much of a lopsided exchange for 1 rattled old meatwagen, perhaps some of'em even have sumthing like a brain
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: 'phree gift' from reich invariably comes with 'and we get to appoint a harvard grad as yer minister of health' etc
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: dunno what is this mythical beast, a 'phree' gift from usg
asciilifeform: !Q later tell bvt ty for digging up the 1801 materials; dun suppose you could get the author in here ?☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: re the 1801 thing -- moar interestingly , author was not content to merely dig up ancient docs, but apparently decapped the dies and verified that these in fact correspond to the physical artifact☟︎
asciilifeform: and the report from metallurgist re why just-so molybdenum % , etc
asciilifeform: picture if yer bmw came with not only repair schematic but the calculations of the original designer re why cylinder head is this-wide etc
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: 1st i saw the link to that thing, went 'eh, fossil', then went and ~read~, and 'wtf, where do i buy a chip with even half the doc of this'
asciilifeform: as in the old sea story, 'move over, we are a 100,000 tonne battleship' 'no you move' 'no, you, we are battleship' 'we're a lighthouse'
asciilifeform: ( iirc -- e.g. howard shrobe, 1 of the orig bolix people, went off into medicine. others -- elsewhere )
asciilifeform: sorta how there cannot be a serious engineer in liberia. ( why would he live in liberia )
asciilifeform: ye olde 'notation can cost 80 iq' item. the moment rms picked 'c machine' ecosystem, it after that did not matter one whit how capable/honest/etc were to be the participants. ( and, in practice, demonstrated -- the capable, honest folx, ran off to learn new professions , did not stick around to fiddle with pointerisms )
asciilifeform: would've stayed settled, too, if they hadn't wrapped themselves around telephone pole.
asciilifeform: that's how (as described upthread) bolix settled the matter, in '83.
asciilifeform: fwiw asciilifeform not only spent whole life with c/cpp, but still maintains massive cpp horror in saeculum , for bread
asciilifeform: gcc per se has no biz 'continuing indefinitely' ( as mp_en_viaje already noted )
asciilifeform: ( i.e. this item may be solvable w/ a bit of archaeology )
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: re 'gcc ladder', the orig boojum was the 'catch-22' where a musl gcc can only be built w/ another musl gcc , and the only working specimen trinque was able to find in the wild, was a gcc6
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: see further downthread, expanded on this.
asciilifeform: (this is sovok war machine design philosophy in a paragraph)
asciilifeform: aha but if it's a given that driver is a monkey -- then the cab had better have no wheels.
asciilifeform: iirc there was even a fella who flew, for yrs, not only w/out ticket, but... as pilot. ( said, 'hi i am pilot', no one asked for diploma for decade+ )
asciilifeform: notbad. ( maybe next time can also pull off w/out tickets ? )
asciilifeform: funnily enuff, BingoBoingostan installed facewank. they dun stamp anyffin at all.
asciilifeform: were short on ink for passport stamps or wat
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: a 'couldn't' is worth 9000 'wouldn'ts' eh
asciilifeform: concludes by summarizing (with illustration) the actual chem of the fab process.
asciilifeform: ( 1 'downer' -- apparently 'cells' drawn by hand, and then arranged by simple proggy , 'gred' -- but its sores not given in the doc )
asciilifeform: vol.2 p.133-151 pretty interesting, describes how the circuit was mapped out (spoiler: by hand) to the actual cmos.
asciilifeform: imho the so-called 'civilized' world ought to have to answer re why it failed to produce a product like this.☟︎
asciilifeform: incidentally, even a very brief look at the 1801 item confirms the troof of http://btcbase.org/log/2019-02-14#1896836 -- thing defo aint a 'and here is where the ameri-crystal does x' , it's a quite 'fits-in-head' object , very evidently produced from page-long spec of the orig instruction set☝︎☟︎
asciilifeform would luvvv to read 'ffa-style' incarnation of such a work, where the chip is 'built up' from empty space in ~hour-long chunks. but prolly this won't exist until asciilifeform writes 1..☟︎
asciilifeform: and yes it in fact describes operation (incl. physical params) of the ~internal~ blocks , not only the 'user-facing' pins.
asciilifeform: ^ and before mp asks, yes it's combo of manual typewriter and ink pen, and no it won't in a million years ocr, other than by meat ( and is largely schematics / waveforms anyway )☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: i'ma mirror those scans, they dun deserve to live in a shithub
asciilifeform: revisiting upstack , the 1801 docs, pretty interesting document from 'techno-political' pov actually -- there does not exist a description like this (operation AND internals) for any reich cpu ever sold. certainly not as a vendor document under 1 cover (not speaking here of ad-hoc reversed tidbits)☝︎
asciilifeform: i dun expect to ever get hands on a complete elbrus-2 or etc.
asciilifeform: it is only interesting from the pov where e.g. asciilifeform bought small crate of k1801bm2 , and reasonably certain they aint modern fakes ( if i ever end up using'em, i'ma decap 1 at random & see.. )
asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-23#1909541 << the published sores aint especially interesting, aside from archaeological pov ( if you have fpga -- yer product is only as clean as that fpga, and there aint any clean ones gettable ; and if there were, why wouldja want to simulate a pdp11 in it ?? )☝︎
asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-23#1909530 << iirc the orig problem was that the published musl gentoo starter culture trinque began working from, was built on gcc6 , which won't build 4.x (and therefore full replication involves stepping 6 -> 5 -> 4.9 )☝︎
asciilifeform: the 'no paragraph w/out confucius' is moar in re written lit.
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: in actuality it's lit. 'me happy -- you happy?'
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: iirc these tend to be seriously-advanced cases of christianity of the central nervous system, and fixated on the bit re 'great flood' etc
asciilifeform: ( which makes approx same amt of sense as all other attempts to create 'unwet water', but i have nfi what the psychology is )
