asciilifeform: i would've naively imagined that massive 'contrabass' like this would may as well include the uv lamp. but apparently didn't.

asciilifeform: i suppose if i had a stable of trained seals, might entertain'em/self in this way.

asciilifeform: there are not so many occasions when i hammer in key by hand.

asciilifeform: i saw a surplus box of this type for sale, not so long ago

asciilifeform: ( i cant say i've ever programmed anyffing using http://www.loper-os.org/pub/podvig_radista.jpg method ... )

asciilifeform: for all i know, you could match 'z80' performance with simply modified cathode tube where the beam steers depending on what the state of the phosphor under it was, rather than moving in linear rasters.

asciilifeform: the harder part might be ~conducting~ tracks -- would need sumthing that can be moved electrophoretically (i.e. ionic) but then somehow fuse into metallic conductor.

asciilifeform: i'd like to learn who it was, who mutilated.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: regularly there's word from some d00d who actually bought surplus gear ( see e.g. linked thread ) and 'omfg, i made a diode!' , typically as far as they get ( and it wasn't even because usg.dhs came for his flourine , afaik it did not )

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'd even settle for something entirely like ice40 but with fuse/antifuse bridges

asciilifeform: presently i have nfi whether this is physically possible, or how in particular -- could be fpga-like device where somehow the components actually ~move~ into position ; or sumthing where you can optically burn away the unused tracks through 'window' ; or some yet entirely unknown trick.

asciilifeform: i don't pretend to specifically know. point is, it's an anti-personnel mine field, not anti-tank.

asciilifeform: i'm sure mitsubishi also gets what it wants

asciilifeform: ( asciilifeform is not labouring under delusion , however, that 'if only they sold, i could be sitting in $50k mircea_popescu-grade castle', prolly mitsubishi would own'em all )

asciilifeform: there was yet another level of idjicy in ro, that i discovered, where they won't sell the shit to foreigners

asciilifeform: at some point he gives up guarding it, as it costs sumthing, and the gypsies move in, i suppose this can be seen as a form of 'sell'

asciilifeform: i thought it was 'idjit commissioned build without checking whether he has the whole sum'

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i saw truly mindboggling number of unfinished-and-decaying half-built houses in timis

asciilifeform: reminds me of process of buying autos in usa. picture, you walk in with chequebook. 'i want toyota' --- 3 hrs later, you MAYBE drive off in a toyota, or more likely yer still fighting over 'no, i do NOT want loan, not at 3%, not 2, not 0 , i want to pay with money' ☟︎

asciilifeform: they mostly deal with ~broke orcs, neh. who walk in and 'i want 'buy' house, but i have no money'

asciilifeform: well if not then how is the dealer to know that yer payment-capable, without 'assess'. or do i misperceive what that meant

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: i doubt any of it belongs in same sentence with word 'soon', we're speaking of just short of mars colony.

asciilifeform: the actual physical procedure of baking the ic is not as standardized as i previously (to last thread) thought.

asciilifeform: and their magnitude will depend, i also suspect, on how well he plays his cards.

asciilifeform: the exact figs can only be obtained by a cn-speaking emissary, i suspect.

asciilifeform: i found this out the last time we had 'let's bake ic' thread, and it was thoroughly depressing, put me off subj for 2y..

asciilifeform: i wouldn't go so far as 'can't', but we're talking 'lease $B plant for 6mo.' sort of figure.

asciilifeform: as i currently understand, that means vertical integration, i.e. building the plant.

asciilifeform: the other is political, all of the existing vendors obfuscate and keep seekrit the necessary docs to actually program the thing. ice40 happens to have been reversed, but it is ruinously small ( still ~150x bigger than the miniature xilinx i baked FG from, however , but too small even for 4096bit adder )

asciilifeform: i disagree -- fpga is analogous to gutenberg's movable type; classical 'asic per design' to chinese whole-plate.

asciilifeform: buncha gates, as many as can fit, and a programmable switching matrix, a la old telco , look up tables made of 4-6 bits of sram that turn a given unit into 'and' , 'or', 'xor', half-adder, straight wire, whichever is necessary. i dun know how to more rigorously define, it is one of the simplest devices, straight homogeneous grid of sram cells plus a couple hundred (thousand, in larger devices) 'express lanes' made of straight metal,

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i've outlined several items, historically. will summarize for the l0gz, in order of descending ( per asciilifeform's lights ) universality : 1) sane fpga 2) sane minimal cpu 3) 8192-bit arithmetizer ( a la ye olde weitek! but for ints ) 4) 2+3 , if somehow can be fit into 1 die 5) 1chip carrierless radio ( per thread ) 6) sane ethernet controller .

asciilifeform: i was originally speaking of http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-25#1865751 dig. ☝︎

asciilifeform: i expect they use meat hands, with microscopes, to package.

asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-25#1865790 << i sat for 2h last night reading 'standard' and 'rationale', and was not able to determine ! will require extensive dig into the gnat src, i suspect. ☝︎

asciilifeform: the other thing i oughta mention, is the amt of sweat required. if asciilifeform were a free man, could do it in perhaps a year. but at present-day capacity, would not dare to even try.

asciilifeform: here's what i was able to find , via the pdf turd : base charge is 700 -- 12000 euro / mm^2 , depending on density ( 0.35uM to 28nm ); this gets you 25 ~bare~ dies , + 'phree 15 if available' ;

asciilifeform: ( the other sub-$1mil fab is mosis co., but it is in usa, serves primarily usg, and dun publish prices, in the past i tried to get estimate from it but without success )

asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-25#1865788 << separated '/tmp' is not imho entirely worthless, i've set up boxen where it lives in ramdisk, where imho it belongs ☝︎

asciilifeform: ( i omit to mention ~large~ fabs, given as if you aint representing a large and known $$$ concern, they dun even return calls )

asciilifeform: granted in past 2y since i last looked, the mythical beast of 'small fab' could have been born

asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-10-25#1865735 << i took a stab at this 2y ago, was very frustrating on acct of asic-baking not being a 'cash and carry' process like e.g. pcb-baking, but a heavily meat-powered affair where the derps want to 'get to know you' to figure out how much they can fleece ☝︎☟︎

asciilifeform: previously , from last 2+yrs of reading docs, i laboured under the impression that the only process that demands secondary stack, is ~returning~ variably-lengthed objects. rather than simply passing'em forward as 'in' param. which in erry context OTHER than generic, worx . ☟︎

asciilifeform: phf: funnily enuff, just about erry year i briefly contemplate baking a sane disk crypter, but always run against same wall -- sata interface is ~unobtainable outside of reich-asics