asciilifeform: so any particular proggy can call e.g. open() with correct flaggisms, because it aint as if the gnat on the $box does not already know what os/iron it sits on.
asciilifeform: sorta what the orig authors lamely tried to do ( and mostly failed )
asciilifeform: the correct end of the funnel to plug, imho , would be a sane flags lib built ~into gnat~, and correct ~per gnat port~
asciilifeform: ( in '50s this was a best-selling 'ram' , but afaik nobody thought to de-rasterize it and make it the whole comp )
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: ( for n00bz re earlier -- magnetic logic is based on the fact that a transformer core can 'saturate'. ergo you can bake a 'nand' simply from transformer with three windings.
asciilifeform: not even speaking of intelisms -- if you can't remove heat at the rate it is produced by resistance -- you get magic smoke, no matter how you cut it
asciilifeform: btw -- and iirc we had the thread -- there are even deeper crackpotteries potentially in the mix : it is possible to have strictly magnetic logic, without semiconductor. if can simply etch fine metal mask, interleaved with insulator, potentially can have a kind of slow 'z80' from miniature toroid logic (as seen in '60s su)
asciilifeform: you want an end product that conducts thermally as well as electrically, or you get a lighter.
asciilifeform: hence 0 movement , afaik, on any such front.
asciilifeform: specifically opposite of industry(tm)
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: nao missing ingredient, find a carrier medium that you can do this to, that can be doped to semiconduct...
asciilifeform: we're speaking of a pocket-sized apparatus .
asciilifeform: picture two planar gels (or whatever carrier medium) at orthogonal to one another, meeting in a thin line. the 'vertical' plane is yer 'print head', containing single steerable 'column' of $ion; the 'horizontal' is yer 'paper'.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: re 'ion pump' upstack , in olden days when asciilifeform worked as academi-grunt in a bio lab, did many long hours of snore at electrophoretic 'blots', where chromatographic rubbish moves along a gel. and thought 'why not bake ic this day, what if you give it 2nd axis to steer the current' etc
asciilifeform: ( still taught in kindergarten, errywhere )
asciilifeform: entirely. like the 19th c lumped approximation to maxwell's equations.
asciilifeform: i'd like to learn who it was, who mutilated.
asciilifeform also quite liked. even learned of previously-unsuspected linuxlol
asciilifeform: ( generally if you do it in the part of town where the garages and meth labs are, you dun have usg.problems, at least not immediately )
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: in '80s folx briefly made , then somehow evaporated.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'd even settle for something entirely like ice40 but with fuse/antifuse bridges
asciilifeform: the etches, the masks, the elemental fluorine gas and other joys
asciilifeform: that's part of what makes the trad process cost what it does, yes
asciilifeform: imho the classical fab is an overwhelmingly incatronic tech, it centralizes unhealthily.☟︎
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.
