Advantages of Parallel Hz

[MooseFET]

3. Magnetic parts
Why would you care if it is magnetic? Non-linear magneto-optical
effects could allow very fast logic at extremely low power levels.
Eventually the signal has to become electric for processing. Why waste
time converting signals from electric to magnetic [and visa versa]?

I think you missed the point. The signals start out as keystrokes and
mouse clicks and end up as dots on a CRT. We only make them into
electronic signals because we have a very easy way to process
electronic signals. There is no reason to not convert them to light
or magnetic fields if that provides a way to process them very quickly
at low power levels.

[.....]

Okay, however, I don't see any advantage to converting electric
signals to magnetic signals. Optical, maybe or maybe not, depending on
the application. But definitely not magnetic.

You have ruled out magnetics without having explored everything it may
bring you. You need to imagine the PC you really want and not how it
is done.

Think of a box with a monitor and keyboard etc plugged into it. You
can't see into the box all you know is that it does everything you
neede it to do, there are no moving parts, it draws very little power
and will have a life over 100 years.

If this is the PC you want, why are you setting limits on whats inside
it beyond that?

I am starting to understand. In my dream PC the hardware gets its
instructions on what to generate in a similar manner in which SB16
ISA's FM synth chip gets its instructions on what to generate. So some
amount of ROM maybe required here. If so, then yes, my dream PC would
use ROM, but only when and where it is mathematically-necessary in
order to have an efficient PC with the advantages of other PCs. My
dream PC uses as little ROM as mathematically-necessary to have the
benefits associated with the world's current best PC. Other than that,
my dream PC is virtually ROM-free.

A PC with the mathematically low amount of ROM would by its nature be
slow. I'm sure you have "zipped" and "unzipped" files. The process
of unzipping is converting a lower number of bits into a larger number
that are easier to deal with in software. It takes a while to do this
process. This extra time is what you would be adding to your PC.

[....]

So what you're saying is that the keyboard is a form of ROM. Do I
guess right?

No, it contains one. The buttons and stuff are there too and they
aren't ROM.

 

[Stephen Fuld]

snip


No, it contains one. The buttons and stuff are there too and they
aren't ROM.

Radium, perhaps this simplified example of a keyboard will help you to
think through what you are talking about.

Let's look at the requirements. You have about 100 switches (keys) and
when each one is pressed, you want to output a specific 8 bit pattern
(the ASCII code for the key). The logic for this is pretty simple to
synthesize. You have 100 circuits, each similar to each other but
slightly different. Each one, when corresponding the switch is pressed
enables a pattern of logical highs and lows to the output bus. This
will work, but now you have 100 separate circuits. If each circuit was
one one chip, it would take 100 chips. OK, no one would do that - you
certainly would combine them. But now you have a chip with 100 inputs
and pins are expensive. So let's say we arrange the switches in a 10 by
10 matrix so that what is output when a switch is pressed is the row and
column of the matrix corresponding to that switch. So now you have 20
inputs. But with an other simple circuit you can use a 4 bit value to
indicate which of the 10 rows the pressed key belongs to. Similarly for
the column. Now we are down to 8 bits. These can be fed into a chip
that decodes these 8 inputs (again, easy to synthesize) into one of 100
lines. These in turn select one of 100 patterns of logic highs and lows
to output. This chip, the one that takes the 8 inputs (AKA address) and
outputs a particular pattern (AKA data) *is* a ROM. There is nothing
inherently wrong with ROM, it is just a more convenient and lower cost
way to do what you could otherwise do with discrete logic.


I hope this helps and that *real* hardware engineers will excuse my
inaccuracies and simplifications.

 

[Radium]

[.....]
3. Magnetic parts
Why would you care if it is magnetic? Non-linear magneto-optical
effects could allow very fast logic at extremely low power levels.
Eventually the signal has to become electric for processing. Why waste
time converting signals from electric to magnetic [and visa versa]?
I think you missed the point. The signals start out as keystrokes and
mouse clicks and end up as dots on a CRT. We only make them into
electronic signals because we have a very easy way to process
electronic signals. There is no reason to not convert them to light
or magnetic fields if that provides a way to process them very quickly
at low power levels.
[.....]

Okay, however, I don't see any advantage to converting electric
signals to magnetic signals. Optical, maybe or maybe not, depending on
the application. But definitely not magnetic.

You have ruled out magnetics without having explored everything it may
bring you. You need to imagine the PC you really want and not how it
is done.

What are the advantages of magnetics?

Think of a box with a monitor and keyboard etc plugged into it. You
can't see into the box all you know is that it does everything you
neede it to do, there are no moving parts, it draws very little power
and will have a life over 100 years.
Okay.

If this is the PC you want, why are you setting limits on whats inside
it beyond that?

It's a matter of personal preference.

A PC with the mathematically low amount of ROM would by its nature be
slow.
Why?

I'm sure you have "zipped" and "unzipped" files. The process
of unzipping is converting a lower number of bits into a larger number
that are easier to deal with in software. It takes a while to do this
process. This extra time is what you would be adding to your PC.

[....]

I don't use zip, unless I really need to. So far, I've never had to.

Winzip is a pain in the @$$.

No, it contains one. The buttons and stuff are there too and they
aren't ROM.

Is the ROM built into the keyboard?

 

[Radium]

MooseFET wrote:

Radium, perhaps this simplified example of a keyboard will help you to
think through what you are talking about.
Okay.

Let's look at the requirements. You have about 100 switches (keys) and
when each one is pressed, you want to output a specific 8 bit pattern
(the ASCII code for the key). The logic for this is pretty simple to
synthesize. You have 100 circuits, each similar to each other but
slightly different. Each one, when corresponding the switch is pressed
enables a pattern of logical highs and lows to the output bus. This
will work, but now you have 100 separate circuits. If each circuit was
one one chip, it would take 100 chips. OK, no one would do that - you
certainly would combine them. But now you have a chip with 100 inputs
and pins are expensive. So let's say we arrange the switches in a 10 by
10 matrix so that what is output when a switch is pressed is the row and
column of the matrix corresponding to that switch. So now you have 20
inputs. But with an other simple circuit you can use a 4 bit value to
indicate which of the 10 rows the pressed key belongs to. Similarly for
the column. Now we are down to 8 bits. These can be fed into a chip
that decodes these 8 inputs (again, easy to synthesize) into one of 100
lines. These in turn select one of 100 patterns of logic highs and lows
to output.

Interesting. In 1990, I had a green monochrome Corona PC. Its keyboard
did not connect to the PC via pins but rather through a cord
resembling a telephone cord. The plugs on both ends resembled that
used for telephones.

This chip, the one that takes the 8 inputs (AKA address) and
outputs a particular pattern (AKA data) *is* a ROM.

What are the alternatives to ROM?

There is nothing
inherently wrong with ROM, it is just a more convenient and lower cost
way to do what you could otherwise do with discrete logic.

I am aware that there is nothing objectively wrong with ROM. However,
as a matter of personal preference, I would like other alternatives.
It's like preferring garlic over onions [or visa versa].

 

[Stephen Fuld]

snip

What are the alternatives to ROM?

I gave them to you in the long example in my previous post (but I
snipped from this post). They are the "steps" along the way.

There is nothing
inherently wrong with ROM, it is just a more convenient and lower cost
way to do what you could otherwise do with discrete logic.

I am aware that there is nothing objectively wrong with ROM. However,
as a matter of personal preference, I would like other alternatives.
It's like preferring garlic over onions [or visa versa].

No, its not like onions versus garlic. That truly is a matter of taste.
The path that led to ROM shows the alternatives take more space, use
more power, cost more, and are harder to develop. The keyboard
designers didn't choose to use ROM on a whim. They chose it because it
was the best engineering solution to the problem they faced.
Alternatives would be worse in a variety of ways and provide no
advantages. While some system design choices are personal preference,
most (including this one) are dictated by good engineering principles.

 

[Guy Macon]

Where has Radium gone? Haven't seen any of his dribble in a
few days. Maybe the idiocy of his notion finally sunk in??

Perhaps he took mt advice, stopped posting, and started building
real circuits with real logic ICs. There is nothing like having
to make something actually function work to clear out false ideas
about the way things should work...

Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>

 

[Guy Macon]

That looks like it's 6502-compatible...a device built around it could
replace the Apple II that's keeping my beer fermenting at the right
temperature with less code rewriting. Cool!

Sunplus also sells at least a thousand times higher unit volume
than any Pentium. Lower dollar volume and *much* lower profit, of
course. Many of the top sellers cost less than a dime and make less
than a penny in profit.

Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>

 

[Guy Macon]

No, its not like onions versus garlic. That truly is a matter of taste.

The path that led to ROM shows the alternatives take more space, use
more power, cost more, and are harder to develop. The keyboard
designers didn't choose to use ROM on a whim. They chose it because it
was the best engineering solution to the problem they faced.
Alternatives would be worse in a variety of ways and provide no
advantages. While some system design choices are personal preference,
most (including this one) are dictated by good engineering principles.

That's what they told me when I wanted to build commercial jetliners
out of stone rather than aluminum...

 

[MooseFET]

It's a matter of personal preference.

Yes but what is the basis of this preference? Did a ROM maker say
something rude to you? :> That would be a good reason.

[....]

Why?

Lets try a simpler example: I want to make a box that finds the
length of the third side of a triangle when two sides and the angle
are known. This is the equation:

Z = SQRT( X*X + Y*Y - 2*X*Y*COS(Angle))

Lets imagine that we are going to use Newton's method to find a square
root.

Newton's method works like this:

INPUT Y
TryValue = SomeGuessMethod(Y)

Loop till good enough
NewValue = Y / TryValue
TryValue = (TryValue + NewValue)/2
end loop
PRINT "The squareroot is ", TryValue

One of the very nice thing about this way of finding the square root
is that the accuracy of the TryValue grows very quickly. The number
of digits it is good to doubles every time around the loop. The
problem is that you need to come up with an initial guess. Always
guessing 1.0 initially does work but it takes a large number of loops
to find the square root of a million if you start that way.

Adding a fairly simple look up table will get the answer much quicker.

Another issue pops up for the example equation that it needs the value
2.0. Since 2.0 is 1.0+1.0, the value can be generated but this costs
more time.

There is also the method for finding the cos() to consider. Most
cosine routines use a look up table to find the exact cosine of a
nearby angle and how the curve is changing in that area. In just a
few steps, you can have a quite exact cosine if you do this. There
are other ways of finding the cosine that don't need any tables. I
bet you've already guessed why those aren't used.

[....]

I don't use zip, unless I really need to. So far, I've never had to.

Winzip is a pain in the @$$.

Yes it is gzip, pkzip and UncleBobsZip will do better than WinZip.
They all take time to do however.

Is the ROM built into the keyboard?

There is a ROM in the keyboard and one in the PC. Inside the keyboard
is a little micro-controller with a ROM. It keeps track of which
buttons you push etc. This information is sent to the PC. Back in
the days of DOS, it was then the ROM in the PC that assigned the keys
their ASCII codes.

It may sound funny to make it take too steps to do the assigning of
the ASCII but there is a very good reason for it. The basic keyboard
design could be used all around the world. The BIOS could be made
different from country to country to handle the differences in what
the keys mean.

 

[Bob Myers]

Okay, however, I don't see any advantage to converting electric
signals to magnetic signals. Optical, maybe or maybe not, depending on
the application. But definitely not magnetic.

I hesitate to ask, but what, specifically, do you have against
magnetics?

But apparently for no real reason that you can explain, right?

Bob M.

 

[Radium]

I hesitate to ask, but what, specifically, do you have against
magnetics?

Confidential information remains no matter how much you try to format
it.

The stored magnetic information always exists to some extent no matter
how many times it is "erased" or overwritten.

Device sensitive to extremely weak magnetic signals, can still recover
information.

With an electric chip it is much easer to permanently remove
confidential data.

But apparently for no real reason that you can explain, right?

I like things to be lively. Discrete logic is far more effervescent
than ROM.

 

[krw]

Confidential information remains no matter how much you try to format
it.

The stored magnetic information always exists to some extent no matter
how many times it is "erased" or overwritten.

Device sensitive to extremely weak magnetic signals, can still recover
information.

Only true (and only to a small extent, getting smaller every year) on
things like disk drives where the head positioning isn't perfect.
Widgets like core or MRAM will be as securely erased as SRAM.

With an electric chip it is much easer to permanently remove
confidential data.

Than a twenty-year-old disk drive, perhaps. Though, any data that
you want to save (kinda the point) will be as easily recovered from
either. Seems a little paranoid to me. Whatcha got on there, kiddie
pron? ;-)

I like things to be lively. Discrete logic is far more effervescent
than ROM.

If you (could) regenerate the data on the fly, you *are* using more
energy than if it's stored once. I thought you wanted minimum energy
used/dissipated?

 

[MooseFET]

If you (could) regenerate the data on the fly, you *are* using more
energy than if it's stored once. I thought you wanted minimum energy
used/dissipated?

Obviously, anything that "generates data" can't be creating
information so the information needed to know what data must be
generated has to be stored inside the system. This means that the
whole goal is imposible.

 

[krw]

Obviously, anything that "generates data" can't be creating
information so the information needed to know what data must be
generated has to be stored inside the system. This means that the
whole goal is imposible.

True, but there is a difference between ROM and logic, both solving
exactly the same equation.

 

[Radium]

Only true (and only to a small extent, getting smaller every year) on
things like disk drives where the head positioning isn't perfect.
Widgets like core or MRAM will be as securely erased as SRAM.

Some of my preferences are factual, while others are simply based on
opinions themselves.

Than a twenty-year-old disk drive, perhaps. Though, any data that
you want to save (kinda the point) will be as easily recovered from
either.

With an electric Flash RAM chip, it's easier to set all the values to
zero [i.e. erasing them completely and permanently].

If you (could) regenerate the data on the fly, you *are* using more
energy than if it's stored once.
Okay.

I thought you wanted minimum energy
used/dissipated?

Sometimes, yes. But not always.

 

[Radium]

Obviously, anything that "generates data" can't be creating
information so the information needed to know what data must be
generated has to be stored inside the system.

In that case, yes, some amount of info is stored, however, it is the
minimum required.

My dream PC stores this "ROM" as discrete logic. Discrete logic is
faster than ROM.

My dream PC is as hardware, real-time, and digital as possible. In
addition, it uses the least amount of buffering required [hopefully
none] and experiences the least amount of latency possible [again,
hopefully none].

 

[MooseFET]

[.....]

If you (could) regenerate the data on the fly, you *are* using more
energy than if it's stored once. I thought you wanted minimum energy
used/dissipated?

Obviously, anything that "generates data" can't be creating
information so the information needed to know what data must be
generated has to be stored inside the system. This means that the
whole goal is imposible.

True, but there is a difference between ROM and logic, both solving
exactly the same equation.

That is very true but to Radium they are seen as different is some
other way. I think the problem is that he doesn't understand the
technology well enough to be comfortable with the idea that a PROM, a
CPLD, a FPGA and descrete logic that solve a given problem must be
encoding the same information. Exactly how it is encoded will be very
different as you say but it none the less must be encoded.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

(e-mail address removed) says...

Only true (and only to a small extent, getting smaller every year) on
things like disk drives where the head positioning isn't perfect.
Widgets like core or MRAM will be as securely erased as SRAM.

Agreed! AFAIK, current HDs are highly dependant on ECC.
The bits are already slipping. What you might be able to
recover is dependant on the recovery head being much finer than
the write head. Write heads have been getting much tighter,
while scanning electron microscopes haven't been advancing
much in resolution (they have in automation).

Than a twenty-year-old disk drive, perhaps. Though, any data
that you want to save (kinda the point) will be as easily
recovered from either.

Another excellent point. There is no reason an SEM can't
recover data from flash or DRAM chips from things like residual
electromigration. It just needs horrendously expensive
mapping. Frankly, I'd expect only the founderies to do this,
and at most in a few selected (corner) areas to improve yields.

Seems a little paranoid to me. Whatcha got on there, kiddie pron? ;-)

Certainly any security program needs a threat analysis,
particularly a good estimate of costs and how much an opponent is
willing to spend. And the redundancy/recognizibility of the data.
The error rate on recovery isn't zero, and that will make recvery
probablistic. Some data is garbles easily. ASCII doesn't.

-- Robert

 

[me]

Confidential information remains no matter how much you try to format
it.
BULLSHIT!

The stored magnetic information always exists to some extent no matter
how many times it is "erased" or overwritten.
BULLSHIT!

Device sensitive to extremely weak magnetic signals, can still recover
information.
BULLSHIT!

With an electric chip it is much easer to permanently remove
confidential data.

COWSHIT!

 

[MooseFET]

In that case, yes, some amount of info is stored, however, it is the
minimum required.

Once again I need to point out that this leads to a very slow
machine. Storing the minimum required would be like storing all your
programs in the ZIPed format and decompressing them only as they run.

My dream PC stores this "ROM" as discrete logic. Discrete logic is
faster than ROM.

A single gate fo dicrete logic may be much faster than a ROM but using
a ROM results in a faster all over system. If you have large ROM you
can have large lookup tables to speed up things like trig functions.

My dream PC is as hardware, real-time, and digital as possible. In
addition, it uses the least amount of buffering required [hopefully
none] and experiences the least amount of latency possible [again,
hopefully none].

This may be your dream but it may also be a nightmare. You also said
you wanted low power and no fan. If you want a lot of speed, you
really want a good cooling system and a whole lot of power. If you
want to make a faster system with low power, you want to make use of
things like lookup tables and hashes. Forbidding the use of large
ROMs means you really can do that.