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This has got to be the first processor for which the software is available before a complete computer exists; RISC-V 19” rack mountable servers remain distant s
by Annatar 8y ago
This has got to be the first processor for which the software is available before a complete computer exists; RISC-V 19” rack mountable servers remain distant science fiction.
- floatboth 8y agoNah, certainly not the first. Lots of software was ported to AArch64 before any chips existed, only ARM's "Foundation Model" (a rather slow emulator).
- microcolonel 8y agoNot to mention, there is actual RISC-V hardware capable of running this software; and you can buy it right now for a known public price (which is more than could be said for AArch64 for a long time, and almost to this day) and integrate it with standard peripherals (PCIe, SATA, USB, etc.). Granted, the hardware is somewhat limited for now, since it's only in-order.
- Annatar 8y agoServers, I explicitly wrote “19” rack mountable servers”! Where can they be bought? Link please!!!
- floatboth 8y agoYou could mount a HiFive Unleashed into a rack case I guess. It's not a standard form factor though, so you'd need some custom mounting hardware (or, well, hot glue :D)
- Annatar 8y agoThat would be hacking. I couldn’t build datacenters with that. I’m a professional engineer, not a hacker.
- floatboth 8y ago> you can buy it right now for a known public price Huh, the HiFive Unleashed has a "buy now" button on the website. I thought it's still in crowdfunding stage. Nice. > almost to this day PINE A64 was kickstarted in december 2015 with a known public price of $15. The RPi3 and SoftIron Overdrive 1000 appeared in 2016, SolidRun MACCHIATOBin in 2017, and various Rockchip RK3399 boards (and Chromebooks!) are shipping this year. Oh, and you could buy an iPhone 5S back in 2013. No standard peripherals on that one though :D
- Athas 8y agoLinux has supported x86-64 in long mode since 2001, well before the processors were available two years later.
- adiusmus 8y agoAda Lovelace disagrees.
- Annatar 8y agoShe most certaily does not, since she is dead. And she helped Babbage construct the first mechanical computer so I most certaily disagree with your implication, since it is wrong.
- adiusmus 8y agoYeah she’s dead. Well spotted. Here’s some documentation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbage_Machine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbage_Machine Feel free to provide year the machine was actually completed by Babbage and Lovelace. A photo or two would be nice. Trolls these days are still cute to their mothers.
- Annatar 8y agoWow. One can construct something on paper without actually building it, but since you’re content to argue, I expect no less than you now arguing on the semantics of “to construct”. I’ll discard the troll implication as immature, since this is “Hacker News”, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
- PeCaN 8y agoItanium and AArch64 both had emulators years before they were released and OSes were ported before any chips were available.
- aap_ 8y agoInterestingly, LISP for the PDP-6 was begin written while the machine was still being built.
- nils-m-holm 8y agoVery interesting indeed! Do you have any sources?
- dangerbird2 8y agoHere [1], Richard Greenblatt wrote A Lisp interpreter/compiler for PDP-6 in 1963 (it would become MacLisp), while the computer was still being designed. [1] http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/maclisp_family/ http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/maclisp_fa...
- nils-m-holm 8y agoGreat, thanks!
- rwmj 8y agoI've got two real RISC-V machines (HiFive Unleashed) under my desk.
- Annatar 8y ago“HiFive Unleashed is the ultimate RISC-V developer board.” A development board is light years away from a 19” rack mountable server with out-of-band management (lights out management) and everything else that goes into such a design. You know, the kind of hardware that is actually usable in production and not just a cool toy that might or might not spawn production systems some day. I for one am not content to just tinker with toys; I want servers so I can get some real work done.
- rwmj 8y agoErm yes, so do I. In fact I gave a talk about this and I'm involved in the software side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbpJzU2gkw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbpJzU2gkw These things don't happen by force of nature. They happen because people do the work, and we're doing the work, not moaning on HN about things that haven't happened yet.
- Annatar 8y agoSorry but you (plural) are moaning about a very badly thought out processor architecture for which no hardware other than tinkertoys exist, to the point where one could equal it with the Rust evangelism strike force. I’m really sorry that is the case, especially when I think back on how awful the assembler mnemonics of RISC-V are, and how all the work being done could have made so much more difference if it had been put into OpenSPARC, as if we didn’t have enough ego trips and repetition in the computer hardware space throughout the decades already. Why reuse all the work and refine one CPU design when one can just sink countless hours of one’s life into inventing it again, right? Sorry but that is just awful. You (now in singular) will never get that time back. I silently weep for the wastefulness of humanity inside of me when I think upon this debacle that is RISC-V.