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laumars, I think what I'm missing to hear from you is why microkernels are such a bad and horrible idea and more importantly why Nintendo itself is mistaken if

laumars, I think what I'm missing to hear from you is why microkernels are such a bad and horrible idea and more importantly why Nintendo itself is mistaken if they had used them on their devices. Otherwise, I still think they are a good fit.

laumars 6y ago
They’re not a bad and horrible idea. I never once said that. Micro kernels are, in my opinion, the future of OS development because they offer a bunch of guarantees which are much harder to achieve with a monolithic kernel (like memory safety, stability (eg a segfault in a driver doesn’t bring down the entire kernel) and so on and so forth. The problem worth micro kernels is that abstraction isn’t free. That’s less of an issue with modern hardware running modern work loads because you’d need to put that memory safety in regardless of the kernel architecture and chips these days are fast enough that the benefits of security and safety far far outweigh the deminishing cost in performance. However on the N64 you don’t need any of the benefits that a micro kernel offers while you do need to preserve as many clock cycles as you can. So a micro kernel isn’t well suited for that specific domain. The case would be different again for any modern low footprint hardware because they’d still be running on CPUs clocked at an order of magnitude more and modern embedded system might need to take security or stability concerns more seriously than an air gapped 90s game console. In short, micro kernels are the future but the N64, being a retro system, needs an approach from the past. This is why it doesn’t help how modern and 90s hardware have been conflated as equivalent throughout this discussion.
- tutfbhuf 6y ago
  > However on the N64 you don’t need any of the benefits that a micro kernel offers while you do need to preserve as many clock cycles as you can. So a micro kernel isn’t well suited for that specific domain How come that Nintendo decided to use them (according to reverse engeneering finds)? If they are not suited, then Nintendo should know that right?
  - laumars 6y ago
    I’ve answered this question probably half a dozen times already now.... The N64 doesn’t run any OS. It’s just firmware that invokes a ROM which runs bare metal. The Switch, however, does have an operating system. There is around 20 years difference between the two games consoles. That’s 20 years of Moore’s law. 20 years of consumer expectations of fast processors and fancier graphics. And 20 years of evolution with developer tooling and thus their expectations. You cannot compare the two consoles in the way you’re trying to. It’s like comparing a 1920s racing car to a 2020s F1 car and asking why they are so different. Simply put: because technology has advanced so much in that time it’s now possible to do stuff that wasn’t dreamt of before.
    - tutfbhuf 6y ago
      Ah okay, I somehow thought that Nintendo had used microkernels on other devices too, not just the Switch. The Nintendo Switch is certainly not a constrained device.
      - laumars 6y ago
        It’s theoretically possible they may have done on other devices too. It’s believed the Switch system software is derived from the DS system software. I’ve not seen any breakdowns on what kernels are running in the DS nor on the Wii family of devices either. But there still orders of magnitude more powerful than the N64 too. I don’t think there’s much to be gained in speculation about proprietary operating systems running on newer hardware though.

laumars 6y ago

They’re not a bad and horrible idea. I never once said that. Micro kernels are, in my opinion, the future of OS development because they offer a bunch of guarantees which are much harder to achieve with a monolithic kernel (like memory safety, stability (eg a segfault in a driver doesn’t bring down the entire kernel) and so on and so forth. The problem worth micro kernels is that abstraction isn’t free. That’s less of an issue with modern hardware running modern work loads because you’d need to put that memory safety in regardless of the kernel architecture and chips these days are fast enough that the benefits of security and safety far far outweigh the deminishing cost in performance. However on the N64 you don’t need any of the benefits that a micro kernel offers while you do need to preserve as many clock cycles as you can. So a micro kernel isn’t well suited for that specific domain. The case would be different again for any modern low footprint hardware because they’d still be running on CPUs clocked at an order of magnitude more and modern embedded system might need to take security or stability concerns more seriously than an air gapped 90s game console. In short, micro kernels are the future but the N64, being a retro system, needs an approach from the past. This is why it doesn’t help how modern and 90s hardware have been conflated as equivalent throughout this discussion.

tutfbhuf 6y ago
> However on the N64 you don’t need any of the benefits that a micro kernel offers while you do need to preserve as many clock cycles as you can. So a micro kernel isn’t well suited for that specific domain How come that Nintendo decided to use them (according to reverse engeneering finds)? If they are not suited, then Nintendo should know that right?
- laumars 6y ago
  I’ve answered this question probably half a dozen times already now.... The N64 doesn’t run any OS. It’s just firmware that invokes a ROM which runs bare metal. The Switch, however, does have an operating system. There is around 20 years difference between the two games consoles. That’s 20 years of Moore’s law. 20 years of consumer expectations of fast processors and fancier graphics. And 20 years of evolution with developer tooling and thus their expectations. You cannot compare the two consoles in the way you’re trying to. It’s like comparing a 1920s racing car to a 2020s F1 car and asking why they are so different. Simply put: because technology has advanced so much in that time it’s now possible to do stuff that wasn’t dreamt of before.
  - tutfbhuf 6y ago
    Ah okay, I somehow thought that Nintendo had used microkernels on other devices too, not just the Switch. The Nintendo Switch is certainly not a constrained device.
    - laumars 6y ago
      It’s theoretically possible they may have done on other devices too. It’s believed the Switch system software is derived from the DS system software. I’ve not seen any breakdowns on what kernels are running in the DS nor on the Wii family of devices either. But there still orders of magnitude more powerful than the N64 too. I don’t think there’s much to be gained in speculation about proprietary operating systems running on newer hardware though.