4 ms·

You do realize that RISC-V processors aren't free right? Making an open source ISA is no small feat, but all they really did was help save some megacorporations

You do realize that RISC-V processors aren't free right? Making an open source ISA is no small feat, but all they really did was help save some megacorporations a little extra money. Perhaps it will lead to a processor startup, but follow that to its logical conclusion: it takes a huge, profitable company to sustain processor delivery for years. There's a very good reason why only a handful of companies make the top 6 CPU architectures. There's still Synopsys ARC, Renesas, Atmel, PIC just to name a few of RISC-V competitors. In reality, the Berkeley Four just made a handful of semi companies richer. WDC, NXP, NVIDIA, Microchip, etc. don't have to pay Arm for IP if they use RISC-V. Did that really help anything? Meh.

3arn0wl 6y ago
Sure, RISC-V designs can be open or not... And of course there's always the cost of fabbing. There're already designs freely available to use though, either as they are, or to build upon. And there are also now many other companies designing using the ISA; decentralising the production of chips. But - over and above the revolutionary economics of it - it's being recognised as a good ISA, and RISC-V cores are already being incorporated into consumer electronics.
3arn0wl 6y ago
Actually... What they did, ten years ago, was build a much better Computer Engineering course!
CyberRabbi 6y ago
You could argue that the availability of Linux saved countless megacorporations from having to pay Microsoft, IBM, or Sun. Yet the availability of Linux has been a boon to people across the board. While I agree there is something not right about cutting into ARM’s profits for the benefit of megacorporations, I think that a royalty-free ISA might genuinely be good for civilization despite that in the same way Linux is. It’s tough though, I’m still not fully sold on that opinion.
- SavantIdiot 6y ago
  I hear what you are saying, and that is a good point, and I do agree with the: "Why isn't there an open ISA?" I think the key difference with an OS like Linux and an ISA like RISC-V is that Linux helped literally millions of smart, curious kids get exposed to Unix and tinkering in a OS that wasn't a locked down behemoth: Windows. It changed lives. I don't think it is an exaggeration to overstate the democrization Linux had. However, I don't see RISC-V touching the world in an analogous way. No kid is gonna tinker with an ISA and fab a CPU. Maybe they will stick it on an FPGA? But it seems less accessible. Plus RISC-V's biggest propopent, Patterson, isn't really giving the world anything like Linus Torvald did. Linus busted his butt (and still does!) whereas Patterson flies around getting big speaker fees to pump up RISC-V while delegating. Just seems a bit... off? Or its just me.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    You raise good points. Linus is a one in a million person... At the same time I do think kids, hobbiests, small startups, and people who can’t afford expensive computers will make use of RISCV on commoditized programmable logic chips like FPGAs. Look at projects like MiSTer, simply not something that was available for hobbiests and free culture advocates 20 years ago. I can see a similar development happening in the computer space. Actually I’m surprised homebrew computers architected around an FPGA haven’t yet become more popular. Maybe as the popularity of RISCV grows we’ll see more of that. Would be great to see a project that implements a risc-v based computer on a de10-nano board as a starting point.
    - SavantIdiot 6y ago
      I spent most of my career is a microarchitect at Intel in the late 80's till mid-90's on 486 & Pentium and then again in the late 2000's on Xeon. So the idea of tinkering with an ISA is something that gives me the cold-sweats today! It's a wee bit more complicated than hacking the RTL/VHDL, but I am not saying curious kids should not have the chance to have a go at it! RISC-V is more akin to if I handed a kid a Boeing 747 and said, hey, go nuts! :) However, I taught programming in an afterschool program in the mid-80's and the Apple //e had an amazing graphical program that stepped through an assembly program, showing the data moving through the busses from register to memory, etc. And it was instrumental to kids learning. There's a few more wires in a 32-bit RISC compared to an 8-bit 6502, but someone will benefit!

3arn0wl 6y ago

Sure, RISC-V designs can be open or not... And of course there's always the cost of fabbing. There're already designs freely available to use though, either as they are, or to build upon. And there are also now many other companies designing using the ISA; decentralising the production of chips. But - over and above the revolutionary economics of it - it's being recognised as a good ISA, and RISC-V cores are already being incorporated into consumer electronics.

3arn0wl 6y ago

Actually... What they did, ten years ago, was build a much better Computer Engineering course!

CyberRabbi 6y ago

You could argue that the availability of Linux saved countless megacorporations from having to pay Microsoft, IBM, or Sun. Yet the availability of Linux has been a boon to people across the board. While I agree there is something not right about cutting into ARM’s profits for the benefit of megacorporations, I think that a royalty-free ISA might genuinely be good for civilization despite that in the same way Linux is. It’s tough though, I’m still not fully sold on that opinion.

SavantIdiot 6y ago
I hear what you are saying, and that is a good point, and I do agree with the: "Why isn't there an open ISA?" I think the key difference with an OS like Linux and an ISA like RISC-V is that Linux helped literally millions of smart, curious kids get exposed to Unix and tinkering in a OS that wasn't a locked down behemoth: Windows. It changed lives. I don't think it is an exaggeration to overstate the democrization Linux had. However, I don't see RISC-V touching the world in an analogous way. No kid is gonna tinker with an ISA and fab a CPU. Maybe they will stick it on an FPGA? But it seems less accessible. Plus RISC-V's biggest propopent, Patterson, isn't really giving the world anything like Linus Torvald did. Linus busted his butt (and still does!) whereas Patterson flies around getting big speaker fees to pump up RISC-V while delegating. Just seems a bit... off? Or its just me.
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  You raise good points. Linus is a one in a million person... At the same time I do think kids, hobbiests, small startups, and people who can’t afford expensive computers will make use of RISCV on commoditized programmable logic chips like FPGAs. Look at projects like MiSTer, simply not something that was available for hobbiests and free culture advocates 20 years ago. I can see a similar development happening in the computer space. Actually I’m surprised homebrew computers architected around an FPGA haven’t yet become more popular. Maybe as the popularity of RISCV grows we’ll see more of that. Would be great to see a project that implements a risc-v based computer on a de10-nano board as a starting point.
  - SavantIdiot 6y ago
    I spent most of my career is a microarchitect at Intel in the late 80's till mid-90's on 486 & Pentium and then again in the late 2000's on Xeon. So the idea of tinkering with an ISA is something that gives me the cold-sweats today! It's a wee bit more complicated than hacking the RTL/VHDL, but I am not saying curious kids should not have the chance to have a go at it! RISC-V is more akin to if I handed a kid a Boeing 747 and said, hey, go nuts! :) However, I taught programming in an afterschool program in the mid-80's and the Apple //e had an amazing graphical program that stepped through an assembly program, showing the data moving through the busses from register to memory, etc. And it was instrumental to kids learning. There's a few more wires in a 32-bit RISC compared to an 8-bit 6502, but someone will benefit!