4 ms·

"it" = some type of linked list. You can have the truth table, for example, for an "AND" gate be statically defined as 4 cells each for every possible result i

by amts 4y ago

"it" = some type of linked list. You can have the truth table, for example, for an "AND" gate be statically defined as 4 cells each for every possible result in the list (like 1 and 1 is 1, 1 and 0 is 0 etc). So when there's 1 and 1 in the input cells, the linked cell storing 1 is selected: basic if, else logic. Sort of, if all possible results of basic logic operations would be statically stored on an SSD, and the emulator would just select the needed one based in inputs. And these inputs could be just a data array stored in another place on an SSD. I am not asking myself why this hasn't just miraculously happened, but am sure that if enough physical logic elements of an SSD are emulated, this may provide venue for emulating basic computational operations.

layer8 4y ago
> the emulator would just select What is “the emulator” here? If it’s the original CPU, you’re just trading off some of its computing power to a slower, emulated CPU. For emulating a CPU, you don’t need a lot of storage, and it’s much faster to use main memory (RAM) instead of using SSD memory. What you need for emulating a CPU, however, is computing power, and only another CPU can provide that.
- amts 4y ago
  Emulator can be a program with some type of linked list, whose core can emulate computations, which may be stored on various types of memory. In some types of emergencies when all CPUs and RAMs are busy, it can be handy. Maybe part of computational operations (like comparisons) can be done by CPU. Truth tables are essentially the already computed results of basic AND/OR/XOR operations, so at least these operations may be emulated on a storage via selection of a predefined result of computation. But whatever (I hope I won't run out of functionality provided by 2 cores).
  - layer8 4y ago
    While you could conceivably speed up emulation by using huge stored lookup tables (I don’t think it’s really possible though, SSD is just too slow compared to RAM and CPU caches), it’ll still be considerably slower than using the CPU directly, instead of having it emulate a virtual CPU by use of those lookup tables. In other words, you would be losing compute power in sum, instead of gaining more.

by amts 4y ago

layer8 4y ago

> the emulator would just select What is “the emulator” here? If it’s the original CPU, you’re just trading off some of its computing power to a slower, emulated CPU. For emulating a CPU, you don’t need a lot of storage, and it’s much faster to use main memory (RAM) instead of using SSD memory. What you need for emulating a CPU, however, is computing power, and only another CPU can provide that.

amts 4y ago
Emulator can be a program with some type of linked list, whose core can emulate computations, which may be stored on various types of memory. In some types of emergencies when all CPUs and RAMs are busy, it can be handy. Maybe part of computational operations (like comparisons) can be done by CPU. Truth tables are essentially the already computed results of basic AND/OR/XOR operations, so at least these operations may be emulated on a storage via selection of a predefined result of computation. But whatever (I hope I won't run out of functionality provided by 2 cores).
- layer8 4y ago
  While you could conceivably speed up emulation by using huge stored lookup tables (I don’t think it’s really possible though, SSD is just too slow compared to RAM and CPU caches), it’ll still be considerably slower than using the CPU directly, instead of having it emulate a virtual CPU by use of those lookup tables. In other words, you would be losing compute power in sum, instead of gaining more.