[HN Gopher] The mainframe in your pocket running minicomputer so...
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The mainframe in your pocket running minicomputer software
Author : klelatti
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-10-23 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thechipletter.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thechipletter.substack.com)
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| The mainframe in your pocket that is running like a thin client
| because everything is in the cloud now. :(
| masswerk wrote:
| That's the funny thing: we're running mainframes to access a
| centralized mainframe - terminal model.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I think that's not really true. Thin client handles input and
| output. Nowadays even websites can work offline on client
| device. There're plenty of mobile apps which work offline. I
| don't want to pay for mobile Internet, so my phone works in
| offline mode usually. I have offline books, offline maps,
| offline docs and so on. Modern phones are extremely powerful
| with very fast CPUs and large amounts of RAM. It would be a
| waste to use them as thin clients.
| Aloha wrote:
| I don't have time to look at the included video right now. But
| based on the excerpted points, I think for modern SOCs there is a
| good point to all of this. Modern computers are not just a fancy
| VAX, but they're not truly conceptually like a mainframe either.
|
| The key with a mainframe architecture is abstraction between the
| components, separate memory spaces, no memory mapped IO, etc.
|
| I'd also say that the Unix (Linux) we use today has more to do
| with UNIX/32V and 3BSD, than with the Unix that ran on either the
| PDP-7 or even the PDP-11.
|
| Multiprocessing came into Unix fairly early too, within a year or
| two of the introduction of the VAX. All that effort was rolled
| into SysV later.
| mikewarot wrote:
| The main take away from this is that much like the VAX-11/780,
| all of the processors we run Linux on today have embedded
| controllers that run first.
|
| In history we see "The VAX-11/780 included a subordinate stand-
| alone LSI-11 computer that performed microcode load, booting, and
| diagnostic functions for the parent computer."[1]
|
| In the present, there are many layers of embedded controllers
| doing essentially the same thing the LSI-11 did for the VAX. In
| both cases, the main OS has little to no control over those
| controllers.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX
| marcodiego wrote:
| Case in point: AFAIK, some Raptor Computing machines have an
| ASpeed processor which is powered on first. It then loads the
| bootROM from a removable flash chip on the motherboard, the
| bootROM initializes the rest of the hardware and loads BMC from
| another flash chip on the motherboard. The BMC does whatever
| hardware initialization still must be done and only then it
| runs the bootloader. The bootloader (petitboot, I think) scan
| the drives for bootable media and shows a menu for the user to
| choose what to boot.
|
| The ASpeed and the POWER computers are somewhat independent
| after that point. If I had enough money, I'd get one of those
| machines just for the peculiarities of its hardware.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| a BMC starting up first is standard for server boards
| formerly_proven wrote:
| In fact it starts so first that it started long before you
| even press the power button.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Same with the SMC (or an embedded controller by any other
| name) on laptops.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| It seems like if you really wanted control, you would try to go
| for these low level layers.
| hinkley wrote:
| Oxide Computers has been making a lot of column inches out of
| pointing out that those controllers run closed source software
| so we are losing control of our machines. Linux is running in a
| simulation at this point, and we should be doing something to
| fix that.
| soneil wrote:
| I honestly think they're the most interesting thing going on
| in tech at the moment - they're actually creating tech
| instead of just using it to schedule taxis. I wish I had an
| ounce of the talent they're looking for, because they're
| doing the things I love reading about, not the things I end
| up doing.
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