[HN Gopher] The slab and the permacomputer (2021)
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The slab and the permacomputer (2021)
Author : colinprince
Score : 48 points
Date : 2022-12-29 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.robinsloan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.robinsloan.com)
| mathgladiator wrote:
| > Powerful forces are pushing computing toward vast, brittle,
| energy-hungry systems that are incomprehensible even to their own
| makers;
|
| This captures how I feel which is why I'm inventing a new stack.
| rollcat wrote:
| The idea of Uxn, or some other minimalistic computing platform
| really scratches my itch, but I'm afraid anything that can't
| handle modern TLS is pretty much DOA - getting online is 95% of
| the reason why you'd want to own a computer, and while there
| are certainly a lot of fun things to do with an air-gapped
| device, computing shouldn't end at "just fun".
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| In my mind, this is more of a problem with TLS than it is a
| problem with older, slower, or simpler computers. Encypted,
| complex, and/or fast-churning protocols are sold as
| delivering security and efficiency, but in practice, for many
| applications, they primarily function as a ratchet to
| artificially induce obsolescence.
| NobleData wrote:
| I think there's a niche market to be had for offline/air-
| gapped computers, not only for security but for independent
| operability. If you're in BFE and have solar-powered
| computers running your AC you want something efficient and
| reliable, and everything in the hardware and software
| purpose-built.
| rollcat wrote:
| This space is already saturated by a product class called a
| microcontroller. I'm specifically thinking personal/general
| purpose computing.
| kragen wrote:
| i think you can implement a working subset of modern tls in a
| few thousand lines of code
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| Have you heard of wolfssl? But if your idea of reliabilty
| is network connected computers that must never fail fate
| has bad news coming for you. Better to engineer systems
| with the certain expectation everything fails at some
| point. So air gapped is the way to go!
| kragen wrote:
| what is your new stack like
|
| how far along are you
| mathgladiator wrote:
| My stack is an alternative to how the cloud works. I'm in the
| phase of building new client runtime for a single game.
|
| https://www.adama-platform.com/
| javajosh wrote:
| _They'd use less power; they'd be hardy against the elements;
| they'd be repairable -- that's crucial -- and they'd be
| comprehensible. The whole stack, from the hardware to the boot
| loader to the OS (if there is one) to the application, would be
| something that a person could hold in their head._
|
| I think the slab will start with the smartphone. Someone will
| find a universal starting point within the complex mess that
| exists. This starting point will be successful and universally
| adopted (think: TCP/IP). Maybe it starts in the browser, as a
| page, then a plugin, then an app, then an OS, and finally
| hardware. The software written from this common starting point
| will, ideally, be able to run equivalently in each mode.
|
| Broadly this isn't a new idea. Historically people think this
| starting point is something like Lisp, and want Lisp machines.
| There are other paths, though. It is good though that so many
| people are pushing toward this goal from so many directions;
| getting a computer whose mutable state from startup to
| application can fit in your head would be a godsend for human
| programmers. The path we're on now, only AI will be able to
| understand our systems. And that's bad, not just from a
| livelihood perspective.
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| Castles in the sky are evocative to us because intuitively we
| know they will eventually crash.
| manofmanysmiles wrote:
| The idea of archiving machine learning models really struck a
| chord. It reminds me of Asimov's Foundation, where the empire has
| collapsed and people don't know how to use the crumbling
| technology and treat it as magic.
| drivers99 wrote:
| Similarly, Jonathan Blow on "Preventing the Collapse of
| Civilization"[1] which is about software getting more
| complicated and worse at the same time. I just noticed he also
| brought up Foundation in that talk.
|
| (Between this, The Thirty Million Line Problem video by Casey
| Muratori[2] and running across Forth, specifically jonesforth,
| I've also been thinking of building my own tech stack from
| scratch, or at least playing around with it while collecting
| more and more references about doing so.)
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZRE7HIO3vk
| BirAdam wrote:
| The main thing I would point out is that it is just as
| important to record what ought not be repeated as it is to
| preserve that which is good.
|
| Simple, understandable software is a good thing. Software which
| is performant is a good thing. Software which solves the user's
| problem is the most important. We have examples of software
| which are all three of those things. We also have software
| which is none of the three.
|
| The biggest thing, if we are thinking long term, is that we
| should likely remember to emphasize that which can be
| maintained overtime by a small number of people, or indeed just
| one person. We should also emphasize machines that can be
| understood by a small team, or indeed just a single individual.
| Until recently, I would have said that all of this is alarmist.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Most people already treat current technology as magic.
|
| You could even make the point that for most techies, we treat
| tech as magic, but we call it "abstraction layers". We don't
| care about what's underneath as long as it always works.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _The slab and the permacomputer_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28995999 - Oct 2021 (24
| comments)
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