Recorded at Strange Loop 2013. Please add (2013) tag. Edit: https://thestrangeloop.com/2013/programming-a-144-computer-c...
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Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#32I saw this talk live at Strange Loop 2013, and I'm going to be a contrarian: I wasn't impressed. I don't mean to bash Chuck Moore. Forth is cool, and this chip looks neat, but my impression is that this is a solution looking for a problem. Chuck Moore is having a lot of fun working on it, but he fails to convey why this is useful. The impression that I had is that the whole talk was Chuck Moore going "look at all the…
They're making their second-generation chip right now, and I think there are a bunch of problems that this chip is an obvious solution for. Chuck Moore is bad at presentations to outside audiences. This should surprise no one familiar with the man. This doesn't make the tech less useful, though.
Has there been any concrete information released about their second-generation chip? The GreenArrays website only contains a few vague hints, suggesting, for example, that it might have a 32-bit datapath.
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#33The grid layout and having chip(let?)s communicating with the four neighbors reminds me a lot of TIS-100 [1], I'm wondering if the game was inspired by this chip. Hopefully the real chip is easier to program :-). [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/
I swear that the line limitation in TIS-100 was just to drive me nuts. The shear number of times I just needed ONE MORE LINE... Loved that game.
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#34Reminds me a lot of the Parallax Propeller: many simple cores optimized for bit-banging I/O and programmable logic. Of course this is much lower power and has many more cores. I think that many core architectures can actually be simpler to program in an embedded context than the traditional single core systems. It's akin to a hardware implementation of the actor model rather than an interrupt state machine or interru…
The DEFCON 22 badge was done on a Propeller. I did a little pokeing around on it--very interesting architecture. But they don't all run at once.... It's just a way to switch contexts instantly.
That’s not what the datasheet says. It says:
”... its eight processors, called cogs, that can perform simultaneous tasks independently or cooperatively...”
” True parallel processing with eight symmetric 32-bit processors (cogs) in one microcontroller”
”20 MIPS per cog, 160 MIPS total with all cogs running”
”All eight cogs are driven from the System Clock; they each maintain the same time reference and all active cogs execute instructions simultaneously.”
https://www.parallax.com/sites/default/files/downloads/P8X32...
The shared hub memory is only accessible to one core at once and which one has access is switched between in round robin fashion, each core getting a turn to access it once every 16 clock cycles. Perhaps that’s what you were thinking of?
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#35I really love greenarrays and that entire social circle. It's an older group of folks that bought a historical house in Wyoming and do chip design, programming, everything with their own home-brew minimal set of software. It's an alternative universe of programming. It's almost a software and hardware design religion. I think everyone should know about it and that it's possible to work this way, even if you wouldn't…
Has anyone used the greenarray technology for any real world applications? It seems to fit somewhere between an FPGA and a microcontroller, but it doesn't seem that obvious to me what the benefits are, maybe less power than a microcontroller but I can't find any clear cut evidence that is the case for a real world application.
you may find the following presentations in using ga144 entertaining, even if stretched. as Chuck Moore once said (I'm trying to get the ref) Forth is about sharing ideas rather than code. these videos are not pure coding session (even if they have their own share) but a mix of engineering and problem solving.
- echolocation like bats
- heart monitor
- digital image processing
- building ga144 controlled robot
- low speed usb host
youtube channel of Daniel Kalný https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVMrX6BlNjIeGfX0QcBobGg
hope you enjoy!
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#36I saw this talk live at Strange Loop 2013, and I'm going to be a contrarian: I wasn't impressed. I don't mean to bash Chuck Moore. Forth is cool, and this chip looks neat, but my impression is that this is a solution looking for a problem. Chuck Moore is having a lot of fun working on it, but he fails to convey why this is useful. The impression that I had is that the whole talk was Chuck Moore going "look at all the…
They're making their second-generation chip right now, and I think there are a bunch of problems that this chip is an obvious solution for. Chuck Moore is bad at presentations to outside audiences. This should surprise no one familiar with the man. This doesn't make the tech less useful, though.
Are they? You mean a generation following the GA144? That sounds really interesting! I see tantalizing tidbits on http://www.greenarraychips.com/: "Latest developments:
As of early 2020, shipments of the EVB002 evaluation kit and of G144A12 chips continue. Work continues on improvement of the arrayForth 3 integrated development system. Design of a new chip, G144A2x, continues; this will be upward compatible with the G144A12, with numerous significant improvements."
That'll be really wonderful to see!
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#37Strange it is all software like. Any hardware to see, to buy one or few times try, emulator to see etc. both the video and the YouTube by another guys seems no such thing.
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#38I really love greenarrays and that entire social circle. It's an older group of folks that bought a historical house in Wyoming and do chip design, programming, everything with their own home-brew minimal set of software. It's an alternative universe of programming. It's almost a software and hardware design religion. I think everyone should know about it and that it's possible to work this way, even if you wouldn't…
These sound like my people. How does one join?
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#39Can I repeat my question: how to get something on-hand (like the board, the programmer and even the working environment setup) per this document http://www.greenarraychips.com/home/support/index.html
It is very strange. It is like a shop without a front to get things, but keep on trying to tell you - once you got it, you can do wonderful thing.
What is the point?
Re: Programming a 144-computer Chip to Minimize Power (2013)
#40Greetings from Greg Bailey in Cheyenne, Wyoming where GreenArrays can say, paraphrasing Steve McQueen at the end of the superb movie Papillon, "We're still here, you Bastards!!!"
As an experiment, I will be happy to address any question that anyone might have, including those appearing in this thread, at the GreenArrays shop and lecture hall in Second Life. I propose to stand there, virtually, at 0800 PDT / 1500 UTC / 1700 CET / Midnight in Sydney, AU, on Wednesday, 13 May and again on Saturday, 16 May. The SLURL for the shop is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Deneb/80/228/27 and the name of the shop is "GreenArrays Ventures". My name in SL is GregBailey with UUID f64abbc5-7136-40db-9dd0-a174d93d8742 and I will wait for one hour before logging if no one has shown up.
The experiment will be interesting, whether or not it produces positive results. Failing that I may find time to reply on these threads, and we do reply to questions sent to sales mailbox, domain greenarraychips.com.
So, see you Wednesday or Saturday, perhaps. Advice: To minimize wasted time, kindly go to http://www.greenarraychips.com and do a little studying, or perhaps audit some of the lectures on the arrayForth Institute that is linked from the above, or preferably both.
For the questions about what is it good for, anyone who can multiply the average power of a typical edge device in the "Internet of Things" by whichever fanciful power of ten (we are up to 12 now, are we not?) the Visionaries expect to exist of those edge devices, and then contemplate the obscene amount of average power that product represents, should be able to grasp that by wasting orders of magnitude less resources, including energy, than others do, we ought to be obviously good for something there if nowhere else:)
And now back to work on a software defined GPS receiver. I look forward to meeting anyone who might make it on Weds or Saturday!
I wish you well - Greg