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Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

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Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#81

Post by mhh__ »

ardy42 wrote: post #55
mhh__ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian CPU isn't surviving in a market

> The Russian CPU isn't surviving in a market How so? It's actually not that different from Apple Silicon when you think about it. Apple Silicon: you only get it when you buy an iPhone, iPad, ARM Mac, etc. in the Smartphone or PC market; and it enables features that make those devices competitive. Russian Elbrus: you only get it when you buy some Russian military hardware in the defense market; and it enables feature…

Because guaranteed sales from the government is clearly not the same as having to compete with Intel and AMD

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#82

Post by calo_star »

mhh__ wrote: post #7
lwhi wrote: post #2

I don't understand the significance of this. Could someone who does add some context?

In the bigger picture Apple aren't really documenting anything for their new toys, which is not the end of the world but is a huge step back for openness. There is - as far as I can see - no long-form documentation for M1 other than patents. I already refuse to own apple products so I don't really have any skin in the game, but consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned - buy our new…

This really isn't new. It looks like instead of treating the "Neural Engine" as an I/O device like the GPU, it's accessed as a coprocessor. It makes sense for them to only expose their functionalities through libraries as the underlying hardware implementation will go through changes in the future. After all, does, say, Nvidia, document their GPU's ISA?

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#83

Post by mhh__ »

tcbawo wrote: post #67
rgovostes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, Intel will also sell you a compiler that can optimize better than GCC because they know internal microarchitecture details. To me, that seems like a more clear-cut by-design conflict of interest between chip designer and user than these undocumented instructions.

Do you think Intel considers their compiler a profit center/growth market? Or are trying to offset the expense of maintaining their own compiler?

Intel's compiler is basically free for plebs but not for datacentres.

LLVM and GCC are good enough (brilliant, even) for general purpose compilation, but for a (say) supercomputer which is guarded by guns having Intel on the phone can be worth it.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#84

Post by mhh__ »

calo_star wrote: post #82
mhh__ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bigger picture Apple aren't really documenting anything for their new toys, which is not the end of the world but is a huge step back for openness. There is - as far as I can see - no long-form documentation for M1 other than patents. I already refuse to own apple products so I don't really have any skin in the game, but consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned - buy our new…

This really isn't new. It looks like instead of treating the "Neural Engine" as an I/O device like the GPU, it's accessed as a coprocessor. It makes sense for them to only expose their functionalities through libraries as the underlying hardware implementation will go through changes in the future. After all, does, say, Nvidia, document their GPU's ISA?

Yes. Not as much as the average CPU but still documented: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-ampere-architecture...

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#85

Post by duskwuff »

my123 wrote: post #45
brigade wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMX was first announced for the A13 [1], so it's been in the wild for over a year now. 1: https://www.anandtech.com/show/14859/apple-announces-new-iph...

And Apple M1 implements AMX2, not the original AMX in the A13. I'm not sure if Apple plans to ever maintain AMX compatibility across CPU versions...

You've hit on an important point here. As soon as Apple documents one of their CPU extensions, they've put themselves in the position of having to support it long-term. Leaving it undocumented gives them the freedom to make breaking changes from one CPU generation to the next -- hopefully with the end goal of deciding on an implementation and documenting the end result.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#86

Post by joosters »

mhh__ wrote: post #80
EricE wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe different people have different needs and don’t care if every device is “open”. The vast majority of people are not enamored with technology for technologies sake. These are tools. Does the tool do what I want with the least amount of friction? That’s what they care about. Also how does Apples stance on one product in any way change the device you are using to post in any way? Are Apple thugs coming to your…

> Or maybe different people have different needs and don’t care if every device is “open”. Just because Apple are boiling the frog doesn't make it a good thing.

A terrible analogy, they aren't hurting anybody, something which would be fundamentally wrong. A better analogy would be that Apple is baking bread in a way that you don't like. Which is only a problem if you are forced to eat it.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#87

Post by mhh__ »

vmception wrote: post #69
mhh__ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bigger picture Apple aren't really documenting anything for their new toys, which is not the end of the world but is a huge step back for openness. There is - as far as I can see - no long-form documentation for M1 other than patents. I already refuse to own apple products so I don't really have any skin in the game, but consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned - buy our new…

My life is so much better being in the Apple ecosystem. Some of it was unintentional, but now its iPhone, Macbook Pro, Apple Watch, Airpods Pro, and IOT devices that use Homekit. I have an iPad but I use it the least. Pre-Intel I used to make fun of "Apple fanboys". But aside from the niche and incompatibilities of the PowerPC architecture back then, that turned out to be a lot of other immaturities I had and was rai…

This is a non-sequitur. There is nothing stopping Apple from doing things in an open manner - it's purely cultural. The fact that they don't is why I do not buy for a second that they can be trusted with privacy, whether they care or not.

The quality of Apple's ecosystem is because of the centralized effort put into it and them owning the stack, not because the end result is walled-in.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#88

Post by zamalek »

mhh__ wrote: post #7
lwhi wrote: post #2

I don't understand the significance of this. Could someone who does add some context?

In the bigger picture Apple aren't really documenting anything for their new toys, which is not the end of the world but is a huge step back for openness. There is - as far as I can see - no long-form documentation for M1 other than patents. I already refuse to own apple products so I don't really have any skin in the game, but consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned - buy our new…

> consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned

Microsoft was taken to court over undocumented APIs in Win 3.x that gave their own software an unfair advantage. This is why the Win32 documentation exists today.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#89

Post by mhh__ »

simonh wrote: post #66
mhh__ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bigger picture Apple aren't really documenting anything for their new toys, which is not the end of the world but is a huge step back for openness. There is - as far as I can see - no long-form documentation for M1 other than patents. I already refuse to own apple products so I don't really have any skin in the game, but consider that if microsoft were like this the blind eye would not be turned - buy our new…

From an Apple perspective openness is a feature, not a goal in itself. Youre worrying about this or that specific ARM instruction, but Apple doesn't even want you to care whether it's ARM, or Intel, Or PowerPC, or whatever. It's an Apple system, part of the MacOS ecosystem and supported by Apple dev tools and power user features. If that's not the world you are interested in, what are you even doing owning a Mac? App…

> If that's not the world you are interested in, what are you even doing owning a Mac?

I would like consumers to have at least semblance of freedom. You have to consider that for most consumers, almost everything mentioned in this thread from top to bottom is complete Greek to the average person buying a computer.

This particular question (Documenting stuff), is the cherry on top. The Sundae itself is Apple's locked-in approach to their ecosystem. The result of the Epic squabble is much more important for example, similarly I don't think it's a good thing that Apple can force Stadia to be non-native (If you were a lifelong Apple customer would you know there was any alternative?).

The world is only going to get more technological - thanks to things like the cloud, the Orwells of the future will be writing about technology.

As a final remark, I believe there should be broad but shallow regulation for the whole sector, Apple are just the most obvious example.

Re: Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1

#90

Post by mhh__ »

joosters wrote: post #86
mhh__ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or maybe different people have different needs and don’t care if every device is “open”. Just because Apple are boiling the frog doesn't make it a good thing.

A terrible analogy, they aren't hurting anybody, something which would be fundamentally wrong. A better analogy would be that Apple is baking bread in a way that you don't like. Which is only a problem if you are forced to eat it.

> A terrible analogy, they aren't hurting anybody,

Hence the term boiling the frog. If everyone bakes their bread like this, and they definitely wish they could, that would be bad.

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