Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#1

Post by bckr » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

My limited understanding of “the stack” is:

  Physical substrate: Electronics
  Computation theory: Turing machines
  Smallest logical/physical parts: Transistors, Logic gates
  Largest logical/physical parts: Chips
  Lowest level programming: ARM/x64 instructions 
  First abstractions of programming: Assembly, C compiler
  Software architecture: Unix kernel , Binary interfaces
  User interface: Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, GNU

Does there exist a computer stack that changes all of these components?

Or at the least uses electronics but substitutes something else for Turing machines and above.

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#2

Post by solardev » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

Analog computers, quantum computers, light based computers, DNA based computers, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#3

Post by gjvc » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

rekursiv

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#4

Post by runjake » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

Here are some architectures that might interest you. Note these are links that lead to rabbit holes.

1. Transmeta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta

2. Cell processor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor)

3. VAX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX (Was unusual for it's time, but many concepts have since been adopted)

4. IBM zArchitecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/Architecture (This stuff is complete unlike conventional computing, particularly the "self-healing" features.)

5. IBM TrueNorth processor: https://open-neuromorphic.org/blog/truenorth-deep-dive-ibm-n... (Cognitive/neuromorphic computing)

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#5

Post by Hatrix » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

microcode - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode

memristor - https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/mi/2018/05/mmi2018050...

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#6

Post by mac3n » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

FPGA: non-sequential programming

Lightmatter: matrix multiply via optical interferometers

Parametron: coupled oscillator phase logic

rapid single flux quantum logic: high-speed pulse logic

asynchronous logic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_computing

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#7

Post by mikewarot » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 7:08 PM UTC

BitGrid is my hobby horse. It's a Cartesian grid of cells with 4 bit in, 4 bit out, LUTs (look up tables), latched in alternating phases to eliminate race conditions.

It's the response to the observation that most of the transistors in a computer are idle at any given instant.

There are a full rabbit hole worth of advantages to this architecture once you really dig into it.

Description https://esolangs.org/wiki/Bitgrid

Emulator https://github.com/mikewarot/Bitgrid

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#8

Post by gjvc » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 7:21 PM UTC

gjvc wrote: post #3

rekursiv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rekursiv

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#9

Post by Elfener » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 8:13 PM UTC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Machine

Re: Ask HN: Weirdest Computer Architecture?

#10

Post by muziq » Fri, Jul 26, 2024, 8:38 PM UTC

The Apple ‘Scorpius’ thing they bought the Cray in the 80’s for emulating.. RISC, multi-core, but could put all the cores in lockstep to operate as pseudo’SIMD.. Or failing that, the 32-bit 6502 successor the MCS65E4.. https://web.archive.org/web/20221029042214if_/http://archive...