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The Computer at the Bottom of a Canal

181 points by Kudos

by Taniwha

3 subcomments

Thing is capability machines (like this and the 432 and lots of research machines) were very much the thing at the time - cutting edge even. The research literature was full of them. I did a paper design at the time.
What ate them up was "what can you fit all on a chip with not many pins", followed by "what can you fit along with a cache on a chip with more pins", things move so much faster if everything's on the same die.
Tagged architectures are old, Burroughs mainframes had them back in the 70s along with rudimentary hardware objects (pageable even)

by needSomeCoffee

1 subcomments

Very interesting and well written article. This sentence in particular:
"Linn Products is the Glasgow company Ivor Tiefenbrun founded in 1972, and if you know it at all you know it for the Sondek LP12, still widely regarded by its partisans as the finest record deck ever made."
I was a big audiophile right at that time. Auditioned both Sondek and Sota Star Saphire. Went with the latter which I still proudly own (Alphason Tonearm). Note how carefully the author phrased "...by its partisans..." when describing the Sondek as the best. Nothing, not even programing code style zealots today can compare to audiophiles and their "take" on what made for the best playback. Pretty sure the author did not want to open that can of worms by simply declaring the Sondek the best.
Turntables back then were pretty damn detailed re: technology. Not surprised Linn could make a great computer (in the day).
HTH, NSC

by JSR_FDED

1 subcomments

It’s crazy what a small group of smart people can achieve if they’re not captive to conventional wisdom.
They got crushed by the commodity curve and Moore’s Law. But still a great story - and thankfully written by a real person.
The author’s idea that the commodity curve is over and that hardware is now cheap enough to make special purpose hardware viable is intriguing. Standardization used to be important because you needed to convince scarce programmers to invest in the platform, but AI has ended the scarcity of programmers so dedicated purpose hardware is more viable than ever.

by tmzt

0 subcomment

The 40-bit hashed address seemed familiar, then I realized that I (and Claude) had used a similar concept in a VM we built for the OS I've been building. It's a capability and typing system that enables import boundaries to be enforced and third-party packages are unable to perform security sensative operations without being specially signed. It's also a "distribution of one" concept as the user builds their own UI to their specification personalising the OS.

by inigyou

2 subcomments

I wonder if you could throw a small microcontroller at the bottom of a canal, powered by water passing through a fan, to hide it. And why you would want to do that.

by scottconover

1 subcomments

Website design comment: I love the orange/teal theme! Really drawn to the details such as illustrations carrying the orange/teal theme. Inspired me to re-color a project with this split complimentary color.

by tibbydudeza

1 subcomments

I read about them in Byte Magazine - the names were memorable - Objek - Numerik and a third chip - there were no silicon afaik but jsut emulator circuit boards run by a Sun workstation.

by Hnrobert42

0 subcomment

I console myself that this is why I never got fabulously wealthy. That brilliance is no guarantee of wealth. You need luck, too.
But the truth is, you also need to do the work. I used my conclusion about luck as an excuse to not even try. Not even in some grand way. Just in the grinding everyday way. In the way of, "You know what I should do?! I should ... meh. That'll never work."
Take it from me, kids. If you want to do something great, do it while you are still young enough to believe it's possible.

by fuzzfactor

1 subcomments

>In my essay a distribution of one I argued that bespoke software was the original, correct arrangement, that fifty years of productised general-purpose software were a compromise forced by the economics of scarce programmers, and that AI has ended the compromise.
I would also say that productised general-purpose software was an undue bonanza taking unfair advantage of copyright, which shouldn't have allowed so many restrictions on code which is necessary to make devices perform their intended tasks.
Fortunately AI has been able to get started accomplishing some of the much-needed workarounds to these annoying copyright issues, like few humans have been able to do.
Regardless of whether programmers are scarce or abundant.
On a tangent, it sounds like a famous canal, but I would figure there are a number of little-known waterways where there might be a high-performance 21st century PC resting underwater along with some poor soul's bitcoin wallet :(

by dpedu

0 subcomment

What remains of this computer? Diagrams? Code? Anything that would let us take a closer look at how it works?

by ozhero

0 subcomment

A fascinating story.
I owned a Linn Sondek turntabe in the 70's with a Denon cartridge.
Spent a crazy amount on Hi-Fi chasing the audiophile dream :-)

by fwipsy

1 subcomments

I don't think this is AI, but the writing style keeps reminding me of AI. I'm trying to isolate why. I think it's something to do with the information density. The sentences twist and turn, have lots of related ideas, digressions, and little details without much lead-in. The wording is also very precise, which is another characteristic of AI writing. This sounds like a critique, but I actually find it charming.
This sentence is a strong illustration of what I'm talking about:
> Since only OBJEKT ever knew where anything physically lived, objects could be relocated freely without touching a reference, so garbage collection went into the silicon too: a two-space compacting collector that walked the live objects and slid them into the other half of DRAM while execution carried on above, oblivious.
I mean, come on. Run-ons are one thing, but this is practically a lecture in a single sentence. :P

by throw83939r0r

1 subcomments

Too bad british goverments had to kill companies like that. But the new business plan is going much better!