The more I read about #PermaComputing the more I like it (I'm repeating this sentece too often, lately).
While reading about that I was exposed to #DawnOS a whole operating system designed for a #subleq machine.
Here some links:
- https://permacomputing.net/DawnOS/
- https://esoteric.codes/blog/a-programming-language-with-only-one-command-and
- https://web.archive.org/web/20200131120944fw_/http://gerigeri.uw.hu/DawnOS/download.html
The original website is down.
I was able to download a binary image from the WaybackMachine, but I can't find the source code anywhere.
I cannot even find a license, so I suppose it's neither #FreeSoftware nor #OpenSource.
I'd really like to know more about this #OperatingSystem and its history (boost appreciated) and I'd like to find an up-to-date address to contact the author.
@Shamar No, I am not the author :D
@Shamar my very small goliardic contribution to permacomputing:
(italian, sorry... :D )
http://minimalprocedure.pragmas.org/writings/File-mezzifile-filicchi/
I was thinking more about your subleq vm in lambda coding...
@Shamar :D better late than never...
The website was down a hour ago...
@Shamar ???
@anzu Don't know... I tried to access that very url, but I got an error page...
@Shamar which url?
@Shamar the only instruction you need is NAND, that alone can implement all other logic gates. See also: https://www.nand2tetris.org/
Also there are Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), where you have a grid of memory but each memory cell can also act as a gate or a path between cells, so you can basically “draw” your circuitry into the memory like you would draw pixels, and the FPGA becomes that circuit. But when programming FPGAs you do have to worry a bit about how you layout your circuits. I don’t personally understand why, but I think it has so that you don’t introduce crosstalk between the memory cells. So FPGA programming is pretty complicated.
Personally, I think as long as the circuitry implements instructions that are simple enough to understand, I am fine with the complexity introduced by modern superscalar computer architectures. The idea of permacomputing really is that we should assume that the supply chains we have now will eventually collapse, and in the future we will be stuck with only the set of all computer chips that have been manufactured, so we will have to treat these chips as incredibly valuable resources, and try to make each one last for many generations, possibly hundreds of years.
@Shamar I sent you a DM
@anzu you are going to like it, I suppose (if you are not the author, yourself :-)